Session 32: I Attack the Darkness
Alexei being played by Linden this session.Alexei had healed everyone in the room at the end of the previous session.
Electrified bars are turned off. Rutana takes the key from the Jailor's body and frees the prisoners.
Alexei leads the prisoners out of the sewer. The prisoners leave with tired thanks, and some grumbled 'hopefully we stay saved this time,' having recognized the party from the post-cube barn party.
Next ensues more discussion of Sibyl first or demon first, and then some discussion of where Cortez got off to.
Party settles on demon first.
("Are you sure?")
("Don't tell them them!")
("We could argue about it for another 20 minutes!")
(DM leaves.)
Linden wanders toward a plinth and the party follows.
Most assume they will get an easy stroll to the demon's room, but the plinth turns out to be the only one the party hadn't yet used.
To the south of the plinth, the wall recedes to reveal a large bust of a long muzzled demon stands as tall as a man. The whole piece seems to be made of solid stone, but the nostrils are carved out, leaving two deep, black holes upon its snout the size of baseballs.
The stone behind you shifts, trapping you all in a dark room. In place of a flickering blue light, the eyes of the statue light up the space in red. A breeze moves toward the infernal edifice as it seems to inhale through its defined nostrils. A moment passes…
“You stink of purity and goodness. My friends will fix that.” the statue groans, and two holes open in the walls. Black gems about the size of a fist are fastened into the opening. A flash of hellfire runs up the fastenings and into the gem. Each gem then fires three motes of fire each, which each become an Imp.
The first imp flaps up to the Sprite and stabs him twice, dealing 7 damage and poisoning him.
Linden gets a crit on Acid Splash, dealing 14 damage and nearly dissolving one imp in a corner.
Two imps gang up on Rutana. Only two attacks hit out of four, but Rutana raises her amulet to resist them, taking only 1 damage.
One imp stabs at the Sprite again, nailing a crit and dealing 13 more damage.
The last imp stabs at Sartorii, dealing 4 damage.
Sartorii retaliates with her rapier, dealing 5 damage to the imp that attacked her.
Rutana swings at an imp, swishing clean above its head each time.
(Misses twice. "Uno mas?" "Fuck it, sunken cost fallacy, might as well go for 3." Rolls a three.)
The last imp stabs Rutana, dealing 6 damage.
Clarence moves to the other side of Rutana and claws at an imp, dealing 7 damage. He raises his shield and ends turn.
The Sprite takes 3 poison damage, and the poison increases in severity.
The Sprite casts Electric Arc at the two imps closest to him, killing one and dealing 9 damage to the other. He then flaps away to hide in the corner furthest from the imps.
An imp gets a crit stabbing Clarence and deals a whopping 2 damage.
Linden starts his turn by grumbling that he's getting sick of these imps.
He strides to the space previously occupied by the Sprite and casts Puff of Poison at the slightly-electrocuted imp poofing it out of existence.
More imp-flavored stabbing occurs.
Clarence takes 3 damage and crit fails his fortitude save, winding up poisoned.
Rutana also takes 3 damage, and also gets poisoned.
Linden takes 6 damage, but does not get poisoned.
Sartorii time! She flanks the imp by Linden, nails a crit, and deals more damage than the imp's max health.
She moves to the other side of the surviving imps and ends turn.
Rutana continues her stabbing, dealing 10 damage between two attacks.
("You could kill it with your next roll!" "Why would you say that before I rolled?" "Roll! Roll! Roll!" Rolls 1. Hero point.)
Rolls a 16 with her last attack and misses.
The imp she stabbed returns the favor for a total of 7 damage.
Rutana suddenly remembers she is poisoned and takes 2 damage, but passes her next fortitude save.
Clarence takes 5 poison damage and passes his saving throw, then finishes clawing his imp to shreds.
He gets a crit on the next imp, dealing 8 damage, and raises his shield to end turn.
Sprite takes 2 poison damage, rolls a 1 on his fortitude save, hero points to not roll a 1.
He moves to another corner and casts Electric Arc again, frying one imp and dealing 4 damage to the other.
One imp remains.
Linden casts Puff of Poison at the last imp, killing it instantly.
As the last imp falls a haze of hell-stink rises. The statue sighs contendedly.
"You smell of the hells, friend."
Its mouth opens to reveal a little gem.
"Go with my blessing in the name of the dark prince."
Linden attempts to treat the Sprite's poisoning, fails his medicine check.
The Sprite fails his fortitude save again and takes 1 more damage.
Clarence recovers!
And this time Linden rolls a 20 on his medicine check.
The Sprite still just rolls a 3. Takes 2 more damage.
He succeeds! And goes up a stage! Takes another 1 damage.
He passes the next fortitude save, and survives with 1 HP.
Clarence casts Lay on Hands, healing the Sprite for 12.
Rutana chugs one of the healing potions from the bag of holding. She heals 13.
The Sprite chugs both of his, for a total of 2.
Rutana grabs another healing potion out of the bag of holding and shoves it down the Sprite's throat, this time healing him 18 damage.
("You know what it is, healing potions are divine and you're godless.")
With that room cleared, all traps in the dungeon are conquered.
The party moves to the demon hall without issue.
The cat in full plate leads the party with his shield raised and completely fails his stealth check. Hard not to when the demon has +22 on perception.
"Well, well, y'all are mice pretending to be feline," the modulated demon's voice rolls like tumbling stones over the notekeeper's ears, lost to time.
Rutana starts ringing the bell.
DM deletes the demon off the board.
There's cheese and various sundries! And there's also a door.
Rutana pokes at Clarence. Hey, hey, there's a door.
Linden opens the door with shield raised—
Sartorii shoves past and opens the door.
The DM shucks a bunch of magic items into the bag of holding!
Quill pen that seems to be incredibly brightly colored, capped with a silver or mythril nib. It radiates magic.
Multiple runes that do different things. Used to upgrade armor or weapons into magic, like an iron-on patch for a shirt.
Three elixirs of life.
Six-pack of minor elixirs of life.
Two pendants in the shape of crying angels.
A little beak, a blood-seeker beak.
+1 Striking Handwraps of Mighty Blows.
The party then moves to the deepest door in the lair, by which are three obvious indents for the keys.
The gems each turn to ash. There is a hefty kachunk as all the deadbolts move out of the door.
Clarence takes his position by the door. Linden and Sartorii do a little dance trying to move into the same space multiple times.
The room beyond the gate is… smaller than expected. Iconography of the hells are placed on every wall, and the wall takes an odd, angular shape. At the seemingly unnecessary point in the wall, there sits a proper altar to the cult's dark lord. Upon it, on the stand beneath a large, floating, iron model of the hells, are inscribed the words "Pledge prayer to Him, and walk well the Ninefold Path," in infernal.
An altar to Asmodeus dominates the room. Under it is what appears to be a prayer written in infernal.
A massive amount of dark energy comes off the altar, almost painful to look at.
Clarence takes one step in.
Nothing happens, it just sucks in there.
Linden casts Dispel Magic on the altar.
It rebounds and burns Linden's hand. Not enough to deal damage, but it stings.
He surmises it is some kind of artifact, and suggests the party dismantle it so it can be disposed of.
The Sprite tries to push the altar with mage hand.
The second he touches the suspended artifact, the hand catches fire and fizzles away.
The Sprite suggests throwing one of the spare cultist robes over it.
"Will that even do anything?"
"No but it'll make it less ugly."
Rutana donates her robe to the cause.
The robe sits for just a second before catching fire and burning to ash.
Clarence shares that hey, this is a chapel, people pray here. And that plaque does say to offer a prayer...
Rutana knows one of the prayers. She writes it down for Sartorii to read.
Sartorii reads the prayer. The door behind them shuts and all the lights darken.
"Liar."
Asmodeus taunts the party, having seen through the ploy of false prayer.
He monologues, noting how several different gods had left their marks and chains upon the party, then offers the party a deal to work for him.
The Sprite hands him a bar of soap.
The Sprite vanishes.
"So where did our friend go?"
"Oh he'll be back once the adults are done talking."
"Yet you are still here!"
Sartorii vanishes.
"No one will take the deal. Can we skip to the part where we get our friends back?" Clarence asks.
"We'll let them soak for a bit. The person you seek is in this lantern. She has served her purposes, but through her, I met you!"
"Yeeah, that's better for you than us I bet."
He plucks a spark from the lantern and drops it to the floor, where it flares into the outline of a stairwell.
Sartorii and the Sprite find themselves standing...somewhere.
The Sprite still gives a faint little glow and outside that glow is a wall of darkness, rippling like liquid, concealing things far bigger than them.
Sartorii touches the darkness. Her hand is sucked in, and the darkness starts to draw her deeper.
She fails a fortitude throw and is sucked in, saluting on her way down.
The Sprite feels something watching him in the darkness.
He dives in after Sartorii. As he touches the darkness he hears something roaring, just unable to reach him.
They emerge back in the chapel with the rest of the party, the staircase down visible.
"If you ever meet me in any real capacity, I recommend you watch your mouth."
Asmodeus vanishes.
"Learn to take a joke!"
("You vanish.")
"Sooo, how are you two doing?"
"It was cold and it sucked."
Clarence realizes this wasn't Asmodeus himself, but a herald; a message left behind for someone the god had taken a personal interest in.
Fate, it seems, has many things in store for the party, and all the gods have vested interests in watching how the dice roll.
Following the stairwell, it leads to a room shaped like a pentagram laden with the same corruption that filled the chapel.
At each point of the pentagram stands an altar like a massive rib. A corpse hangs from the tip, entrails spilling onto the floor.
"Who goes there!?" calls a voice from the center.
"Your god sucks ass!"
"Ah."
A woman stands in the center of the room wearing robes of Abbadar.
"And how can this humble servant of Abbadar help you?"
Threats are traded and Sibyl transforms, wings unfurling behind her.
(Turns out her name is Sybbyl. Notekeeper will not be changing the notes.)
Sibyl steps forward and raises her hands. The ground becomes molten beneath her feet and starts to float around her as she casts Channel Elements.
The corpses on the altars wriggle and break free of their bonds. As they start to move, the party recognizes robes of Abbadar. These were once priests.
Rutana identifies them as herexen, priests who had renounced their god under intense pain.
Rutana starts by using Exploit Vulnerability on the herexen.
Immune to various effects, harmed by healing.
("Clarence, fondle that man!")
Rutana walks up to the herexen behind the party, swings, and misses, as is tradition.
A herexen shambles up to Clarence and waves hello!
The bottom herexen swings a mace at Rutana, dealing 17 damage.
Clarence fondles that man. His hand burns through the herexen's chest, dealing 10 damage, but the creature does not fall.
Sartorii ignores the herexen and moves toward the center of the room. She draws her bow and shoots Sibyl twice, dealing 1 damage per arrow for a total of 2.
The Sprite moves up next to Sartorii and casts Produce Flame, flinging a ball of fire at the herexen by Clarence for another 10 damage. Still it lives.
Linden screams "Abomination!" and casts Vitality Lash at the herexen by Rutana for 12 damage.
He raises shield and ends turn.
A herexen runs up to the Sprite and ends turn, staring at him ominously.
Next round starts and the lighting glitches out, but it actually looks pretty cool so it stays like that.
A herexen shambles up to Sartorii and swings its mace at her. Meets DC, but Sartorii uses her reaction to make it miss.
Sibyl moves forward to get in range and starts hucking lava around.
The first sails by Sartorii's head, splattering harmlessly behind her.
The second slams into the back of the herexen glued to Clarence, still not quite enough to kill it.
"How do you like my little pets? The adoption process is sooo messy, but it's so worth it."
"You look like one of those people who unapologetically shave their huskies."
"I like to keep my persians and my huskies with short hair, otherwise they shed everywhere."
Rutana draws a healing potion from the bag of holding and chugs it, healing for 10.
She then stabs the herexen in front of her for 5 damage.
A herexen walks up to Sartorii, and then the various herexen start swinging.
Rutana takes 2 damage.
Clarence and Sartorii's herexen both miss all attacks, after Clarence raises his shield because the party realized he never used his last action on his last turn.
Clarence claws at his herexen. It detonates with a Final Blasphemy.
Everyone takes 5 damage, except for the Sprite, who takes 10.
The other herexen affected all heal 10.
Clarence moves forward and ends turn.
DM inserts Alexei back into the fight via mysterious circumstances that will be conveyed to Alexei's player later.
Alexei casts a three-action Heal.
Two of the Herexen pass their saves, one fails, one crit fails.
Sartorii grabs the Sprite and runs.
She shoots Sibyl for 5 damage.
The Sprite dismounts Sartorii and casts Shield for +1 AC.
Linden casts Vitalty Lash for 12 damage, popping another herexen.
Rutana, Alexei, Linden, and Clarence all take 1 damage.
A herexen walks up to Linden and stabs with a dagger; one miss, one crit fail. The herexen is dazzled until the end of its next turn.
End of round, the session ends. To be continued next time!