Session numbah 49!

Spoiler: Through the gate
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The Pilgrims walk through the portal and emerge into the wreckage of a warzone. They aren't walking atop the dead anymore, but it's not particularly far off. Bodies are strewn across the landscape in every direction, more than anyone would be comfortable counting. Shattered weapons and warmachines add to the carnage, as does the heavy smell of death and smoke. The corpses seem to be every single type of daemon and fiend the party has encountered, as well as even more disturbing and twisted monsters. Opposing them (and just as dead) is an army of angels, as well as incredibly intricate and varied constructs. There is the rumble of distant combat and warfare, but the party's immediate surroundings are deathly *heh* still.

The party is getting a little desperate by this point to find somewhere to rest (I laugh at 4 encounters a day! Laugh, I say!), so Spotter goes to scout for anything that can offer some shelter. There's a pair of massive hills running parallel to each other not too far away, so that's the direction everyone goes (Spotter ranges further ahead, while everyone else settles at the bottom of one of the hills for now).\

These hills are kind of weird. It's a thin coating of dust and dirt over what seems to be steel (Talvosh does a bit of digging while Spotter is gone, and every bit of hill he scrapes away exposes more smooth steel), and while they stretch a LONG ways away, seem to meet together in the distance. Spotter can also see a larger ridge up ahead, and large shapes jutting up into the reddish-grey sky flanking said ridge on each side. There's some more peering around, and some cleverness/wisdom checks are made as the scale of what everyone is looking at is understood.

The "Hills" are legs partially covered by ash, dirt, and dust. The party is standing at the feet of an absurdly titanic armored corpse!

There maaayyy have been some rather pointed questions about whether or not said "corpse" was showing any signs of movement. After Spotter rejoins the group and everyone confirming that they weren't going to have to engage in a "God of War scale the boss" minigame, they decide to head towards the chest of the armored giant.

The walk is oppressive and tense, but uneventful. The scenes of carnage keep unfolding before the heroes, but there's no other sign of life besides an occasional silhouette flapping in the horizon. I'm deliberately vague about how long it takes the party to proceed past the legs -
Spoiler: DM NOTE
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Starting with Sheol and the river of the dead, time is REALLY messed up right now for the party
- but they eventually the reach the chest. I use the word "rising" and there's another bout of questions to make sure that the chest just rises up from the ground, not that it's rising as in breathing. Now that they're closer, the large shapes on either side seem to be a sword and a shield, both embedded into the earth and stretching skyward. There's some debate as to which one to go to, and consensus seems to be leaning to the sword, but then Puck does a Vitae check to try and look for a Bonfire. He gets that pulling sensation up ahead, towards where the head should be.

So off the party goes!
Spoiler: DM NOTE
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And misses out on some optional stuff


Progressing forwards, the Pilgrims don't come across a giant skull, or a building-sized helmet, or anything like that. Instead there's a large steep valley, the slopes almost at a 45 degree angle. Down at the bottom of this sudden depression is a pool of glittering black liquid, almost 100 feet across.

Seems like someone lost their head over something *ba-dum tsh*

The ominous pool of black liquid that may or may not be some supercreature's blood and feels like Vitae unnerves most of the party for some reason. Spotter and Puck clamber down to check it out, while everyone else waits at the top of the valley to see if they die horribly. Puck's battlevisor is going all static-y and overloading with the magic emanating from the liquid, but nothing grabs him by the face. So while everyone else is debating, he walks into the liquid. And goes a bit further in.

And then falls in and vanishes from sight.

The rest of the party goes a little bug eyed, but decide to wait 1 minute to see if he dies and reappears next to Angelena. Aren't they so supportive?

On Puck's end, he falls and lands roughly on a broad stone platform. It seems to be a giant eight-sided chamber, with platforms at varying heights with wide steps between them. There's a pit in the center of the room, and in the center of that pit is an elephant-sized crystal gleaming with eerie light. Puck looks from side to side, and then Pathos' cold voice rings out once more.

"One of you? Really? That's it?"

Puck is again offered the "easy way out" by hurling himself into the pit, but he's disinclined to acquiesce. After a little more talking, the atmosphere changes and it's initiative time!


Spoiler: Shards of Madness
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With the grating noise of stone against stone, hulking figures assemble themselves from hunks of rough rock, and lumber towards Puck! Three are quite blocky and haphazard looking, while the fourth is actually carved and detailed. Unfortunately it looks like an evil demented version of Bulwark, with wicked morning stars for hands. Rather than charging in headlong and alone, Puck wisely activates his flight and rockets upwards out of reach. There isn't a handy ledge or anything to hide out on, but it gives him a bit of a grace period to wait for the rest of the gang to catch up.

Speaking of that gang, they finally start picking their way down to the liquid, and finally identify it as "definitely a portal." Spotter is the first in, while Talvosh accelerates his entry by taking a gigantic leap from partway down the incline. Upside? He enters the same time as Spotter, who was quite a bit ahead of him. Downside? He enters facefirst on the ground. Angelena and Sona are the last to wade into the water, but that's because Sona takes some time to toss Greater invisibility on both herself and the priestess.

The battle is in full swing by the time everyone has arrived, but nothing terrible happened while the party was split up yay! Puck was smart and dodgy and picked out one statue that was up ahead of the rest, diving down and smashing it to pieces as the rest of the party falls/lands/floats to the platform. As the hunks of rock fly apart,
Puck makes his spot check to notice a hateful transparent face glaring at him from inside the "chest" of the rock monster!

Puck is pretty much immune to all their abilities, but as tasty living brains arrive in the room, the Advanced Evolved Allips start to attack from inside their rock-mechs. Poor Spotter fails against multiple babbles again, but is struck and knocked out of it quickly by the rock-monsters. I may have played my hand a little too early with the allips, however. After seeing how dangerous they were (reducing Talvosh to comatose in a single round), the three allips only manage to dispel Sona's invisibility, haste themselves, and only touch Spotter for a minimum of 2 pts of wisdom drain before they're quickly prioritized and burned down. The rougher rockmonsters are identified as animated objects, while the more detailed one is a golem, and said rockmonsters are smashed apart quickly to expose their crazy allip centers. Even the sight of the smashed rockmonster reassembling itself doesn't frighten the party too badly.

But by this point the golem has reached the fight, and the real boss decides playtime is over. The Incarnation of Madness
Spoiler: DM NOTE - creature type and templates!
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Advanced Phrenic Whisper Demon
floats out of its golem ride, exposing everyone to the Maddening whispers aura. Spotter fails, but everyone else manages to roll high and save (or be Puck, who is incredibly smug being immune to all the bad things happening). Alas, Spotter rolls "act normally" so he doesn't hit himself in the face. The Madness also uses its Fission psi-like ability and splits into two horribly spectral monsters. The Fission floats forward and forces another round of saves while zapping people with an Energy current, while the original floats near the crystal and looks generally crazy.

The serious danger of the allips being removed makes this fight no longer instantly deadly, but the Madness is still pretty nasty. Spotter has a seriously hard time with the maddening whispers,
while the rest of the party is stymied as they try to target the Madness. One of the feats I gave it was Mark of Nessus, which combined with its super high Charisma, means a big chunk of the party's attacks are forced to fall short or go elsewhere.

Everyone takes a lot of damage, either from hitting themselves, being beaten on by the reassembling rock-monsters, or the psi-like abilities of the Madness. An Ultrablast in particular scrambles everyone's brains, and things are looking a little tense. Spotter manages to land one of his massive x4 crits, but the Madness just shrieks in rage and keeps going. Finally, Puck rockets through the air against the Madness! And fails against the Mark of Nessus. So instead, he swings his axe as hard as he can into the crystal (which looks suspiciously like a giant version of a Forged's crystal heart). I blare the creepy noise again as the room shakes and the crystal cracks slightly.

"YOU DARE?!?" The Madness is extremely perturbed, and continues trying to rend the Pilgrim's minds and souls to goopy confetti. Sona and Angelena get in on the crystal attack, even dropping a cometfall on the giant crystal. The battle continues, with Sona and Spotter dim-dooring to the opposite side of the room to try and prevent themselves from more mind-blasting. Talvosh continues to reduce any rockmonster near him to pebbles, but they keep getting up.

More big numbers get thrown around (Talvosh finally lands a couple hits on the Fisson-Madness and nearly obliterates it instantly), and Puck keeps smashing away at the crystal, even with his flight about to run out again. The Madness is trying to pull his guts out during all of his, the incorporeal touch attack the only thing he's not immune to. Finally, the crystal splits down the middle. With a final howl, the Madness explodes!

And so does the crystal, assaulting everyone with chunks of high-speed shrapnel. The final blast of damage rips Sona apart, instantly putting her to -20 or so. With that, everything is dark and completely silent.

We end it there, with the last two sessions managing to put everyone to 17th level


Spoiler: DEATH COUNT
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45!