Session V: A New Member joins the Group Report

General Summary

The party continues on, and heads around what looks to be a mostly destroyed park. To the left, a large chunk of the wall between the lower and middle tiers of the city seems to be completely missing. In the distance the party notices ahead that there is a group of corrupted crusaders about to sacrifice a girl. Reid steps up, and both Reid Moore and Yuhia Zhir speaks up, asking what they are doing. The corrupted crusaders turn around and draw their weaponry. Five of the crusaders charge the party as the party fights to get to the girl in time for the sixth to attack. The sixth raises up his arm to strike when two shots, one right after another sinks into the chinks of the crusader’s armor, one in the shoulder chink in the armor of the breastplate he is wearing, the other in the neck of the crusader, expertly missing the helmet. The crusader lets go of his weapon, and it falls to the ground, followed closely by the crusader collapsing in a dead heap on the ground. Looking up to the North, it appears the two shots have come from an unknown location from a rooftop to the North. A human woman stands up as she inspects the group and the dead knight she felled. It appeared she was waiting for a distraction to allow her to strike and kill the mad knights without being in trouble.  

Chapter 9 - The Arrival of Setra

Setra had finally made it back to Kenabres in time for the opening of the festival. A long trek from Absalom had been arduous, multiple weeks journey through the Sellen River all the way up to Kenabres. She had been given a chance to take a river boat to the town in time for opening ceremonies, and through her connections in Kenabres, had secured a spot on a balcony overlooking the courtyard into the opening ceremonies. As she ascended to the top section of the large fortress town, she expertly moved through the crowd to reach her destination: the Jalamarey Inn. While she wasn’t staying here, her connections afforded the option to view the opening ceremonies from the Innkeeper’s balcony. Heading inside and showing her papers to the Innkeeper, he unlocked his room and, joined by eight other people that were given the chance, she made her way to the outer balcony. The view of thousands of people, many which have travelled just as far as Setra had taken seats that were setup all in the courtyard around the stage setup in front of the Cathedral. The Defender’s Heart Crusaders resplendent in their dress armor were lined up in front of the stage facing the crowd, watching the crowd.   Finally, the master of ceremonies took to the stage and everyone cheered as the young man pulled up to the podium which was magically imbued with magic mouth magic to spread his voice amongst the entire upper tier with clarity. He built up the crowd for the opening ceremonies, and finally announced the appearance of Lord Hulrun on the stage. Setra watches as, just before the Lord can talk, a massive explosion occurs to the West where the Fortress of the Wardstone was stored. In its place was a massive column of white light and fire. Coming out from the pillar of destruction, Khorramzadeh, the Storm King flies out towards the cathedral. From the middle of the crowd, Setra sees a woman stoic and not moving remove her cloak rapidly, and shift into a massive elder white dragon, Terendelev. Terendelev takes to the sky and intercepts Khorramzadeh as portals to the abyss open all around the courtyard, spilling demons of all kinds.   Setra, realizing that being here would not be the best idea and it wouldn’t be the greatest idea to go down to street level either, jumps onto the roof of the inn, and hides behind the smokestacks of the inn as she watches the situation unfold. She grabs at her bow and snipes a few weak demons that are distracted, felling them without others noticing. Suddenly, a massive roar is felt from above, as the two massive creatures plummet into the cathedral, sending dust flying everywhere. The city which was filled with massive screams and demons roaring just moments before becomes eerily quiet. Setra pauses as she looks to the cathedral. However, the silence is short lived as a massive portal opens across the courtyard, sending debris and dust everywhere and cracking the very ground that the courtyard sits on. A massive demon comes charging out of the portal, sending rocks in every direction, one of which hits Setra in the head. As she falls, the dying Terendelev comes out of the cathedral and utters a few mystic words. As the party falls into the depths, Setra falls off the rooftop into a garbage heap in between two buildings.   Waking up 10 hours later with a massive headache, Setra sits up and looks around, hearing the snarls of far off demons, and seeing the night courtyard which is normally lit completely dark. Now, the courtyard is just a massive sinkhole, and thousands lie scattered, dead amongst the streets. Her survival training takes hold, and she grabs at her backpack, grabbing some bandages, wrapping it around her head. Carefully backing away from the trash heap towards the inner wall, she slowly creeps through the narrow alleyways, sticking to the shadows. Finally, she sees what she is looking for: an escape ladder to get her to the top of the roofs. Carefully, she jumps for the ladder and climbs up to the top of the roof to survey the land. It appears that demons had taken over the entire city and were destroying the middle city. The demons, in their haste, had not found Setra passed out in the trash heap, the only saving grace. None of the defenders of the city could be seen, and she climbs down into one of the windows of the building she is standing on. Dead bodies of a poor family trapped by the demons lie eviscerated in the study room of this three-story building. Moving a shelf carefully to the side, she decides the best bet would be to wait here until daylight where she could see any demons that may be lurking around corners she cannot see. That night is one of the longest she has ever experienced. Demons snarling through the streets, screams far off as people are killed, and various other creatures make their way to the now unprotected fortress city.   Waking up in the morning, Setra peeks around the shelf she had moved, making sure there was no movement. Grabbing her bow, she stands to her feet, wondering if there was a way to escape Kenebres, or if there was a way to help out. Conflicted, she stands and looks out the window. It looks like in a massive one night raid, the demons had torn apart much, but it looks like Kenebres wasn’t their primary goal, as many demons seemed to be pouring out of the south exit, heading into the River Kingdoms on their way to another goal. A fortunate circumstance for Setra, as she climbs onto the roof of the building, starting to plan out her route as the morning sun peeks over the mountains to the east. She decides that the rooftops are the best bet to keep away from the demons, as many of the demons seem to be focusing on the street level.   Continuing through the upper city to the wall, she inspects how the demons are interacting as they continue pillaging through the upper quarter. It seems not all of the demons have left, and, with two aimed shots, she aims at a lone demon, sticking two in its head, felling it. As its body falls to the ground, it folds 90 degrees out of existence, returning to its home plane. Setra, pleased with her work finally has a task, and she continues her work methodically moving through the city, making sure that her attacks are guaranteed kills with no witnesses.   Over the next day, she fells small demons that fold out of existence, and locates a ransacked armory shop. Over the last 5 hours, she has expended all of the arrows in her quiver and sits with two more. The door sits off its hinges to the south, and she carefully heads inside, keeping her bow at the ready. Thankfully, no one is inside but dead bodies. She locates a spilled pile of arrows, and knocks over a long leather pouch, and 10 more arrows seem to spill out of the side from nowhere. She realizes this is a magical quiver and replaces it with the one on her back. She grabs various arrows and finds in the back some remainder of a meal, and various blue arrows.   As she inspects one of the arrows, she hears a noise, quickly grabs two of her arrows, turns and immediately fires at the noise. A small demon had made its way inside after noticing there was activity inside. The demon shrugs off the iron arrows and starts leaping at Setra. She is pinned down, and she reaches out to one of the blue arrows and jabs it in its side. It yells in pain, yelling how Setra is burning it. Setra grabs two more blue arrows, aims, and fires her bow point-blank at the demon, and it yelps as it dies, folding out of existence. After she recovers herself a bit, she grabs a bunch of the arrows and feeds it into her new quiver. The quiver absorbs the arrows out of existence, but she calls one forth, and a blue arrow spits out into her hand. Pleased with her finds, she heads out into the street and then back onto the rooftops, using her newly found arrows to fell more demons. Heading along the rooftops towards the outer ring of the city, her goal is to see if any other creatures are attempting to do the same thing she is attempting to do. That night, as she sleeps soundly in behind two bookcases in a half-destroyed building, she makes plans for the coming days.   Over the next two days, she slowly and methodically makes her way to the outer ring of the city. Standing on the wall between the middle and lower city, she notices a group of soldiers in dirtied breastplate. Success! She has found who she is looking for, not demons, but those that want to retake the city. As she climbs down the wall, and jumps from rooftop to rooftop, she loses sight of the soldiers. Standing, holding a chimney as she listens, she hears the clanking of their armor and sees activity in one building, followed by a woman’s scream. Rather than approaching the soldiers, she drops down into the alleyway across from the building they are in and watch from behind a pile of rubble.   As she gets into position, the soldiers drag a woman and two children out of the building. One of them holds a bloody longsword, fresh from the slicing of human blood. The six soldiers then shove the woman into the street and put their leg onto her back, holding her down as another soldier proclaims that this woman and children will be a sacrifice to Baphomet. With one strike, he swings his longsword on the back of the woman’s neck, severing it with one motion. The head rolls to the side and the two children scream. Two of the soldiers laugh, and the other two slide their longsword into the gut of the two children. As they choke on their own blood and leave the bodies in the street, yelling to the sky “GLORY TO BAPHOMET,” Setra tightens her grip on her bow. While she does not have the capability of dealing with the soldiers, she narrows her focus to finding a way to end these soldier’s lives.   Over the next two days, Setra starts stalking her prey. She follows the soldiers as they go from building to building, looking for humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, and other original dwellers, and drag them out into the street. She stays up a little later while the soldiers sleep inside a building. Unfortunately, she is unable to take them on during the night, but she tries to thwart the evil mad knights as best she can, distracting them with a felled barrel that allows a survivor to escape, or using her arrows to cut the ropes of the prisoners the knights acquires, allowing them a chance to escape. She hopes that she will find a time to distract them, and, little does she know, the perfect distraction is coming soon…  

Chapter 10 - And my bow...

As the battle rages on, more arrows continue to rain down as the party fights off the mad knights. Finally, the last Mad Knight is felled, and sits on the ground, Setra does something she has been unable to do for four days, she climbs down off the roof and walks over to the party, asking what their intentions are, and the party asks if Setra would like to join them, and Setra agrees. Perhaps this is the group that will help retake the city and find some kind of purpose for her ammunition.   The party heads towards the Gwerm manor, finally reaching its front. Remarkably, his manor, while looted, has sat relatively untouched versus the other buildings in the city. Horgus Gwerm heads inside, remarking how “the help has left,” and heads down into the basement, revealing a large locked metal door. He reaches up and turns a key, and moves around some dials, and the door starts opening. This massive metal door swings open as Horgus pulls on it, as if Horgus seems to have more strength than he has. Horgus reveals a large two room panic room with various parts of valuable art, and a side room stocked with plenty of food, water, and a bed fit for a king. In the corner of the room, a small breeze of air comes from a magical amulet which seems to keep the air fresh. Horgus opens up a side safe and pulls out a bag of coinage. He walks over to Yuhia and hands her the bag, “As agreed, 1000 gold pieces for getting me to my manor. It seems you all did an…adequate job.”   Reid, seeing this, after inspecting the vault door, he asks Horgus if there’s anything more to contribute. He says he will think about it after the city is more cleared, as he suspects the invasion of this city isn’t the only thing going on with these demons. He then shoos out the party from the vault and closes the door behind them, locking himself in. From behind the locked vault door, he lets the party know that they can stay at his manor as long as they clean up after themselves. The party then explores the manor, finding rooms to sleep in, and locks the door to make sure no one decides to investigate the suddenly active manor house.   During the night, Yuhia approaches Anevia Tirabade during the second watch, and asks about Anevia’s wife. Anevia reminisces about her time with her wife, describing her wife to be a strong fighter, and Yuhia lets Anevia know she will try to convince the party to go to the Tirabade Residence.   In the morning, the party meets to discuss where they can go. They decide the best bet will be to make their way to the Tirabade residence. Gathering up their stuff, and progressing on, less one Horgus Gwerm, the party begins to head north towards the residence. A short few hours walk through the ruined city; the party happens along three cultists surrounding an old man. It looks like they have the old man prisoner. Reid, looking up, sees that the man they currently have prisoner is a man by the name of Quednys Orlun. Speaking up, Reid starts wondering why Orlun is currently in captivity. He walks forward and the cultists head towards the party. In the ensuing attack, the party shanks the cultists and rescues Orlun. Reid approaches Orlun and helps him up and introduces him to the rest of the party. Orlun reveals he was being guarded by some Blackwing, which were dispatched by the cultists. They were attempting to head north to see if there were any more Blackwing attempting to clean up the city. Orlun agrees to travel with the party until they get to Defender’s Heart.   Continuing to travel North, the party carefully treads over a massive destroyed path where a massive demon exited the city through a newly created East exit, almost like the wall wasn’t even there. They dart from rubble piece to rubble piece trying to keep out of sight of any demons that might be looking their way. After they get past the chasm, believing themselves to be safe, Reid starts talking with Orlun telling him about his past and stories. The talking seems to attract attention, four dretches come out from some of the buildings and surround the party.   Reid successfully webs one of the dretch, and it retaliates with spreading a stinking cloud on the party, and that forces half of the party one way and the other half the other way. The others try to summon more friends and fail. Reid, Setra, Orlun, and Anevia escape out of the east side of the cloud, while Jorryn K'Thral, Bosco Dieh, and Yuhia engage the demons to the West. Orlun gives out a haste to Setra and Reid, and they move around to attack the demon that was webbed, sending him to the Abyss. Jorryn gets surrounded by the demons and is started to be whittled down while they seem to dodge most of the damage coming from the three. Finally, when the cloud evaporates, the rest of the party joins the group, and dispatches the rest of the demons.