Xorian Wars: Alliance and Rebellion

[Anxe]

Alliance Session #7/Total Session #12
The session was attended by Throgg, Salzar, and thewamp. We used Google Hangouts again.

Last time the party had retreated from almost certain doom at the hands of a powerful demon, leaving behind the military leader of the Alliance, Astyanax. Not only was Astyanax necessary for the Alliance’s victory due to his leadership position among the military, but his daughter is also a key bargaining chip in a marriage alliance between Astyanax’s home city, Bradel Fields, and the unallied city Dalleer. Without Astyanax’s influence, his daughter is effectively a nobody. To secure Dalleer’s help for the Alliance, Astyanax must be brought back to life.
Astyanax was in the clutches of a demon. Bringing him back couldn’t be as simple as casting true resurrection. He might not come back if his soul was captured by the demon and he would come back without his equipment. Being a paladin, that would be devastating for his build. The party reasoned that a rescue of the corpse was necessary.
However, the Demon had proven too powerful to take on in a straight fight. The party decided to go do some research at their local library (Cue PSA shorts). After a few days they found a book that mentioned the demon, Daskirix. Daskirix is a sorrowsworn demon. He takes pleasure in causing despair and mocks people when they fall apart due to his schemes. The mighty Daskirix has five weaknesses: holy weapons, cold iron weapons, sonic damage, children’s laughter, and holy water. The party set out to gather up a few of these things for a banishment spell which can be made stronger if the demon’s weaknesses are presented to it during the casting of the spell.
A thunderstone was acquired for the sonic damage. Holy water for the holy water. A cold iron spear for the weapon portion. Finally, a child’s laughter was recorded in a magic mouth spell by Terroc. However, the ingredients of the banishment spell weren’t the only things the party needed to succeed. The spell still needed to get past the demon’s considerable SR and Will save. Thewamp did some research in his copy of the Spell Compendium and came up with two spells, spell vulnerability and assay spell resistance. A combination of the two would make getting past the Daskirix’s spell resistance a piece of cake. The Will save was still a problem, but the Spell Compendium turned up no spells that reduced Will saves without requiring a Will save itself (Wow, Wizards of the Coast).

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The party then came up with a titanic list of buff spells they’d be casting before teleporting into the lair of the demon. Torin would be casting the banishment spell. He memorized two of them in his 6th level spell slots and hoped that was enough. Everyone would form a circle around Torin and take turns going toe-to-toe with the demon while Torin attempted to banish it. With everyone ready, Terroc teleported the party into the sewers of Bradel Fields. (There were also some bets made on who would die during the fight. Torin and Logan both got two bets. Preta got a bet as well).
Unfortunately the teleport location they’d chosen was the space the demon was filling. They were shunted to the side and as a result, Torin was directly in front next to the demon. Readied spells started firing, but the demon made all of its saves. Astyanax’s corpse was chained to the pillar in the center of the room next to the ghost girl’s corpse. The demon was torturing the corpse with its glaive. With the surprise round done, we went into initiative order. A few more spells failed to penetrate the demon’s SR and Will saves until Amalius threw a Dominate at it. The demon finally rolled badly and was affected by the Dominate. On the demon’s action it turned around with a grin as blood dripped from its glaive. Then its grin turned into a look of surprise and shock as it realized it could not act to destroy these intruders!
Logan gave the demon a jab with his Eldritch Glaive, but Amalius told him to back off or the “self-destructive orders are not carried out” clause of the Dominate power would kick in. Amalius ordered the Demon to drop its weapon and stand down among a few other similar things. Daskirix wasn’t failing anymore Will saves though. He refused all orders except the one to not harm the party. With all other options exhausted the party decided Torin should just use his two banishment spells and hope for the best. Luckily, the demon failed on his first Will save. He vanished back to Hell, screaming and dropping his glaive and a pearly white ioun stone as he left.

With the demon defeated the party argued over who should get the glaive and the ioun stone first. Amalius snatched up the ioun stone, but no one cared for the glaive after they figured out it was anarchic and unholy. The party grabbed Astyanax and the Ghost girl’s bodies. They also took Astyanax’s gear which was piled in a corner of the room. As they prepared to teleport out they saw the Ghost Girl in the hallway. Amalius asked, “What can we do to put you to rest?”
She said, “Bury my body in the town graveyard.”
Amalius said, “We will,” as the party teleported back to the surface.

Astyanax’s body was taken to the local high priest of the Zeus, Janus. Janus told the party he could cast a true resurrection tomorrow. Astyanax’s body was allowed to lie in state for the night with multiple punctures covering it and half the face flensed off. The party rested for the night with the knowledge of a job well done.
In the morning Astyanax was rezzed. His body surged with life and the cuts were repaired, but the flensed face was not repaired (The players immediately got the Twoface reference). The paladin got off the altar and left saying, “I need time.”
The party discussed the strangeness of the face wound not healing with Janus. Janus theorized that since resurrection spells only bring back the subject if they were willing that perhaps the spell can only bring back part of a person, if they are unwilling to bring back the other part.
Concerned that Astyanax might be following the path of Twoface the party used some divination spells. Amalius tried first and failed. Torin’s spell succeeded. He asked, “Will Astyanax bring harm to the Alliance?”
The response was, “He is broken, but he will be made anew.”
Content with that response the party teleported back to Phoenix to report to the Alliance War Council.

The session ended there because thewamp needed to leave.