19 Rova 4715
Sunday
Session 22
Rebellion Turn 4
Ayse lays out information regarding the phantasmagorium. After the rebellion meeting is finished, the party heads out to Hocum’s.
Theres a massive padlock on the front door. Larc and Vazra attempt to pull it off unsuccessfully. Eventually the door is unsubtly smashed open and the group files in to find a large hall filled with “cryptids” that were put on display. As the group searches the large, circular, central room, they are beset by reanimated skeletons of yetis. The combat is short and brutal, and both sides lay out heavy damage, but the skeletons were no match for Larcs hammer.
There is a brief time spend searching the room, and Ham finds tracks that lead to the western wing of the building. As the party discusses which of the multiple doors to try next, Vazra gets impatient and pulls open the door on the eastern side of the circle.
Beyond is a small chamber containing a few zombies that begin their slow assault. The group roll their collective eyes at Vazra, but the team gets to work dispatching zombies with brutal efficiency. As the party pushes into the small offshoot room, they find a hallway that connects south containing more zombies.
It is at this point, that Lucius recognizes two of the zombies as Rexus’ parents, Lord and Lady Victocora. He grimaces as he puts them to their final rest. The party slogs through zombie after zombie before they hear a voice cry out front from farther to the east of the building.
A man in red robes turns the corner and demands the party lay down their arms and leaves, or face the wrath of the law. The party refuses, and the fight is joined by this mysterious sect of potential Asmodean monks.
Session 23
The remaining monks and zombies are defeated, leaving just the red-cloaked figure fighting. He is swiftly intimidated into surrender. After being forced into a chair and stripped of his possessions. He’s question by the party. The mans name is Azvernathi Raul, and he was the leader of an expedition of Redactors sent to sort through the many tomes and texts found in the Hocum’s Fantasmagorium by the previous Asmodean expedition. He explains that he is the one who raised the corpses, though he didn’t know who they were or why they were here. He is forced to heal some of the damage done to the party in their fight, and in the process, seemingly looses his divine magical gift from Asmodeus for surrendering and aiding enemies.
He explains that he was tasked with the upper floor and that Nox was leading another force of about 11 Redactors searching the basement. He claims to have found the secret of how to reach the basement in a Green leather-bound book titled “ History and Future of Humanity”. Once it was clear he had no further information, Larc buries his anger and asks Raul if he has any regrets about what hes done up to this point in his life. He answers truthfully that he did not. Lucius sees that he would say pretty much anything to get away with his life at this point, so convinces him, with aid from the variety of threats known as his party, to leave the city and start a new life to the north, out of Cheliax. Under penalty of death if he were ever found in Kintargo again. Lucius leaves him with one final question to ponder “Think not about what Asmodeus wants from you, but about what you want for yourself.”
The party picks through the equipment and rooms, finding a few odd sundries. The most important of which are the two Victocora Signet Rings from Rexus’ parents. They are given to Lucius for safe keeping and return to Rexus. The Party searches the former gift shop, offices where the Redactors were camping out, a few more exhibits, the ticket office, and the remaining rooms of the upper floor. They find a ring of Swimming that had fallen behind the ticket desk, a strange stone in the melted face of a wax figure, and not much else in the rest of the upper floors. They do find the body of a dead redactor with small red welts all over him. They are then set upon by half a dozen Scarlet Spiders that sap the strength of a few of the team. Eventually, the miniscule monsters are defeated, but the Silver Ravens will NEVER be sure there aren’t more somewhere up their pant legs…
With the entirety of the entirety of the upper floor searched, the party looks to the statue that Aazvernathi indicated. The book had a secret code written in the front cover “Turn the eye to spell the name of the Master of Masters”. Lucius identifies this to be Irori, and the group inspects the runes around the eye in the statues book. No one is able to decipher them, so Ayse uses a vial that gives him Comprehend Languages, and hes able to identify the proper Azlanti runes to spell out Irori. The statue begins to move, revelaing a spiraling staircase that leads down into darkness…
Session 24
The staircase spirals some 30-70 ft down into the darkness before a soft light somewhere at the bottom. The party descends to find a library tucked away beneath the phantasmagorium. The library was clearly well thought out, but had also seemingly been raided, with signs of recent battle and blood throughout. In the center of the library, a a massive painted circle of runes sits, seemingly un-magical and more of a pictogram than serving a specific purpose as far as the silver ravens know.
As they inspect the library, Ham finds magic behind the brick wall in the corner, and Larc is able to spot the secret compartment hidden within. Inside, there are a variety of cached treasures including some valuable trinkets, a pearl of power, and a magical bookplate. While Ayse and Lucius identified the magical items, Vazra took a closer look at some books. As he picks one up, a disembodied voice echoes through the library politely but firmly asking the party to stop touching things.
A stack of papers and books begins to float of the ground, as pages furl up and form into a humanoid shape, with a leather-bound tome that folded into the visage of a face. The creature, who identifies themselves as Yilliv, implores the party to cease their attempts to enter further. The party vehemently disagrees, attempting to find another solution. Yilliv rebuffs every effort by the party to deceive and negotiate, explaining that it was summoned here on the night of ashes for a very specific purpose: to guard the halls beyond from any ingress by those who weren’t specifically allowed by Yilliv’s summoner, The Progenitor.
With this in mind, Lucius regretfully gives Larc the go ahead to start bashing, and combat ensues. Nobody is happy about this. Nobody wants this fight, but the Ravens must go further, and Yilliv cannot allow it. Negotiation still continues during combat, as Vazra pleads with Yilliv to give up or go away. It is fruitless, and eventually Yilliv falls to the teams dismay, but not before sapping some of hams intellect in the process. Lucius gathers up the books and pages that formed Yilliv in the hopes that there may yet be some way to bring them back as an ally, instead of an unwilling obstacle. Before being obliterated however, Yilliv does warn the party that Yilliv had alerted the forces beyond to the Raven’s presence, a forewarning that went predominantly unheeded…..
The party continues past the library, finding chambers beyond that served as housing for a decently sized group. These rooms had been abandoned and cleared, and little of interest was found in them until the party found a secret passage between hallways. In this hidden hall was a room that held a single framed portrait of the Victocora’s as a young faimily, hinting to the fact that this place had been used a secret base for the Sacred Order of Archivists. This was quickly brushed past, however, as at the end of the hall was some kind of laboratory.
At the center of this larger room was a small, fist sized iron box with 12 sides, one of which was “open” and spewing thick, spiked, black chains. The box itself stood on long iron legs, elevating it to about eight feet off the ground. Suspended on one of the chains was the corpse of a redactor, apparently run through as the chains erupted from the box. The party sees loose pages scattered across the floor and table near to the box. Before entering the room, the party doubles back to the main hallway, and finds that it also connects to the laboratory, but directly across the room from them, on the other side of the chains, are two redactors who had been obscured around a corner from their other vantage point into the room. Some taunts and jests are tossed back and forth, but neither side is willing to cross the chains to fight. Some crossbow bolts are fired at the redactors, and they flee behind doors for cover.
The party sends Ayse in to examine the box, and with Lucius magical encouragement, he’s able to bypass the chains and get up the iron stand to examine the box up close. He manages to identify it as a Cubic Gate, an artifact of immense power, that allows portals to be made across planes of existence. This one appears to be modified to allow more planes than normal, but also appears to be malfunctioning, and is stuck open to the Plane of Shadows from whence the chains emerged. An initial attempt to close that side failed, and the party discovers that the research notes prove to be little help, as they had been stuck at a similarly low level of information.
The group decides to table the Cubic Gate for later and address the redactors beyond. Suffering only slight imposition from the chains, they cross the laboratory to flush out the redactors, and a battle ensues with four on the other side. Though some members were still traversing the chains, the battle ended quickly once the Raven’s had regrouped on the other side. This left only 3 rooms, that they were aware of, remaining to explore.
Session 25
The first of these three rooms is another wing of bed chambers with little to find. The second appears to be a burnt out meeting hall. What structure remains in the piles of ash and dust indicated benches and a lectern that served a meeting place for (potentially) the Sacred Order of Archivists. The third room lay at the end of the hall behind two double doors which were locked. The party readies themselves to breach, lining up next to and behind Larc as he raises his hammer to the door…
And with a mighty swing, bursts through the upper half of one door to reveal quite a bit on the other side:
- a waist high barricade stuffing the hallway and stifling entry past the doors
- at least three redactors, and a strange yet grotesque humanoid creature far off into the massive chamber beyond
- a fake outdoor scene complete with trees and a brook far into the chamber
- a massive gout of flame that engulfs the Ravens set off by a trap laid by the redactors
The brutal slog begins.
Various injuries are sustained by the party as the flames wash over them. Multiple redactors begin piling into the space beyond the barricade and tossing alchemist fires and acid bombs into the clumped group of Ravens. The Party is thrown into choas as calls for retreat are met with Larc having dropped prone to extenguish himself, causing Lucius to stay in the hallway to support him. Wave after wave of alchemical and dart projectiles pour into the hallway from over half a dozend redactors, who begin to pour out from the barricade once their ammos is spent. Now using the bottleneck against them, the party forms up ahnd the melee begins outside of the doors.
As redactors continue to pile in over the barricade, Ayse manages to slip a grenade under the door, and while the battle rages in front of him, the grenade manages to blow apart the door and barricade, and the party is finally give space to breach the chamber proper. It is here that they meet the previously hinted hellhound and the grotesque creature, identified to be an Ogrekin, wielding a wicked looking spear. The battle has become desperate, as resources from the ravens dwindle while they step over piles of redactor corpses. Larc engages the Ogrkin, and the Lucius and Ham topple the Hellhound. Brutal hits are laid out by Larc and the Ogrekin, but the battle comes to a climax, as Nox herself steps in.
With great effort Larc attempts to fell the Ogrekin, as the rest of the party clean up the other remaining fighters. Tragedy strikes, as Nox steps up to Larc, with glaive in hand, and kills him outright in one terrifying blow from behind the Ogrkin. The remaining ravens are desperate and bereft, and atempt a foolish push for revenge against the Devilkin Nox. They manage to down the Ogrekin, but Nox proves to be lethally efficient with the glaive, and despite Lucius Hoodwinking her sense, she knocks Ham unconscious.
Ayse struggles to figure out what to do, with no more ammunition of any kind, and no backup plan. Lucius and Vazra redouble their efforts, slowly driving Nox back in the room, but to little avail as her wounds healed before their eyes. Finally, Nox lands a decisive blow on Vazra, killing her outright. Mentally crushed, and with few options remaining, Lucius turns, trying to save the only one he can. He tells Ayse to run away as he tries to scoop up Hams massive weight and drag him out. Nox taunts Lucius’ retreat, but does not follow, and Lucius’ heart breaks as he leaves two friends behind, dead but never forgotten.
Session 26
Something breaks inside Talula as she studies for her classes. Knowing instinctually that something is wrong, she seeks out her grandfather to sort through the pieces. She uses an locket of some magical origin to transport herself to Vazra senior’s domain. There, she realizes what has transpired, and vows to make the Thrune’s suffer, and promises herself to whatever bargain with her Grandfather will give her the power to exact this suffering.
With ritual set, the contract “negotiation begins” but does not proceed very far before Perfidus, or some semblance of what is left, breaks through the veil to negotiate on Talula’s behalf. Vazra senior uses a ploy, rending the hand off Talula to strong arm Perfidus into unfavorable terms, which he accepts to “Save her soul”, and thusly he binds himself in some arcane way, to Talula AND her grandsire.
The remaining crew burst’s forth out of Hocum’s to find a large gathering forming in a square before a grand procession making its way through the city. Ham exclaims his need to find Talula, so Lucius decides to stay and gather information while Ham rushes towards Longroads with Ayse close at hand. Lucius makes his way into the crowds, whilst disguising himself, to observe the proceedings.
A large throng of government officials at every level makes way through the streets. A crier pronounces a new statute recently enacted by Barzilai Thrune. The Hellknight Order of the Torrent is announced to be officially stripped of all rank, title, prestige, and charter, and are to be handed over to the Thrunish government under penalty of prosecution. The end of the procession is marked by an extremely well appointed palanquin, which though shrouded, can be all but confirmed to carry Barzilai himself.
Ham and Ayse eventually reach Longroads, finding a strange disturbance in the hideout beneath. A strange man wails and moans in the meeting hall. Ham decides thats the lesserof his current problems and tells Ayse to “deal with him” after finding out that Talula was at the Alabaster Academy, and he rushes off once more.
Perfidus falls through some ethereal space, going an unknown direction at an unknown speed. Eventually he sees another creature drawing close to him. He realizes it is Larc, and after some time, the two discuss what has happened to them, and what may yet happen now that theyve been released from mortality. Larc eventually reveals a message for Perfidus from an unknown source that relays the speakers dissapointment in Perfidus’ failure, and relaying that his punishment is not yet over.
Eventually the two separate, as Perfidus is pulled down into deep red mist.
Back under Longroads, Ayse approaches the strange man, who seems to be wailing in grief as he attempts but fails to break furniture in the room. Ayse tries to speak to him to calm him down, and strangely enough he knows Ayse’s name. Ayse doesn’t recognize the man, but is able to slowly calm him and gain bits of information from him. From these disparate hints, Ayse pieces together that the man is actually Perfidus, bow fully in the flesh, and sees a strange, incorporeal creature curling off, out of his head and shoulders.
Lucius, having taken in the news of regarding The Torrent, begins scouring the streets for information about Gerald, the armiger who saved his life a few weeks prior. Eventually, he thinks to make his way to the Nail, where he hopes to find Setrona Sabinus. He finds her at the nail, and makes a good impression with her before revealing his association with the Silver Ravens, and convincing her that he wants to help find her brother and the rest of the Torrent. She seems to trust him, and reveals that there is a shrine south of the city that was used as a meeting place for the order. Lucius agrees to help, and brings her back to Longroads to meet the rest of the leadership and crew.
At the Alabaster Academy, ham is led to the last place where anyone had seen Talula, a study room that still contains her school things. He seems to sense something is up, so decides to wait around till she returns. After a few hours of waiting Fast Tony and Slimy carl arrive to gather Talula’s belongings, and find that Ham is there. They tell him that she’s probably not coming back here, and if he wants to see her, he should attend Vazra’s funeral tonight at the Devil’s Nursery. He says he’ll there, but that he’ll wait around at the academy for a bit just in case. They reminisce about Vazra for a bit before a raven messenger sent by Lucius arrives to figure out what’s going on.
Ham responds with information about the vigil, and the entirety of the Silver Ravens makes preparation to show up in force. Various staggered timings and alternate routes are planned so that the group doesn’t draw attention, and Silver Ravens depart for the Redroof District. The group finally reconvenes at the Devil’s Nursery. They find a large and somber crowd, milling about and waiting. Eventually, Talula arrives, and people are invited to speak.
Ayse gives a pretty mediocre speech, and outs Vazra as a Silver Raven while also low key insulting him. Brother Sunbones makes an appearance to say cryptic things and generally be a weird dude. After Ayse’s speech, Ham tries to speak but gets heckled by a drunk guy at the bar who says that Vazra sucked and was an idiot for trying to fight the Thrunes. Ham squares up with him, but Talula summons a giant split-blade sword and murders him before anyone can react………..
Session 27
Ham takes a moment to process Talula’s murder before confirming with Lucius that that did indeed just happen. Lucius says he’ll take care of the corpse with Ayse, and Ham pulls Talula into a backroom to talk with her and Perfidus. Ham begins to lecture Talula about how her actions were unacceptable, but she is entirely unapologetic, claiming that she orchestrated the entire event to draw out a mole in Vazra’s organization and kill him publicly to put down any dissent while the organization changed hands.
Ham begrudgingly accepts her disrespect and opinion, and the conversation shifts towards the pact that Vazra senior and Perfidus made with Talula. Ham struggles to wrap his head around what happened there.
Meanwhile, Lucius buys drinks for everyone to try and get the mood up after the murder, then he and Ayse get some strong guys to help bury the body. They return and party a bit before going to search for Ham, Perfidus, and Talula. Setrona says that this has all been a lot for her and shes gonna head out, but tells Lucius to hit her up at The Nail when theyre ready to go look for the Torrent.
Lucius and Ayse join the rest of the party just in time for Talula to give a rude exit and shove Ayse out of the doorway on her way out. Perfidus says that he may be the reason she has so much anger, and explains how a piece of him, potentially his former rage, is now bonded to her. Ham is still confused about the whole thing.
The group finds places in the red roof district to bed down, and go to sleep.
