Summary
The Hedgehogs of Mercy return to their home in the Undying City, after a cryptic and urgent missive from Bel of the Lotus, the vampire they freed months ago. Turns out things are going down in the city, very very big things - the people of the city are on the cusp of being turned into silent undead if someone doesn't stop the ritual that is taking place.
Characters
- Shimsusa the Archer - 2nd Level Fighter
- Maru the Witch - 3rd Level Diabolist Sorcerer
- Rajini - 2nd Level Sorceress
- Athra - 4th Level Fighter
- Gal-Naha the Giant Gecko - 3rd Level Giant Lizard
Session Recap
Esho's player had decided that instead of making a new character, he will simply take on Esho's stalwart Companion Shimsusa the Archer and use her as his current PC. With that handled, the party also received a letter from the vampire Bel who they had freed several months ago in their visit to the Temple of Gladio. The message was cryptic and told them that he's in the Undying City and wants to talk to them in person about something big that is afoot. The party took a vote and decided to ignore the dungeon they had been to last few times, finish up their business in the Bastion of the Raging Bull and take a ship back home. On a more cheery note though, they did learn that the reconstruction efforts of the river shrine to the Serpent of Smoke had finally come to an end and the shrine was now fully operational with a small temple and everything. River sailors and merchants had mentioned just how calmer and smoother travel down the river was now.
As they arrived back in the Undying City, the Hedgehogs were met with tension in the air. The docks were now full of way more guards than was usual and the northern gate out of town was permanently closed. The reason, they soon learned, was that large bands of Northern Barbarians had started appearing sporadically, slaughtering anyone and anything they can catch outside the walls then disappearing back out into the grasslands.
Returning back to the mansion they were greeted by Bel who over lunch decided to catch up with them, see how their adventures have been going since they parted ways in the temple of Gladio, and also tell them why he wrote to them. As the new year had just begun and the wet season was finally over, the city was gearing up (barbarians or not!) to do the traditional celebrations to welcome the new year. Except this time, the celebrations were going to be different - some of the high priests of the Pale Stillness of Justice, the Lord of Order who was the "protector" of the Undying City, were going to lead the ceremony personally. And Bel, while not having enough sources to figure out what their goal was, knew that something big was going to happen. That these were plans by the Pale Stillness to cement its grip over the city once and for all and make it into a permanent bastion of for the forces of Law.
Bel, being a former noble, an amoral sociopath, and also someone born before the Empire fell, was generally not happy with the idea of having this otherworldly power dictating things more than it already did, and so recruited the Hedgehogs to help him. How? Well, now that's the question!
After much deliberating, discussing and planning, the party settled on a rather shaky, but at least concrete plan - they were going to venture out into the old city ruins back to the remains of the temple of Ishtar, the very first dungeon they visited in the campaign. They knew that the Slime Priests in there were aligned with Chaos, and therefore were going to want to help disrupt whatever big power move the forces of Law were doing for the city. Plus, they reasoned, these guys had clearly been keeping an eye on the Undying City for months now, so they likely had a better idea of what those plans even were.
After a trip out into the ruins, a fight with some slime-covered zombies and having to burn an entire corridor's worth of yellow mold, the party finally found some Slime Priests and offered them to work together. The priests wanted to recruit the two sorcerers in the party to join their lord - The Chaos Lord knowing simply as The Decomposition, but they declined. Instead a plan was hatched where the Slime Priests will gather whatever allies and armies they had and assault the ruins-side gatehouse of the Eternal Bridge, the party will then attack the inner gatehouse and allow the Slime Priests and their allies access into the city to help stop the ritual, or at least disrupt it for long enough for a better plan to be hatched.
They also learned what the ritual was going to do - as the procession of the new year celebration made its round around the city, the final gesture of a grand ritual that had been years in the making would take place, and the entire population of the city would be turned into empty undead husks. Perfect servants for the Pale Stillness - obedient, not worried by hunger or pain or thoughts. They also learned that the actual ruler of the city were not the high priests, but a high ranking officer within the armies of the Pale Stillness of Justice - a being not from this reality which is the actual individual performing this complicated magical ritual.
The shaky alliance secured, the party headed back, discussing among themselves just how wrong it felt to stop such a big tragedy by inviting a different tragedy into the city.
Observations
So, right off the bat - this is kind of a big thing to drop on the players, for sure. I did not, in fact, want to dissuade them from visiting the dungeon. If anything, I had spent about an hour last night just writing out more things about it.
And further more - this did not come out of nowhere. In fact even before the campaign had its first session, my plan had always been that eventually the rulers of the Undying City were going to try and pull off this big move to secure the city permanently for the side of Law. There had been plenty of hints thrown throughout the campaign and the players knew that something was going on behind the walls of the Temple District, but they also never dedicated the time to go investigate it further. So now they are left with a situation that is, quite frankly, probably way out of their scale to deal with.
I also enjoy that, rather accidentally, this session is when so many older threads ended up resurfacing again. The river shrine had been under construction since before the party headed south, the barbarian that left to go look for the other missing pieces of the magical sword has returned, and with the looming threat of the ritual the party decided that they needed allies badly, so badly enough that they went back to the people who nearly slaughtered them months ago (luckily for them, the priests did not really recognize the characters).
As a referee this whole situation is exciting, and the players are all clearly invested in it too. However it does present a challenge on how to properly map out just what is actually going on, so as to give the players as much of a neutral overview of the situation as I can give, and then let their actions throughout the game actually guide the outcome. Something for me to put on my designer hat on and write out in as much detail as I feel I will need.
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