Session 116: The Tombed Shackle
General Summary
24th Brussendar 836PD The divined four score forces lay dead amongst the valley, there are too many and one too big to be able to clear away in time to attempt another ambush from the top. The Unbroken decide to use the felled forces as ‘breadcrumbs’, leading to the secret entrances where they can funnel the forces through the traps of the tombs. General Talos will re-join his Winter Court troops that are shadowing the Hag commander and her retinue, and launch an attack behind them to force them down into the Tombs. Raven offers to escort the General back quickly and join the rear assault. He displays his new dual faith boon, wild-shaping into a Giant White Raven, and flies with the General, blending into the blinding sun and sky above the desert. Moving down to the tombs, the Unbroken take their ambush positions across the main chamber of the first Summer Knight’s grave. Using Arthur’s telepathic link, Raven and Talos keep the party updated with the progress and composition of the final forces. The Hag Lock-Breaker, Izkelthia, aka the ‘Vermin Wrangler’, is surrounded by over a dozen larger Outsider Crawlers, the size of giant armoured spiders, and half a dozen each of corrupted Redcaps and Eladrin. As the enemy draw nearer, Enessa twists the floor of the top corridor into sharp spikes and tough thorns with a Spike Growth. Simeon summons his duplicate for the final time, Arthur holds onto a Chill Touch, whilst Orlando keeps his gun trained on the door. Raphael wreathes himself in the protection of spectral Agathys frost and shadow of his patron, Mab. With the final prep, the Winter Knight gives the order for his fellow Winter Court troops to attack, directing them to focus their fire on the formidable Eladrin in particular. The reinforcements are successful in driving the corrupted fey down through the entrances into the trapped corridors of the Tombs. The rear volley from Raven and the Winter archers combined with Simeon’s forbiddance across the tombs, and the explosive glyphs across the corridors, thin Vermin Wrangler’s retinue nearly by half. The surviving Outsider Crawlers are first to scuttle out of the corridors into the chamber. Followed by three Eladrin, one of them is grievously wounded and seeks an immediate target for cruel retribution. It locks eyes with Arthur at the back of the chamber, and holds him with paralyzing magic. Enessa, Ussi and Orlando shoot and claw down the crawlers out of the left corridor, Simeon tries to toll the wounded Eladrin paralyzing Arthur closer to death, but it resists, keeping its hold on the wizard. Simeon, and then Enessa, soon feel their magic guards of Forbiddance and Spike Growth be dispelled, the Hag is coming! A mad cackle echoes down the corridor, then with a woosh, Enessa and Simeon feel and hear an invisible creature scuttle across the walls. And out from the nowhere, several rays of black fire shoot out, revealing the Vermin Wrangler, and burst into Enessa and Simeon. The tricksy Summer Knight manages to swap out in time with his duplicate to avoid the Hag’s fire. The paralysed Arthur proves an easy shot for the haggard Eladrin, but with the sting of the corrupted fey’s psychic bow, the prepared chronomancer’s contingency activates, pumping him with a shot of healing. Whilst giving him the boost he needed to break the magical hold on him as well. Inspired by his own ordeal, Arthur attempts a similar hold on the Hag, trying to encase her in a Momentary Stasis, but she pulls on her legendary resolve to resist the time magic. Whilst the Lock-Breaker’s retinue is diminished it is still deadly, as the remaining Eladrin pin down Enessa and Orlando with their psychic bolts. The party decide now is the time to retreat to the Shackle, and lure the Hag to trap her in the room’s anti-teleportation magic. Simeon telekinetically pulls Enessa out of a fight with the Eladrin, and dimension doors with her down the back corridor to the Shackle room. Arthur follows suit, electrocuting to death a Redcap blocking the corridor by shocking grasp it’s iron boots. Ussi stands guard at the entrance, ready to swipe at any foe that tries to hunt his mistress. Raphael wreathed in obscuring freezing flames, clears out the remaining Outsider and Redcap, by triggering the protective cold runes on his armour, blasting them into cold chunks that smash against the stone floor. Izkelthia emits a stupefying shriek at the site of her ever-dwindling forces, Raphael resists the shriek’s magic, but Orlando is knocked unconscious by its fey magic and falls asleep. Raphael steps in front of Orlando to protect him, waking him up in between eldritch blasting the final three Eladrin that come to back up the Hag, he tells Orlando to go with the others to protect the Shackle. Orlando follows his duty, but if he has to leave a man behind, he won’t leave them alone without backup. Calling on his Cleric connection to creation, he summons a construct forth, a golden clockwork metal automaton, Auric, appearing next to the Hag. The construct lands a burning graze across the Vermin Wrangler, but she replies in turn digging her necrotic claws deep into the flaming heart of the construct, extinguishing it as soon as it was made. The collapsing clang of the construct provides enough distraction for Raphael to try and make his escape as well, but as he goes to flee, he feels a pull from Frostweaver, it hungers to end this servant of Tharizdun. He moves to engage directly with the Hag, she points her crooked finger shouting at him to die and floods him with negative energy. The Winter Knight resists again the magic of the hag, he hexes her with the curse of his blade and then strikes into the Lock-Breaker’s gut. As her black blood coats Frostweaver, the blade explodes in exalting bright white light. The Hag facing a relentless White Knight and a now Exalted Frostweaver, re-prioritises back to her mission and misty steps along to Shackle corridor. She enters the room, cursing the gathered party that she’ll “See them buried with the rest of these so-called heroes” and summons a sphere of necrotic energy to circle them in death. This is where they make their last stand, but they are being brought down close to their knees. The remaining Eladrin fire upon the wounded Winter Knight, but the shadowy flames of his patron obscure him enough to avoid their arrows. Near death, Raphael calls on the newly exalted power of Frostweaver to find the strength to protect his friends. The silvery blue runes erupt across the blade, white ice freezes up the handle through Raphael’s body. The frost covers his wounds, his skin pales like white dragon scale, his eyes shine bright like a blinding blizzard and the shadows that surround him turn into a swirling snowstorm. He is no longer just a Knight of Winter; he is now an Avatar of Winter! The Winter Avatar focuses on his blade’s quarry, using the bond of his hex to teleport next to the Hag in the Shackle room with his relentless pursuit. Simeon, brings his fellow party members back from the brink aiding them with his healing magic. Enessa marks the Lock-Breaker with her new hunting prey, and now the Hag’s in their trap of the Shackle, Enessa enacts her master plan she strategized for this scenario, “Kill the Witch!”. Orlando channels the divine powers of Moradin to overcharge the radiant runes on Prayers, firing a deadly shot into the Hag’s chest, although the violently overwhelming power temporarily seizes up both his weapons for any further shots. The Hag shrieks in agonising pain, it echoes through their ears and minds as a psychic scream so powerful that it knocks Enessa down, leaving her unconscious and dying on the floor. Ussi senses his Mistress fall, but is brought down in the same poetic fate as Enessa, as his fey body is felled by the psychic arrows of the Eladrin. With their fey guardian gone, Arthur temporarily holds a blockade of the corridor and Shackle with a wall of force, blocking Izkelthia’s reinforcements. The cornered, frenzied Hag claws deep into his chest, knocking him down unconscious next to Enessa, their drow and human blood mixing on the floor. The Vermin Wrangler is making good on her promise, and if she’s going down, she’ll take as many of the Unbroken with her into the Oblivion. Simeon flanks with Raphael around the Hag, taunting her with the Key to the Arch-Heart Shackle, Emberwind, before striking her in the same wound that its' twin sword Frostweaver inflicted. The golden blade erupts in a burst of fire, immolating Izkelthia in the fury of Summer. The Avatar follows with its own cold smite, knocking the Hag prone. Two Knights stand before her, and as a duet of ice and fire strike the Lock-Breaker, the elementally burned Hag tries to teleport in retreat, but finds she is bound by the Tombed Shackle’s magic. As she desperately turns to run out, the bright white of Frostweaver strikes through her hunched back, dousing the fires of Summer that wreathed around her chitinous body. The Summer Knight, Simeon wryly remarks with the Avatar of Winter over the Vermin Wrangler’s dying body “that this Shackle has proved to be her tomb instead’. Simeon and Orlando are quick to not fulfil the witch’s threat, healing Enessa and Arthur before they could slip into the embrace of the Matron. Raphael, as the Avatar, telepathically links back to Raven, General Talos and the Winter Guard to close in and eliminate the remaining dregs of the corrupted in the Tombs. Izkelthia, the Hag Lock-Breaker of Tharizdun is felled, her black corrupted blood boils as it spills over the Divine magic of the Arch-Heart Shackle’s floor. These (just barely) living Heroes stand amongst the tombs of others that came before them, and with their hard won victory another Chain of the Oblivion remains, Unbroken.
