Session 2025-12-20 — Age of Ashes

Narrative Summary

The party confronted the remaining members of the night hag coven in the main chamber of the Dreamgate Waystation. Through the stone archway, they observed three figures in tense negotiation: Senna (a lean, sneering night hag), Rusty Mae (a massive, powerful night hag with blue-gray skin and iron-hard claws), and Haznazak, a bone devil they couldn't see but could hear speaking in Infernal. The hags were arguing about the devil's exorbitant price for reconnaissance services.

Before the hags detected the party's presence, Nadira unleashed a surprise fireball. The divine flames washed over both hags, dealing significant damage—Senna shrieked in rage, Rusty Mae's iron-hard skin smoking but holding—while the invisible bone devil remained untouched, immune to the conflagration.

Frazzle followed with cosmic moonlight, striking the bone devil with raw, pitiless radiance and wreathing his skeletal frame in celestial fire. Haznazak staggered, bone plates cracking, ichor seeping from between his ribs. Theo cast Slowed on Senna, forcing her movements into invisible molasses.

Rusty Mae charged at William with unnatural speed, iron claws reaching for his face and dark magic coiling around her fingers—a curse meant to twist flesh into something broken. But William's faith was a shield more powerful than any steel. The curse struck Shelyn's radiant barrier and simply stopped, unable to find purchase against the Champion's unwavering devotion.

The battle raged across the chamber. Both hags took repeated hits from divine fire, arcane force, and cold iron attacks. Frazzle's telekinetic storm battered them both. Theo applied debuffs and heavy damage spells. Nadira's Holy Blast and weapon strikes, enhanced by divine buffs, tore into their flesh. William stood as an immovable anchor, taking punishment but never breaking.

The bone devil Haznazak, despite his invulnerability to fire, fell quickly to the party's combined magical assault. Frazzle's raw cosmic power proved effective against the fiend. Theo's force damage accumulated relentlessly.

After a brutal, merciless fight, Rusty Mae fell, her iron-hard flesh finally yielding to the combined assault. Her final defiant curses died with her as she crumpled to the stone floor.

But as the echoes of combat faded, a sudden, enraged shriek pierced the chamber from beyond.

"RUSTY MAE! SENNA!" Kelleni's voice was raw with fury and panic. The sound of hoofbeats followed—heavy, deliberate, not the panicked flight of prey but the measured advance of a hunter.

Renali muttered quietly, "The last one. And her nightmare."

Kelleni rounded the corner astride Coalgnasher, a nightmare—a massive black stallion with spectral flames licking from its nostrils. The creature forced its massive frame through the narrow five-foot-wide passage, shoulders scraping stone. Kelleni hunched low against its neck, her broken horn catching the dim light, her blue-black wart-covered skin flushed darker with fury.

When she saw the chamber—Haznazak's scattered skeletal remains, Senna's twisted corpse, Rusty Mae's sprawled form—Kelleni's face cycled through shock, grief, and pure, incandescent hatred.

"YOU!" she pointed at the party. "You killed them! You killed my sisters!"

The new battle was brutal and desperate. Coalgnasher, despite terrible wounds—arrows embedded in its flanks, burns from divine magic—moved with desperate, magnificent fury. It charged through the party's formation in a devastating gallop, trailing fire, igniting hooves against stone.

Kelleni deployed spell and claw to hurt them. Her shadow blast filled the chamber with freezing void, stealing warmth, light, and hope. She grabbed William repeatedly with iron-hard claws, and her curse fell upon him like a shroud of despair.

Most dangerously, Kelleni cast Dominate on Nadira. The spell crashed into the warpriest like a wave of absolute command, and for a terrible moment, Nadira's body went rigid. Her scimitar arm began to turn toward her companions. The symbols of Sarenrae on her armor flickered and dimmed as alien will flooded her mind, rewriting loyalty and twisting devotion.

But the Dawnflower's light blazed. Nadira gasped, stumbling back, her hero's resolve shattering the deepest hooks of domination before they could fully set. The spell still clung to her mind like oily smoke, whispering commands and pulling at her thoughts, but the critical anchors burned away in holy fire.

Kelleni grinned, showing teeth like yellowed tombstones. "There we are. Good girl. Now—kill the pretty one in the armor."

Nadira's jaw clenched as she fought the lingering compulsion with every breath, her scimitar caught between raising to defend and lowering to obey. But Nadira resisted the command, a will save granting her freedom from the hag's direct control even as the background compulsion remained.

The battle continued through multiple rounds. Theo, despite being struck down by Coalgnasher's charge and contracting Abyssal Plague from Kelleni's claws, returned to the fight fully healed by Nadira's powerful restoration magic. William never faltered, using his body and shield to protect his companions.

Finally, Theo rose to his full power. His hands splayed wide, and the air itself seemed to recognize what was coming. The stone carvings of stars along the walls pulsed in sympathy as he drew power from fundamental forces.

"NO MORE."

Lightning answered—not the jagged, chaotic forks of natural storms, but something perfected. A bolt of pure electrical fury arced from his fingers in a blinding line. It struck Coalgnasher first, the nightmare's smoke-wreathed form offering no protection against the primordial wrath of the heavens. The creature's scream was cut short as electricity coursed through its ethereal flesh, stopping its heart mid-beat.

The bolt didn't stop. It chained upward into Kelleni, who had just enough time for her triumphant grin to become a rictus of shock. Her broken horn glowed white-hot. Her wart-covered skin charred and split.

Kelleni toppled from her collapsing mount, both hag and nightmare crashing to the stone floor in a tangle of smoking limbs and fading brimstone. The blue-black skin went gray. The burning eyes dimmed. The last of the coven died with a wet, rattling gasp.

The Dreamgate waystation was theirs.

But victory came with a cost. Falwan's sharp eyes caught the way Theo moved—just slightly off, tremors in his hands as adrenaline faded. Examining him, she found dark veins spreading from Kelleni's claw marks like roots of corruption, flesh fever-hot to the touch.

Abyssal plague.

Falwan's voice was flat and insistent. "We're going back. Now. To Citadel Altaerein." She detailed what untreated plague meant: fever, delirium, necrosis—and those were the lucky outcomes. The unlucky ones didn't survive the progression.

The party collected their wits and prepared to return through Huntergate to Citadel Altaerein, where proper supplies, sanctified space, and time to work treatment properly awaited. The Dreamgate Waystation's treasures—the silver cauldron, the books (mostly sinister texts on Mahathallah worship, with one containing divine rituals of planar ally and resurrect), the dreamstones (one of which was cursed), and other valuables—would have to wait. Theo's life was the priority.

Session Notes

Key events:

Party entered confrontation with remaining members of night hag coven in main chamber
Nadira opened combat with surprise fireball (18 damage to both hags, 0 to bone devil)
Frazzle struck bone devil with cosmic moonlight (82 damage)
Theo cast Slowed on Senna (successful, 1 round)
Rusty Mae attacked William and failed to curse him due to divine protection
Bone devil Haznazak killed relatively quickly through combined attacks
Night hags Rusty Mae and Senna defeated after sustained combat
Kelleni (final hag) arrived riding Coalgnasher (nightmare) to avenge her sisters
Kelleni cast Dominate on Nadira; Nadira resisted via hero point and Sarenrae's light
Theo dropped to 0 HP but healed by Nadira mid-combat
Theo contracted Abyssal Plague from Kelleni's claws (stage 1)
Theo cast devastating lightning bolt, killing both Kelleni and Coalgnasher
Party discovered Dreamgate Waystation treasures
Falwan diagnosed Theo's plague and insisted immediate return to Citadel Altaerein

NPCs encountered:

Senna (night hag, defeated)
Rusty Mae (night hag, defeated)
Haznazak (bone devil, defeated)
Kelleni (night hag, defeated)
Coalgnasher (nightmare, defeated)
Falwan (healer, ally)
Renali (anadi, ally)

Combat:

Surprise round: Nadira fireball, Frazzle moonbeam, Theo slowed
Main combat: Five enemies (two hags, one devil initially; two hags, one nightmare after reinforcements)
Total casualties: 5 enemies killed
Theo downed once, fully healed by Nadira
Nadira almost dominated, nearly turned against allies
William repeatedly attacked with relatively poor rolls but never broke
Final round: Theo cast 4th-rank lightning bolt, chaining from Coalgnasher to Kelleni

Party decisions:

Used surprise round to open strong, knowing the hags posed serious threat
Focused fire on visible targets first (hags, then nightmare)
Nadira maintained primary healing throughout combat
William served as anchor/tank, never retreated
Theo provided heavy damage through spellcasting
Decided to retreat to Citadel Altaerein immediately upon discovering Theo's plague
Agreed to prioritize Theo's medical treatment over cataloging hag's hoard

Unresolved threads:

Theo's Abyssal Plague (stage 1) requires treatment at Citadel Altaerein
Dreamgate Waystation treasures not yet fully cataloged or secured
Books on the ritual table (particularly those on Resurrect) not fully examined
Purpose of sealed exit portal with blood runes still unknown
Relationship between night hags and wider Scarlet Triad operations unclear
Kelleni's references to "original leader Abelstia" suggest hag coven was trying to resurrect a dead deity/entity
Other areas of waystation not explored beyond two chambers

Rewards/loot:

Bountiful Cauldron (magic item, functional)
Nine books on Mahathallah worship (20 gp each = 180 gp)
One book with divine rituals (Planar Ally, Resurrect) (250 gp)
Two dreamstones (one cursed, one functional)
Bodies of defeated enemies (standard treasure conversion to be calculated)

Citadel Altaerein Activity:

Next session: Short session at Citadel Altaerein while Nadira treats Theo's Abyssal Plague
Following 3 weeks: Break
Return: January 31st session