Sx24 — And Finally Release the Darkest Flood

***And Finally Release the Darkest Flood*** is the 24th session of the campaign*.* It is preceded by Sx22 — Rock Bottom, and followed by Sx25 — Anteus' Revenge.

This session takes place between the 18th and 19th of Ahkamentes. Notable moments consist of: Spending the next day investigating the Funeral Rights Association, for possible motives against the King, Neleous being used by Vasias to reveal the royal families secret, his death and Eltin Burrowheart's plot being revealed, along with the information that his is not the current attempt on King Eugammon's life. Trying to contact Apollo for a clue, and finally the reveal of Lenile's betrayal, and that it was Anteus the Necromancer in disguise.

## Oto’s Self-Discovery

Oto goes to the temple of Dionysus in the Zeus District and decides to visit the mental illness ward of the temple. There they find a man sitting still on his bed, saying *“So Dark”* repeatedly. Oto discovers that the man worked for the Hades Association, specifically in the tunnels under the palace. Something happened to this man that led to them being treated in this ward, but what it was wasn’t discovered. Oto then prays to Dionysus for advice on contacting Hephaestus, they reiterate that contacting Hephaestus might be a bad idea, but that Hephaestus has also been missing and that the Gods are looking for him, they fear that Hephaestus has made a powerful automaton that may have malfunctioned, and that it may need to be destroyed. However, the timeline doesn’t line up for it to be Oto themself. Oto then goes to the temple of Hephaestus, as they approach they hear the sound of metal striking metal, and have to overcome their fear of the forge as they step over the threshold. Oto then calls out to Hephaestus. They then fall unconscious in the centre of the temple.

They awaken kneeling in a crater, surrounded by the terrified priests of the temple. The murmurs of the temple as they look at Oto, saying things like *“Their eyes were golden”*, and arguing over destroying something. When Oto lost consciousness apparently they had unleashed tremendous power their eyes were glowing with gold flames and they said in the voice they believed to be Hephaestus *“Destroy Your Descendants”*. Apparently, the voice sounded strained and in tremendous pain. Oto then flees the temple, before the priests really have time to react, heading back to the palace and back to the group. Where they find out about the dragon destroying half of the palace.

## On to the Task, I Guess

Khantos wakes up in that room, with Adrasteia and Leoven in the other room. He lies about the dream and what it entails and goes on to say that if they don’t resolve this and find the necromancer then the world will end. Khantos also claims to not remember anything from his bout of madness, which doesn’t align with Leoven’s similar experience.

They decide to further investigate King Eugammon. Finding him in his room he is catatonic, repeating the phrase *“I’m sorry uncle”* over and over again. The group noticed the rug in the room had been scratched at aggressively, seemingly by human hands. Lifting it up, they find a necromantic rune underneath that is drawn in human blood. Similar to the one in Braxion’s room, it is pondered if Braxion is another target, but he doesn’t use that room often. Adrasteia casts Detect Magic on the King, they see that he contains a golden light, probably the source of their sorcery abilities, but it is being attacked and fed upon by this grey energy. They go on to investigate the Queen’s room, also looking for another of these runes. They find it behind their wardrobe, another of these runes using the Detect Magic spell still, they also spot a piece of jewellery in the Queen’s room that is imbued with divination magic, a gold necklace with a sapphire in its centre.

Adrasteia and Khantos go to talk to Trechon, he talks about how suspicious he is about Quintus, believing he purposely got him stuck with the position on the council. Saying Quintus has the ear of the King and Queen. He thinks the circumstances around the former representative were suspicious. The previous representative, also a child of Poseidon, Benninfile suddenly became very ill, he started vomiting blood and died soon after. Notably, he was much more politically minded than Trechon. The group concluded that he must have been poisoned.

Leoven attends the council meeting seemingly the focus of the meeting is the damages done to the palace, due to the dragon and holding the Athena Group responsible, it seems Braxion takes the brunt of the blame. She asks the Queen about her uncle, she tells them how the Uncle served in the war against the Empire, and how he became a national hero. So much so that he was more popular amongst the people than King Eugammon, because he was becoming a threat to the royal family's position, they exiled him out to Hecates Crag and behind his back settled for peace with the Imperum Empire. The group pieces together that he was the dead grandfather they found on Hecates Crag. They also find out that Stellina is a second cousin of the royal family.

Adrasteia and Khantos also meet with the Queen and find with Detect Magic that the Queen has the same golden aura, but it is not being attacked by grey energy. They try and show her the rune, but she seems to be totally oblivious to its existence and unable to see it. Adrasteia spots some dark magic swirling around her eyes and tries to cast Dispel Magic to dispel it. It was a 9th Level Spell, but she managed to do it and the Queen was suddenly able to see the rune. The group ask about the Queen’s security and where exactly their Guard Captain is currently, she informs them that they are currently in Posttown settling an issue before this started and that they did not call them back in case of raising alarm bells to the culprit.

The group goes to investigate Eltin’s room, they are accompanied by Lenile. Lenile opens the door to their office and helps them investigate. They go through the door at the back, that had been suspicious in their thoughts. Entering it, there seemed to be a lot of storage, mostly different rare ores, but buried at the bottom of one of these containers, was a glass vial of clear liquid, but it was too viscous to be water. Seemed to be odorless and tasteless. There seemed to be no rune in this room, but they found an entrance into the tunnels. Oto and Leoven enter the tunnels with Lenile leading the way with Theobald's shield. They spot another of the necromantic runes, and Lenile walks right past the rune, seemingly unaware that the rune is there before Oto and Leoven call him back. They decide to break the rune, whilst trying to be as safe as possible. They both move a distance away from the rune and Oto uses the spell mage hand to try and erase the rune. When they do a dark energy emerges from the rune and strikes Lenile who tries to block it with the shield, and he falls seemingly unconscious. Leoven quickly heals the butler and they all quickly retreat from the tunnels.

Leoven and Adrasteia go to a record room within the palace and find that the King and Queen's Uncle’s name is Orestes Sminos. He had a daughter born 40 years ago called Philareti and she was married to a man named Cideros Badoulis, they have one kid on record called Bravo. They realise that Orestes’ name is the same as the one carved into the funerary mask they found outside of Artemis Sentry. They also find that Orestes was exiled from the country on the 20th of Akhimentes and so the date the King will die is the 13th anniversary of their exile. Though there was no reason for the exile listed.

## Hades Association Investigation

The group then went to investigate the Funeral Association Headquarters. To gain access to the headquarters, they only brought in Leoven, Khantos and Oto. While Adrasteia and Neleous awaited outside in the Zeus District. They manage to convince the secretary, Conor Kendall. To let them in by conjuring a fake seal claiming they had the right to investigate the recesses of the building. They are led deeper into the building and lead to an area that is opened by the placement of a staff in a socket and the floor slides open, with the rest of the building further underground. The staff is the same as the one the Necromancer also carried, but these staves are usually only carried by the higher members of the Association, such as Bane, Auto and Eltin. The entrance is closed behind them, and the secretary says that they will open it for them when they knock on it. Down there they find there is the mortuary, access to the tunnels under the palace (most likely Eltin’s influence) and a shrine to Hades. The shrine of Hades had a large statue of the God and a brazier of green flames. Approaching it filled it with fear and you would receive visions of your demise. Eventually, they found the archive room, the only one of the people on Hecates Crag that has been listed as dead in recent times is Orestes. The group is then attacked by earth elementals, that were under the floor. The group managed to dispatch the elementals, with Oto casting Crown of Madness on one of them and they destroyed each other quite quickly. They question Conor Kendall as to why he didn’t let them out while they were being attacked, apparently, he was distracted by the music, ludicrously apparently the Headquarters had a small band come in and play ambience.

Meanwhile, Adrasteia and Neleous have a conversation, mostly about the group and their oddities. Adrasteia admits “They are all a bit dumb about people”. Neleous talks about how they are looking for their boyfriend, apparently before this they had a business together but their boyfriend was taken. *“Circumstances aren’t relevant”*. He says the people he works for will give him the means to find his family. They come to an agreement to help each other out. *“You scratch our back we’ll scratch yours” - Adrasteia.*

The group finds the journals of the Hades Association's highest members.

Banes Journal talks about the King vanishing for two days. He has started investigating it and sending people to work on finding out the truth. He also has listed a large sum of money sent to the Hades District. He has made some comments about what the King is up to and mentions Savas. Barely mentions the other members of the Association.

Eltin’s Journal makes absolutely no sense. It is in some kind of code. However, only specific pages are encoded. There was information on a mass burial they had found while digging the tunnels, they never reported it and seemingly just dumped them in another pit out of the way, somewhere under the palace. Seemingly this is the pit Oto wound up in. Speaks briefly about removing Bane.

Auto’s Journal talks about its observations, and has Bane and Eltin’s morality ranked. Eltin seems to be going down the ranks fast. It is clear Auto doesn’t like Eltin and wants rid of her.

Khantos manages to decrypt the code in Eltin’s journal and it speaks about their purchase of a poison to assassinate the King with, laying the blame at Bane’s feet in order to get rid of him and take charge of the Association. The poison would inflict horrible nightmares on the victim and produce sleeplessness and eventually death, it is incredibly magic-resistant.

The party go to meet the Queen with their information about Eltin and tries to get her arrested, the whole group finds her in her room. However, when they meet the Queen they hear Neleous say *“What happened to the Lamia of Stonehill Mine?”*. This immediately catches the Queen off guard and she reacts severely. She eventually admits that a time before her or her brother about 80 years ago their ancestors made a deal with a coven of Lamias. They enchanted their army to allow them to slay an army of undead that were emerging from the sea. Apparently, the coven asked too much of the Royal family at the time and instead of paying the witches their due they put them all to the sword. After admitting this an insect escapes from Neleous and flees. The party follow the insect, leaving the palace through the tunnels they see the scratches left by blades leading out of the tunnels onto the bay of Artemis Cove. They see Vasias resting on the beach with his swords stabbed into the ground. He’s watching a huge cloud of insects that is heading out towards the city. Vasias seems completely resigned, he also admits that he has already ingested deadly poison, claiming that his revenge was fully complete. He also meets the accusation of Eltin with quite a lot of derision, telling the party they may have stopped her but she hadn’t even started their assassination yet, and that the current attempt is somebody else. He then dies on the beach as the first calls of the insects start repeating the confession of the Queen.

Here the party kind of meets a dead-end in their investigation, with a loss of leads. They go to Stellina who is still unconscious. They cast Detect Thoughts and see the prophecy, the lighthouse of Hecates Crag with the grandfather present, the throne room with the King and Queen dead covered in golden blood and Artemis Cove lined with its citizens dead. Leoven in desperation tries to talk to Apollo, he speaks through Stellina as her eyes open glowing with golden light, reminding them of the prophecy of the Tarokka Card prophecy of the necromancer. *“The Fate of the Cove all rests on a Servants Betrayal.”* As he says this the emergency bells ring throughout the palace and Lenile enters the room, telling them that someone is making an attempt on the King's life and has already killed his guards and taken him. He leads them all towards the throne room with the Queen ready for combat wanting to protect their sibling. As they enter they see a figure clad in shadowy mist, the party watch them cut down the King on the steps of the throne, and see as his blood turns golden and it runs towards a crack forming in the floor. The necromancer swings their scythe through the air cutting Lenile and launching him backwards behind them. Dark mist starts gathering in the throne room around the party and the Queen. The Queen creates a shield of golden light preventing them from being engulfed by the mist. In the mist, they could make out figures appearing, but they didn’t seem to be moving naturally, realising these figures must be the conjured dead. Soon a  figure approaches stepping on the air the dome of light and steps out of the mist. It is Lenile smiling at the group. He drops the disguise to reveal that he was the necromancer.