Session 4: Peasants

Quick overview

Having just dispatched the Hidden Ones in the hallway, Ben sent Bartholomew to scout the two doors in the catacombs gallery. He heard impish chatter behind one, and goats around a campfire in the other.

The adventurers decided to deal with the bigger threat first. Sera burst the door open, flinging a shoddily hung tavern sign into a room full of blue-skinned Dark Ones. Among the Dark Ones were two standouts: Snotspill, with a very fancy-looking spear, and Shadowcrow, a gray-skinned assassin, who cast the battlefield into darkness using a magical flock of crows.

The heroes responded to the obfuscation with strategically placed AOE spells from the casters and S-tier tanking from Sera. However, Shadowcrow zeroed in on Ciaran, and successfully dropped him. Fortunately, Ciaran lucked into a natural 20 to bring him to his feet, and the party regrouped to finish off the foes.

Battered and exhausted, the party retreated to Tristram with Ogden’s sign. Ogden was overjoyed with this: a brief respite from the ongoing tragedy. He rewarded the heroes handsomely. They also visited Cain, who identified Thunderstroke and the Optic Amulet for them, and eagerly asked what the heroes had learned from the Royal Sending Stones.

The party then went on a brief shopping spree. They bought out Pepin’s stock of healing potions, and Sera convinced Ben the party should invest in him by splurging on Adria’s Wand of the War Mage.

Later that night, restless in bed, Ben tried the Sending Stones alone. He called out, curiously:

Hey, is anybody there? Are you okay? What’s going on?

After a long pause, a deep, gritty voice replied:

Where have you gone, my prince?

Where have you gone, my Lord?

Am I serving you well? Are you serving me? Are we serving together?

I hope you found it. I hope you come back to me, my lord.

The next morning, the party visited with Cain once again, and asked Cain to try the stone himself.

My king? My prince? It is I, Cain.

We are searching for you. Where are you? Are you okay? How can we help?

The same grizzled voice replied:

Deckard Cain!? You betrayed me!

I know what you’re up to. I know what you’re doing.

You might have fooled them, but you can’t fool me, PEASANT!

The blood drained from Cain’s face. He was certain that this was King Leoric’s voice, now fully lost to madness and possibly beyond saving. But perhaps there is still hope for Prince Albrecht.

The party returned to the catacombs beneath the cathedral, and opened the other door to reveal a clan of six goatmen around a campfire. The goatmen were nimble fighters and far more intelligent than any previous foes. Sera put herself in the line of danger to defend her newfound friends, and Ciaran cleverly covered the ground in Entangle’s nebula vines. Ben then followed up with a well-placed Burning Hands, cooking the ensnared beastmen. After locking down their foes, the party easily dispatched them and looted the room.

Each of the rooms contained one more door. Ben and Bart scouted both, hearing absolutely nothing from either. The party decided to try the more ornamental door first, reasoning the King and Prince may have gone that way.

They burst open the heavy ornamental door to find a small chapel with pews and a central shrine. The room appeared mostly empty, aside from four impossibly lifelike grotesque statues. Ben eyed them suspiciously, and ultimately decided blasting was the best policy, kicking off a battle with Nightwing the Cold and his three gargoyle companions. The gargoyles used their powers of flight to evade attacks of opportunity, and would retreat and turn to stone to regenerate lost mass. However, the party prevented them from regenerating by focusing them down quickly, and swiftly dispatched the stone-skinned demons.

The chapel is now quiet, and the room is begging to be searched…