Session 52 - Curios and Curses

The curio shop stank of old incense and fresh blood.   Glimmerstone’s Curios had been reduced to a charnel house. A grotesque knot of fused bodies twisted in death sprawled across the floor, bloody and twitching in its final moments of unlife. Amid the wreckage lay Damaris Glimmerstone, intact but alive for the moment. Alfie, ever the quiet anchor, called upon his divine power. A soft hum filled the shop as he mended the wounds of his allies. Damaris stirred as well, touched by the healing magic. He coughed, spat blood, and blinked into reality like a man surfacing from drowning.   The shop’s chaos seemed frozen in time. Cal rummaged through a stained satchel left by the Crimson Glove, finding a diluted healing potion, barely active, and the splinters of a wand with no magic left. He studied a snow globe filled with illusory fish doing tricks no fish should know. Declan found forged maps with arcane markings drawn by an unsteady hand. Oathgar examined his dented mug like it had betrayed him.   Then Damaris spoke.   His words staggered out like a drunkard at dawn, slurred but lucid in the worst ways. "Bugs in my brain," he muttered, "after the seance." He spoke of the Faceless One and his blood puppets. Of cursed medallions that didn’t just watch, but possessed. Of the niece he tried to save by stabbing a necklace in the night, and the sister who walked in at just the wrong time.   His voice cracked when he said, "I didn’t mean to stab anyone."   The party pushed. He yielded. More secrets came loose. The Faceless One used the bloodstone medallions to create a simulacrum of himself, using flesh rather than snow to form the bodies. Words like "sadistic" and "sick" were used to describe him. Still, there was one secret that Damaris clung to as if his life depended on it.  A secret that, if the prince knew, Damaris would lose his sanctuary. "This place is mine," he said as he gestured to the shop, "but it's not really mine if you know what I mean."   Then came the knock.   Two city watchmen entered. Outside the door, a radiant figure silhouetted in firelight stood watch - a Blessed Angel, still as judgment.   The older guard rolled his eyes at the carnage. “Art installation?” he quipped. The younger watchman gagged.   But when the party name-dropped Prince Voronov, the room’s temperature changed. Swords sheathed. Salutes exchanged. The angel didn’t speak—it just watched them leave, then soared away like justice with wings.   The Ruinlords walked through Salisgrad’s market district. Lightstones glowed above cobbled streets. Locals raised left hands in casual salute, the tattoos of citizenship shown and passed like currency. Yet near the black obelisks, even greetings died in the throat.   At the Fellgate Inn, they heard songs below, whispers above, and from a strange fissure in the floor—growls and siren voices. Declan negotiated with the innkeeper for travel supplies. Alfie blessed their food. Cal listened to the walls.   The next morning, Lashonna arrived.   Silver hair, golden eyes, voice like silk hiding razors. She had come to escort them back to the palace. Breakfast was served and poisoned only by tension. Cal cast augury. The omens seemed positive.   For them, at least.   Damaris was in chains, a flaming sword at his throat. A Blessed Angel stood ready. The Prince asked one question: "Will you vouch for him?"   And the party did.   Voronov, amused and annoyed, spared Damaris but cast him out of Salisgrad. With the Amulet of the Worldbreaker destroyed, the Ebon Triad ritual to summon Malganis would not work. The Prince then gave the party a new task: travel to Egorian, find Lucius Blackthorn, and return with his severed head and the Scepter of Infernal Dominion. A final nail in the Ebon Triad's coffin.   No time for protest. They disguised Damaris as an "indentured servant" and entered the Infernal Custom House.   The portal chamber reeked of brimstone and precision. Ritual circles glowed, mages chanted in harsh Infernal tones. When the gate opened, they stepped through fire.   One by one, the flames curled around them, burning away flesh and form—but not their essence. They reformed at Waystation 13, the Ashgate Reliquary. A toll station built from smooth stone and iron, hiding a church, a customs office, and an arcane gate.   They met Signifer Vittorio Sarvinus, a masked Hellknight who inspected their identities, asked sharp questions with blunted courtesy, and let them pass. In the chapel, Alfie and Cal listened to a young cleric whisper sermons to no one. Halfling servants offered rations with quiet kindness.   On the road, Declan’s saxophone filled the morning with music and momentum. A merchant caravan offered passage, and the road stretched before them.   Then the sky tore open.   A Hellgate split the air—and from it, three Death Knights stepped onto the earth. They bore skull motifs similar to the one worn by the worm mage on the bridge. Once, Ebon Triads. Now, something else. The battle was short and brutal. Blood boiled. Auras drained. Spells cracked the sky.   But Oathgar and Tike stood tall in the end, black ichor dripping from their blades.   They took weapons. They left none alive.   Egorian loomed.   The capital’s gates opened at their false identities. Cal cast Ear of the City, and whispers crawled through cobblestones. Paravicar Cassius Del Vago was dead. The funeral would be public. And Lucius Blackthorn was already a legend in the eyes of the people.   They approached the Basilica Vexilarum.   And found it… gone.   A crater, 500 feet wide, hissed with steam. Red-hot stones. Ash in the wind. Smoke curled upward from the ruins.   The church had vanished, consumed by hellfire.   And with it, their plan.   The mission had just become something else entirely.