Good session, very much lot of talking, I did a poor job handling it all but it still turned out well I think. Another poor job finding out what the player's plan was for next session but oh well
The players traveled down through the city, finding many mysterious dark elves as well as experiencing the advanced nature of the city, full of tens of thousands of people living in luxury compared to the general state of the surface. They are ruled over by the noble houses and these noble houses also rule the Black Hand that was created to protect Noctolith from future invasions and destructions like the "Sacking of Noctolith" in which Martius cultists during the Devastation nearly destroyed the whole city thanks to some mistake made by the "Seat of Lust". After this sacking, all the "Seats" were reformed into noble "Houses".
They spoke with a shadowfell spirit named leech who sucked off the marks on their hands, ensuring the Black Hand couldnt track them. Leech also let slip that Kaden worships the Raven Queen and was very respectful towards him, in order to get an inspiration for next session you must draw a picture of a gross leech, the grosser the better.
They traveled on to the gates of the noble houses where Viridius found them and the nobles forced the party to fight Viridius as punishment for letting the party get this close. Viridius begged to "touch the shard" to which Wrax (House of Wrath) denied him. The players easily defeated Viridius and pushed him out into the abyss, though the nobles are convinced he isnt dead and have doubled secruity around this "shard".
They then spoke with each of the noble houses, seemingly divided into two camps, the first is Luxia (Lust), Subren (Pride) and Wrax (Wrath) who seem to be the more agreeable and "good" leaders of the Black Hand, and then Enric (Envy), Golge (Gluttony), Avra (Greed) and Solva (Sloth) seem to be the more "evil" faction. What's more, due to the past mistakes of the Seat of Lust, the current House of Lust isnt much, Luxia, its leader, is alone and doesnt dare to foster heirs lest Enric (envy) kills them like his house killed the rest of her house when his house took power after the sacking. Luxia and the House of Lust are struggling to stay relevant and so are the most open and friendly, with Correspondence being a close friend and her housing two more guests, Charles the third, a skeleton wizard from Briarland and a floating suit of armor with motes of starlight for wings and a body hailing from... somewhere.
Each of these houses "control" one of the nations of Europa in a unique way, some more direct and more controlling than others. Enric with Polania (and Rommaco a bit, taking over the responsibility from Luxia), Solva with Rusonia, Golge with Castone, Subren with Saxony, Wrax with Angrose and Avra with Natinal. It seems most of them have direct contact with the Heroes of Europa who lead these nations and are mostly on agreeable terms. Their goal is to help Europa excel and prosper above the rest of the world, they do not consider Astrasan to be a part of Europa and therefore dont have anyone in charge of controlling it as its viewed like an outside threat.
The party spoke with the "bad" group and agreed to travel down to "Oblivion's End Prison" a mysterious prison that was here when Noctolith was first founded. This prison is operated by mechanical constructs called "mechadrones" whose whole purpose is to guard a single prison known as "it" (it calls itself "Zha") who is apparently very dangerous and is able to manipulate those experiencing anger. It attempted to manipulate the party into throwing something into its prison cell, it seems to need just a scrap of something, of anything, likely to break free, and It is able to mentally communicate with those in the prison, though it never talked to Ariange.
It broke the mind of Bernard who was kept down here after the Black Hand Kidnapped him and It almost got him to tear off his clothes and throw those into the cell but Bernard resisted, breaking his mind in the process. This was odd to the nobles since the prisoner hasnt done anything at all for nearly 500 years, since the Devastation in fact. This leads Enric to suspect that something similar is happening now that is causing it to try and break free, but he doesnt know what.
The party were able to blackmail Enric using the threat of throwing something at It in order to release the prisoner if they werent allowed to leave with Bernard. Enric was forced to conceed and declared the party an enemy of the Black Hand (Adamah and Ariange somewhat excepted), stating that once they left the city they would not be welcomed back in and that the Black Hand will be sure to pay them back for this. Adamah, Ariange and Raime were able to stay as guests of Luxia (whom they suspect as being smarter than she lets on) for a few days while Kaden and Squire take Bernard back to the Templars and explain why they shouldnt invade the city lest It escapes.
The game ended there, with the party split up, plenty of interesting information learned and more questions heaped on, an unclear future path forward and plenty of interesting people to talk to
