#last session

Jeremiah Arkham: about 5 minutes, why you ask?

Jonathan Crane: when batman defeated me, the first thing I thought is that you would stop seeing me as friend and that you would hate me

Jeremiah Arkham: wait, are you telling me that you were afraid of losing me? why?

Jonathan Crane: because you were the best friend I ever had, you are like...my twin or soulmate? well I dont know. I love you, these feelings also terrifies me

Jeremiah Arkham: jonathan I also love you

Jonathan Crane: AW CMON! EVEN IF IM A SOCIOPATH THAT DRESSES AS SCARECROW OBSESSED WITH FEAR?!

So last night we came upon a hive of Vescavor which was creating a colossal swarm too large for our army to fight through or maneuver around. If we’d tried to fight it, the army would have been driven mad by their droning or their equipment would have been eaten. And trying to go around was a no-go because our scouts let us know that the only way up the canyon wall we’ve seen this entire time was the single extremely poorly kept stairs we’d found up to a cathedral a day back, which we couldn’t possibly get an entire army up.

Our scouts did however spot the entrance to the Vescavour hive outside of the swarm itself. They suggested it would be possible for our smaller strike force to get in and kill the queen, which would in turn disperse the entire swarm in one strike. We agreed, and the party split off from the main army and made for the Vescavour Hive.

We almost made it inside without incident. Luna of course climbed down with ease because she’s Luna. Melody lost her footing at the last second and Luna caught her. Hiskaria just used the scale of Trendalev to levitate down. Draven thought he’d be all well and good because Luna was at the bottom AND Hiskaria had feather fall.

Then a part of the swarm spotted him. Because that’s just his cursed luck.

A portion of the swarm flew at him. He leapt over the edge and managed to climb halfway down before the swarm knocked his climbing hook and rope from the cliff side. He tried to get hold of the cliff face with his hands but the resin-like material the Vescavours made their nest out of was too slick, and he fell. Fortunately, Luna just barely caught him with a little guidance from Melody.

Inside of the cave, they managed to follow the sound of the droning to try to find the source of the demon-insect infestation. They came across where they’re born, which I won’t go into detail on except to say Vescaours are nasty. We snuck past, succeeding because Hiskaria was clever enough to have prepared vanish today and she cast it on Draven who is in a word NOT stealthy (War Priest/Paladin heavy army solidarity)

Beyond that chamber we found the queen. We were still sneaking, Draven was still invisible for a moment, so we decided to try to creep a little closer and possibly get a surprise round so Luna could get in some tasty sneak attack damage.

We succeeded in sneaking closer, and Luna got in her sneak attack. The rest of us struck as well, with Draven making his weapon ice and hitting but also getting into three separate auras of chaos which ended up making him confused. The queen was killed, but when Hiskaria approached Draven after combat to see if he was alright he mistook her for one of the Vescavours and struck her before the confusion wore off, for a ton of damage because of course he rolled max on his weapon damage when he was hitting a friend even if the ice damage didn’t hurt the tiefling woman. He immediately apologized multiple times and burned one of his highest spell slots to heal her.

Hiskaria informed them that infestations like these usually occur near portals to the Abyss, so there’s likely a portal nearby. A fact made more obviously true by the Riftwarden symbol on her back pulsing. So we continued deeper in, until we found this place in the wall where something seemed to be trying to push its way through. Melody used her mythic power to pull a spell she didn’t normally know from her god’s spell list, dimensional anchor. Which for a Shelynite looked like her crosstitching the portal closed.

With the insects and the portal gone, we thought we were done for the day. Until there was a blast of bitter cold from up above, and the sound of our army in battle. We made a run for the entrance.

Outside were the scenes of icy death. And a white dragon head peaked its way over the ledge at us. Then a man atop it. Stauton Vhane. The dwarven traitor to the crusades who was currently at the head of Citadel Drezen. He had our NPC bard Nurah captured.

He taunted us, thanking us for taking care of the pest problem, and commenting on how without it he was able to see that a little army had mobilized right at his doorstep, and that he needed to be a good host and come say hello. He’d expected Nurah to put a knife in our backs by now, but ‘paladins’ (read: a really self righteous anti-paladin) have the ability to detect alignment and he can see the little spark we’ve set alight in her. He’s going to have to snuff it out.

Draven on hearing he was going to take Nurah and torture her made a desperate attempt to save her and cast arrow of law at Stauton Vhane. It would have been a direct hit. But purple crystals with mythic power inside, like the ones Aruelu Vorlesh used against us back in the Grey Garrison, blocked my attack. “Ah, it’s the One-Eyed Knight. Well. See you back home.”

Then Stauton and his mount—which was not a white dragon but a chimera with a white dragon head infused with mythic power named Soltengrebbe—flew off. And we were left to check on the army and lick our wounds and plan a counter strike.

The mythic chimera had wiped out 10% of our army, and couldn’t be hurt by traditional weapons. If anyone was going to slay it when the time came, it was going to have to be the four of us. No one else was going to be able to put a scratch on it with its epic defenses.

We discussed what to do next. This spot was not defendable, so although Draven was feeling vulnerable after using a number of resources to fight the queen and close the portal, they marched on Drezen.

At the outskirts of Drezen the army found a defensible position and made camp, then had their scouts check the area around the citadel. What they found were a number of possible objectives leading up to actually striking the Citadel proper.

For one reason or another—probably because he’s a cocky bastard—Stauton hadn’t mobilized his armies yet despite having three outside the citadel. We could pick each of them off and capture the arms and free the prisoners they held. The third army were an army of the undead with some sort of crypt spewing darkness behind them, which didn’t have resources for us but which clearly shouldn’t be left behind us when we went to strike the citadel.

There were also a few smaller things for our strike force to handle. There was a bridge we needed to capture for our army to even reach Paradise Hill where the prisoners were being held by sheer demons on the most defensible spot besides the citadel itself. There were ballista we needed to take out on the outermost wall of the Citadel that would otherwise be able to pick apart our armies. And there was said vault of darkness behind the army of the undead, which would take a smaller force to actually go in and investigate once the ghouls were cleared out.

We decided on the day we arrived to take the bridge so we’d have all our movement options open day two. We managed to take it without dying or the enemy knocking the bridge out, although the commander got away. We did take two prisoners, tieflings named Lester and Yosef. Lester tried to jump off the bridge but only managed to break his leg, because he was a little dumb about the height the bridge actually was. I had some of our clerics heal him because I’m not cruel, but they’re still our prisoners and I still don’t like them because they were still Deskari worshippers * pouty face *.

Melody can try her whole redeem them thing if she wants. We got a little info from them but only confirmation of stuff we already suspected nothing really new, they were low rank and file and don’t really know anything. We’re being nice because we’re not assholes who treat prisoners badly unlike the Deskari worshippers. Hiskaria who’s been a prisoner before decided to share some wine with them since she didn’t have cigarettes to give them.

We had a war meeting, and decided day two we were going to march on Paradise Hill, take the hill, free the prisoners, and fortify the most defensible location. Then from there we’d have a straight shot for our strike force to go after the ballistas. And if we felt up for it maybe one more thing.

After that they slept for the night. And got attacked in the night by the ghoul army, which hurt morale. So we decided: change of plans. Fuck those ghouls. Time to strike back and avenge our fallen. So we marched on the cemetery and battled the ghoul army. We defeated their forces, but immediately after the darkness from the crypt drew more from the ground.

One of my soldiers Arles noted that this would likely never end unless we dealt with whatever was in the crypt. So Draven gave the order for the armies to continue their assault with the officers in charge while our strike force broke off and infiltrated the unhallowed crypt.

Inside there was a permanent darkness spell, which everyone but Melody could see through since we’re mostly not humans. Hiskaria carried a torch in her tail to light up around her so Mel Bell could see as well.

Luna snuck ahead, using the darkness to virtually perfectly mask her stealth with her mythic powers. Looking inside, she saw the commander from the bridge talking to an undead creature. The creature noticed something was amiss. Luna managed to down a potion of invisibility before he reached her, and he didn’t end up actually spotting her. Then Luna retreated back to us and told us what she saw. Melody identified the creature as a berbalang from Luna’s description of the winged long tongued undead creature that had been talking to Barret.

Luna told us to sneak as close to the door as we could, and she was going to try to take Barret out in one strike. Then we should attack at the sound of violence. We did as she asked, making it to the door. Then we waited, until there was the sound of a yell from the other room as Luna imbedded her axe into Barret’a back. He wasn’t dead yet. Melody followed up and finished him off before he could act however. Draven swung around the corner and faced the Berbalang—which had realized something was wrong and was now incorporeal, it’s real body unconscious somewhere but nowhere to be seen. Draven attacked and got a good strike. The Berbalang taunted him, asking if he liked the attack on his army the night before, or if he’d missed it and simply let his men die. He said something about Draven playing with his men like toys which set Draven off, telling the undead monster that his men were not toys for anyone’s amusement. The undead creature seemed pleased to have gotten under the legion commander’s skin. Then he got shot by Hiskaria with arrows a few times for the trouble. He tried to attack Draven, but only hit his shield. Then Luna destroyed his incorporeal form. We knew however that it wasn’t over, his body had to be somewhere. Melody used a mythic point to learn invisibility purge, but it revealed nothing. We thought maybe there was a hidden door, or perhaps he had taken Barret’s wand of dimension door and left before projecting. However Hiskaria found the wand and confirmed that wasn’t the case.

When she did, the Berbalang struck, having used alter self to appear as one of the crusader corpses along the walls of the crypt. He paralyzed her, and had her by the throat, ready to kill her in a single move if any of us acted. He told us to drop our weapons. Melody did. Draven carefully set down Radiance. Luna dropped her axe, then said she was taking off her cloak. She dropped it atop her axe.

The Berbalang pulled Hiskaria with him towards the door, talking about the horrible torture he had planned for her. Draven was doing the math in his head, knowing he had the magic and the mythic power to resurrect Hiskaria if the worst happened—and knowing he was not willing to let her be taken to be tortured. Fortunately it never came down to finding out if he was willing to let her get killed and revived to save her, because Luna had a far more clever idea.

When the Berbalang had turned the corner just enough that she was out of his line of sight, she pulled her axe from under the cloak, drank a potion of invisibility, and made her way across the room to intercept them. She put an axe in the undead creature’s back, getting sneak attack, killing it outright, and saving Hiskaria.

When Hiskaria could move again she told them not to ever do that again, that next time they needed to not drop their weapons, and just finish off the monster, even if it put her at risk. Melody and Luna disagree with this. Draven intends to honor this request if it comes up again, and likely ask the same of her in return later.

With this victory, they dispelled the unhallow effect, and with that the armies of the dead finally fell. As we exited the crypt, we saw hundreds of ghosts rising from the cemetery into the afterlife. It would seem that spirits of Crusaders whose lives were lost here had been trapped by the spell, and were now finally free to pass on. The army’s morale was at an all time high with both a victory and the visual embodiment of them saving the souls of their fallen comrades from the enemy. Irabeth suggested that while we take down the ballista, the officers could lead the armies in strikes against Paradise Hill and Southbank while morale was high. Draven agreed with this course of action, and the strike force split off across the bridge while Irabeth led the army to free the prisoners on Paradise Hill.

Strangely enough we were, in fact, able to just walk into Citadel Drezen’s watchtower. At the top there was just a single Brimorak, on guard but distracted. Given that last time we fought a Brimorak we killed it in a single sneak attack round, we decided to try that again. We had Luna turn invisible and sneak up on it, quite a few levels higher than last time. She did a full attack on it…and it was still up. It set off a fireball into the air, summoning four more Brimoraks to the watchtower.

They peppered us with fireballs. Luna killed the one in front of her. Hiskaria did the smart thing and moved away from Draven and Melody before the fireballs started going off. Melody at least has good enough reflexes to half a few of them. Draven…does not. But he’s an HP tank, over 100 HP at level 8, so if anyone needs to get hit but three full force fireballs it should be him and not someone else.

After that Draven decided he was done with fire and swift cast a spell he took for flying today but which serves a very nice secondary purpose of protecting from fire: Shield of Wings. Five wings of flame formed from his back, shielding him from flame and allowing him to fly. Then he attacked the Brimorak in front of him, who noticed the hidden bleeding mark of Deskari on his arm. The demon commented that he wasn’t the only one with burning blood. Before Draven could question the demon, however, Hiskaria put an arrow through its head. Draven justified it because the demon wouldn’t have likely given him any answers anyways.

Melody was hurting as she fought the last one. It slipped away from her with its teleport and took over the ballista, intent to try to shoot one of us with it before it would go down. Melody decided ‘not today’ and used a mythic point to succeed a cool feat of acrobatics to use her glaive to leap from the wall and basically pole vault forward and skewer it before it could shoot.

And that set off a chain reaction. It set off that ballista, which shot across at another, destroying another, etc, in a beautiful domino effect. Draven looked up at the citadel just in time to see Stauton glowering down at them before he turned away. Draven was feeling particularly cocky in a rare moment for him—he really liked the Shield of Wings spell, it makes him feel impressive. As they heads enemy reinforcements coming, Hiskaria could teleport one person with dimension door, and Draven could fly one, so he offered his hand to Melody with his best charming smile and asked if she’d like to fly down. The flirting was purely playful because he was in a good mood and Melody is the only one int the party around his age to flirt with lol. She’s beautiful and he’d say she’s the best of them without hesitation, but she also frustrates him to no end sometimes and he’s more of a ‘divine retribution’ holy person than a ‘offer a hand of forgiveness’ sort (his name means hunter/avenger of faith what did you expect?) so their world views are a bit at odds. He thinks she’s a bit naive. Sweet, pure, and definitely the definition of a good person. But naive. And he doesn’t want to be the one to hurt that nativity but with something coming up he’s pretty sure he’s the one he’s going to have to drop some hard truths.

…I got off subject lol sorry I’m really excited for what’s to come in regards to possible Melody and Draven conflict.

They met up with their armies. They’d been victorious at both Paradise Hill and Southbank. At Paradise Hill the prisoners had actually broken free and helped the army, being crusaders themselves who had been planning an escape attempt already and used the chaos of the moment to their advantage. At Southbank they managed to get arms to help outfit the army more thoroughly. Morale was at the highest it had ever been, with the soldiers feeling like victory was virtually assured.

We had some drinks, made some plans, and then talked to Irabeth about something we’d been meaning to bring up for a while. We’d had a vision back when the Wardstone broke, of her and Stauton talking like friends back in the days before he betrayed the city. We wanted to know what she knew about him, Melody wanted to know if she thought there was any good in him, and Draven just wanted to check in that she was okay after facing him again.

Irabeth told them about the Hammers of Heaven, who were once an all dwarven legion of crusaders lead by Stauton. They were originally the ones who headed the Raven Corps as well, which is where the Raven Corps’ bad reputation really stemmed from. Since Irabeth was in the Raven Corps initially, Stauton was her commanding officer before he revealed his true colors and she stopped his plot to destroy the Wardstone the first time.

When he attacked this time, he didn’t even give her the time of day. No acknowledgement at all, not even a second glance. That stung, after everything.

We decided to have some drinks and rest for the evening, then mount our attack in the morning.

Which we did. First thing, we charged on Citadel Drezen. We were supposed to make a beeline as the strike team for the entrance to try to track down Stauton, but as we approached we heard the sound of wings and Soltengrebbe the Mythic Chimera landed in the middle of our forces and started laying waste. He pinned Aravashnial and brutally injured Arles. We knew we had no choice but to turn around and kill the beast, or our army would be wiped out, they couldn’t do anything to harm it on their own.

So we did. Hiskaria did what Hiskaria does best and shot a bunch of arrows and spells all at once, including mythic slow, which he burned a mythic point to avoid failing the save on. Melody and Draven charged in, Draven with Radiance enchanted as Holy with his sacred weapon ability and Melody with a judgement going. Luna slipped around behind him and did an ungodly amount of damage flanking with Melody. Soltengrebbe saw things were already not going in his favor, and decided he was at least going to take one of us down with him. He turned around and laid into Luna. She used mythic dodge to try to avoid his gore but he burnt another mythic point to up his attack beyond her boosted AC. Despite all of this, Luna was still just barely up at the end. Then Hiskaria finished things off. An arrow to one head. An arrow to the other head. And a scorching ray into the white dragon head, ending the combat. As the body began to be covered in purple crystal, we went to see to those who were fatally injured. I burnt a 3rd level spell to get a cure serious wounds into Arles to make sure the old soldier would see another day, and Hiskaria tended to her mentor Riftwarden Arashniaval, who then proceeded to summon a number of celestial giant eagles and call the army forward to continue the assault alongside Arles.

And we were engulfed in a golden light as Radiance purified the dark crystals that had been growing out of the chimera’s corpse, and with that we gained our second mythic rank. I can draw arrows and spells to me now so they don’t hit my friends instead~ Who said it’s not possible to draw aggro in Pathfinder? You just need to be mythic and willing to be really annoying on the enemy’s turn with your AOOs and immediate actions. Draw fire plus cut from air is going to be so tasty.

After that we had a few minor encounters basically to show off our new powers, and then at the doorway we saw a strange vision. Two spectral dwarves, a younger Stauton and another dwarf. They were young, wide-eyed and optimistic about the fight against the demons.

This is where I think Draven is going to rub up against the party. Melody is a redeemer. She wants to at least see if it’s an option even if she has doubts. Hiskaria is someone seeking redemption, she’s said she wants to give one chance and after that she’s done with Stauton, but one chance is more than Draven thinks they should give if he’s manipulating them. Luna just generally likes Melody more than she likes Draven.

Draven does not think Stauton can be redeemed nor does he think offering the chance is the right choice. He thinks this is either A: a trick to prey on our soft hearts because he KNOWS Melody is a redeemer because of Nurah, or B: it’s real and it doesn’t change anything because Stauton caused the deaths of thousands of innocent people. Draven refuses to look his soldiers in the eye who lost loved ones and say ‘I chose him over you’. So he’s probably going to at least get into an argument with Melody next week.

And I’m excited. I don’t usually have characters who take hard stances that don’t align with the party. I think Kiyo and Hayden came into conflict a few times but it was usually small spats and usually the party was divided evenly on who sided with who (Sai and sometimes Gaeron with Hayden, Orda with Kiyo, and Lalaith and Icarus being the wildcards…I don’t know if Icarus has ever actually been there for any of these arguments actually so really only Lalaith as a wildcard…) Roland didn’t typically come into conflict with the party, Sai could be snippy but didn’t generally get into big arguments, Lucien basically never did, Haruki was in such constant conflict with Dreama that it was just a character trait for both of them but it was also generally minor petty things not big arguments, Umbrolus only got into a single argument and that was justified because everyone was hiding something about his heritage from him…

I think the last major party spat I had was with Kaius, and he mostly sat back and just let the Volstat split happen because he’d seen it coming a mile away the moment he decided he wanted to redeem Gabby and he decided he’d choose helping Gabby over dealing with Volstat, who had already proven problematic when trying to help people Kaius felt some amount of sympathy for in the past who Volstat had a grudge against. So he just let Eleanor and Volstat argue, threw in his two cents a few times, and then let it blow up.

The next few weeks are ones of great disarray, not only for you, but for the nation of Granthius.

Mad Cave's Maverick has announced a graphic novel reprint of The Last Session by writer Jasmine Walls, artist Dozerdraws, and letterer Micah Myers. The Last Session Vol. 1: Roll for Initiative collects the first story into one graphic novel. Additionally, the original creative team has also reunited for a second volume titled The Last Session Vol. 2: Rerolled.