Session 48 Synopsis

Previously, on Phoenix Rising...
… You feel a soul-rending sensation of isolation and loss which can only be described as feeling as if the gods themselves had suddenly turned away from you … the lion gave Asphodel and Zola enough time to advance and get the graveknight cornered. Zola’s smite evil against it succeeded and now the rest of her attacks would ignore its damage resistance. Asphodel’s attacks were powerful enough that a lot of the damage could get through fairly consistently…

Almost immediately the graveknight just disappeared and nearly at the same time the far door leading into the main corridor opened and a couple guards came rushing in and attacked Jobi from behind. Now the party had to reposition themselves to deal with the new threat coming up from behind them. As they started shuffling their positions, Jobi took substantial damage from the fighters just as another new threat made itself known. A cleric stepped into view at the open door and began casting spells at the rear of the party – flamestrike spells among others. The corridor was a very tight place for this battle since it was only five feet wide so repositioning to get the better melee fighters up to what was now the front line, was difficult. Eventually they were able to get Asphodel, Zola and Kel up front with Jobi, Zerak and Blackwell away from the front line.

Unfortunately, the cleric was pretty good as using the situation to his advantage and let loose with a wall of fire right down the center of the narrow corridor and it got everyone. Those without any fire resistance had to scramble out of the area, trying to take as little fire damage as possible. When Zerak got free of the flames he cast a wall of ice directly on the same area the wall of fire was and was successful in nullifying the blazing wall. Asphodel, Zola and Kel made it out into the main corridor where they discovered more guards (about six more) in addition to the cleric and the graveknight was back as well – looking fully restored on top of it!

The battle in the corridor was also cramped for a while since the guards basically only let one hero out at a time until the guards started to fall. Kel confronted two of the guards, but with all the damage she sustained from fire attacks, it wasn’t long before she fell under their blades. Jobi now ran out into the main corridor to help her with Zerak up near the door as well casting spells and trying to keep the enemies preoccupied while Zola and Asphodel engaged the guards, cleric and graveknight.

Soon, the pandemonium became even worse when Asphodel finally lost it and went into one of her uncontrollable rages. Zerak, Jobi and Blackwell slowly backed out of the main corridor and drug Kel back into the narrow corridor leading into the prison cell chamber and closed the door so Asphodel would not get distracted by them being too close to her instead of their enemies. Zola stayed in the main corridor for at this time she was going toe-to-toe with the graveknight and dared not turn her back on it. Jobi had been healing her to keep her going but now she had to rely on her armor and a little bit of luck to avoid being taken down by this evil and powerful creature. As luck would have it, she and Asphodel brought the creature down soon after all the guards were dispatched. Then all that was left was the evil cleric who had backed away from the melee and had been channeling negative energy to heal the graveknight as well as casting scorching ray spells among others at our party members.

Asphodel, still in an uncontrollable rage, and Zola advanced on the cleric and soon had killed him with extreme prejudice. Now Zola, being the only one near Asphodel, began attempting to calm down the raging halfing-in-an-eidolon-suit. Either fortune was smiling on them or Asphodel was getting better at handling her rage, or probably both, for it did not take too long to calm the raging beast and Asphodel once again dropped out of rage and the small halfing woman sat down next to Zola, exhausted. And Zola banished her fatigue with a quick spell. Now the split group rejoined and did a couple of things. One was to gather anything and everything of value from these now dead bastards and the other was to check on the imprisoned girls in the cells.

Blackwell went to the cells and began unlocking them. Then he tried to approach one of the naked and chained girls to unlock her wrist and ankle chains but only managed to completely spook her where she huddled and flailed in the farthest corner she could get away from him. This prompted Asphodel and Zola to come over and try to calm the girls down one at a time so Blackwell could free them from their chains – Zola even used her angelic appearance, wings and all, to try to get the girls to trust the party.

But as soon as Jobi got a good look at the young girls chained in the cells she had another powerful vision:

Your vision slowly comes into focus and you find yourself watching an extremely debased ritual – one of obvious evil. The circular chamber is large, some sixty to eighty feet in diameter and has a domed ceiling some twenty feet above. The area is lit by many braziers located around the room. There are several hooded figures standing around, all holding some type of branding iron in the center of the brazier fires. There is an altar on one wall that has the two heirloom items on it and a small doll between them. There is also a small 4 inch glass globe in front of the doll with a clear amber colored liquid inside it. On the wall behind the altar are many shelves with other dolls and glass globes, but these globes are glowing with a soft sickly green light and all the dolls have a hole through the middle of their chests . There are name placards under each doll. One is labeled as Degault Neverember and other name of Neverwinter’s government are also listed. The name of the mayor is also up there but no doll or globe rests on the shelf. Telliann also has a name on the shelf but also no doll or globe is there either. In all, there are around two dozen dolls and globes with another dozen or so empty spaces on the shelves. In front of the altar a truly lurid scene is enfolding. On a low marble slab table lays a young naked woman spread out chained by her wrists and ankles. She is terrified and crying. Alira stands at her head – she is naked except for a blood red cloak and some weird looking crown of thorns that seems to be drawing a little blood from her temples. She is now holding the heirloom dagger at chest height pointing down at the woman. At the woman’s feet stands Mordai Vell, also naked with a blood red cloak and crown of thorns on. He is holding the heirloom rod at chest height and pointing it down and the woman.

As one, the two mount the naked woman (who turns out to be a virgin). They use her sexually with wild abandon. As the two devil worshippers climax, Alira plunges the dagger deep between the woman’s breasts and twists it with all her might. As soon as she draws out the dagger, Mordai forcefully replaces it with the rod he was holding. It is obvious that the rod has gone completely through the woman’s body. The other six hooded figures in the room now step up to the woman and brand her body with the heated metal implements, leaving the symbol of Asmodeus burned into her flesh. The woman’s body convulses as she is being branded, like she was still partially alive, even after the middle of her chest had been destroyed by the dagger and rod.

Then, with the two devil worshippers still using the now still woman, a sickly green light comes out of the rod’s tip and arcs over to the glass globe and the doll on the altar. With a blinding flash the doll now has a hole in its chest and the globe is glowing with a sickly green colored liquid inside it. Mordai disengages from the woman and picks up the doll and globe and places them on the shelf where the mayor’s name is. He looks back at Alria, smiling and says, “Now the mayor is under our control. Just a few more left and we’ll own Neverwinter.” “Excellent, love! I’ll work on prepping another virgin straight away. But first, come quickly for we need to finish the ritual!” With that they each walk over to opposite sides of the woman and both of them shout loudly, “For Our Master, Asmodeus!” Then they bend down and bite the woman’s nipples off and eat them. Then with fresh blood smeared on their faces, they kiss each other deeply as the vision fades …

Zerak had noticed that Jobi was standing stiff as a board staring out into space and tried to rouse her from whatever had captivated her. Slowly she regained a sense of what was around her and looked at Zerak. She had a growing horrified look about her as she processed what her latest vision was telling her. When she saw how concerned Zerak looked about her, she told him about what she had seen, not leaving out any detail. Then Zerak got everyone’s attention and retold Jobi’s vision to the rest of the group. Stern looks and growing anger towards the devil worshippers spread quickly among our heroes.

It took quite a while to calm all the girls down, get them freed and make them simple clothes from the cloaks and other pieces of clothing from the dead devil worshippers, but eventually they had them clothed and had given them some food and water. Asphodel in particular took a very active role in helping these girls. She knew all too well what it was like being captive when so young. They decided to take them out of this place and get them to Telliann who could use the city’s resources to help these traumatized girls. Telliann agreed to get them to a temple and try to find out who their parents are so they could be returned to their families, if they were still alive. They also told her what they had found down there and that they were going to finish getting to the root of the operation.

Then our heroes went back down into the depths of the Hall of Knowledge and were planning on resting in the broken statue room again but first decided to look down the main corridor and into the other open door – presumably where the other guards and cleric had come from. Blackwell slowly advanced into the area beyond and found a similar arrangement of door-hallway-door-room. The room beyond looked like a barracks, complete with beds and personal footlockers, a table and some chairs. But it also had another “special table.” And there was another girl bent over the edge lying face down on it; her arms outstretched and chained by her wrists and her legs chained to the table legs by her ankles. She was bloody and dirty and at first appeared to be dead but then Blackwell noticed she was breathing, albeit very shallow breathing. He alerted the rest of the group and they came into the room. Blackwell approached her and unlocked the chains binding her. She immediately scrambled into a corner of the room crying and flailing her arms wildly trying to keep anyone away from her. She couldn’t have been a day over nine years old. She was obviously badly abused, raped, and completely traumatized mentally for she would not say a word and stared wide-eyed into space. This time it took Asphodel and Zola a very long time to get the girl to calm down. They cleaned her up a little and made her some clothes as well then escorted her to Telliann. She told the party that she would personally take this one straight to the temple to see if the high priest(ess) could help her or at least console her.

And so we leave our band of heroes after they had returned to the underground broken statue room to rest and regain their strength before they continued on exploring this unholy degenerate dungeon. Positioning themselves in the broken statue room assured that at least none of the inhabitants down here would escape to the surface using this route. They only had two more doors to explore here as far as they knew, on the left side of the main corridor and the one at the end of the main corridor…