Session 24: When Last We Met - 2/6/23

General Summary

When last we met, the party found itself wandering the depths of the Abyss. Within Baphomet's endless maze, the party slowly made progress through the twisting, disorienting labyrinth of the Horned King. Sending Mistral's Shadowspawn ahead, they eventually find their way to the center of the maze where they come upon a familiar looking chest. Mistral instructs his spawn to open it while they take cover behind a wall, sensing it is probably trapped. 
The shadow opens the chest and sure enough is engulfed and destroyed by lightning. Sensing the danger has passed, Mistral inspects the chest to find a foreboding looking set of black armor. The party surmises this is the Chain of Tharizdun - the second of the three artifacts of the Chained Oblivion. 
Romaia picks it up and places it within her bag of holding. As that happens, a huge demonic minotaur creature lands in the center of the maze and engages the party in battle. Mistral attempts negotiations with the monster, to which it replies by kicking Arcturus to the ground. Ukko Arrives as Mistral traps the demon with a high powered entangle spell. It is at this moment the party decides to retreat out of the maze. They make it to the exit as the creature struggles against its bonds, urging Ükkô to cast plane shift and get them out of there. Ükkô pragmatically stresses that the demon would only be held for a few more seconds and would be upon them before he could cast the spell. Instead, the party heals up quickly and takes up tactical positions at the exit of the maze and lies in wait.
It eventually is freed from the entangle spell and makes its way toward the party via the top of the maze walls itself. It comes upon them once more and they all launch spell and attack on it. Finally Ükkô casts polymorph on the demon transforming its substantial size into that of a house cat. It's vicious limb and gore attacks replaced by scratches of its tiny claws.  Ükkô instructs the party not to kill the creature as that will revert it to its original form. Instead informing one of them to grab the beast, which Celeste successfully does (not without receiving several scratch attacks from the creature.)
Isolde freezes the cat's limbs immobilizing it, before yeeting it off the cliff edge. Whether the fall would  be enough to kill the creature is unknown to the party, but it at least bought them some time. Ükkô prepares the plane shift spell just as a humanoid figure approaches the party from out of the maze. The party is transported back to the material plane but not before catching a glimpse of the endless maze in its totality and the Horned King himself on their way out. 
The party arrives back on the material plane and Ükkô collapses to the ground, utterly exhausted. 
And that's where we'll pick up next time!

Rewards Granted

The Chain of Tharizdun - Accursed armor and relic of the Chained Oblivion. Now to destroy it?

PARTY LEVELS UP 

yay

Character(s) interacted with

Ükkô - Shape-shifting, plane shifting man about town
Shadowspawn - Summoned by Mistral, is an embodiment of despair, causing those near it to be weighed down by their own sorrow and melancholy. But still served a useful purpose through out the maze. Farewell for now. 
Demonic Minotaur Creature - Demonic name unknown (Possibly can be found with research). Seemed to be guarding the relic. Did not parlay. was turned into a cat and yeeted off a cliff. 
Lost Humanoid - Approached the party from inside the maze saying she was a lost adventurer and needed their help. Her pleas were ignored as the party got the hell out of there.

Notes

Date	Event
17th of Morrigan	Party navigated through the maze Found the Chain of Tharizdun Fought a minotaur demon Escaped the Abyss

It will be coming upon evening when we pick up next time.

Report Date

06 Feb 2023