Session 111: Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Light

General Summary

21st-22nd Brussendar 836PD   21st Brussendar   In the split seconds where Orlando sees through the hag’s illusion, and the Hag recognises she’s been found out. Orlando pulls his guns ready, “Enough of your lies, Hag!” he casts a zone of silence around her, and fires into her with the bullets breaking her hold on the disguise.   With the jig up, the Hag’s fellow compatriots launch their ambush on the surprised party, as invisible Elder Redcaps and an Assassin strike with their sickles and crossbows in the tight study.   The Hag uses the distraction of the ambush, climbing up the walls out of the silence and exhales a poisonous killing cloud in the room, then she promptly leaves the room, along with her choking comrades who have the ill-manners to close the doors behind them!   Arthur promptly dispels the poisonous, yellow-green fog burning the party’s lungs, and Orlando opens up the doors to let some fresh lead out, as a bullet from Prayers’ digs critically into the Hag’s stomach.   Raphael returns the favour of hostile entrapment, as his newly enhanced Rod of the Pact Keeper creates a bitingly cold wall of ice around the Hag and her Redcaps.   The Assassin avoids the confines of the winter wall, but finds himself mano a mano with Raven. The opposing Agents of Light and Dark, attempt to out stealth and out strike another across the chaos of the sanctum. But Syngornian training proves superior, as Raven out sneaks the Betrayer’s Assassin, his Moon Bow’s arrows lodging deep in his side. Seeing his fellow followers captured in the ice, and soon to face the Oblivion as a failure, the Assassin runs away to serve another day.   The trapped Hag unleashes a cackling call that summons the few reserve Outsiders from the bottom level, but Enessa and Ussi resume their previous duty to shoot, slice and claw through the surviving swarms.   Simeon calls on the crescent guardian spirits to burn the freezing encircled corrupted fey, the redcaps frantically hack into the thick walls of ice, they stab themselves deeply on the jagged ice but they make their breakthrough. Unfortunately, this also provides a window for Raphael and Orlando to slice and blast through the redcaps, felling them.   As the Hag pulls out a bullet, another one enters deeper into the same wound! The shrieking Hag curses Orlando’s gun, breaking it with her corrupted magic, and leaving him without a Prayer. She edges back against the frozen wall to avoid the radiant radius of Simeon’s guardians.   Seeing this acolyte of the Oblivion evade the light of his Lady Sehanine, Simeon forcedly pulls the hag with his tricksy telekinesis into the burning radiant light of his spirit guardians, crisping the Black Hag to death.   With the hag dead, no further threats present themselves to the weary Unbroken. They catch their breath, and as their search around, Arthur stumble across an invisible body in the floor of the study. Raphael dispels the illusion to reveal the real Xandria, dead.   Having prepared for this outcome, the party move her body into the more spacious observatory and Simeon starts the resurrection ritual. He places the diamond gifted by Titania into the lens of the telescope, pointing it to the faint moon of Catha in the sky.   The moonlight from the telescope focuses into the diamond, and is bounced around the room in a prismatic display. The cold body of Xandria, starts to warm under the light of the diamond, as it spins with a soft chime. Simeon speaks a prayer of Sehanine, a god almost as close to the Fey as their Arch-Heart, and he looks at who else among the party would help to aid in calling her soul back.   Raphael and Enessa politely step back for fear their ties to Winter and Wild fey, respectively, may hinder the call to a soul of Summer.   Raven calls on Melora, the Wildmother to help aid the return of this soul, as he reasons that her Exarch Sariel had put them on this path. He then suddenly thinks to call on the power of Melora’s domain of nature instead through the Sanctum’s tree, as a literal call to home to Xandria. At the same time, Arthur stumbles forward, looking exhausted as he had peered through the future to converge Raven’s plea to a more optimal argument.   Orlando provides the final plea, holding the credential coin from Queen Titania, to show that their words are true and that they both need to show each other the way, for her to return and for them to protect the Shackle.   Simeon’s eyes go pure brilliant white, he can see ethereal visions, a mixture of time and spirits as he sees elements of the past and future. In this spirit realm, Simeon sees through the weaves of light to find a pale, ghostly form of Xandria. The relieved spirit sees him and rushes towards him.   But as Xandria’ soul tries to reach the prismatic moon light of the ritual, dark tentacles of chains pierce and wrap around her. The spirit realm darkens, as Tharizdun’s Avatar roils through to intervene, and with his hold he pulls her soul in burning agony away from the gentle light of life.   The resurrection ritual fails, the warming moonlight magic fades, Xandria’s body and the Unbroken’s lead on the map goes cold.   The silence that follows is deafening, the shocked party take a moment to process this loss. Raphael does not give into the rightful rage against Tharizdun’s cruel intervention, as the Knight of Winter, he most be logical despite the pressuring environmental emotions of Summer.   He snaps the group out of any defeated thinking, noting the vast library in the Sanctum, there must be a way he can cross reference his half of the map with whatever records they have here to find a new lead or clue.   The party spend the remainder of the day, clearing up and laying the Sanctum’s members to rest, and studying the library. Arthur finds a spell scroll to mentally imprison a foe, and Enessa finds a elven tome on Corellon, with a possible vague code to their shackle, ‘The Binder of the Arch’.   22nd Brussendar   Starting fresh after a short rest, Arthur uses his Crystal Ball of Telepathy to scry on the Assassin that escaped. Using the Crystal’s innate magic of suggestion, Arthur gets the Assassin to recount aloud what happened at the Sanctum. He said he saw the Hag, ‘Smoketeeth’, probe Xandria’s mind and communed with the Avatar, likely confirming that Tharizdun’s Avatar has the Summer half of the Map. Raven and Orlando help Raphael narrow down several maps to 3 possible locations that correspond with his map; the Titan’s Graveyard, the Undying Bridge or the Valley of Tombs.   Simeon’s boon of historical knowledge granted by the sphinx Exarch of Ioun, recognised that there’s a connection with one of these sites and the ‘Emberwind’. Raphael helps Simeon to consult the Sanctum’s records and finds that the Emberwind is the weapon of the first Summer Knight, Riyeldor Key'entolth, and it is buried with them.   Orlando sends to Queen Titania to inform on the death of Xandria and the possible lead, she is saddened by the blow, but has hope that there may be more powerful magics that could release Tharizdun’s hold on her soul. She confirms that the first Summer Knight is buried with all other heroes, in the Valley of Tombs…