| Celanian |
Session 85
New NPCs
Yaniel – Veteran paladin. Highly revered and 2nd in prestige among all paladins in the Worldwound area to Queen Galfrey
Minagho – Lillitu Demon. Head of the fortress and puppeteer.
PCs return to the Fulsome Queen’s cave to lick their wounds and recover from the beating taken from the Great Blades and Towlee.
About an hour into their recovery, they receive unexpected guests. The Blade sisters show up and visit them!
The Blade sisters explain that they had a disagreement with Towlee about their contract. They insist that their contract called for the defeat of the PCs whereas Towlee insisted that it called for the death of the PCs. The Great Blades felt that they had fulfilled their contract and insisted on being paid, but Towlee refused, stating that the contract wasn’t finished. Naturally, they refused to continue working for Towlee.
Interestingly, they didn’t seem to take it personally and didn’t seem too angry at Towlee. It appeared that contracts were very loose and flexible in the Abyss and they might have to work for him in the future so they didn’t want to burn any bridges.
Ramirez invites the Blade sisters to break bread with the PCs and throws a hero’s feast. They question the sisters about the fortress, but they want to be paid. They ask for 10,000 gold for info on the portal and another 10,000 gold for info about the leader of the fortress. PCs don’t have much money and both sides eventually negotiate the payment to be a Favor to be named later as long as the Favor doesn’t involve the PCs committing evil. The sisters insist that there were plenty of favors that didn’t involve committing evil as the vast majority of what they fought in the Abyss were demons, demodands, and qlippoth.
The sisters reveal that one end of the portal was through the gate that the PCs used to get to the Abyss, but the other end was in the fortress guarded by a powerful nalfeshnee demon. The nalfeshnee demon would seal the entrance to the portal if it felt threatened by the PCs. The leader of the fortress was a human woman wearing the heraldry of Iomedae. At one point, she came and attacked the fortress but strangely became the leader shortly afterwards. The sisters warned that they would’ve been replaced by other security and Towlee might or might not stick around, but they didn’t believe he would without their support. They also give a layout of the area near the leader for the PCs to teleport to.
PCs prepare for battle the next day. They teleport to the area described by the sisters and easily clear some minor encounters and then run into the leader.
Quinnlyn recognizes the leader as Yaniel, a great heroine in the church of Iomedae who went missing. She was the prior owner of Radiance, Valin’s weapon. It strained credibility that such a decorated heroine would turn evil and turn her back on all she stood for.
Yaniel stood with a stringy demodand, 2 tarry demodands, and 2 kalavakus demons.
Bomaris and Yaniel quickly face off against each other. Bomaris holds his own at first landing a few good hits, but he couldn’t keep up with Yaniel’s self healing and falls twice during their duel after Quinnlyn healed him after he fell the first time. Yaniel didn’t land any devastating blows, but her longsword and shield bashes kept doing steady damage round after round.
The demodands prove to be formidable enemies. The stringy demodand faces off with Kayden and lands some serious hits, while Kayden fights back with big area effects that usually hit the stringy demodand and 1 additional enemy. 1 tarry demodand focuses on Anevia and hurts her badly, forcing her to retreat, but not before she uses a new ability to surprise it and land over 200 damage after applying her sneak attack damage to 5 arrows, adding 20d6 total bonus damage to the attacks. The other tarry demodand faced off Ramirez and Quinnlyn, taking down Quinnlyn with 3 critical hits in the same round. Ramirez did heal her but loses his weapon 3 times in the fight through a fumble, and twice through it being stuck in the tarry demodand’s body.
The kalavakus demons were annoying, hasting the enemy group and giving each PC a stagger during the fight. One kalavakus even managed to dominate both Anevia and Kayden, but Kayden was able to shake off the domination later in the fight and dispelled the domination on Anevia.
Eventually, the demodands and kalavakus fell as well as Bomaris, leaving Yaniel facing off Ramirez, Anevia, Kayden, and Quinnlyn. All 4 PCs had taken a great deal of damage, especially Quinnlyn, and it didn’t appear as if they could hurt Yaniel significantly faster than she could self heal. Quinnlyn makes a Religion roll and realizes that Yaniel is being possessed by a demon and she was pretty sure that 2 successful dispel magics would get rid of the possession.
The rest of the fight involved the PCs trying to stay alive and survive Yaniel’s attacks as they attempted to dispel the possession. Eventually they do so on the 8th round of the fight and an eyeless demon forces its way out of Yaniel’s body, splitting her nearly in half in the process. The demon introduces herself as Minagho and laughs as she said she was just beginning to have fun. Minagho then teleports out.
Ramirez quickly throws a breath of life spell on Yaniel and the PCs manage to save her life. The PCs teleport back to the Fulsome Queen’s cave to rest and recuperate.
PCs heal Bomaris and Yaniel and question her. She states that she assaulted the fortress with some powerful companions but Minagho came to them in the guise of a friend and defeated her party, capturing everyone. Minagho was a lillitu demon, and exceptionally powerful even for one of them. When she defeats a powerful foe, she turned their bodies into “husks” that she wore as easily as other people wore clothing. She was an exceptional actress and it would be virtually impossible to distinguish her from the real thing if she was wearing a husk. She could have up to 10 husks at a time and would have to destroy a previous husk to gain a new one if she was above 10.
The only advice Yaniel had to defeat Minagho was to force her out of her host and then dimension anchor her so she couldn’t teleport away. That was the only way to deal with her permanently as otherwise she would just return wearing another husk.
Yaniel asks about the current owner of Radiance and says if he was worthy that she wouldn’t press her claim. However, she made it clear that she would never let Radiance belong to an unworthy owner and would duel him if necessary to reclaim Radiance.
PCs diplomatically smooth tensions between Yaniel and the Fulsome Queen as otherwise they would’ve been at each other’s throats and would’ve resulted in Yaniel’s death as she obviously couldn’t beat the Fulsome Queen and all her ash giants by herself.
Kayden suspects that someone with Minagho’s resources would have a spy among the ash giants or possibly might be using one as a husk and cautions everyone to watch their words.
PCs make preparations to attack the portal but do memorize a couple of dimension anchor spells in case they run into Minagho again.
End Session 85
| Celanian |
Session 86
New NPCs
None
PCs prepare a strike against the portal defenses. They buff up and launch an attack. As the enter the portal area, they are hit by dispel magics that remove a few buffs.
They see a nalfeshnee, glabrezu and glowing portal. The PCs seem to have the advantage in the fight, but an invisible Xacarba redirects Ramirez’s divine power spell onto the glabrezu. PCs do take out the glabrezu with some difficulty after Kayden dispels the divine power and its mirror images, but a couple of mass suggestion spells from the Xacarba gets Ramirez and Anevia to retreat. Remaining PCs don’t feel confident enough to win so they teleport out.
PCs retreat to the Fulsome Queen’s lair and make preparations for another assault. They are contacted by Galfrey and Khraigorr who are impatient. They say that they have controlled their side of the portal and have been fighting off counterattacks from the demons. They are worried that Areelu Vorlesh would take notice and might personally intervene. They do warn that the portal would be awakened for the next assault but multiple dimension anchor spells might be able to neutralize it.
PCs get the message and determine that the next assault will be the final assault on the portal. The demons would be sure to have replaced the glabrezu with other defenders. Ramirez casts a spell to find more info on the Xacarba and determine that it can redirect spells from anyone within 30’ if they don’t concentrate. It also has some nasty poisons.
PCs return and see that the glabrezu had been replaced by a clockwork dragon and 2 iron golems in the shape of dragons.
The fight starts off horribly for the PCs as Quinnlyn gets placed in a force cube cast by the portal, Anevia gets dazed and staggered by the nalfeshnee, and Kayden gets feebleminded. The PCs turn it around when Bomaris gets a good series of attacks and brings down the Xacarbra. Quinnlyn eventually gets out of the force cube after her second dispel attempt and Kayden seals off the golems and clockwork dragon with a wall of force spell. The portal seems to have more powers since it actively chooses its targets and it has more powers than before with greater dispel magics and unholy blights in evidence.
Quinnlyn fails a dimension anchor attempt against the portal, but Kayden succeeds twice and neutralizes its powers. PCs gang up on the nalfeshnee as it moves around the portal to get around Kayden’s wall of force and does tremendous damage to it. It withdraws through the portal and the PCs easily dispatch the clockwork dragon and remaining iron golem.
PCs ready the ritual to close the portal.
End Session 86