Drakkenheim Part 2: Inside the Walls

Way, way later

Alright, so the plan was to write down what happened after every session and turn it all into a nice, long recap for you to ignore. That definitely didn’t happen. All I managed was to get down a few keywords every week. In my defense I’ve been really busy gazing mysteriously into the distance and whistling an ominous tune in G major. So here’s the short version. Like, really short. The Lord Farquaad version, if you will. But since it recaps about fourteen sessions, it’s still really long. You’ve been warned.

Hazy Flowers

The group’s first voyage inside the city walls was to gather some flowers to create potions of aqua expurgo which would let them avoid contamination. They entered through Shepherd’s Gate, which was under the control of their buddies, the Hooded Lanterns, and strolled up to Queen’s Park without any major issues. The park was covered in the deep haze—the kind of thick mist visible in the crater and other dangerous areas. It was pretty much fantasy Chernobyl in there and, while they did get a few flowers, they also lost some teeth, hair, and fingernails. Nothing a healing potion and a few days of rest couldn’t fix.

Returning to Emberwood, they learned from River that the Amethyst Academy would no longer support them. The Queen of Thieves had apparently made good on her promise to gossip about Spellini’s accidental act of arson, and the academy were not pleased to hear it. Melly and Snes were devastated to hear it, as they had both been (desperately and unsuccessfully) attempting to seduce River. The only way for the party to get back into the academy’s good books would be to do something dangerous and drastic, like reclaiming the Inscrutable Tower, former headquarters of the academy, now claimed by the deep haze and monsters.

On the bright side, the Hooded Lanterns offered the group their very own green and gold cloaks, officially making them part of the faction. I can’t remember why. After resting up, the gang went looking for a missing acolyte of the Fallen Fire, something they’d previously put off doing in favor of more exciting and less urgent things.

Venturing into the City

The party searched for the man in a tavern in the outer city and got stuck in a time loop. Hey, it happens. The tavern was replaying the day that the meteor struck Drakkenheim over and over. Before they figured out what was happening, Ryan got himself killed to death after a bunch of basement bandits turned him into a pin-cushion for arrows. The party was relieved once they realized they were in a time loop, and that Ryan would come right back once it started over. Long story short, they killed a fleshy monster with lots of eyes and tentacles, smashed a piano and ended the loop. That was also when they realized that the acolyte they had been searching for had been on the tavern’s second floor all along, which they would have noticed if they’d bothered to search there. Mission accomplished!

Following a smuggler tunnel in the bottom of the (now destroyed) tavern, they found themselves once more inside the city walls. They were in a cistern beneath a place called Slaughterstone Square, a place you should clearly run away from really fast. They didn’t want to go there, but they did say hi to some mutated aquatic people down in the sewers, who told the party of a great and powerful being known as the Duchess, who would grant great power in exchange for gifts. The group didn’t want to part with any of their loot and wouldn’t end up meeting the Duchess until after her death. Spoiler.

Too greedy to hand over their gear to the Duchess and too spooked to head to Slaughterstone Square, where Ryan, having lived in the city, knew that a terrifying automaton liked to hang out, the gang returned to Emberwood once more. For their efforts in helping the Fallen Fire, they were invited to take the holy sacrament. They’d have to partake in a religious ceremony, jam a shard of delerium into their hearts, and voilà! Immunity to contamination. The only caveat was that it would stop working if you doubted the falling fire, and they could never be revived if they died¹. Naturally, Spellini jumped at the opportunity.

Following the acolytes of the Falling Fire past Champion’s Gate and to the edge of the haze-filled crater, the party patiently waited as Spellini was initiated into the cult. Then they headed down the crater, which turned out to be a horrible idea for everyone except Spellini, due to his brand-new contamination immunity. If Queen’s Park was Chernobyl, the crater basin was… well, worse. The party was completely lost in the thick mist and decided to turn back almost immediately, and by the time they’d found their way to the edge of the crater once more, Animal’s skin was sloughing off from the contamination. To make matters worse, the Queen’s Men showed up on the way back to Emberwood and stole the Scepter of Saint Vitruvio. Snes made no attempt at diplomacy, figuring it would be an easy fight. But since all they wanted was the scepter, all attacks were focused on Snes, and the baddies just barely made it back to their horses before Melly could reach them with her axe.

Their next adventure, several days later, was to rob the undead ferryman who helped them get across the river dividing the city. One crime and two thousand gold later, they headed back inside the city walls to reclaim the Cosmological Clocktower from a gang of nasty harpies and their leader, the Crimson Countess. No relation to the character from The Boys. The characters kept positioning themselves by the windows of the tower, which the harpies took advantage of. Thus, this battle involved a good deal of falling from great heights, drinkning healing potions, running up stairs, and repeating. In the end, the only reason the party survived was because Snes made a lucky roll on the wild magic table. He summoned a friendly unicorn named Charlie who could heal them and teleport them to the relative safety of a nearby alley. No, seriously, unicorns can do that. It’s right there in their stat block. Any other wild magic effect would’ve been pretty much useless. Especially the one that makes you fireball yourself, as Snes would experience later.

Defeated, they thanked the unicorn and turned to leave the city. On the way, they ran into one of the ratlings they’d befriended. After barely making it out of the Queen’s Gardens, Snes had instructed the ratlings to swarm it and retrieve as many eldritch flowers as they could. Now the rat returned with the news that the gardens were deadly as hell. No surprise there. But the rat also mentioned a cave somewhere in the gardens, filled with flowers and guarded by a strange, masked lady with snakes for hair. Cool. The party would procrastinate that plot hook for some time.

The Court of Thieves

The next time the party headed back into the city, it was to find the Queen of Thieves and reclaim the stolen scepter. They knew there was a street in the outer city called Buckledown Row where all the bad lads and lassies hung out. The gang dyed their Hooded Lantern robes black to blend in and headed right for it. They drank at a seedy bar and found out about the underground fighting pits below them. Turns out that any team that could beat the leaders of every local gang got an invitation to the Court of Thieves, a tavern somewhere in the sewers where all the cool thieves hung out. Sometimes, the Queen of Thieves herself could even be seen there. So the party went on to beat up all those gang leaders, accidentally killing a child with a stray lightning bolt while doing so. They didn’t actually beat the last gang leader, who was cheating by using poisoned blades. Snes pointed this out, and gang leader became disqualified and furious.

And so, the group had garnered an invitation to the Court of Thieves. They were led there through the sewers by a particularly high-ranking gnome thief. A gnome who is a thief, that is—not a person who steals gnomes. Though perhaps the gnome did so too. The tavern was connected to yet another fighting pit. If they could beat the queen’s champion, they’d get an audience with the queen herself. Just what they wanted. But first they had to fight another party. A party they’d met before in Emberwood that I forgot to write about. When I introduced them all by name, the players finally realized that these guys were their evil doppelgängers. They were Angry Beast, the lion-man rogue, Molly, the barbarian, Bryan Running, the fighter, Sega, the goblin sorcerer, and Mark Burns, the wizard who only used fire spells. After the party wiped the floor with them and the queen’s champion, Linda, the giant dinosaur-looking lizard thingy, they were granted an audience as promised. They asked the Queen for Melly’s family heirloom axe. The Queen said she’d be able to track it down within three days. Snes was frustrated that she couldn’t bring it immediately and shot the queen, who turned out to be an illusion. Then the party ran away. Three days later, Melly found her heirloom axe—dubbed The Awesome Axe—outside the door of the party’s cabin in Emberwood.

Next, Ryan wanted to visit Slaughterstone Square. He found the danger tantalizing. Plus, it was right next to the Magistrate’s Court, which was the last known location of his missing brother. Once there, they saw the automaton known as the Executioner. He was hard to miss, his silver body towering over the buildings surrounding the square. He carried an axe with a guillotine blade at the end. The group caught his attention and barely made it into the safety of the Magistrate’s Court before he could swing his axe at them. Inside, they found evidence suggesting that Melly was a potential heir to the throne. They also found Ryan’s brother, Adam. He had a few more tentacles than last time Ryan saw him. He was now some kind of contaminated monster, so Spellini used a spell to restore him to normal, which turned out to be fatal. Ryan decided to bring him to the druid in the woods just north of Drakkenheim, who was rumored to be capable of casting resurrection spells.

But first they had to get out of the city, which was easier said than done as the Executioner was waiting right outside the door. The party dashed outside and scattered. The executioner swung his enormous axe at Snes, but Melly, raging, jumped in the way. The attack was enough to hurt even her, but everyone made it away safely. Ryan decided to split from the group and seek out the druid alone. Since his goal was completed, his player wanted to create a new character. Next session the party met Quille von Pfester, bard. He played a lute-like instrument and had come to the city to prove that his father was an heir to the throne, though really, he was hoping to become king himself. The Hooded Lanterns recommended him to the party, seeing as there were few high-level adventurers around. They were hoping on getting him on their side, and having the party recruit him was an easy way of accomplishing that.

The Battle of Temple Gate

The Hooded Lanterns would come to regret their collaberation with the Prophets of the Rat God. Joined by the newly recruited bard, party party was tasked with aiding the Hooded Lanterns and their temporary allies, the Knights of the Silver Order, in reclaiming the strategically located Temple Gate. The gate was currently in the possession of a group of about a hundred hyena people, or gnolls. Elias Drexel, leader of the Hooded Lanterns, wanted the party to make sure that the knights really had the city’s best interest at heart and didn’t have secret aspirations of conquest. So the party headed to Camp Dawn, the Silver Order’s stockade in the woods, to speak with them. The gang was taken to Knight-Captain Theodore Marshal. Snes tried to read his mind to see if he had any hidden motives. He tried to do this without Theodore noticing, which was terribly unsuccessful as Snes was reading from a scroll. He also just so happened to trigger a wild magic surge, summoning a cloud of illusory butterflies and flower petals. Theodore sent them away, but they were now content with the motives of the Silver Order, as Snes hadn’t found any evil thoughts in the captain’s brain in that particular moment.

The plan was to have the Hooded Lanterns attacking the gnolls at the gate from inside the walls while the Silver Order approached from the outside. The party was tasked with opening the gate to let the Silver Order through. Right before heading off, Spellini was approached by Lucretia Matthias, leader of the Falling Fire, in disguise, and tasked with sabotaging the mission. As it were, the Followers of the Falling Fire were not on good terms with the Knights of the Silver Order. Conflicting beliefs and all that. He told the party, who figured they’d wing it and see what happens. Improvise the sabotage.

With the exception of Spellini, being a member of the Falling Fire and therefore not trusted by the Silver Order, the party had been given a gryphon each so they could approach the gate from the air. It was night, and raining when they approached. The first thing they met was a shower of arrows from the gnolls. Then a chimera, an ugly, three-headed winged creature, approached and breathed fire on them from its dragon head. Snes polymorphed it into a creature that I can’t remember, but whatever it was, it didn’t have wings. The party landed their gryphons on the roof of one of the gate towers and noticed that Animal was missing. His gryphon had been shot down. He climbed up the tower on the left side of the gate, which was not the tower the rest of the party was on. Fending off a bunch of gnolls, he eventually made it to the others. They opened the hatch in the floor and climbed down.

The events that followed seemed to happen all at once: the group fought tons of gnolls, fended off the chimera as the polymorph spell wore off, and Snes caused another wild magic surge and accidentally fireballed the whole party, nearly killing them. They could hear the Hooded Lanterns fighting the gnolls inside the walls, shouting at the party to open the gate and let in the reinforcements. As the party began turning the cranks to open the gate, Spellini remembered his sabotage mission and tried to stop them. This led to a long discussion about what to do, all the while the Hooded Lanterns were dying inside the walls. Eventually, they decided to open the gate to help the Hooded Lanterns, and make up for helping the Silver Order by convincing the leader of the gnolls, one called Lord of the Feast—a giant albino gnoll with terrifying red eyes—to attack the knights.

They headed for Saint Vitruvio’s Cathedral. The area outside had been made a campsite where some seventy gnolls loitered. Using a disguise spell, skilled persuasion, and a little miscommunication, Quille was able to get the gnolls to attack the intruders at the gate, Lord of the Feast coming with them. The only problem was that they would also attack the Hooded Lanterns, so the party ran after them and attacked the Lord of the Feast. He hit fast and he hit hard, and the gang fled after a single round of combat.

The party’s next adventure was to get their “revenge” on the Queen of Thieves. They headed back to the Court of Thieves and into the queen’s throne room. She was absent, so they pressed on into a corridor that turned out to be filled to the brim with traps.

In the queen’s private quarters, they found evidence suggesting that the queen was actually Katarina von Kessel, princess of Drakkenheim. They also found the scepter they came for, a folding boat, and a decanter of endless water.

You Don’t Have to Worry About Burning Bridges When You Have a Boat

On their way home, the gang ran into an extremely cool-looking person in the ruined streets. She wore a full suit of armor emanating blue flames. Snes and Melly immediately fell in love with her and promised to help her on whatever her quest was. They learned that her name was Ryan Greymere, a former scholar of the Amethyst Academy. She had been kicked out for her ambition to terminate the Edicts of Lumen, a treaty granting the Amethyst Academy guardianship of all mages born in the realm in exchange for none of them owning land or claiming noble titles. This just so happened to align with Quille’s goals, since the treaty prevented him from becoming king, so the party was on board to help Ryan. The first part of the plan was to reclaim the Inscrutable Tower for herself. They agreed to meet up with her the next day.

And so the next day rolled around. The Inscrutable Tower was a tall obsidian monolith. It had been struck by a fragment of the meteor about two thirds of the way up, breaking the structure in two. But the top part of the tower hadn’t fallen, instead hanging motionless in the air. Since everyone in the party, as well as Ryan Greymere, had some way of flying, they chose to fly up and enter through the breach.

After fending off another angsty wizard who had come to claim the tower, the gang headed up to the floor where they found a magical nexus. It was a complex machine of magic and mechanical parts, looking something like a giant bronze orrery with glowing crystals where the planets should be. The impact of the meteor had made it unstable, and they had to reboot it to get it working properly again. Unfortunately, rebooting it was difficult, took time, and summoned a bunch of monsters while they were doing it.

Most of the monsters weren’t so bad, but eventually a beholder showed up. It used its death ray on Spellini, which did exactly what it sounds like. We ended the session there, giving Spellini’s player some time to think of a new character. Before the next Saturday rolled around, Spellini’s player realized that the delerium crystal in his heart made him resistant to necrotic damage, and he should have survived. So our next game began with Spellini turning out to be not so dead after all. What a twist! What did die, however, was Spellini’s fear of casting fire spells, so there’s that.

After the battle, Ryan told the party she never believed they were helping her just to be nice, and that she suspected they wanted the tower for themselves. She was almost right, as the party had really planned to kill her and hand it over to the Amethyst Academy, completing Spellini’s goal in the city. Quille actually wanted to work with Ryan, but his player wasn’t there that session, and so he didn’t get a say. Even though Ryan was prepared for their attack, the players were victorious. They threw Ryan off the building. She fell to her death because we all forgot she had boots of flying.

After bringing River and the others from the academy to the tower and being offered official memberships, the party decided to follow up on the lead regarding the snake-haired lady in Queen’s Park. She turned out to be the queen herself, Lenore von Kessel, mutated by delerium contamination. The party healed her, a process which she did not survive, and went to get her resurrected. Then they handed her over to the Hooded Lanterns, or what was left of them, who still had no idea that it was the Prophets of the Rat God themselves who had unleashed the Lord of the Feast upon them.

They paid a quick visit to the Rose Theater, Ryan Greymere’s hideout, where they found and stole a huge delerium crystal. They also dressed up Spellini in ridiculous clothing and makeup from the dressing rooms and tried to marry him off to a badger. Then they set aim for the crater once more.

The Delerium Heart

This time, the search for the heart of the crater went much better. Spellini had a spell that would keep them safe from contamination for an hour. In the center, they found a massive delerium crystal in a pool of liquid delerium sludge. Laying their eyes upon it was enough to blast their minds with contaminated energy and nearly drive them mad². Snes and Animal were both on a mission to reach the center of the crater to try and end their terrible delerium nightmares. They went up to the crystal by flying over the sludge, and touched it. They were treated to a vision of a delerium-covered planet shattering, scattering contaminated fragments across the universe. One such fragment hit Drakkenheim, slowly spreading its green-purplish crystals across the world until it too was covered in delerium. Then it exploded, starting the process anew.

Spellini’s spell had worn off, and the party once more started feeling the sickening effects of contamination. They hurried out of the crater, finding their way back to the rope without too much trouble. They fought off some frightful contaminated creatures and headed back to Emberwood to rest up.

In the days that followed, Snes went around talking to just about everyone about what he’d learned at the heart of the crater. He confronted Lucretia Matthias, leader of the Falling Fire, since she was the only one who had previously been to the crater’s center. Apparently, she interpreted the vision as the coming of a new age, an opportunity to fill delerium crystals with the souls of the worthy, spreading their heroism across the universe. Snes thought that was stupid, and went to tell the Silver Order about his vision instead.

The group found the short knight they’d met earlier—whom they referred to as Lord Fartsquad due to his resemblance to Lord Farquaad, but whose real name was Lord Quarfaad. He was leaving the city and going home. His quest to claim the throne had been thwarted by the Prophets of the Rat God themselves when they found and rescued the queen. He also claimed to have killed the Lord of the Feast, a mission given to him by the Hooded Lanterns after the players failed to show up to do it. While he was at it, he’d killed the Executioner too. No big deal, he claimed.

Once the group was in better shape, minus Animal who still had a few levels of contamination, the gang made their way to Saint Vitruvio’s Cathedral once more to clear and claim it for the Hooded Lanterns. With the Lord of the Feast gone, there were only a few gnoll left, whom the party made quick work of. Then they headed into the catacombs to explore. Solving a lights-and-mirrors–puzzle, they unlocked the path to a vault containing a holy sword, and the tomb of an ancient dragon. Somehow, Animal gained another level of contamination while down there, causing a mutation that made him unable to breathe above water. For the rest of the dungeon delve, he got to wear the decanter of endless water as a hat. Once the catacombs were fully explored (and flooded with water), the went back to Emberwood once more.

We’re off to See the Wizard

With Animal having to rest for a few days, Quille decided to spend his downtime convincing Spellini to leave the Falling Fire. Spellini’s conviction hadn’t wavered in the slightest upon learning that the delerium was going to destroy the entire planet, so Quille started casting suggestion on him over and over, suggesting Spellini reconsider his belief. Spellini began to cast counterspell every time this happened, which made both Snes and Quille try to counterspell Spellini’s counterspells. Eventually, they decided to cast suggestion on Spellini when he was sleeping, but Spellini anticipated their scheme and ran away in the middle of the night. Quille and Snes brought along Animal to track him down and, when they found him, tried to cast suggestion again. At this point I wanted to move the game along, so when Spellini counterspelled once more, I asked Spellini’s player if he was okay with losing his faith in the Falling Fire. He said that he was, and then I described how an explosion of magical energy enveloped the whole party as their spells clashed.

The group woke up on a warm summer day, sitting in the shade of a tree on a small hill. They could smell the fresh scent of the tall, perfectly green grass that swayed in the light breeze. The sky was as blue as it could possibly be. It was peaceful. In the distance, they could see a road of yellow gravel slithering between the hills. It led in the direction of a city with a tower made from a gigantic purple delerium crystal stretching far above the city walls.

On the road stood a white horse with a knight riding on it. Confused, Snes walked up to him to ask what was going on. He was surprised to find that the man on the horse was no one less than Lord Quarfaad, though he was taller now, taller than most. Stranger still is that he was nice. Snes asked him what was happening, and he explained that they were in the Age of Heroes as predicted by Lucretia Matthias. If Snes wanted to know more, he could go and talk to the wizard in the tower of Delerium City.

After some discussion, the group decided to do just that. Most of the party didn’t believe what was happening, but Spellini was happy that he was right and that his dreams had come true. On the path to the city, the gang ran into the Executioner. This time he was the size of a human and very friendly. He apologized for attacking them back in Drakkenheim, saying he wasn’t himself at the time, and wished them luck on their journey.

While walking through a forest, they also met the Lord of the Feast³, also smaller than usual. He was much politer than last the time they met him. Exiting the forest, they finally arrived at the castle gates. Knight-Captain Theodore Marshal was there, riding a gryphon. He didn’t want them to enter, so they killed him.

There was a festival going on inside the city. A man on a green horse told them that the people were celebrating the return of fire. The party went to the delerium tower where they were met by a man who looked like a cross between Spellini and Lucretia Matthias. He said that they weren’t allowed to see the wizard, and that everything was fine and that everyone who had ever doubted anything Lucretia Matthias had ever said was wrong. Quille used his mind-bending magic to convince the man to let them pass. They walked inside, up the seemingly endless spiral delerium staircase, eventually reaching a platform that seemed to be floating in a void of stars. There, they met a tiny version of Spellini, shorter than a halfling. He said that he doubted the Falling Fire and feared that Lucretia Matthias had been wrong all along. Snes gave him a pep talk and told him to believe in himself. Then, the other Spellini, the one from outside, came up and told them they had to leave. But mini-Spellini instead pushed him off the platform, sending him falling into the void. Then everyone woke up.

It would seem that all the mind-spells and counterspells had caused a spell malfunction that sent everyone into Spellini’s mind. And with the part of his subconscious that was a die-hard believer in the Falling Fire destroyed, and his doubts no longer locked up in a corner of his mind, he decided he didn’t believe Lucretia Matthias’ prophecies anymore. The group went to the druid north of Drakkenheim and got the delerium shard removed from Spellini’s chest.

You Are Cordially Invited

While all that spelling and counterspelling had been going on the previous days, someone had delivered a letter to their cabin in Emberwood. Animal was the one to notice it. It contained an invitation from the Hooded Lanterns to meet with the other faction leaders in Saint Vitruvio’s Cathedral to determine the fate of Drakkenheim once and for all. The party decided that it would be in their best interests to go. But first, Snes bought a magical horn from a vendor in town. The players kept asking about magical items, so I figured selling them a legendary thingy for once would be fine. The horn could create a potion once per day, choosing between some healing potions and a few others. But I didn’t read the whole thing. Turns out, those aren’t supposed to be handed out until waaay higher levels. One of the potions could turn the drinker into an adult dragon for an hour. But the group was excited, so I’m rolling with it.

On the way, they happened to run into the Lord of the Feast, who had, in fact, not been killed by Lord Quarfaad. But he had apparently been lured away for a few days, and now he was back. At this point, the party was strong enough to take him on, and so they did.

All the other faction leaders and their lieutenants where inside the cathedral. Many of them doubted the motives of the gang, which was made worse by the Queen of Thieves revealing that they were the ones who unleashed the Lord of the Feast on the Hooded Lanterns and the Silver Order. In the end, the factions concluded that the Prophets of the Rat God could be trusted only to be loyal to the highest bidder. Snes tried to counter by saying that things were different now that they knew the truth of the meteor, and that they had actually just killed the Lord of the Feast. The part about the meteor eventually destroying the world is what caught the attention of the faction leaders, and got most of them to unite against the Falling Fire.

The plan they agreed on was this: the Amethyst Academy would be allowed to siphon the delerium’s magical power from the crater to keep it from spreading, as well as research its properties. The Silver Order would be tasked with destroying the rest of the delerium in the city, and the Hooded Lanterns would install a new regent on the throne. If the Amethyst Academy were to fail to contain the contamination, the Silver Order would resurrect the great dragon Argonath who was buried beneath the cathedral and have him burn the delerium heart and the rest of the crystals in the crater. The Followers of the Falling Fire and the Queen’s Men could go fuck themselves.

Of course, the Queen of Thieves wasn’t happy at all with that arrangement. She had her own plan: everyone was to hand over their relics of Saint Vitruvio and Seals of Drakkenheim (did I mention those? They’re required to rule Drakkenheim or whatever) or she would activate the massive unstable delerium crystal she’d stolen from the one called the Dutchess, blowing it up and collapsing the cathedral, killing everyone inside.

The party weren’t too excited about that, so Spellini produced a wall of force around the crystal. The Queen of Thieves tried and failed to counterspell it, which was strange, since it wasn’t a spell someone like her should know. Quille figured it might be another trick, and that the Queen of Thieves was really someone else being mind controlled and disguised. He cast a spell to speak telepathically with her, and turned out to be right. She was actually River from the Amethyst Academy.

This brought up the question of who the tiefling standing next to Eldrick Runeweaver was, because she sure looked a lot like River. Spellini decided that it was worth dropping concentration on the wall of force to instead cast detect thoughts on the one resembling River. Meanwhile, Quille cast remove curse to break the spell on the real River and helped her get away from the mayhem, along with all the other faction agents who were fleeing the scene. Spellini could now hear the River-imposter’s thoughts: This is my chance, I’m gonna shoot that crystal and make the queen proud.

Then fake-River produced a crossbow and fired, now unhindered by the wall of force.

Due to a staggering amount of debuff spells from the party, fake-River, who was actually one of the Queen’s Men in disguise, missed. She was then summarily dispatched by Animal and Melly while Quille teleported away with the crystal. Once they had a chance to breathe out, they took the crystal to the Inscrutable Tower for the mages to take care of.

The Queen of Dying

Eldrick Runweaver at the academy wanted the party to install a device in the crater to siphon all that magical energy. He also requested they bring back one of the large delerium geodes close to the center of the crater, for research purposes. Off they went, Melly carrying the heavy device. On the way across one of the bridges in Drakkenheim, they were approached by one of the mutated aquatic people they’d met earlier. He claimed that the Duchess needed their help getting revenge on the Queen of Thieves for the crystal she stole, but they had to come quickly. Bringing the machine, they followed the man into the sewers, passing several dead aquatic people and Queen’s men on the way.

They arrived at an underground lake. Whatever the Duchess had been, she was dead—some kind of giant three eyed octopus creature floating in the water. On the other side of the river bank was the Queen of Thieves herself, and she had a hostage: Lenore von Kessel, her own mother, doubtlessly kidnapped by one her men during the council at the cathedral. It made sense, considering the Hooded Lanterns responsible for protecting her were spread thin between the cathedral, Temple Gate, their headquarters—the Drakkenheim Garrison—and being dead.

The Crimson Countess was there too, hating the players just as much as the Queen of Thieves did. The Queen of Thieves told the group to surrender their relics and seals, and that if they wanted to kill her, they’d have to kill her mother too, proving they were just as bad as her and just wanted the throne for themselves. The party drew their weapons. They were attacked by a pair of assassins coming from behind them, the bodies that had been lying in the water earlier. Not quite as dead as they had looked. Snes wanted to use his dragon potion and toast the queen to a fine crisp⁴, but the assassins hit hard and knocked him unconscious.

Meanwhile, the others were casting spells and firing crossbow bolts at the queen, who seemed to know where they were aiming before they themselves did, and sometimes the projectiles seemed to pass straight through her. With some well-aimed fireballs, they did manage to hurt her quite a bit. That’s when she pulled out a small stone tablet and ran her finger across it. She smiled at the party as It began to glow, and then the ceiling started to rumble.

They heard a loud crash as the ceiling caved in, stone and debris landing in the lake, splashing contaminated water everywhere. Once the dust settled, they could see a gigantic figure in the middle of the lake.

The Executioner.

Snes got a healing potion, quickly followed by her dragon potion. The executioner released toxic gas all over the cave, killing Queen Lenore instantly. Animal sent a steady stream of bolts at the executioner while dragon Snes ripped the Queen of Thieves to shreds. He then brought the others, including Queen Lenore’s body, out of there as the whole cave collapsed, trapping the Executioner under a pile of rocks.

I Declare Moral Bankruptcy

Instead of getting her resurrected, they burned Lenore’s body and dumped it in the woods.

Then there was the matter of their visit to the crater. Since Snes was still a dragon, they just flew down to the center, installed the device, grabbed the geode, and flew out again, very nearly getting struck by strange, eldritch lightning on the way up. Once the potion wore off, they went to the Hooded Lanterns to tell them that the Queen of Thieves had killed Queen Lenore. The Hooded Lanterns had in fact arrested one of the Queen’s Men for the kidnapping of the queen: it was no one less than Lord Quarfaad. They were also not happy with the party after what they’d learned at the council.

And so, the players had deceived the ratlings and taken advantage of them, killing many in the process; kept secrets from the Amethyst Academy to gain their favor; betrayed the hell out of the Hooded Lanterns and the Silver Order, leading to countless deaths; turned their back on the Followers of the Falling Fire; and straight up killed the Queen of Thieves, even though she was no more of a criminal than they were themselves. And yet, they’d somehow untied most of the factions toward a common goal. How about that, eh?