By: Sawyer "Jericho" Judkins
For days I had been seeing visions of spirits being trapped and needing to be put to rest. So I headed off to the village where this all went down. Upon beginning our quest, we were very quickly set upon by demons, hellhounds, and cultists. We shut down a portal and continued on. We passed by a pit that took us quite some time to traverse, as well as a deadly spider web. Eventually we made it to where several spirits were milling about. They appear to have all been killed by something. They all needed different ways to be laid to rest: some wanted to learn spells, one was looking for a lost toy and another a rabbit, and another needed an oath sworn to protect their lover. One final spirit seemed to actually remember how they died, but could not be put to rest that night. They would be able to lead a small group to help with that the next night. Having dealt with what we could that night, we headed back to camp and enjoyed a nice fire.
The next morning we set off again, this time with a much larger questing party in tow. Immediately, we were set upon by a group of warriors calling themselves Falling Star, Demon Hunters. They accused us of being demon lovers and consorting with demons and kept attacking us. We eventually made it known that we were in fact here to help them, and on the same side. Their leader, General Marcus, was an intense man, and made it well known what he thought of our group, only trusting a few that he felt deserved his time. He explained he had a ritual to finally seal Rixa. Rixa is a demon we have had some tangles with in the past, and we wanted to see put away. We convinced General Marcus to let us help, and he set us up with a staging ground, as well as the list of items we needed to complete the ritual.
The first thing we went after was a set of manacles. We took a portal to hell, and chased off after a demon that had them. To get the manacles, he required someone to swear obedience to him, as well as a number of chunks of our souls. Through some ingenuity of some other casters, they were able to fool the demon into believing his demands had been fulfilled. This was done through some magic to Aurora, and if what I heard is to be believed, the use of one of her Tears. A few people also now owe the goddess favors. It didn’t take long for the demon to realize he had been duped, and chased after us. General Marcus caught up to us as we neared the portal out and helped defend us getting through.
The second thing we needed was a special spirit rope. To get this we traveled to the Spirit Realm. There were many angry spirits that we had to use our Ghost Bladed weapons to do anything against. One spirit was very helpful and promised to bless the rope once we got it. We got the rope and headed back to the spirit, only to find her attacked and under the effect of a Greater Soul Bane. I am not sure on how it was ultimately cured, as I spent that time defending those working on it. After completing this, we headed back to our staging area
The final thing we needed was a dark viscous liquid as well as a catalyst. We were recommended to be very careful with it as it was highly volatile. To get this, we ended up portaling to Ariland. I was a little late to the questing group on this one, but knew that a number from Chimeron had made it to the components fairly quickly. Something about moving statues and feigning death.
After gathering the final components, we went over the ritual and found a place to do it. As we were setting it up, Rixa showed up with a small army behind him. Everyone did an excellent job of keeping myself and the others doing the ritual safe. I don’t think a single demon got near us. We completed the ritual, and sealed Rixa within his lamp. General Marcus thanked us, and offered his shield and title to a single individual that we would pick from the group. The title and shield went to Sir Wil. General Marcus asked us to deal with two other demons while Falling Star took care of another one. Agreeing to do so, we broke for dinner and decided to go after the demons upon reconvening.
After dinner, we grouped back up for the demon hunting. A small group split off to go find and deal with The Painter, I won’t go too into details on how that went, as it was very disturbing, but they managed to rescue a hostage, and killed the Painter. The rest of us continued on the hunt for the other two demons. Along the way, we realized that the demons were trying to bring about an everlasting night. To prevent this, we needed to have enough puzzles completed at the same time at the end of the night. Demons were going around undoing our progress as well. Since we were in a time crunch, tensions were a little high as Greater Demons roamed looking for specific individuals, puzzles to complete, and keeping everyone alive. We managed to make sure morning came, and headed back for some well deserved rest. I am unsure about what happened to the Greater Demons though.
The next morning saw us being approached by a very desperate cultist. She said they had tried summoning a demon, and now all the other cultists could not stop laughing. So we slogged through so many demons, hellhounds, and what seemed to be demonic cows to get through to a village. There, we were greeted by cultists and some kind of golem. It was a trap to lure us in since we had been causing them problems. After some sleuthing and seer magic, we determined how to deal with the golem and head cultist. The golem could only be damaged while it was moving its feet and the head cultists could only be dealt with after the golem was killed. After dispatching them all, we discussed how the item of power I recovered should be dispersed, and headed our own ways.
I am happy to give a more detailed breakdown on the Painter for those that wish to contact me about it. Did not want to put it all down in case younger eyes were reading this report.
Until next time,
Jericho Axelthorne
Lord of Arken
Watcher of the Skyless Sea
Squire to Knights of the Sable Dragon
Knight of Chaos
