Session 34 - Staring into the Abyss - Report

General Summary

Date: 10-16-283   Confronted with a blood trail likely belonging to Vontine, and the murderous Lillith back from the dead, Lyra found herself in a horrifying nightmare. Lilith told her, "The shadows are on their way... and I will be too, to claim that little land of chaos in the name of the Raven Queen." During their brief exchange, Lyra also found out that Vontine had actually escaped with her life, much to Lilith's chagrin. Lilith seemed to see something approaching behind Lyra and put an end to their reunion by entombing Lyra in thorn-covered vines, and leaving with the ominous message, "See you soon."   ***   Back at their camp, the rest of the Gang heard a noise coming from the cave containing Lyra's shadow. Upon investigating the noise, they found Lyra's shadow had been replaced - or overrun - by what looked like the shadows of twisting, thorny vines. Not knowing if or when their companion was going to return, the Gang decided to head back home to Naporia. With Tally already well on his way, the rest of the party noticed two portals open up not far from the camp. Rather than demons though, a large deer with an almost magical tangle of antlers came out of one, and a large, white, winged horse came out of the other. Curious about the creatures, Naemaris cast 'Speak with Animals'... but wasn't able to get much useful information out of either, with the exception of the pegasus telling him that it came from a land called Arborea (and that the large deer did not, as far as it knew). After a bit of persuasion (and sensing a good spirit from Aukan), the pegasus decided to follow the party for a while.   Once back in town (with the pegasus left to graze outside the city walls), everyone decided to do a bit of shopping. Master Roshi sought out steel tips for his claws, as well as some "holsters", and some traditional monk robes. Tally went looking for an armorer that could turn his recently acquired dragon scales into armor, as well as looking for a blacksmith that could put some iron wheels on the dragon skull so that he could have his own personal carriage. In the midst of their shopping, the Gang noticed Madame Alecstraza wandering through the streets, an unusual sight as the Madame is rarely seen outside her business. Asking what she was doing, she told them she was simply "waiting".   Just as everyone was finishing up, the many cloaked figures around town (that the party had chalked up as citizens bundled up due to the cold) threw their hoods off revealing themselves as Shadar-kai, and immediately began to massacre the Naporian citizens. The Gang managed to take down a handful of them with ease before the sky began to darken as portals opened up forming a massive dome over the city. Plunged into complete darkness, the ground began to shake and moments later, the dome started to recede revealing unfamiliar, hellish surroundings. The once great capital city of Cyradon had been replaced by a nightmarish facsimile. To make matters significantly worse, just before the portal closed entirely, hundreds and hundreds of demons began to pour through, flying or falling to the ground below.   Now in the middle of this Abyssal nightmare city with more and more enemies piling up around them, The Gang figured it was a good time to leave. Remembering his newfound teleportation power, Gaidaros instructed everyone to get close to him. With everyone in range, he attempted to teleport the group back to Silmaniir. Unfortunately, not being too familiar with the elven city, the spell didn't work quite as planned, dealing enough damage to everyone to render several of them unconscious, and landing them all in an unfamiliar section of the forest.   ***   Meanwhile, as Lyra was engulfed by the thorns, she momentarily flashed back to the cave, but once more found herself pulled away, this time to a dark cave. Seeing a bloodied but bandaged Vontine along with an unfamilair Shadar-kai male, Lyra had many questions. The man explained to her that the island of Cyradon shouldn't exist... an island so small should not have a sandy desert, a lush forest, and snowy tundra. It's likely the island was ripped from a chaotic plane and landed in the material realm relatively stable, but it has been destabilizing ever since, and that destabilization is only being accelerated by the demonic portals opening from the abyss. He went on to explain that the Raven Queen's interest in the island was only due to it being the one place in the material realm she could not reach. Her cooperation with the demons was solely in the interest of completely destabilizing - and ultimately destroying - Cyradon. In the event that doesn't work, Lilith is her contingency plan, with orders to slaughter everyone and everything in her path.   The spell beginning to fade, Lyra began to flicker out of the darkened cave and found herself once more in Morkov's Sanctuary. With no sign of her party and only the eviscerated, headless corpse of the dragon she had been fighting only moments before, she looked back toward Naporia to see that it had been overrun with the beginnings of the demon incursion. Panicked, she began to run, but was almost immediately stopped by the appearance of Antanasia, who told her, "Your friends are in the forest. I don't think they landed where they wanted to. I can get you close."

Character(s) interacted with

Antanasia
Brax
Madame Sofiya Alecstraza

Created Content

• Roshi's steel claw tips (1d10)
• Roshi's claw holsters with vial pouches (to automatically poison/augment the claws)
• Alexander's enchanted crossbow (no reload?)
• Tally's dragon skull go-kart