Session 80, October 19, 2023 - attack on the keep part who even knows now...

Session begins with the new combat inside the keep. Sishar is one of the combatants and the party focuses a bit more effort on her immediately. She knocks Ifrea out completely with 2 attacks, but Shar is able to help revive him quickly and get him back on his feet. Shar then deals a massive blow to the teifling, weakening him significantly. The fight continues, and Sishar is restrained, but the cultists are taking turns touching the orb of dark magic and disappearing into it. The teifling tries to disappear but Savari grapples it and keeps it restrained. The glows brighter every time a cultist is sacrificed into it until Rys manages to dispel the magic, exploding the orb and raining debris everywhere. Shar is affected by some terror and sinks into the chair behind the desk, eventually finding a book on rituals and reading it. He fully disengages from the fight. While Sishar is restrained, Savari and Rys hit her with missiles and her own scythe and finish her off. The Teifling has successfully eluded Savari's grasp and disappears completely. After Sishar is dead, the party leaves the castle and tracks the Teifling down to a single-room home on the edge of town. They enter and don't see him anywhere, but Shar investigates further and finds a tunnel concealed by one of the rugs on the floor. Savari and Shar enter first and see him carving runes onto a stone doorway. He seems a bit surprised at how quickly they found him, but relatively unperturbed otherwise. They interrogate him and don't get much until he taunts Shar and tells him his mother died because of blasphemy. Because of Shar himself. He gives the name of her murderer: Ruben. Shar calmly fires two arrows into his heart at point blank range. A smile flashes across his face as the light leaves his eyes. He speaks, "I am not the last who will come for you." Savari and Rys investigate the rune he was carving and find it just barely unfinished. Many of the runes appear to be a simple transportation spell, but the top one is a rune for Abaddon; a higher level demon whose power he was intending to channel to power the spell. Savari makes a diagram of Abaddon's gate. They finish the investigation and return to the castle. Session ends.