Session 8 - Priestess of the Silver Flame

Recap
The party, exhausted from the fight with the warlock, the shadow demon, the roper and other minor creatures, barricades themselves into Karola’s study to grab an hour of rest. They bound and gag the warlock so that she is unable to cast any spells, and use all of their healing resources to recover as health as they can. During the short rest, Ebinir investigates Karola’s room and takes a history of the silver flame that she hand notated.

As the hour ends, a cloaked figure tries to enter the study door, and then gives up in frustration. The party nervous about the individual raising an alarm, removes the barricade and chases down the individual, who has moved to another room in the workshop area. The party moves into some work area to find Karola waiting for them, along with Bennet barely alive in a blackshop room. Karola demands the book again from the party revealing that the “Silver Flame” demands the book since it can reveal some secrets of creation itself. She claims the church has sinned and stands in the true way of the Silver Flame.

After a heated discussion back and forth, the party denies returning the book to her. Karola then summons a human like silver fire creature and begins battle. The fire creature begins attacking the party, and sets Toussaint and Aldren on fire, Aldren manages to restrain Karola but she quickly breaks the grapple and flees into the next room. Tranquillity directs Girga to grab Bennet and head to the entrance of the whole workshop. The silver flame sets anyone on fire who touches, so the martial members of the party chase down Karola into the next room, while Creep, Ebinir, and Anikia try to put the fire creature down. The fire creature follows Karola trying to protect her. Toussaint goes down, and Karola casts a spell to turn invisible. The party refocuses on bringing down the fire creature, and Karola flees further into the complex.

Tranquility falls next, after being set on fire while punching the creature. Aldren hurridely sees to Toussaint, while Creep engages the creature in close quarter, using his arcane abilities to hold the creature at bay. Finally a chaos bolt from Ebinir transformed into ice rock puts the creature down for good.

Their hopes high again, the party hears Karola order more troops in their direction. Creep pats the flame out on Tranquility and uses a healing word to revive him. Aldren pulls Toussaint back into the blacksmith area. The rest of the party follows suit, taking pot shots at the approaching thugs as they prepare to use the blacksmith’s room to ambush the large group of thugs approaching.

The party briefly discuss retreating, but decide that it would be impossible while carrying the unconscious Toussaint. The thugs assemble outside waiting until all of their group is assembled before attempting to breach into the room, while Anika continues to take shots at them. Just before the thugs rush forward, Ebinir charges forward and uses thunderwave to slam into the entire group of enemies, and then a surge of wild magic recharges him full of sorcerous energy. He manages to retreat back to the doorway of the blacksmith. The remaining thugs attempt to fight, but our easily taken down by Tranquility, Aldren and Anika. The last remaining thug attempts to flee, but Creep takes him down to harvest his soul.

After the fight, Tranquility confronts Creep about killing a man fleeing the battle. Toussaint recovers and wakes up. The party then goes back and searches the room it passed through, and finds Karola’s study. They recover some papers written in Abyssal, and a bag of holding with a googles of the night, some new potion, and windfall of coins. Tranquility, returns to the entrance to find Girga with Bennet. Tranquility’s charm off Girga has apparently worn off, and she tells Tranquility that she will depart as she is not fond of elves. Tranquility offers her some coin and wishes her well. Tranquility returns to the group, while Bennet remains at the entrance. The party decides against further exploring the area as they are all heavily wounded and running low on magic. They take the warlock prisoner with them, meet up with Bennet and leave the workshop.

After a brief discussion, the party decides to go to Shamukar to rest for a night, before retreating out of the Cogs. They approach the doors to Shamukar and ask the guard about the rules regarding prisoners. He informs to keep the prisoners tied up and inform the bartender first. Tranquility enters Shamukar, finds the large demon from before attending the bar, and asks how to mark the warlock as a prisoner. He tells them to mark her with an X in blood on her forehead. Tranquility comes back and after a brief discussion, Aldren cuts his thumb and smears blood on her forehead.

They take a short rest to recuperate. Ebinir brings the papers written in abyssal to the bartender, and asks him to translate it for him. Anika retreats to her room identify the magic items. The rest of the party sit together and bond over barely surviving their last encounter. Toussaint takes the warlock back to his room, to guard her. The warlock wakes up, and claims that the shadow demon had been controlling her. But she does not seem to be able to convince Toussaint of her story.

The devil bartender explains that many of the papers are mundane, talking of finances and logistics. But some are talking about pulling spirits from the plane of Delor. There is a drawing of shadow hound on one paper. Also talks about a pact with a shadow demon named Kara. More talk about not being able to pull in more followers or make in any more pack. More about ordering Khyber crystals, and some about dark summoning rituals. One paper includes a list of security personnel, and one goes into detail about Karola and her treatment of Bennet.