Characters
Willard Corn, strange old man in search of his missing dog
Heck, revenant who punches things to death
Garazi, young witch with a bird familiar
Panthalassa, a necromancer out for vengeance against a death cult
Daytona, dhampir cowboy along for the ride
Events
When we last left our "heroes," Panthalassa ran in to grab a skull mask off a table in a mess hall just as a dragon swooped down from a hole in the ceiling; everyone else was gathered by the doorway. Panthalassa took a mauling from the dragon, but made it to the door with the mask.
The group slammed the door shut. Willard and Daytona ran down the hall, but everyone else stood by the door arguing which way they should flee--which gave the dragon the opportunity to breath fire and nail the characters who weren't already in motion. The door was blown off its hinges and the hallway filled with fire.
That got the rest of them moving.
Now that most of them were injured, they decided to hole up in the empty cells in the subterranean floor to rest and recuperate. The time passed without them being detected, but they did begin to recall strange snippets of the woman who sent them here in the first place.
Panthalassa summoned a cat and used it to explore the fissures running through the broken walls in the complex. Through the cat, they located a cache of stowed-away food and a room where the remaining Fraternitie du Cadavre cultists huddled in darkness. The last mask they needed was with the cultists.
The group was detected as they approached the cultists. The cultists ran deeper into the tunnels, but the characters followed them. They ran into a chamber where the living avatar of the Nightmother stood; her six hands each held a blade, her monstrous tongue lolled from her mouth. Her mere presence caused fear in the majority of the party; thus debilitated, they had a difficult time fighting the pagan goddess's avatar, but eventually they prevailed--mostly due to Willard's efforts.
Unfortunately, while they were battling the Nightmother, the spectral necromancer Valton Blakely oozed into the room in shadow form and joined the fray. He wore a twisted crown and bore a greatsword blazing with black fire. Luckily, they heard the barking of a dog--Willard's legendary three-legged dog burst from a tunnel and tore a chunk out of Valton.
Valton proved to be an even more powerful foe than the Nightmother. Since many of the characters (including Panthalassa's summoned raptors) were all bunched together, he was able to hit them all with a big swing, Dark Souls-boss swing of his blackflame sword. Interestingly, they didn't scatter after the first time that happened--so they all took another full swing of massive damage from the necromancer's sword.
It was a very near thing; even Heck, the party's strongest member, was in danger of meeting death again. They did, at last, kill Valton, but they were always on the brink of losing one or two of their own.
They slaughtered the remaining cultists without mercy and took the final mask as their prize. They then hid out in the room with the cached food to heal up again. Backtracking to the room where they had fought the vlaak Lord Doctors, they realized that they had never looted the bodies there. In that room, they found the key to the vlaak craft, which Yarsi helpfully knew how to operate.
Once everyone was aboard and strapped in, Yarsi fired up the ship and brought them back to Hemlock Hollow. Willard bid the rest of the group farewell; his next destination was the stars where, with Yarsi and his dog at his side, we would seek more vlaak to kill.
The rest of the group brought the skull masks back to the Usher house. Inside, they found the sorceress Cassie Mabcrowe and her friends Brigid and Anastasia waiting for them. Nightsong was there too; she was yelling at Cassie for using "her team" for this mission. Cassie explained that she had sealed away their memories to prevent their plan from falling into the wrong hands if it was discovered--which was only partially true, but no one pressed her on that.
They did, however, insist on watching her perform the ritual that would put Madeline Usher back to "sleep." Wisely, they wanted to make sure Cassie was as good as her word. She was telling the truth--this time, at least. The world is now safe again from Madeline, the Curse of the Ushers.
But how does the party feel about being used by Cassie and, more importantly, what can they do about it? Perhaps that will be filed away, as the next item that appears to be on their agenda is to confront the witchfinders responsible for Heck's death.
