Session 44 – A Harbinger of Things to Come

  The party charged into the library, where the very air seemed to smell of vellum and ink. There, amid stacked shelves and high windows, the fellowship found Librarian Alexander beset by horrors not of this world: a wraith of chill and formless hatred and a hulking shadow beast that loomed like living night. Tiv, whose faith had been tested many times beneath earth and on storm‑tossed waves, stepped forward with righteous anger in her voice and called upon holy power. At her command, the wraith dissolved like smoke caught in a sudden wind, leaving only the shadow beast crouched and snarling in the lamplight.

Vedica, light of step and keen of eye, answered that challenge with her beloved bow. Her arrow flew straight and struck the beast, drawing a roar of rage. Jack, who had lagged toward the rear with his musket, moved up and added his own ranged fire to the assault. Between bow and steel, the shadow beast fell, and in the quiet that followed Librarian Alexander offered breathless thanks, more shaken scholar than hardened citizen.

Stepping from the library into the streets of the besieged town, the companions quickly remembered that this was no isolated attack. Dwårfy emerged to find two guards, wounded and desperate, fending off yet another pairing of wraith and shadow beast. At Tiv’s approach the wraiths they met in the streets fared no better than their kin in the library: she raised her symbol, cried out, “Be gone, foul beasts,” and each time the air shuddered as the undead spirits were cast out. Vedica’s arrows made short work of the shadow beasts left behind, and when Jack could close the distance, he hewed through them with his great two‑handed sword. Grateful yet harried, the guards urged haste, crying that they must reach their captain and “get to the Mount,” before running off through the twisting alleys.

The party chose to follow, letting the battered guards lead them deeper into the city’s turmoil. They fought as they went: in one narrow alley Murchad ducked into a doorway only to find a shadow beast looming above him, and what began as a lone encounter turned quickly into a cramped struggle where Tiv’s slingstones, Vedica’s arrows, Ceangal’s Sword of Lightning used in close combat, Dwårfy’s hammers, Vegvisir’s dagger, and Murchad’s blades all had their swift part. Most ordinary bolts seemed to pass harmlessly through the dark beasts, but magic and stout steel finally laid them low. Each time Tiv turned a wraith to nothingness, the party advanced behind the fleeing guards, through streets filled with distant screams and the hollow echo of steel on stone.

Soon they reached the place where Captain Alaric himself stood amid a knot of soldiers, engaged in a desperate battle against two wraiths and two shadow beasts. Once more, Tiv stepped forward, hands raised high, striking at the spirits with the full weight of her office; both wraiths unraveled at her command, and for a moment, she exulted in the power granted her. Yet triumph died on her lips as an explosion of necromantic force shuddered through the air from the upper abbey, bells clanging in frantic alarm. Above the din. they heard Captain Alaric shouting to his guards that “she’s in the colonnade with the shadows” and to hold the lower level at all costs. The party understood that the heart of this darkness lay ahead.

Even as the bells rang, they still had to win the battle at hand. Vedica opened the next exchange by striking a nearby shadow beast with a fine shot. Jack followed, cutting that beast down with his sword, and Ceangal stepped in to protect the captain with his shorter blade, while Dwårfy rushed another shadow beast and struck it first with one hammer, then the other, flattening it into the cobblestones. Once the area near Alaric was secure, the company moved on, again letting the soldiers’ path guide them through alleys they had traversed earlier. They passed the hostel where they had once been guests and heard the sounds of fighting within. Tiv half wished to “peek her head in and smite” in passing, but she understood the grim logic in pressing on toward the deeper source of evil rather than dallying in every side skirmish.

As they advanced toward the colonnade, more guards, more wraiths, and more shadow beasts barred their way. Tiv once again swept the wraiths from the world with a single act of will, leaving two shadow beasts to threaten guards and party alike. Vedica’s arrows and Jack’s blows cleared one, while Ceangal’s magic and Dwårfy’s dual hammers disposed of the other. Step by step, the fellowship pushed forward, until at last they reached a courtyard where Captain Alaric pointed them toward a doorway and called that their enemy was “just ahead.”

There, among cloisters and walls, the party came upon three Inquisitor acolytes, ordinary men in service to darker powers. Tiv greeted them with slingstone instead of blessing, missing her first shot but setting the tone. Vedica’s arrow struck one cleanly, and Jack stepped forward with the horn of blasting. The horn’s dreadful sound rippled through the courtyard, leaving all three acolytes shrunken and reeling from the sonic force. Ceangal and Dwårfy followed in, the dwarf crushing one acolyte with a hammer blow that felled him at once, while Vegvisir added slingshot from the rear. When Murchad’s crossbow bolt thudded into another foe, the remaining acolytes threw down their courage and fled deeper into the complex, shouting for the door and fleeing rather than facing the fully assembled fellowship.

Pursuing them, the companions wound through more corridors and doors, sometimes pausing on the threshold of new rooms. Dwårfy opened one door to see two acolytes who, on spying the adventurers, immediately ran for yet another exit rather than risk combat. The party pressed on through these chambers, finally reaching a great hall where enemies and fate both awaited them.

At last, they entered the colonnade. There, beneath high arches and between the pillars of the abbey, stood Elara Voss, the Inquisitrix who had shadowed their earlier days on the island. Wraiths and shadow beasts encircled her, forming a living guard of night. She raised her ornate dagger high, not in the downward stab of a common killer but as if lifting a torch, and greeted them with a broad smile. “Worthy, powerful warriors,” she cried, “join my righteous cause against the Machine Elves, or face the Harbinger alone.” The “machine elves” she spoke of were no mere fable; Most of the party remembered strange dream‑visions of clockwork automata in strange labyrinths with flashing lights, and now heard those nightmares named aloud.

Her words hung in the air like smoke. Tiv, who had heard such offers from the mouths of darker tempters, chose her answer in action rather than speech. Without parley she turned the nearby wraiths, and they melted from existence before Elara’s eyes. The smile faded from the Inquisitrix’s face. “Then the shadows and the Harbinger shall purge you too,” she declared coldly, ordering her acolytes and shadow beasts to attack.

In the chaotic clash that followed, acolytes rushed Murchad, Vegvisir, Jack, and Dwårfy with swords and poisoned bolts, while shadow beasts darted toward the front lines. Vegvisir and Murchad were both struck in the first flurry, and the wizard’s already precarious health dwindled further. Elara attempted to ensnare Tiv’s will with a charm spell, fixing her gaze on the cleric and seeking to bend her to the Inquisitrix’s cause. Tiv, calling upon every lesson of her order and all the battles they had fought to reach this moment, resisted the charm.

Realizing the danger in leaving Elara free to cast at will, Tiv made a bold choice. Rather than strike at the beasts or acolytes, she cast hold person and directed it solely at Elara Voss. Focusing all of that magic on one enemy imposed a harsher weight upon the Inquisitrix’s will, and though Elara fought the paralysis fiercely, she failed to resist. In an instant, her body froze, dagger raised high, her eyes the only things that could still convey rage.

With their mistress held fast, the acolytes and beasts faced the full fury of the party. Vedica shot at the principal Inquisitor, while Jack struck an acolyte with sword and steel. Ceangal lifted his hands and hurled a fireball into the midst of the gathered foes, carefully placing its heart so that it engulfed shadow beasts, acolytes, and Elara herself but spared his allies. Flames roared through the hall, consuming robes and night‑flesh alike. When the blaze subsided, all in the room save one acolyte lay dead and broken. In the charred silence, a low rumble began, at first like distant thunder. It grew into a horrible laughter that seemed to vibrate in the stones themselves. From the adjacent church, a voice like the grinding of grave‑stones growled, “I am unbound!” The terrified acolyte cried, “You fools! You’ve loosed the Harbinger!”

Dwårfy and Vegvisir finished off the last living enemy near them, even as Vegvisir moved away to seek healing. Once the fighting had subsided, they turned to Elara’s corpse and the ruin about her. Tiv, with practical compassion, poured first aid and potions into Vegvisir, whose frailty had become a running concern. In all, Tiv used several healing draughts and her skills to pull him back from the brink, wryly noting how “squishy” he remained compared to sturdier companions like Murchad and Ceangal.

Searching Elara’s body, Murchad found her ornate dagger. Its blade was of fine metal, fashioned into a dagger more by necessity than craft, and its handle was a homemade wooden hilt into which a gold cross and scallop shell had been crudely inlaid. That humble inlay stirred memories. Vedica, thinking back to the catacombs under the island where a saint’s sarcophagus had borne a recess shaped exactly like a cross and scallop, realized this hilt‑piece might have been meant to fit there as a key. Tiv, examining blade and hilt both, felt a prickling of recognition, and with an intelligence sharpened by experience knew that the metal of the dagger’s blade itself was almost certainly the relic they had sought: the tip of Saint Michael’s sword, now sullied by wicked use.

Voss must have found the scallop emblem, used it to retrieve the blade, and then sealed the catacombs. The party had found nothing because she had beaten them to it!

Tiv cast detect evil. The blade did not shine as a cursed thing, yet it was “fouled,” steeped in the taint of the rituals Elara had woven. There was a debate about drenching it in holy water, about whether to risk touching it at all, and Tiv voiced concern that it might still have some lingering malign effect. Murchad, who had borne cursed steel before, volunteered to pick up the dagger himself. He joked that he was used to such things and had lived through worse. Taking it up, he felt no immediate curse upon him. Later, Vegvisir inspected the weapon and concluded that while it served as a dagger, it could be reforged into a proper sword even in its current state, but especially once all fragments were reunited in some elven forge.

Even as they discussed the foul relic, screams from the south and the echo of that low laughter reminded them that their work was not finished. The Inquisitrix’s death had unbound the Harbinger promised in her threats, and somewhere in the abbey a greater horror stalked. They chose to face it rather than flee with the relic, though Tiv half‑joked they could “just take the dagger and leave.” She quickly admitted that was not truly an option for her conscience.

They moved southward, using the abbey’s windows and walls for cover. Vegvisir cast invisibility to hide those most at risk; with limited remaining spells, he cloaked several companions in unseen veils. Through stained glass windows, Murchad glimpsed movement within the main church: shifting shadows far larger than any man. From within came human screams. Before entering, Tiv took a healing draught herself, knowing the next battle would likely be the hardest yet.

When they finally stepped into the sanctuary, they beheld the Abyssal Herald. It was vast, a mass of writhing tendrils and desecrated shadows, filling the nave around the altar and exuding malice so thick it was almost palpable. Invisible or not, the creature looked directly toward those who entered, as if it saw the soul rather than the body. “Foolish mortals,” it intoned in a voice that scraped at the bones. “I am unbound. Your world is mine to defile.” Around it lurked Abyssal thralls, mockeries of men twisted into servants of the darkness. They were in the midst of assaulting an acolyte and Father Jerome, the priest the party met earlier.

The fight began with terrible swiftness. The thralls slew the acolyte almost at once and turned on Father Jerome, wounding him badly, while another thrall struck at the party and managed to wound Vedica. Though invisible, she felt a lash of its attack and had to master her fear as she resisted a strange, corrupting influence. Meanwhile, the Herald fixed Murchad with its baleful gaze and reached for his spirit. Murchad felt a cold grip within, and though he steeled himself, spiritual blight settled on him, leaving him weakened and afflicted with a lingering penalty to every action.

At Tiv’s command, the party spread out in the sanctuary, dodging pillars and pews. Tiv smote at a thrall with her holy mace, though her first attempt to land a blow failed. Vedica, regaining her ground, stepped back from melee and fired arrows into the nearest thrall. Jack then stepped forward, sounding the horn of blasting once more; its thunderous note rippled through one thrall, Father Jerome’s assailant, and even the Herald’s towering form. Ceangal placed another fireball carefully, encompassing two thralls, the corpse of an acolyte, and the Herald while sparing allies as best he could. The burst of flame killed one thrall outright and scorched the Herald. Dwårfy moved in to engage, only to learn that each thrall’s death was itself a weapon: when Jack’s foe died, it exploded in a cloud of shadow, forcing those nearby to withstand a poisonous miasma. Jack saved himself from its worst effects, but the lesson was not lost on them.

They pressed the attack regardless. Dwårfy’s hammers crashed down on another thrall, and when Vegvisir added his own fireball to Ceangal’s, the sanctuary was rocked by two successive blasts of magical fire. One by one, the thralls fell, some in flame, some beneath hammer and sword. The Herald, however, endured. Drawing closer on its many tendrils, it lashed at Tiv and Murchad together, striking them both. Tiv staggered under the blow but kept her footing. Murchad managed to deflect what would have been a grievous hit, the unnatural nature of the strike doubling its force, and he found himself wavering, though still anchored by stubborn resolve.

While they fought the Herald, Tiv managed to turn her attention briefly to the thralls that remained. She channeled her magic into cause serious wounds. Vedica, ever the hunter, took a position behind a column and continued to fire at the Herald whenever it showed a vulnerable angle between its tendrils. At one point, her arrow struck, but as it flew, the Herald slipped briefly into the Ethereal Plane, so that the arrow passed harmlessly through its fading form. For a few heartbeats, the creature vanished from sight. Jack, unwilling to waste time, killed the last thrall with a musket shot; again, its death released a poisonous cloud. Tiv and Dwårfy withstood this, but Vedica was caught by the poison and cried out as her sight was taken from her. Blindness came upon her eyes, and she stumbled in horror, calling to the others.

In that moment of distraction, the Herald returned from the Ethereal Plane. It reappeared among them and struck at Tiv and Jack, but this time its lashes failed to find purchase. The party seized the opening. Ceangal, now seeing that the monster could shift between worlds but not escape raw destructive power, hurled yet another fireball at a point that caught its tendrils but would spare his companions. Vegvisir, understanding without words, prepared to mirror that strategy. Twin infernos burst over the Herald, one from each mage. Superheated air slammed into the vaulting of the church, stone groaned, and for a moment, the Herald’s laughter faltered. When the flames cleared, the Abyssal Herald had been blasted apart, its defiling presence torn from the fabric of the world.

Silence followed, broken only by the crackle of fading embers and the ragged breathing of the living. There was no treasure upon the Herald’s corpse, only the charred remains of something never meant to wear metals or gems. Tiv gave first aid to Father Jerome, restoring a little strength to the priest. When he could speak, he stammered out his story: a hole had been ripped in reality in the center of the church, and from that darkness the Herald had clawed itself into their world, its tendrils only stopping when its great body had filled the sanctuary. He had not seen Elara that day; their last conversation had been the day before, but he realized now that her machinations and death had been the trigger for everything.

As they questioned him, Tiv and the others considered the nature of Elara’s role. It seemed likely she had fostered the shadow beasts and wraiths directly, while the Herald, bound to some ritual she had prepared, had been held off until her death loosed it fully. Tiv declared, perhaps a little wearily, that whatever the finer points, they had effectively ended both problems: the shadow plague and the Harbinger together. Just to be certain, she returned to a lone wraith the party had left wandering for a time and turned it, watching it fade.

Captain Alaric and Father Jerome, once steadied, offered what thanks they could. Tiv asked, almost bashful beneath her stern demeanor, whether they might receive a reward for nearly dying “several times.” Then she laughed it off and asked instead for a blessing and the aid of the local clergy in healing and preparing for what lay ahead. Father Jerome assured them that priests of the abbey would tend their wounds. In time, all were restored to strength, and talk turned to what could be done about the fouled relic they carried.

The dagger’s blade was holy in origin, yet stained by Elara’s long service to darkness. Tiv asked Father Jerome if he knew any way to cleanse such a sacred but tainted thing. He did not speak offhand, but led them to his rectory, where he kept a priest’s journal and older records. There, in a worn book, they found mention of a hidden holy spring near the village of Lorda. A prophecy related that the hidden spring would one day burst forth and spread healing in that place, and he suggested that the corrupted relic might be washed clean there.

Jerome admitted he did not know exactly what rite would be required upon arrival, but he trusted that the prophecy and the holiness of the waters would guide them when the time came. The party knew that another fragment of the saint’s blade lay to the north in Kernow, which was to be their next destination. It would, they decided, make sense to travel first to Kernow for that piece, then to Lorda, so that they might minimize their traveling time. Murchad noted that other pieces of the sword lay in that direction anyway.

So the session’s tale drew to a close: the island freed from the shadow plague, Elara Voss dead with her plans undone, the Harbinger cast back into whatever black gulf had spawned it, and the party in possession of the long‑sought fragment of Saint Michael’s sword, albeit in need of purification. Ahead lay fresh journeys by land and sea, to Kernow and then to Lorda, where, if prophecy held true, holy waters waited to wash away the taint of the abyss and ready the relic for the reforging to come.