Session 69 - Emissary
General Summary
Erthok Huntinghawk continued to struggle against Gorgoroth and S’thom for Aufklarung. He summoned two flying creatures—Red recognized them as spined devils from the Lower Planes—by blowing a small black whistle. The fiends were small and quick, but their quills were more of a nuisance than a threat.
When they finally wrestled the lantern away from the elf, S’thom stuck it deep in her bag of holding.
Kylar Bearcharger demanded their prisoner be released to him, but the Party wasn’t so sure. They wanted to know more of the backstory. Why had Kylar been chasing Erthok all these years? Where was the Seed of Winter? Whom did Erthok and Kylar really serve? How many Hexabeyance did each of their factions hold?
Neither side was particularly helpful. Red cast Entangle on the group to keep everyone from killing each other. Finally, Erthok submitted to Kylar. When the elf king realized that he’d finally won, something happened to him. The green glow to his eyes evaporated like the steam that issued from Vater von Berg’s ruined sleigh. He blinked in suprised and looked around at the world as if for the first time, unsure where he was or how he’d gotten here.
Vater von Berg, who had been grieving the loss of his beloved winterwolf, Romeo Love Machine, stood and faced the group. “We are not worthy, little girly men. We should stop resisting their power and submit to their rule.”
The Party, confused, asked what the frost giant was talking about. Who was “them”? Vater nodded to a fluffy little snowshoe hare that sat atop the rubble of his burned out sleigh. They assumed he must be going mad with grief, but didn’t want to anger the giant. “Can you not hear them? Can you not hear their demands?” he asked.
With that, a terrible wailing and screaming assaulted their psyches. The Party dropped to the ground, writhing in pain. They swore fealty to the bunny and the pain stopped. The hare told them that it was an emissary from the realm beyond the rift and it had come to prepare this plane of existence for the the greater coming. They were to be its servants and heralds. Slaves.
The Party didn’t understand exactly what the hare was, but Lat’num figured that it was a being from the Far Realm. He reached out telepathically to Vater von Berg and reminded the giant that he had sworn to protect this region of Brux and had been fighting the monsters that issued from the Beastlands rift for over a year. Was he really going to give up now?
The frost giant walked towards Lat’num and attacked. He split the tiny bunny in two with his massive greatax. A huge aberration spilled forth out of the corpse. Its tentacles whipped them while its mind shrieked at them. Everyone banded together. The Party, with the help of von Berg, Erthok Huntinghawk and Kylar Bearcharger, reduced the monster to a puddle.
Just when they thought they were safe, however, the bubbling mass of digestive juices purple pus exploded into a new horror. It became a swirling cloud of violet violence that enveloped the frost giant. It seeped into his pores and thrust itself into every orifice. Vater’s flesh melted, his muscles disintegrated and his organs ate themselves. A new monster stood in his place, twice as big as the emissary.
Comments