Session 115
To the Wall
To the Wall
The companions abandoned the uneasy safety of the merchant quarter and pressed into the shattered heart of Raam. The streets were eerily empty, the air heavy with smoke and the distant echo of screams. They pushed toward the wall, hoping to glimpse Dregoth’s movements, but before they could reach their vantage, a patrol of dray on snarling kalin mounts erupted from the ruins and cut off their path.
Safi sprang into action, unleashing a cone of cold—but the spell was shattered midair by a templar’s counterstroke. Undaunted, he transformed into a kirre, the six-legged predator of Athas, only to be charged and cut down by a rider’s flashing blade. Shank, igniting the fury of the arena, hurled himself into battle, dropping one rider with brutal axe blows and cloaking the battlefield in volcanic smoke. From the haze, Shiv vaulted over Zahraan’s shoulders, his mace crunching into a dray’s ribs, while Zahraan slipped into position, his daggers and fists striking with lethal precision.
The riders pressed hard. Eldritch blasts screamed across the street, hammering into Safi and Anvar, nearly felling them. Safi shifted away with psionics, resuming his kirre form before unleashing a psychic storm that staggered four foes. Yet the kalin tore into him, its jaws locking around his feline body, dragging him down. Karnos, with cold clarity, surged psionic acceleration through his allies, turning their movements into blurs of deadly speed.
The clash reached a fever pitch. Shiv’s maul rang with the power of minds breaking, smashing bones and will alike. Shank struck from his smoke, killing one dray and vanishing into another cloud. Zahraan’s flurry of blades and fists carved a rider from his saddle. Fazanna’s toll of the dead silenced another, her blade driving home as she pressed forward. Anvar conjured flame and mended his wounds with raw vitality, standing defiantly against the storm. Then Karnos reached into the minds of riders and mounts alike, pinning them under the crushing weight of his telepathy.
Fear broke them. The dray faltered. Shiv, reckless and relentless, surged forward, Bonecrusher in hand, killing two more and leaving another gasping out his final breath. Zahraan dispatched another with his deadly rhythm, until only the survivors remained—and those survivors fled into the ruins, their mounts screeching in terror.
Anvar moved with cold precision, sedating the stunned dray templar they had taken captive. When the creature awoke, its eyes wild with confusion, Safi’s magic slipped into its mind like a silken snare. The dray’s resistance faltered, its will bent beneath the sorcerer’s charm. Seizing the moment, Shank wove words of deception and persuasion, his voice sharp as a dagger and smooth as honey. He painted a vision of glorious sacrifice, convincing the templar that his death would serve Dregoth’s grand transformation.
The dray accepted his fate with fanatic fervor. Fazanna stepped forward, the Bloodstone Ruby clutched in her hands, and the ritual began. The idol’s power flared with hunger as the templar’s life bled away, his body consumed in a torrent of sorcery and shadow. With a shattering crack, the gem itself splintered and was destroyed—its essence feeding something far darker.
But the triumph came at a price. Fazanna was forever marked by the idol’s curse. The destruction of the ruby severed something vital within her spirit, twisting the core of her soul. From that moment on, true companionship became impossible; she could never again forge real bonds. Every attempt at trust or friendship would be met with a subtle barrier, a whisper of the curse, leaving her words hollow and her heart tainted.
The sacrifice was complete. The gem was gone. And Fazanna was changed—irreparably.