cinaed

Session 4 (8/11)

They all stand in this place that reeks of rot and undead. Here is the entrance to the temple of Melisandra, the founder and first and only Archmage, but it is also the home of the lich who has taken up residence.

The door is further down the corridor.

The Archivist begins to lead them towards the door. As he does, Asmund heals some of Tueni, Triss, and Para’s injuries, though he pauses and asks Para’s permission first. She gives him permission and thanks him for asking.

He then says to the Archivist that he thinks someone should go back and warn the rest of the Archive about the lich after the tomb is open, and that it should be him. The Archivist hisses back that this is his archive and he will stop this invader.

When Victoria says it is our Archive, an ourchive, Para bursts out laughing, Meanwhile Yves casts Message to Asmund asking if he thinks they should get the Archivist out of here, which makes Asmund sigh and silently reply that he doesn’t think they’d be able to convince him and would only waste time trying.

Para says that if the Archivist insists there’s nothing any of them can do about it.

The Archivist moves forward. His head wound is barely closed over from Asmund’s earlier healing.

Tueni, Triss, Victoria, and Asmund can feel the unnatural presence of the lich the closer they get to the doorway, which is almost deceptively simple. There’s no grand design or murals. It is a large stone door with a sword facing up on one side and down on the other. There is a chain barring the door, with no traditional keyhole, just some runes and a fist-sized indentation instead where the key or the Archivist’s hand would be inserted.

The Archivist mutters to himself over the lich invading the Archive as he draws out a ceremonial dagger. He knicks his thumb and presses it into the indentation. The runes begin to glow and light the chain and the door until the entire door is aglow.

They all feel that distant arcane magic. Yves recognizes it as the old magic bleeding out of the door, making him hiss as the Archivist opens the door.

Immediately everyone is hit with a blast of ice as a jagged ice shard impales the Archivist through the chest, sending a spray of blood onto Asmund’s armor and clothing that immediately freezes. Everyone is hit with shards of ice, some managing to dodge better than others.

They all hear a quiet, “Well, shit,” from Asmund as he looks at the Archivist’s impaled, limp body. Para reminds him that he did tell him to go back upstairs, and Yves squeezes his shoulder briefly before Yves steps inside.

Inside it is dark until light begins to spread through the space as a grating, rasping voice says, “I don’t like being interrupted.” The tomb seems like it was once a quiet place of contemplation, with a nearby pool that is now frozen.

Yves says they have something in common already.

The voice continues, warning them to leave. Yves tells him this is his place and to get the fuck out.

Floating just above the tomb encasing the body of the Archmage, which is a beautifully sculpted tomb of a woman holding a sword, is a skeletal figure dressed in ancient clothing, long and flowing robes that are tattered and vaguely smoking from waves of necrotic energy.

As it turns its empty skull to them, its eyes drip with the blue and black smoke.

Para calls up that she likes his look and wants to know where he got his robes. He tells her that he became this when there were only two gods. She clicks her teeth and says that might mean it’s impossible now, before Triss begins to move forward, intent on fighting the lich.

Yves moves faster, drawing on his bladesinging and casting a fiery Chromatic Orb at the lich. It strikes the lich on the collar bone and it smolders at his shoulder before he reaches out and pats out the fire and remarks that the spell was cute.

The lich looks at Yves and snaps his fingers. Everyone watches the Hawk go still as a stunning pain hits him. Then the lich looks over at the group and says that if they don’t mind, he’s here to reclaim something stolen from him.

Victoria casts Dispel Magic on Yves, trying to help, but she feels the spell resist her as the lich tightens his grip on the spell. She transforms into her starry form and fires off a radiant arrow, striking him. It doesn’t seem to do any extra damage to him as the lich retaliates with a powerful Ray of Frost.

He raises up his hand. From the ice, the party sees skeletal hands burst through with frozen flesh as the ghostly hands slash at Victoria. She recognizes Kip’s spectral form as necrotic damage courses through her.

Tueni looks up at the ceiling above the lich and brings part of it down on the lich. Mud slams the lich into the ground with a grunt. Then Tueni heals some of his own injuries before the lich blasts him with a Ray of Frost.

Asmund moves over to Yves and cleanses him of the spell before he rushes up towards the lich. The lich casts a spell at Yves, and notices the Warding Bond between them as Yves’ Song of Defense nullifies the damage. He makes an interested noise and says it seems that when he tears Yves’ heart out it won’t just break his.

Asmund narrows his eyes and says not if they tear his heart out first.

Triss casts a Sunbeam down upon the lich. Sunlight strikes him as he focuses on Asmund, and he turns towards her with a snarl and says he will retrieve the sword, she belongs with her brother, they are a matched set.

Para takes a moment to appreciate the lich’s robes, even as damaged as they are. Then she touches a life rune on her arm and heals Victoria of some of her injuries. After that, she casts a protective spell on herself, Fizban’s Platinum Shield, a faint glow surrounding her.

Yves casts another fiery Chromatic Orb and strikes the lich again. This time it gets him in his rotting jaw. The lich glares at Yves and asks if he wants Asmund to watch him die before he begins to cast a spell that Yves counterspells. The inky blast of darkness that he stops a few inches from his nose, Yves recognizes, knowing that it would have hurt very badly.

The lich studies Yves’ unbothered expression and says, “You don’t care if you live or die, do you? Great.” Yves says he’s faced death enough times that he doesn’t fear it, and the lich says he didn’t just face death, he beat it.

Victoria casts Moonbeam on the lich, but he evades the full brunt of the spell. Victoria’s starry form fires another radiant arrow at the lich, cracking into the arm bone. The entire party sees the fractures and hears a faint snap as the lich flinches away from Asmund and hisses that he came here for her brother.

Then the lich reaches out as though to slap Asmund but instead touches his jaw. Asmund feels a sickening cold sweep over him as the lich latches onto his life force.

Tueni had planned to heal Victoria but turns to Para and makes a hand gesture at her, mouthing the word chipmunk. Para gives a little shrug and tells him to go for it. He tries to Polymorph the lich, who wavers for a second as a chipmunk before he resists the spell. He heals Victoria then for good measure.

Asmund looks at the lich and tells him that if he thought this connection would stop him from injuring him, he was sorely mistaken. He doesn’t care about why the lich is here, but they’re going to stop him. He strikes out and slashes deeply into the lich’s chest, the radiant energy lancing through him and feeling the same cut open up on his own chest as well.

The lich lashes out at him with a Chill Touch, but Asmund manages to shake off being paralyzed as Triss sends another blast of her Sunbeam again, taking advantage of his distraction as he stares at Asmund.

The lich glares back at her and casts a spell that she dismisses with a wave of her hand. He reminds her that she can leave, and she says he can.

Para tries to cast a curse on the lich, which he shakes off, before she tells him that she admires his fashion and status as an undying wizard. She asks him how he got inside, and he tells her that he has been in here hundreds of times. She sees a cocky smile spread across his undead face and knows that he was a member of the Archive.

He isn’t familiar to her, because he is ancient, from a time before the Sun War and the Archive. She realizes that he wasn’t just a member of the Archive, he was one of the founding members and was likely there when the Archmage was buried. There’s only a handful of members that could be, many of whom are dead and buried here. She remembers the story of one who had a falling out with Melisandra’s daughters and left the Archive. His name was Kestav Revais and he wore the original Golden Wolf mask.

Para makes a little curtsy and says, “I was not aware we were in the presence of a Wolf.”

The lich thanks the Phoenix. She tells him that he has an interesting outlook on life and asks who sent him here. He tells her an organization that he was early on the ground with, once they found the other half of this. He touches the stone sword on the tomb.

Para realizes he’s speaking of the Sworn Edge. She says very clever, very impressive.

He says that they’re reuniting the siblings, and she says as he should, she has no siblings but she would hate to be parted from one, even in death. He tells her that he is not dead, and she asks if he’s undead like the lich. He says no, but the sister calls and the brother doesn’t answer.

Para locks eyes on him and says that she admires his strength but this is her house and he should ask before entering. Then she casts Disintegrate. Both the lich and Asmund take an intense amount of necrotic damage. She calls out to Asmund and asks if he’s okay, and he says he’s been better but he’ll be better once this lich is dead.

Yves looks at Asmund for a lingering moment, Asmund silently communicating for him to do what needs to be done, before Yves casts another fiery Chromatic Orb and burns the lich once more. This time Asmund resists the connection with the lich and doesn’t take the damage as Yves sidles closer to the iced over water.

Victoria’s Moonbeam damages the lich again before the lich attempts to cast a spell on Asmund, which Yves tries to counterspell, the lich counterspells, and Para finally counterspells with a high level spell. The lich hisses that even if he dies here, he hopes she dies in her office, alone and unloved. Para laughs and says she hopes she dies in her office, it took her ages to make it exactly the way she likes it.

Victoria says, “Stay away from Ourchive,” and casts Guiding Bolt. It shatters the lich’s skull as the headless corpse collapses onto the tomb. She exclaims that she thought she missed as a very plain and otherwise uninteresting silver necklace falls at Asmund’s feet.

He asks everyone how to destroy it, if he can hit it. Tueni hastily goes over to heal him as Para recalls stories of destroying other phylactery, each requiring different methods depending on the lich. It takes a lot of energy and magic to destroy a lich’s phylactery.

They have eight days before the lich will rebuild himself. Para knows that there are many powerful spellcasters in the Archive that should be able to figure out a way to destroy it.

Yves spies the Archmage’s mask situated on the face of Melisandra’s tomb. When he touches it, it feels as though something tries to yank his soul into the tomb. He resists as a voice in his head hisses to release her, and Yves pulls away with the mask. As he does, the voice goes quiet.

They find the key when one of the corpses falls from the wall as the ice thaws. Yves collects the five masks as Asmund lays out the corpses of the fallen archivists in a row, including the Archivist’s.

They go up the steps with the masks to where the Golden Wolf is waiting at the entrance of the library. She adjusts her own mask and asks where the Archivist is. When Yves says in his office, she snaps that the Archivist went down with them.

Asmund says Yves was being clever, and Yves holds up the Archivist’s mask and says pointedly that the Archivist is in his office. The Wolf sighs and calls the Archivist a clever and proud fool, and Para says that it is a fitting epitaph.

Asmund explains that there was a lich, which the Sparrow killed and the Phoenix can tell her more about, but that there is still a phylactery that needs to be destroyed. The Wolf says that they should tell the new Archivist. They cannot do anything without him.

Para offers to tell him his father is dead, and Yves and Asmund quickly volunteer.

In the office, Sae’var is still curled up in his chair. He looks up and Yves and Asmund, who are standing at attention as Yves tells him that his father died to a lich, which was killed. Sae’var tells them to be at ease.

Yves offers the mask, saying that apparently they can’t do anything without an Archivist. The Wolf eyes him and shrugs and says it’s true, nothing can be done without the Archivist. She adds that the Archivist said in case of his death, Sae’var would inherit his mask. It would have been him in any case, as the only remaining member of the Solray bloodline.

Yves sees a look of abject failure flicker across the Fox’s face at the news of the Archivist’s death before it’s replaced by a steely resolve. Daveena falls into step behind Sae’var as Sae’var slowly and stiffly gets to his feet. Sae’var leans against Para, who tells him quietly that this too will pass and earns a grateful squeeze of his hand.

As they travel down to where the other archivists are waiting to meet their new Archivist, Yves casts Encode Thoughts and sends a furious message to Asmund that has an underlying fear for Asmund almost dying. Asmund says nothing for the moment, but stays close, his shoulder pressed against Yves’.

Sae’var accepts his place as the Archivist. The Wanderer had a successor, the tiefling Genesis, but the masks of the Curator and the Puppeteer are temporarily put on the wall and Yves given the task of finding a suitable new Puppeteer.

It takes a lot of time the next day, multiple Disintegrates and holy spells, but the phylactery is destroyed.

Over the next few days, Para and Triss rehaul the collection process. When Para goes to give the new form for the Sea Urchin she realizes the woman is nowhere to be found. Her suspicions that the Sea Urchin was involved in getting the lich inside is confirmed.

She and Yves hunt for this woman. After many months, they find the body of the Sea Urchin in a shallow grave outside Dragon Spine Village, her eyes, tongue, lungs, and heart removed. Her mask is broken and discarded nearby.

Para brings it back with her, as a reminder to take care with who people trust.