Session 100: Clutches of the Dark Grasp

General Summary

11th Brussendar 836PD   Loushia guides the Unbroken around the outskirts of the O’Noa settlements, and points out the Temple where the Dark Grasp cult resides. She provides a description of Travis for them to find him and leaves.   Arthur sends out Fugit to scout the building, noting the windows and curtains are all closed tightly but seeing no way to enter other than the front doors. The party stake out the temple for an hour, whilst Arthur sets up a telepathic bond for them to communicate silently if needed.   Raphael disguises as Loushia, attempting a ruse to draw out or enter the building by demanding to see Travis. A guard opens the door but rebuffs ‘Loushia’ that Travis is safe and that she cannot see the Keeper of the Temple. Raphael persists with banging the door to become enough of a nuisance, he messages Raven and the others to be ready if the doors open for them to assault the building.   The banging succeeds in enraging the guards to open the door and attempt to drag ‘Loushia’ in, but as they open Raven is ready with the radiant bolt of his bow which strikes down the guard. Whilst Raphael’s armour freezes the other guard that pulls him into the temple. Orlando and the rest of the Unbroken rush up to the Temple from their watch point.   In the centre of the small Temple is a large statue of a blackened hand, which provides cover for the Keeper to conjure a guardian of faith over the party. But the power of Simeon’s own faith dispels this guardian devoted to the betrayers before it can even strike.   Orlando peppers the Keeper with his bullets, although some of his magical lead is blocked by the Keeper’s dark shielding magic. Arthur pulls out his pocket watch and interrupts the hands, stopping time and holding the guard in a monetary stasis.   Raphael strikes the Keeper with Frostweaver, but the close combat allows the Keeper to reach out with their corrupted hand to strike Raph with heavy vengeance of necrosis. The Keeper then tries to banish Raphael, but the will of winter proves strong in resisting the cultist’s magic.   The bells of death toll for the guard and are soon followed by death’s chilling touch as Simeon and Arthur finish off the stasis guard with their necrotic cantrips. Raven aims his Moon Bow down the chamber of the temple and its arrows of silver light burst through the Keeper’s shield, felling the cult leader.   With the temple clear, the party investigate the bodies and the rooms. Raven finds a mastercrafted +1 dagger on the Keeper’s body, and Arthur finds in one of the rooms a trap door in the floor but they can’t find a key.   Raven and Raphael proceed to pick the locks and disarm traps of 3 chests in the room, finding 1000 gold worth of platinum in one chest. Raven nearly triggers the second trap, but Arthur chronal shifts time around Raven to undo his mistake and allow him to succeed in retrying to disarm the trap, a bead with an rune that would have exploded when broken. In the second chest they find a magical goblet that acts as the key to the trap door, and the third chest they find several severed tongues.   The goblet fits but the lock doesn’t turn, Orlando deduces with cuts on the Keeper’s arm that blood is required to fill the goblet and activate the lock. Simeon takes the Keeper’s dagger, cutting into his arm to fill the goblet with his celestial tainted blood.   The goblet thrums and the door unlocks, Raven heads down and does a quick scope out, hearing voices of several people down in the rooms underneath the temple. Raphael and Simeon decide to head down disguising themselves as the Keeper and one of the guards, whilst the rest are made invisible by Raphael.   As they clamber down the ladder, Arthur falls and makes a heavy thud which draws attention from several of the other guards and cultists that are residing in the underground rooms. Raphael manages to pass off as if it was him, the Keeper, that had fallen.   Raphael and Simeon move onwards with one of the guards that came to investigate, they move into main room with several cultists in dark robes and some wearing masks. Suspicion is raised further as the Keeper’s voice is different, and he moves in the wrong direction opening a room with a Black Hand alter surrounded by more cultists.   One of the guards calls to the person Simeon is disguised as, but uses a different name to catch out Simeon. With the jig up, Simeon shouts out to those cultists that were forcibly conscripted like Travis to flee or fight with them, and he shines with the glowing light of his radiant soul.   Raven shoots down the guard blocking the narrow staircase down to the rooms, and Orlando moves down to scan the room. He can’t recognise anyone fitting Travis’ description and fires at a robed cultist. Raphael covers himself in the shadows of his patron, and notices the cultists in the masks are nervous and seem to be taking direction from the others. These must be the youths that had been kidnapped, and he mentally relays this through the telepathic bond to the others.   Arthur fires frozen rays at a robed cultist, whilst several of the cultists and guards surround Raphael and Simeon. One robed cultist tries to cast a spell to paralyze Raphael, the mumbled verbal component reveal that the severed tongues the party found once belonged to these true devotees. But Raphael is able to resist the cultist’s clumsy magic.   Simeon is surrounded by several Masked Cultists, either spurred on by the pressuring presence of their captives or too brainwashed by the grip of the cultists programming, they strike out at the Aasimar Cleric.   One even manages to get their dagger deep under Simeon’s plate armour, the pain causes him to curse back in radiant words at those surrounding him. But the power of the Moonweaver’s champion overwhelms the fragile forms of these conscripted cultists, killing 3 of them.   Whilst the cultist threat is numerous, how many more causalities of conditioned children will Simeon and the Unbroken incur?