Final Session 14 (9/24/2021)

 The Fallen Ladder

After her Atonment, Vesper met with Penny Escher of the Artificer's guild. They had discovered another Shelter beyond an area called the Fallen Ladder in the underdark. Wan would take them into a radioactive zone so they could explore that shelter. 

The party went down to Gambuldar- the dwarven city, where they met Malgoth Fossilmover, who believed the radiation was a death aura caused by an artifact of Zon Kuthon.

The party travelled the fallen ladder and found mutated creatures inside. They uncovered a derelict train and saw that the fallen ladder was actually referring to train tracks. Wan repaired the train and went to the area called Station, which was inhabited by the descendants of ancient humans, mutated by their AI, Alexa, to survive the radiation.

They discovered that centuries ago an incident called "The Leak" happened, where Alexa's power cells began to leak radiation. This caused her to lose a great deal of functionality, and most of her systems were shut down. In order to repair it they would need an alternate power supply, either from Shelter, or from a floating city location called Orbit. 

They found that they could use Alexa's mutation equipment to protect them from radiation, but the mutations were harsh- Nantar went blind, Wan went deaf, and Kyrian grew a useless third arm. Vesper opted out.

On the end of the train line, Malgoth lay in wait with an ambush, many skeletons, zombies, a few ghast, some shadows, and an antipaladin cohort. Many of the undead were destroyed, but the radiation suts hindered Vesper and Aurelia's spellcasting, Pending was not around, so the party was destroyed by the undead forces in the radioactive tunnels of the Fallen Ladder..

Session 13 (9/17/21)

 The Amazons

The party was approached by Jaspar the unicorn. The migration of the Forest Giants in Ivy's Woods were disrupted for some reason, and his prophecy tells him that if the migration isn't repaired then the forest will be in grave danger. 

The party sought out Clawdia, chief of the Forest Giants. These giants were bigger than normal forest giants, 20-25 feet tall, and all female, many with a taste for humanoid flesh. She revealed that her tribe makes occasional migrations to breed with the males of the mountain giant clan- gargantuan giants 45 feet tall who have an insatiable taste for humanoids. The males children are sent back, while the females live here, safe from being dominated by the spores in Ivy's Forest. 

However, monsters have taken over the pass- medium sized spiders. The Amazons are terrified by the spiders and have been afraid to take the voyage. This puts them at risk, as if the social contact is not met, the Mountain Giants will come burn the woods to claim the women. 

The party went to fight the spiders. In the tunnels they met a Lampad named Terra who informed them that the spiders are aggressive because some humans went to a shrine nearby and defiled it.

The party headed to the shrine, which was a shrine of a long forgotten spider goddess. There they found that some Ragathiel paladins were turned into spiders when they destroyed the holy books in the shrine- and the spiders that were here became aggressive and went out into the nearby mountains.

The party considered finishing the job and destroying the altar, which would destroy the dark goddess' influence on the world, but were afraid of getting similarly cursed, so they reached out to Umbraella Arachnix, who came to the shrine and learned that the goddess was Lolth from another dimension. She freed the goddes and became her chosen. 

Umbraella pulled back the spiders to the shrine, solving the Giants problems, but refused to spare the Paladins, as they had done her goddess damage and must be punished. She also hinted that she might turn nearby mountain giants into gargantuan driders under her command.

She blessed the party with a succubus profane gift. However, Vesper and her cohort were weakened- this was a great evil they had done, and it violated their Good flaw. 

Session 12 (9/10/21)

 The Survivors (Continued)

After the incident with Shaking Spear, Pending decided to try to speak to Captain Grimes and Sparhaw and the Orc Prisoner. They saw they were being spied on, and the Orc handed Pending a silver shoe buckle he had found as evidence.  Pending informed Grimes that they had helped Shaking Spear avoid pursuit by guards and that she was killed by a reaper monster. 

While he was meeting with Sparhawk, Vesper was brought in for questioning by Grimes, who was able to figure out that Vesper helped Shaking Spear escape, but was unable to prove it. She said "I can't arrest you for abetting a criminal, but I can tell you to stop your meddling or I'll arrest you for interfering in an investigation."

Vesper told Grimes about the Reapers and Pending told Sparhawk. Both of them said they would concur with their experts to see if such a thing was possible.

Vesper decided to quit the mission because she didn't want to get in trouble. They met with Sylvia Moongazer of the mage's guild, who wanted help moving a powerful sorcerer across country while under magical protections so he could defect from a horrible war and get sheltered by a mage's guild. They met with Baru Coin to identify that the defector was a Pit Fiend, defecting from the Bloodwar. 

Before they could move the fiend, a Reaper came after Vesper, and they realized they had to go back to town and solve this crime. Nantar spoke with Sparhawk and they decided to go to the Mage's guild contact together to find out whether or not the reaper situation was viable. They were forced to fail the Defector mission and complete the Survivors. 

The mage's guild expert, George Tithonus, it turned out was the one summoning the reapers, and he attacked the party- and was almost able to defeat them, including summoning another reaper, when guards showed up, summoned by Sylvia (Vesper's familiar). 

Tithonus escaped, but they found a Greater Reaper bound in his basement, and found evidence that he was using the reaper to summon minor reapers to kill people in an agreement that he would provide victims, and in exchange, Death would avoid him and his family, giving the exceptionally long life. 

They were able to free Scarred Soul, the Orc Witch Doctor, and they freed the Greater Reaper, restoring balance between Life and Death.