Session 24

Date: 16 September 2020

Prev: Session 23

Next: Session 25

The party arrives in Redford. Quinn says she’ll be visiting the comte’s mansion to inform them of what happened over the last few days. She invites the party to join her, saying she’ll vouch for their ability and assistance. After some discussion, the party declines. They consider searching for Astrid or visiting the market, but conclude they want to visit the standing stones first. Quinn says she’ll be there through at least tomorrow if they need her. She offers directions to the standing stones, directing them around the outside of town and to follow the road north. Pasky separates from the party to do some reconnaissance in town (and try out his new stealth theme).

The party follows the directions and climbs the hill to the standing stones. Mino keeps an eye out for any signs of recent visitors, but the space seems clear. Raen approaches the stones, noticing that there’s a spatial distortion around the stones that muffles sound and dims light slightly. Inspecting the stones, he notices they are worn, roughly cut, and somewhat covered in moss. He returns and informs the group. Nergil approaches this time and pokes the moss, which opens an eye and flails tentacles at him, knocking more than the wind out of him. He reacts with hellish rebuke and it drops to the ground in a blob of ooze and moss as he runs back to the rest of the group, who move in. Mino fires his new crossbow for the first time, and notes that it doesn’t have much effect, as does Quill and his scorching freezing ray. Raen circles around the stones, trying to get a better look at the situation; Mino trades the crossbow for the warhammer and sentinel shield and joins him. Corrin casts healing spirit to help Nergil regain some strength.

Nergil takes a risk and uses some of the blood he gathered from the bugbears to summon greater demon, summoning a shadow demon, and draws a protective circle around himself and Quill. Quill and Mino are not thrilled about this development and promise Nergil a reckoning later. Quill upcasts banishment and targets both the alkilith and Nergil’s shadow demon – but only the shadow demon is actually banished. Both Quill and Nergil maintain concentration on their spells, because if Quill’s banishment fails, Nergil needs to maintain control of the demon when it would return.

Mino attempts to bodily carry Raen away from the creature’s sphere of influence, but Raen slips out of his grasp. They step out of the spatial distortion, but the creature doesn’t follow, so they move back in to continue the fight. Ro, Mino, and Raen are all affected mentally by the creature’s presence. Ro and Mino actually become magically confused – Ro takes off into the woods, while Mino’s flailing slightly bruises Raen. Eventually, after wearing it down with Raen’s hell dagger and Nergil’s blight spell, Quill’s scorching shocking ray burns the rest of the alkilith away.

Nergil and Quill finish out the duration of their spells, completing the banishment and letting the summoning lapse naturally. With the confusion wearing off, Corrin reunites with Ro. After making sure Raen is okay, Mino starts in on Nergil about taking dangerous risks and overestimating his own abilities, which just yesterday killed him, and he doesn’t want to see that happen to Nergil. Quill silently approves, stepping gingerly out of the blood circle. Nergil pointedly brushes away and ignores the criticism. As the party begins to head back to town, Raen mentions to Mino that while he shouldn’t overestimate himself, he shouldn’t underestimate his friends either. Although they’re travelling together, the party walks separately and in silence.

Quill spends some time during the walk theorizing about what they just fought and why. During the fight, they’d wondered if the spatial distortion was being caused by the creature, and were curious if it could leave the distortion, but Quill ultimately concludes the distortion was due to the stones and the overlapping of planes. Raen remembers noticing that the moss was only corroding (melting/cracking) the stone where it had been lying. He theorizes that if the stone stabilizes the ley lines, and that thing was eroding them, it probably doesn’t occur naturally and was introduced to break down the stones (and therefore the planar boundaries). Quill wants to talk to the people in the town about what happened, both government and any local casters.