Session 62

The Uncompleted Spire

Date: Wednesday, 29th September, 2021
Attending Players: Ashara, Embra, Ish'Mael, Victalyassa
Time 2 Hours (Total: 203 Hours)

Game Time 24th of Sowmeadow, 9 PM
To
24th of Sowmeadow, 9 PM
Game Locations:
Valtaska

On a desolate plane with craggy grounds and sweltering, dry heat, a woman stumbles to the ground. There was no need for this long march across the plane, but it was customary for the slaves to do this as "redemption" for their souls.

That might be true for the believers, but she was not one. She saw this Deus for what it is.

A False God.

A Charlatan.

Some entity with too much power, too much ego, and too little sense for the ire it will draw.

An arcane whip smacked across her back, burning her.

The pain was severe, but the whip would only bruise it, so that her body could still be used. If there was one salvation, it was that she knew it would be a long time before she would die. For now, she marched in this dry heat to the next portal, where she would be back in her home plane, set to work on another egotistical project.

9 PM, fall day, 24th of Sowmeadow. Currently, chilly out, approaching freezing outside with a moderate wind. The light wind mixes with a hint of sleet above the Spire fortress. A blue portal door gives off a faint glow in the north of the courtyard. 4 standing stones live in the middle, flanked by a slave pen to the left and a giant golem of sorts to the right. Some sort of magical mark is under the standing stones.
At the top of the spire, Ashara and Ish Ma'el look down at the surrounding fortress. Behind them, a giant drake lifts its head in the air, confused by the sudden appearance of the heroes. It lets out a roar, catching the mercenary pirate's attention. Embra and Victalyassa hear the roar and look to the top of the tower, comfortable from their position hidden in the bushes nearby. Ish Ma'el throws a bead of force to the drake from his necklace, hoping to quell the beast before it becomes a greater threat. The drake is pushed ten feet back and off the side of the top of the spire, leaving a bubble of force in its place.
Ashara looks around before deciding to follow the drake down. She slaps the bubble up into the air and runs underneath it. She leaps off the spire and reached out for the drake with one hand, missing its back but gripping onto its left leg. With her right hand, she slashes with her Katana into the gut of the beast while trying to level herself out and tighten her grip. The drake pulls and swings itself upward in an erratic pattern to remove Ashara. It moves upwards of 20 feet in the air, bumping the bead of force sideways. Ashara is flung free and drops back onto the tower top. In reaction to Ashara falling, Ish Ma'el sends a feather fall to her, causing her to lightly float down. The teeth of the drake snaps down toward her but underestimates her location and misses. It tries to correct with a talon swipe, missing both times.
Victalyassa looks on into the spire and sees Ashara fighting against the drake's talon. Vic aims to run up the wall of one of the guard towers to grip them and throw them to Embra down below. She activates her grips and moves at a climbing speed equal to her movement speed. She climbs up and around the tower, gripping and releasing rocks as she moves. She pops up above the crest of the tower and grips the guard by his legs, lobbing him off the side, screaming as he falls over. Embra takes aim with her crossbow and hits the man before he lands, the shot landing at his eye and turning his body to amke him land on his neck for an instant death. Vic looks over to see the interior of the fortress, before ducking down low to maintain her stealth.
Ish Ma'el looks down below and sees the golem down below getting up. He unleashes a Shatter spell at it, releasing large chucks of its body down to the ground below, sloughing off its stone body. One of the four pillars in the center also is damaged by the force blast, which trembles the ground beneath their feet. Que Queeg flies at the Rockbreaker drake and assists Ashara against the winged beast. The ascended stone guardian looks up to Ish Ma'el and starts marching toward them.
A nearby Sand Cultist fires a blast from his crossbow toward Ish Ma'el and the bolt snaps the strings, breaking the bow in front of him, causing him to rush out and run toward the western side of the map. Another crossbowmen fires toward Ashara but misses as she lands on the top of the tower. Ish Ma'el waves her to go down, and she takes a small leap to land on the ground below, ending her free fall.
Ashara takes a few steps around the tower, moving quickly and unleashing her necrotic shroud as she nears the Ascended guardian. Unfortunately, neither the Golem nor the nearby Deus Hand Priest are feared by the skeletal wings ripping out of her back. The Deus Hand Priest launches a blast of sand and rock spiking towards her from its position across the courtyard at her. There is a bright flash of light as Ashara's celestial guardian appears before her to take the damage.
Elsewhere in the fortress, Embra runs past the broken body of the sand cultist and opens the nearby door. It opens with no issues as she runs inside to an exterior from the primary courtyard. She sees a few cultists and another ascneded guardian before back peddling into the little room she bypassed and hiding behind the wall together her plan. Victalyassa observers this from the tower top and formulates a plan of her own.
Victalyassa leaps off the side of her tower onto the wall and runs across, leaping and climbing up the next tower like a panther to a thick tree. She throws herself up and over the tower top and removes her battleaxe, thrusting it into the neck of the unsuspecting guard, reloading his crossbow. The guard falls down dead instantly.
From atop the tower, the drake looks around for Ashara, but spots Ish Ma'el nearby. The drake unleashes a blast of fire-like sand that pierces through his skin like little razors. Ish Ma'el unleashes a second Shatter at the stones in the center of the courtyard. It bursts out, shattering the "spire" stones outward and into the guardian's arm, which comes up to block. The deus hand priest is flung back into the slave pen cage, but her takes some power into his own hand at the same time. The slaves in the cage cower in the cave as the rumble of the cracking spires pulses the ground around and within the fortress. "BLASPHEMY!" can be heard in the air, said by an other-worldly voice.
The ascended guardian lifts its mighty sword up in the arm after recovering from the shatter blast. It swings twice down on Ashara's necrotic form and strikes against another bright flash of the guardian's cry. Ashara shoves her guardian to the side and absorbs the second blow herself. "Decision Ashara" says the guardian," what is to come of these slaves, a life of misery or salvation?"
Ashara ponders this before casting haste onto herself and unleashing her necrotic fury on the beast in front of it. She moves with ferocity that crumbles the guardian in front of her into a smoky necrotic smoke, leaving only a small ghostly human skeleton in the rubble. Ashara lands on her feet and runs toward the Deus hand Priest by the slave cage. While scared at first, the priest unleashes the built-up chatter power into two magic missile-like blast to Ashara and Ish Ma'el. With her haste, she moves, but hardly recognizes that her guardian physically shields the small amount of damage to her side. Ish Ma'el moves back to the tower top and is only lightly hit back by the shattering force that unleashes some bricks down into the courtyard below.
Embra goes into a stealth position as a few cultists and Deus Hand priests emerge from the tents in the external courtyard area. She moves to a position where she can point her crossbow toward the tents and unleashes her bolts. The closest cultist is hit under his armpit and through his ribs out the other side. The sand cultist spits blood from his mouth as he falls back into his tent as another one emerges, "must've been the wind" he says.
Another rumble echoes out, the party all hearts, "I hear you, my loyal servants!"
Vic witnesses Ashara unleash her might against the golem and puts her battleaxe away. She witnesses that another golem has turned from the courtyard and the amount of cultists massing in the external courtyard area, and decides to position herself in a way that will allow herself a solid next action. The deus hand priest in the external courtyard takes command of the small cultists nearby and deigns to find why the other cultist hand died so quickly.
The rock drake in the courtyard swoops down and clenches its teeth into Ish Ma'el, flying upwards with a chunk of Ish Ma'el in its mouth, swipes out at him with his tail and whips Ish Ma'el hard. The tail penetrates into Ish Ma'el and lifts him into the air. With his near dying breath, Ish Ma'el screams his Thunderstep spell away, causing the tail to nearly shatter off completely, raining scales and rocks down onto Ashara. Ish Ma'el suddenly poofs next to Victalyassa as she is stealthing and sneaking near the external courtyard. She is startled by the sudden explosion and the appearance of her beaten and bloody comrade. In the distance, a lone Que Queeg follows the drake in desperation.
From Ashara's position, she can now see a bleak priest walk out from the tower building and, with beads in hand, says, "The ones you warned us of are here, assist us in this time!" unleashing a fire bolt toward her in her banshee form. A skeletal wing flies around her and whips the bolt away as she turns to see herself being surrounded by another Deus hand and cultist. Ashara grips her Katana with two hands and strikes down the Deus hand touching the slave pens, stabbing through the bars and nearly into a slave looking on. She turns away from the cultists nearest her that swings and misses, and she leaps toward the Bleak priest.
Elsewhere, Embra fires from her safety into the group of cultists in the external courtyard, having difficulty gathering her bolt in the chamber, but luckily unleashing it at the right time to pin her target against a nearby wall, causing the guards to wail in the unknown.