Citadel Drezen, Final assault
We rejoin Our Party in the caverns under Drezen, which are a horrible place. A whispering maddening susurration of half-heard voices distracts The Heroes, making it difficult to concentrate, and a pervasive evil lingers on the soul like smoke on the clothes after a bonfire. The Party is weary and has used a fair portion of their magics and their Mythical powers, and considers resting in the blessed cell, when Antwon is buffeted by a... a soul, it seems. Antwon feels the last thought of one of the Crusaders: "I thought I could forget it, forget the murder, but now Sarenrae will judge me, at last. Forgive me, Maria."
The Army outside is beginning to die, beginning to succumb to the ravages of the Abyssally-charged disease. The Party decides to press on, except for Kand, who takes some time to sort and classify his new library of planar and demonic knowledge.
In one of the dorm rooms near the cell block we find a secret door, which leads to a platform overlooking a giant forge. Several salamanders are attending the forge, which glows red-hot with a heat that can be felt even here, some good hundred feet away. A cart is up here as well, dangling from wires from the ceiling, with controls to allow the cart to be moved back and forth across the ceiling, as well as hoisted up and down.
The Party prepares for battle! .... and then realizes that the salamanders are a complicated illusion, going through the same motions every few minutes. Hmmm. Why would demons create such a thing? Chaos and evil work in mysterious ways, perhaps. Several side rooms are explored, containing fuel and raw materials for the forge, as well as tools and devices to keep everything working smoothly. The forge is quite evil, and Our Heroes leave it alone.
Next, we turn to the main doors leading from this chamber - where a half-demon mage is casting a ritual, watched over by Aravashniel, and Nurah, and a few other demonic figures! To arms!
Demons are slain. Aravashniel is slain, and from his corpse rises a demon made out of smoke - the same one from the crypt above! This demon is also slain, and Nurah escapes. The ritual-casting mage, who has barricaded herself behind a Wall of Force as she casts spells of protection and strengthening, snarls and curses at the party. Torvan uses a wand to pass through a Dimensional Door next to this mage, who screams, "You fools! You've interrupted my ritual - Staunton Vhane will destroy us all! Our only hope was to destroy this accursed place once and for all!" She tussles with Torvan, and almost slays him, but he is able to damage her enough so that she teleports away. Victory belongs to our heroes!
The Sword of Valor is here, as a banner! Except it's an illusion, designed to trick and punish the unwary, as Vig finds out to his dismay. The Ninja/Paladin shakes off the demonic effects, however, and so They press on.
More and more lost souls slam into The Party, the last words of the fallen Crusaders echoing in Our Heroes' ears. A quick moment is taken to regain Their breath and bearings, and do some healing of scrapes and contusions, then a slightly longer moment to search the chamber - off to the side another secret door is found, detrapped, and opened.
After a corridor with some strange angles the party enters a long room, with six alcoves - five of them dedicated to murals depicting the savage molestation of the five crusader gods (Desna, Iomedae, Sarenrae, Sheylyn, and Torag) and the fifth alcove - larger than the rest - a shrine to Deskari, the Demon Lord of Swarms. At the end of this Hall, behind a metal cage, is the Sword of Valor!
Well. No, not really. Each of our Heroes is attacked, individually, by Deskari! Our Heroes shrug this powerful illusion off as well, and see that, once again, the banner is dedicated to Deskari, and is not even magical.
Through another oddly-angled hallway, to a circular room. In the center, some twenty feet tall, stands a statue of a six-armed woman with a serpentine body - this is the Marilith Aponavicius, who until recently was the overseer of Drezen. Even standing ten feet down from where The Party enters the room she towers over them, and her eyes seem to track and follow you as you move around the room. Around that central pit is a walkway, a good eight feet wide, that leads around from the southern entrance, clockwise to the east and another door; a set of stairs near the entrance lead up to a ledge five feet above that walkway.
It's complicated. A sketch won't really help. There's a pit, and a couple of walkways, and the party has to walk most of the way around the Big Statue of a Scary Demon.
Vig moves around, and triggers a telekinetic trap! He stumbles but avoids being pushed into the pit. Torvan, attempting to jump to the statue, misses and falls through the floor, an illusion that conceals the TRUE floor twenty feet lower, where a mass of Green Slime is found. Torvan screams as his skin begins to bubble, and leaps back out of the pit, where Vig and Antwon hurl oil and set him aflame, burning the Slime (and not burning Torvan, thanks to the last few minutes of his Magical resistance to fire and flames.
And finally, the last room is entered. As Vig crosses the threshold the party is pulled into a strange extra-dimensional space, where the floor is the Rune of Deskari, guarded by five Babau demons, a horrible Giant Demonic Wasp, and Staunton Vhane himself, wrapped in chains and half-demon, half-ghost.
Staunton begins to monologue, but then thinks better of it and sighs. Combat is joined! Staunton uses his chains to entangle two of our heroes, and the babaus start to chant - there is something quite odd going on, too, as the babau react much more quickly and accurately than Our Heroes are used to babau demons acting. Torvan is poisoned by the wasp! Antwon is entangled in chains! Vig goes down at Staunton's feet, but then returns to consciousness from magical healing! It is a hard-pressed battle. The babau are being ridden by a different demon, it seems - a Swashbuckling Succubus, with a horrible cold and vile rapier, and when Staunton's ghost is first dispersed he too shifts and takes possession of one of the babau. Very tense!
But at the end, The Party emerges victorious. Citadel Drezen, and the surrounding lands, have been reclaimed from the demons! The Sword of Valor is replaced in the Temple of the Inheritor, upstairs in the Citadel, where it will help protect Drezen from demonic attacks while the city is rebuilt.
It is not without sorrow, this victory; half of the crusaders lie dead from the pestilence, including Irabeth's wife Anevia. Compared to the expected outcome, however, this is considered a great victory by the Crusaders, and history will mark this moment as the first battle in the fifth crusade. Our heroes, after resting, searching the Citadel for any further loot, and helping to burn the Dead, return to Kenabres, where they are hailed as heroes!
The Army outside is beginning to die, beginning to succumb to the ravages of the Abyssally-charged disease. The Party decides to press on, except for Kand, who takes some time to sort and classify his new library of planar and demonic knowledge.
In one of the dorm rooms near the cell block we find a secret door, which leads to a platform overlooking a giant forge. Several salamanders are attending the forge, which glows red-hot with a heat that can be felt even here, some good hundred feet away. A cart is up here as well, dangling from wires from the ceiling, with controls to allow the cart to be moved back and forth across the ceiling, as well as hoisted up and down.
The Party prepares for battle! .... and then realizes that the salamanders are a complicated illusion, going through the same motions every few minutes. Hmmm. Why would demons create such a thing? Chaos and evil work in mysterious ways, perhaps. Several side rooms are explored, containing fuel and raw materials for the forge, as well as tools and devices to keep everything working smoothly. The forge is quite evil, and Our Heroes leave it alone.
Next, we turn to the main doors leading from this chamber - where a half-demon mage is casting a ritual, watched over by Aravashniel, and Nurah, and a few other demonic figures! To arms!
Demons are slain. Aravashniel is slain, and from his corpse rises a demon made out of smoke - the same one from the crypt above! This demon is also slain, and Nurah escapes. The ritual-casting mage, who has barricaded herself behind a Wall of Force as she casts spells of protection and strengthening, snarls and curses at the party. Torvan uses a wand to pass through a Dimensional Door next to this mage, who screams, "You fools! You've interrupted my ritual - Staunton Vhane will destroy us all! Our only hope was to destroy this accursed place once and for all!" She tussles with Torvan, and almost slays him, but he is able to damage her enough so that she teleports away. Victory belongs to our heroes!
The Sword of Valor is here, as a banner! Except it's an illusion, designed to trick and punish the unwary, as Vig finds out to his dismay. The Ninja/Paladin shakes off the demonic effects, however, and so They press on.
More and more lost souls slam into The Party, the last words of the fallen Crusaders echoing in Our Heroes' ears. A quick moment is taken to regain Their breath and bearings, and do some healing of scrapes and contusions, then a slightly longer moment to search the chamber - off to the side another secret door is found, detrapped, and opened.
After a corridor with some strange angles the party enters a long room, with six alcoves - five of them dedicated to murals depicting the savage molestation of the five crusader gods (Desna, Iomedae, Sarenrae, Sheylyn, and Torag) and the fifth alcove - larger than the rest - a shrine to Deskari, the Demon Lord of Swarms. At the end of this Hall, behind a metal cage, is the Sword of Valor!
Well. No, not really. Each of our Heroes is attacked, individually, by Deskari! Our Heroes shrug this powerful illusion off as well, and see that, once again, the banner is dedicated to Deskari, and is not even magical.
Through another oddly-angled hallway, to a circular room. In the center, some twenty feet tall, stands a statue of a six-armed woman with a serpentine body - this is the Marilith Aponavicius, who until recently was the overseer of Drezen. Even standing ten feet down from where The Party enters the room she towers over them, and her eyes seem to track and follow you as you move around the room. Around that central pit is a walkway, a good eight feet wide, that leads around from the southern entrance, clockwise to the east and another door; a set of stairs near the entrance lead up to a ledge five feet above that walkway.
It's complicated. A sketch won't really help. There's a pit, and a couple of walkways, and the party has to walk most of the way around the Big Statue of a Scary Demon.
Vig moves around, and triggers a telekinetic trap! He stumbles but avoids being pushed into the pit. Torvan, attempting to jump to the statue, misses and falls through the floor, an illusion that conceals the TRUE floor twenty feet lower, where a mass of Green Slime is found. Torvan screams as his skin begins to bubble, and leaps back out of the pit, where Vig and Antwon hurl oil and set him aflame, burning the Slime (and not burning Torvan, thanks to the last few minutes of his Magical resistance to fire and flames.
And finally, the last room is entered. As Vig crosses the threshold the party is pulled into a strange extra-dimensional space, where the floor is the Rune of Deskari, guarded by five Babau demons, a horrible Giant Demonic Wasp, and Staunton Vhane himself, wrapped in chains and half-demon, half-ghost.
Staunton begins to monologue, but then thinks better of it and sighs. Combat is joined! Staunton uses his chains to entangle two of our heroes, and the babaus start to chant - there is something quite odd going on, too, as the babau react much more quickly and accurately than Our Heroes are used to babau demons acting. Torvan is poisoned by the wasp! Antwon is entangled in chains! Vig goes down at Staunton's feet, but then returns to consciousness from magical healing! It is a hard-pressed battle. The babau are being ridden by a different demon, it seems - a Swashbuckling Succubus, with a horrible cold and vile rapier, and when Staunton's ghost is first dispersed he too shifts and takes possession of one of the babau. Very tense!
But at the end, The Party emerges victorious. Citadel Drezen, and the surrounding lands, have been reclaimed from the demons! The Sword of Valor is replaced in the Temple of the Inheritor, upstairs in the Citadel, where it will help protect Drezen from demonic attacks while the city is rebuilt.
It is not without sorrow, this victory; half of the crusaders lie dead from the pestilence, including Irabeth's wife Anevia. Compared to the expected outcome, however, this is considered a great victory by the Crusaders, and history will mark this moment as the first battle in the fifth crusade. Our heroes, after resting, searching the Citadel for any further loot, and helping to burn the Dead, return to Kenabres, where they are hailed as heroes!
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