RRH13 - Killing Private Ryker

Killing Private Ryker is the thirteenth session in the campaign Red Right Hand. In it, the party venture further through the underground of Steelhold in pursuit of the Blood Queen.

Summary
With Iago returned to life as a ratkin, the Star Cleavers and their gathered allies take a moment to consider the change. Iago, for his part, seems to have taken it in stride, and the party soon decide to press on through the tunnels. They soon encounter Sarama Badi on a bridge crossing a small chasm. She warns the group not to proceed, and they warn her in turn that they will kill her if she doesn't provide a good reason for them not to. Sarama refuses the party's offer of mercy and instead speaks indistinctly of why she can't abandon the Queen and why their cause is the right one. As Eptol and Iago assure her that they are quite capable of killing the threat to the world she and the Blood Queen oppose, Sarama backs away – Resmi's nocked arrow slips out of her grip as she looses the string and Sarama is successful in withdrawing further into the tunnels.

The group pursue across the bridge, whereon their clockwork soldiers shut down. They hardly have time to be inconvenienced by this before one tunnel brute and then another drop onto the bridge from above. After a brief scuffle however, one is dispatched easily by a showy overhead axe-blow from Nordison and the other by a thrown spare katana from Eptol. The Cleavers – with the exception of Malachi, who objected to the physicality of the work – and their allies carry their clockwork cohort across the bridge, and they spring back to life on the other side. Malachi continues to direct the physical labour from above when the party come to a heavy door, which Utan breaks down with a mighty swing of his tail.

Behind the door, Sarama is waiting with two guards in a room with a large hole in the centre of the floor. She expresses regret at the Cleavers forcing a confrontation, and Ovar warns her that they will show none of the mercy they had previously offered. Malachi opens the battle by throwing a bomb at the foes, setting the lesser of Sarama's guards – a conscripted miner – on fire. Iago then proceeds to cast grease on the floor the group are standing on, causing the miner to slip and set the grease on fire with his body. His life is brought to a pitiful end when Glade crushes him beneath a magically summoned boulder, which also knocks Sarama to the ground. Unable to get up upon the grease, Sarama left Utan at leisure to beat her to death. The remaining soldier, apparently Sarama's second in command, ignores Resmi's suggestion that he run away in the name of vengeance, charging Resmi with his sword – and promptly slipping and falling on the grease beneath his feet. He manfully blocks Eptol's executing blow, and Ovar slips on his way to assist his passing, but the soldier ultimately falls victim to an Unnatural Lust spell from Iago, and is compelled to run straight for his newfound object of desire – right into the pit in the centre of the room. Unceremoniously, Utan begins eating Sarama's arm.

Searching the rooms on either side reveals one to by the room the Star Cleavers had seen Flynn kept in in their vision – now empty – and the other to be full of treasure. Nordison and Iago both delight at this, and Iago attempts to use his bard magic to convince Nordison that the room is empty. Eptol then attempts to use sheer force of will to achieve the same feat. Neither succeed. Assuring Nordison that they can collect the gold on their way out, Resmi presses the group to move through the ornate door at the back of the room.

Inside, they are confronted with Flynn kneeling between two women dressed like mages, and a huge metallic relic, clearly from the old world. Flynn tells the group that he doesn't have all the answers they seek. However, the Blood Queen materializes to fill in the gaps. She tells the Star Cleavers of a man named Draven Nosk, using something called the Mask of the Dust Avatar to disguise himself as an avatar of the god Nethys. She says that he has always used Star Cleavers as pawns, and that she attacked them out of fear he would convince them to kill her. She explains that he is from the old world, an immortal, and that he operates from an island known as the Dawn Fortress, acting in secret to bring an end to magic, in an effort to restore the order of the old world. Finally, Flynn and the Blood Queen reveal that this woman, Kaleri, is in fact the sister of Ellaria, the original Blood Queen, and that she took the title to redeem it, and that the relic behind them is a weapon of the old world she has claimed. A bomb, strong enough to destroy an island. The pair plan for Flynn, infused with a fragment of Yir, to fight Draven on his island as a distraction while the bomb is deployed – killing Flynn, Draven, and the hundreds of civilians on the island. The Star-Cleavers are repulsed by the idea, insisting that they be allowed to try to kill him without any unnecessary loss of life first, but the Blood Queen is adamant – there can be only one attack, catching Nosk off his guard. She issues an ultimatum – join her cause, or die.

As is the norm, the Star Cleavers choose the option they always choose; kill the obstacle. The battle begins, and Flynn squares off against Eptol, using his mystical right hand to make Eptol drop his keen katana to the floor. Glade sends Utan after the battle mages, and Iago takes out his golden lute of supremacy to begin playing a song to inspire courage in the hearts of his allies. With her holy longbow, Resmi nocks the black arrow of human slaying given to her by The Enchanter in the Last Bastion, and takes careful aim at the Blood Queen. The arrow tears clean through her stomach, causing the Blood Queen to scream as the magic of the arrow burns her flesh before retaliating, casting finger of death on Resmi – the spell that slew May. The pain brings Resmi to her knees, but she resists its power and clings to life. As the Cleavers begin to pile blows on the Queen, Utan kills one of the mages and Glade sets about healing Resmi of the damage the spell inflicted. Eptol retrieves his sword from the ground and clashes with Flynn, exchanging blow for blow. Nordison charges in to assist him, but hesitates when Eptol insists he can fight Flynn alone – an opportunity Flynn takes to drive his sword through Nordison's breast, killing him. Iago creeps around to the rear of the fray, drawing the demon dagger to claim Flynn's fragment of Yir, allowing him to escape the ice spell the Blood Queen strikes the rest of the party with – freezing much of the group and killing Erik Of-The-Marsh.

Once Ovar fells the second mage, Utan is free to assist Eptol in his duel with Flynn, as Utan cannot understand Eptol's desire for a one-on-one fight. However, the help is not needed – Eptol's next onslaught seems to entirely slay Flynn. His body, though, rises unnaturally, and a voice other to his own laments that they took his other half. The shade of Flynn drops the sword it held and claws of shadow emerge, the possessed body setting upon Eptol and raging against the Cleavers for surrendering his other half back to Hell. Glade's magic brings Eptol from the brink of death and Iago swings clumsily at the shade to no avail. Resmi slips away from the Blood Queen to cast another curative spell on Eptol and Malachi picks up the slack, nauseating the Queen with a stink bomb and following up with an explosive. The Queen withdraws, resting against the surface of the bomb. In a brief exchange, the Queen insists the Cleavers promise to stop Nosk, and they point out that they already offered to before Glade kills her with a ball of lightning.

The Blood Queen dead, the group focuses on Yir, being careful not to simply kill him before the fragment can be reclaimed. However, he slips through the group and stabs at Resmi, lifting her off the ground on his claws before letting her drop back down, dead. The party react in shock, shouting for Glade to revive her. Iago leaps dramatically behind Yir and drives the soul-stealing dagger into the back of its head, declaring the killing blow to be for Resmi. The dagger drops from Iago's grip and sinks into a portal that forms around it on the floor, and Pyrria's unconscious figure comes into being. The Star Cleavers resume their insistence that Resmi be brought back, and Glade begins casting her remaining scroll of reincarnation.

The light of reincarnation eventually fades, and Resmi stands before them as a human. Glade takes Eptol aside and reminds him that this means she will be unable to revive his sister, but he assures her it was worth it. Ovar seems ready to depart, and asks Resmi for her thoughts. She tells him he can stay if he so chooses. As Iago departs to swim in the treasure they'd found earlier, the remainder of the Cleavers rededicate themselves to the quest they have inherited – to defend the world of magic from Draven Nosk.

Trivia

 * Introductions: This session introduced no notable characters.
 * Deaths: In this session, Erik Of-The-Marsh, Nordison Brae, Sarama Badi, Flynn Ryker, Kaleri, and Resmi Val'Rance died.
 * Notable Events: This session saw the party journey to the Blood Queen's deepest sanctum, kill Sarama Badi, Flynn Ryker, and Kaleri, claim the fragment of Yir, thus saving Pyrria from hell, and the death or Resmi followed by her reincarnation as a human.

Quotes
"Bloody magic. I hope none of you try and bring me back if I die. That's an order." - Nordison Brae

''"Allow me to explain." "Finally."'' - The Blood Queen and Eptol Noir