Session 84 - The Best Laid Plans... Are Non-Existent!

Wed 14th May 2025

In-game timeline: Alturiak 7 - Alturiak 7

As the guard runs off deeper into the sewers, our "Heroes" make a quick (at least, quick for them) decision as to their immediate response. Sanada is closest to the fleeing guard, and spots that he went into a large room - a makeshift "temple" - where there were other cultists, now fully alerted to the presence of the intruders.

Sanada waits for the others to catch up, and tells them what was ahead and they quickly hatch their plan of attack.

They then ignore that plan and wing it, which ought to be their plan every time, as it is always what they end up doing anyway.

With all hope of a stealthy, or deceptive, infiltration of the group completely out of the window, their best hope for ensuring any useful information the cult may have is contained, and available to them, is to shut down any group of cultists to prevent the higher up members from fleeing or destroying useful information.

And so they just run in, all guns, swords and spells blazing.

Sanada decides to cast Darkness in one entrance, which only Alwaith is able to see through, meaning the others cannot see what is happening in the room. She then throws a smoke grenade in another entrance, which none of them can see through. This ensures that at least one of the cultists is able to run away from the temple, despite Alwaith's attempts to stop him. Most of the other cultists stopped to try to fight, but the inability of them to see their enemy made them more likely to flee, meaning our "Heroes" needed to run around to get into the room and take them down. 

Sanada uses her decent movement well, chasing down some of the fleeing cultists, but her continued despair makes her susceptible to the cultists' Command ability, and she ends up jumping into the river of sewage of her own accord, emerging coughing and spluttering later.

Phil Spectre puts in an appearance, as Alwaith takes down multiple cultists, and brings forth Phil from the body of one of them, to chase down another.

Solveig is hamstrung by his inability to see anything, but uses the darkness to his advantage, popping in and out of it to take down some of the cultists with his impressive indoor lightning storm.

Faith flies around, tempting some of the cultists to come after him instead of fleeing, but his moonbeam proves a decisive factor in making some of the cultists run - they realise they are probably outgunned. 

Perhaps more by luck than judgement, though the darkness and smoke does help rather than hinder this, our "Heroes" take down most of the cultists in the temple, though the main "priest" does seem to get away from Alwaith's Eldritch Blasts, running further into the sewers. With the cultists scattered, and the vision of most of the party blocked by darkness and smoke, they are not sure if any others escaped too.

Fearing that more people will be alerted to their presence, the party give chase after the priest, but the fact that they are somewhat scattered to begin with, their desire to check the nooks and crannies of the temple for other cultists or objects, and their lack of knowledge of the layout of the sewers, makes this slower than they hoped. They are not sure where the priest went, or ended up, but Solveig does manage to spot a heavy wooden door further in the sewers, and some voices are heard behind it. Our "Heroes" gather behind this door to form a new plan. I wonder what this plan will be?...