Cycle of Millennia 2021 Session 29: The Witch Queen
Here is week 29 of my 2021 Dungeons and Dragons Campaign Cycle of Millennia. Lets go over session 29: The Witch Queen.
Don’t forget that this campaign has been ongoing for over three years. There is a lot of story to cover and I’m writing a book series to document it all. I am adapting this adventure into a book series. The first three are on Amazon.
!!!Trigger Warnings Abound!!!
This campaign takes place in an incredibly unpleasant setting. The party has dealt with Human Traffickers, Sex Slavery, Child Sacrifice, The Apocalypse, Genocide, Wicked Cults, and other related topics.
There is a God of Madness that is fond of causing auditory and visual hallucinations, makes use of psychic gaslighting, commands the literal legions of hell, and all around causes untold suffering in the setting.
Essentially, nothing is off the table in this campaign. If the above ideas are not ones you want to think about, I do not think this blog series is for you. That is not a problem and does not indicate any failings on your part. I am a storyteller that does not shy away from the darkest topics. It would be horrible for me to not warn my audiences of this in advance.
!!!Final Trigger Warning. Past this point there be dark topics!!!
The party fought through Charice Temple and fought against countless Undead. Nihilinn’s hordes were doing their best to kill everything in the temple. What worried the group is that there were no signs to indicate why Moshe or rather Rul’Kahec was planning.
The party also hit switches. After the many dungeons and temples they had explored, they knew that activating them was key to moving forward. The Undead didn’t pose much of a threat to this group. Not when they had a Paladin among them.
At long last, after flipping plenty of switches they reached the skeletons that had been taking pot shots at them all along. While they had posed a danger to the group when protected from the walls, they were nothing more than weak undead when exposed like this. Grez and Caic killed them all at once respectively.
Wicked Love:
On the next floor party found Mariette and Henrick. Well at least Mariette. Henrick was worse than dead by this point. He had been reanimated multiple times now and his body reflected that.
Mariette revealed that she was a powerful sorceress. And the way she carried herself indicated that she was ranked at least as high within Nihilinn’s hordes as the Death Knights. Perhaps even higher than them given she mentioned her open disdain for the two the party had already killed.
Henrick being revived again and again seemed to only empower him. He wasn’t able to speak anymore, but used a new weapon that Caic could tell was wrapped in dark energy. Mariette also used some magic of her own and the sheer power released darkened the room.
The party found that attacking Henrick was pointless. Not only was he tough and powerful with his new spear, but the moment that he fell, his wife resurrected him and repaired his flesh. Worse, her same power summoned swarms of skeletons that stood out of reach of the party. They continually rained arrows down that the party needed to avoid.
Grez discovered that the ring he stole from Mariette was a cursed item. And at the worst time too. He decided to target her rather than her husband. And found to his horror that the ring connected him to her. His own attacks hurt him more than her. And Hadron didn’t notice and ending up almost killing his ally as he berserked to try and end her once and for all.
Deadly Adversary:
When the Monk finally parted with the ring, and felt more safe, he rushed back to the front lines to end this fight. He cared more about what was ahead. But Hadron was more than happy to deal with this threat on his own.
Eventually the party weakened Mariette to the point where she absorbed her husbands corpse. And she transformed into her true form. The woman screamed about how they didn’t understand anything. That she had been around longer than any of them. And that she understood them better than they knew themselves.
Revealing she was the Witch Queen, Mariette brought her terrifying Magic to bear. She existed outside of time in partial flux and warped around the room avoiding the group’s attacks. They were mostly weakened from the early part of this battle and everyone not named Hadron was on their last legs.
Suicidal Rampage:
She attacked the party in rage and almost succeeded in killing them. She gave off a dark aura that eclipsed Caic’s holy one and nullified his protection from evil ability with an even more powerful counter enchantment of her own. Had she once been a Paladin who had fallen? She wasn’t going to answer that.
Caic got a second wind and almost singlehandedly slaughtered her. He brought his holy energy to bear and used every spell at his disposal to remove her evil from the world once and for all. But it wasn’t enough. Even though she was weakened, it wasn’t over. And the party knew that a cornered monster was the deadliest.
Luckily, Hadron finished her off, not wanting to find out what she might do in such a situation. Of course, this didn’t stop her from releasing the built up magics within her body and causing a magical explosion. She almost took the entire party out with her.
Mariette’s final words were “I’m finally free. Free to be with my husband forever.” Before she crumbled to less than ash. There was no trace of her left. Had she just gotten herself killed intentionally? This seemed to be a common thing with Nihilinn’s minions.
Debauchery Cave:
Next the party traveled farther down. The Charice Temple seemed to go deeper and deeper and as the group traveled farther in, they saw just what the faithful of a party Goddess were up to in their free time.
They found multiple Charice Faithful who were too drugged to even notice. Despite all the fighting happening all over, these men and women completely ignored the reality around them just so they could remain in a drug induced stupor. At least in this case, it meant the party didn’t have to fight.
That changed though when they reached the other end of the cave system. The other two rogue Death Knights appeared. They had few words for the party. Not much more than being impressed that they had slain Mariette. They even voiced disdain for the other two of their order that the group had already killed.
Before Grez could try and fight them right there and then, the two vanished. Between their powers overt time and space, they were quite adept at escaping. A point that the Monk quickly voiced after the two were gone. Hadon reminded him that they would probably be fighting them soon. And if they were more powerful than Mariette was, this would be a deadly challenge.
Unusual Betrayal:
After they found seemingly nothing in the entire cave system, the group returned to the entrance. But as it turned out, this cave did have some secrets after all. Vineta, one of the high ranking members of the Charice Faithful revealed that she had lied about a few things. First, and most importantly, that wasn’t her real name.
But she was a familiar face. In reality, she was Denessa one of Velkora’s former allies. And not just former because of their opposing current allegiances. Denessa had also betrayed Orabaras. Grez worried that they all were about to return to the Goddess’ realm. A place he had already been near death in once.
When Velkora asked her if she was completely insane, the other former Cultist pointed out the hypocrisy in her words She told the party that the Charice Faithful had found one of the Neutral Gods. This was shocking, but not unsurprising. They had heard rumors of this already. Claiming that this other power would protect her from her consequences, she asked the party to join her and the Charice Faithful.
Summoning Horror:
The party tried to tell her that the Charice Faithful didn’t understand what they were doing. Remembering that the group had unleashed the Tarasque the last time they had interacted with a Neutral God, they tried to convince Denessa to cease this foolishness in vain.
Enraged, she commanded the Charice Faithful to demonstrate their new power. And a few more things became clear. Namely where the horrifying creatures the party kept encountering came from.
The world twisted to strange colors the party sensed that something otherworldly and powerful was nearby. Worse, those Charice Faithful that the party had ignored revealed that they were not as drugged as they appeared. Those bells from the necromancy ritual started ringing once more, and they called forth being from beyond to kill the party.
Wrap Up:
The group might finally be getting some answers, but the danger only continues to increase. They will have to survive if they want to learn the full truth.