6. Goodbye

You have been walking into the depths of the Citadel for what seemed to be hours. The Sergeant indicated that you needed to go up and delve deeper. It is disturbing that the Citadel is empty. Not a single clatter other than the sound of your footsteps and the clanking of your equipment can be heard.

The Sergeant is leading the expedition and Lianthe is walking right behind him. She seems to be concerned.

"I am fine, Lianthe." says the Sergeant, but Lianthe doesn't buy this. She flinches whenever she sees a glimpse of the Sergeant's face.

Eventually you reach the end of the corridor which you wear treading and there is a wooden door of no significance. Behind the door is a spiral staircase.

The staircase leads to the main atrium of the Citadel. You enter the atrium and when you look around, you are astounded by how majestic and humongous it is. At least five of the small houses you saw surrounding the City could easily fit into this atrium. (I mean the ceiling is really high, the room is really large, but not that much. The majesty comes from the tall ceiling.) [What a wordsmith! :)] There is a colonnade at the very middle of the atrium, leading up to a beautiful white marble staircase, which itself leads to a large two-winged door, which is at this point shut.

The door seems to be too large to be opened manually, which explains the set of gears you see on the opposite side of the atrium. The gears are located next to a statue of a king, probably the current one.

A player with a high enough history skill would recognize him as King Darien II the Cunning, who earned that title after he managed to recapture the Citadel effectively ending the Serpentine Covenant once and for all. At this point Lianthe and the Sergeant know him simply as King Darien II)

At this point, the Sergeant falls to his knees, seemingly in extreme agony. Lianthe goes up to him to help him, but the Sergeant refuses the offer. He then forces himself up and says "We need to go to the Throne Room," pointing at the grandiose door at the top of the white marble staircase.

The players need to open the door.

You go around the room and go up to the gears. There you see a button, which someone presses. You hear the doors open. You start rushing there but the moment you stop climbing the staircase, it is too late, the door is shut close once again. The gear system is broken and only works for a limited time.

You do it one more time?

Then you hear a demonic roar come from behind the shut door of the Throne Room. At the same time the Sergeant starts screaming as well. He's silent once again when the roaring stops.

Suddenly hundreds of small Shadowy Servants climb up from the floor, phasing through the solid marble. You are surrounded.

The players need to jam the gears so that they will have enough time to run to the Throne Room.

Lianthe: " This is not the Serpentine's doing!"

Sergeant:" No it's not."

Rhullor's teeth thing happens. The teeth jam the gears, giving you enough time to run, but the Shadowkin follow you. Rhullor taunts them all by releasing his inner demon.

Rhullor lets loose a terrifying war cry and starts glowing in a bright red light, aura if you will. He grabs his Maul of the Vandal with his right hand and reaches for his pouch of teeth. In his left hand, he crushes the teeth into dust and a strange white light emanates from his closed fist. He then raises his fist above his head and absorbs this light, intensifying the red aura surrounding him. He than smashes his Maul to the ground, cracking the marble and sending at least 20 Shadowkin into air. As the Shadowkin are slayed, they turn into Black streams of light, which Rhullor absorbs.

The door is still open, and the only way you can go through is to let Rhullor go. He doesn't seem to hear you anyway.

[I remember now! This Rhullor the Barbarian had been collecting teeth throughout this campaign. This session was going to be our last one, since it was the end of the semester. He decided to sacrifice his character in order to save the party and have them finish the story. He used the teeth he collected to… jam the gears? But also to let loose his inner demon. It was a cool moment in-game.] 

The players go into the throne room. The throne room is dark, and seems to be full of terrors. [Shout out to GRRM.] The only light source is an altar on the farside of the room, standing ominously right in front of the throne. The altar is semi-surrouned by a semi-circle of candles that burn with a purple light. On the altar is an interesting object: A Violet Cube.  

The Sergeant then says: "We are finally here. There it is."

Lianthe: "How do we stop it? How do we get rid of it?"

The Sergeant looks back at Lianthe.

"We don't."

Just then, the Cube lets loose a shockwave that knocks all of you down, except the Sergeant. Lianthe looks at the Sergeant, who has now started walking slowly, very slowly towards the Cube. He has drawn his blade, the blade by which he has vowed to stop the darkness.

"STOP!" Lianthe yells out, but all to no avail.

Just then two Shadowkin Ascendants, wearing Serpentine cloaks appear out of nowhere. They attack you. Lianthe rushes out to stop the Sergeant.

The players kill the Ascendants.

Lianthe is now standing between the Cube and the Sergeant. "I will not move." (The players can try to attack the Sergeant, but he will not feel it.)

The sergeant moves even closer to the Cube and Lianthe. Then he grabs Lianthe and stabs her through her stomach. The blade pierces through her body. She falls to the ground. You rush towards the Sergeant, who is now about to slash at the Cube.

And he does just that. But the first attacker among the players to hit him slows him down, and he only manages to crack the Cube.

A shockwave knocks all of you down, when you stand up, you realize that you can see the Sergeant's face now. It looks nothing human, or elven, or dwarf. It is a globe of black flames with three round shapes, glowing brightly with purple, serving as eyes and a mouth.

The players fight the Sergeant, who fights like a puppet, a crazy one at that. He swings with his entire body, he does not care about injuries or wounds.

30HP 10 AC. +5 to attack rolls. At the beginning of his turns, the Cube emanates a strong shockwave, dealing one damage to everyone including him.

The players kill him.

It is too late though. The crack on the Cube has grown, it seems, with every shockwave emanated. You notice that Lianthe is still alive and she is standing up.

"I can stop this." She says. "I can stop it all."

"You should leave. This Cube will shatter soon, and release whatever evil is contained within. Silas used his blood to unleash the power of this, this Shadow madness. And he... Sergeant.. I can't remember his name... He used mine to crack the Cube. And I can use myself, to stop this."

As another shockwave is released from the Cube Lianthe stands strong in front of the altar.

"I guess this is goodbye," she says as the Cube shatters, revealing a black orb floating. Lianthe throws herself onto the orb just as the orb explodes.

Everything turns black.