Raw, Unfiltered Calamity

*“Then fight! Every last one of ya! Hell hath no fury that may conquer us! Fight till we win back our freedom, or till your valor sends you to the gates of Mount Celestia!”* - Ms. Tibsy

Raw, Unfiltered Calamity was the 35th and final session of Arc 1. The session entails the final battle between The Shaggiteers and Orcus, while the world clashes around them.

## Synopsis

### The Battle of Brudgard

The Shaggiteers, accompanied by Algar, enter the portal into Brudgard. They quickly come face to face with Moloch and a vast army of fiends, and quickly find themselves caught in the middle of a huge battle as the Forces of Light led by Ms. Tibsy arrive, comprised of the armies of Wimbledon, Blandle, Dirt, Yodunheim, and the clergy of Denair. Ms. Tibsy gives a battle speech, before the armies charge into eachother.

> *And with one final sacrificial cry of ‘TO DEATH!’ from the vast armies, the mass of shouting soldiers charges down the slopes of the wastelands, stampeding past you like an avalanche of steel, weapons raised. Allies you have fought with, soldiers with whom you have defended keeps and cities, all rallying to your cause, sacrificing their lives in the name of the Shaggiteers. Miss Tibsy gallops at the lead on her Jerboa, spinning her sword before facing it outwards towards the sea of demons ahead of them. Moloch lets out a loud roar, cracking his chain against the ground, as the ranks of demons all charge towards the forces, blades facing forward. In an instant, they crash against each other like water against rocks, swords clanging against armor and cries of anguish echoing from both demons and mortals. The forces of light push back the frontal rank of demons, slaughtering them as the gunslingers begin exchanging fire with rows of catapults and archers at the edge of the mist behind the ocean of black steel.*
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The Shaggiteers are forced to escape by piling everyone into a Bag of Holding while Vex speeds away on the Magicycle, with Craggle firing at Moloch with a rocket launcher. The Shaggiteers escape and reach the wastelands outside of Thanatos.

### Cages of the Damned

The party hike through a nightmarish cave full of floating cages containing the rotting corpses of their past friends. Among the dead are Orangefingers, Benedir, Elvish Presley, Gamling Stonefinger, Darvim Metalcutter, Boog, Vlad, Darmishir, The Swordsman, and Fenrimir, who they find to be still alive. They free Fenrimir, before hiking up towards the city of Brudgard. After some careful planning, they decide to resurrect the Swordsman using a gift granted to Camiel by Hyralt, before entering the hall of Thanatos and confronting Orcus.

### The Final Battle

Orcus gives them a grand speech about his power, before unveiling his greatest weapon yet: Dark ghosts of the parties fallen allies and adversaries. Among the ghosts are Vlad, Elvish, Darmishir, Boog, Favyn, Barebeard, and Yakaza, who leads the ghosts with a flaming scythe. Shadow Barebeard switches sides and helps the Shaggiteers, granting them the Gooby Bomb.

> *The jaw of the skull on Orcus’s wand suddenly opens, as a black mist begins to pour from it . It disperses across the floor, before beginning to spiral around one spot, taking the form of a person. The man standing before you is familiar, though wreathed in black smoke and flurrying fiery embers. Yakaza stands across from you, billowing smoke from his body, as a long flaming scythe forms in his hand. He scowls, as his eyes begin to glow orange.*
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The party find themselves outmatched, and Vex attempts to use The Rusted Cannon stocked with dynamite and ignited by the Holy Hand Grenade to damage Orcus, though is stopped by Shadow Favyn, causing the decimation of many party members. The shadows are cut down one by one, with Yakaza finally being put to rest when Vex decapitates him with the Vorpal Sword, though the party still find themselves no match for Orcus.
When all hope seems lost and Orcus celebrates a pre-mature victory, he is suddenly struck by a bolt of energy, as The Material Guardian assembles itself and begins turning the tides of the battle, though not long after Orcus manages to destroy it.

> *He is suddenly cut off by a blinding white flash of energy screeching across the room and slamming into his chest, throwing him backwards into his throne, his chest rising with steam. You all turn to see a golden man standing at the back of the hall, their thick blocky fingers curled into fists. You see the 6 limbs you have spent years gathering, all assembled into one construct, glaring at Orcus with glowing blue eyes. The inner workings are polished black, concealed behind reflective golden plating and armor. Their shoulder pauldrons and boots are hung with small red banners, decorated with silver linework. From their back is a long flowing red cape, billowing behind them. Their platemail is carved with intricate symbols and runes that begin to glow with bright blue energy, as lightning begins to arc up its fists.*
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Camiel eventually goes down, and speaks with Zariel in their dying vision, who grants them the Almighty Foehammer, a mythical sword. As the party clash continues, Faerie finds his motivation failing him, before Skrunko gives him the boost of energy needed to stand up against Orcus. His inherited god-punching abilities activate, and he hollows a hole out in Orcus's chest. With one final *"Oh... that'll do it"*, Orcus falls dead, and Faerie barely manages to survive with critical wounds.

> *The rest of you regain your senses to find yourselves scattered across the ground, your bodies covered in painful burns. The ringing in your ears slowly fades to nothing but the loud sound of smoldering fire. The potent stench of both burning flesh and smoke fills the room. You slowly sit up, dazed and holding your aching foreheads, and look around to find a thick haze of smoke lingering throughout the room. The floor is scattered with black blood and burning charred debris rising with steam. Flakes of ash fall down to the ground like snow. You cough as you slowly and shakily climb to your feet, looking around at each other in confusion as to what just happened. Standing in the center of the room is Orcus, his burnt blackened skin flaking and rising with steam, with an expression of pure confusion. Behind him, his wings are nothing more than a skeletal frame hung with torn and burnt strips of tattered leather, and the skull that makes up his face is cracked and smeared with ash. Your vision trails down to see a 20 foot wide gaping hole hollowed out of his chest, the edges of his flesh around the fatal wound glowing red hot and dripping with goopy black blood that spills onto the charred ground before him. He looks down at what is left of his chest and scoffs, before looking back up towards you all.*
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> *[ORCUS] “Well…That’ll do it.”*
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> *He drops to his knees, causing charred chunks of his flesh to spill out onto the floor, before he collapses face first into the ground, the hole in his chest billowing smoke. And Orcus is no more. And as he falls, you gain sight of what lays behind him. You see a trail of smeared ash and burnt chunks of flesh splattered across the ground in a gory path of burnt remains. The path trails all the way to the foot of Orcus’s throne at the back of the room, where what is left of Faerie lays sprawled out across the stairs. Their once blue skin is now completely blackened and brutally burnt, with fleshy bits of skin peeling off of their body. Their right arm is gone from the forearm down, with a roughly arm-shaped pile of ash and embers on the ground separated by a level of stone steps. Their shoulder above their missing limb is completely black and covered in cracks. Their hair is completely burnt off, and they gasp for air, rising with steam.*
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### The End

The hall of Thanatos begins to collapse, though the party are saved by Clint, Fenrimir and Ms. Tibsy in a Ford F-150 belonging to Clint. They race out of Thanatos, and speed across Brudgard as it crumbles around them, only barely reaching the portal in time, though Ms. Tibsy is crushed by a falling rock and killed when her seatbelt jams in the crash. The remaining Shaggiteers rush out of the portal, and watch as the black mountains of France collapse as sunlight bathes the corrupted lands once more.

> *You gasp with a breath of fresh air as you feel your environment change from smolderingly hot to a gentle breeze. You pull yourself to the mouth of a cave near the rigid peaks of the corrupted French mountains where you have ended up, and look out towards the world you have just saved from certain doom, together. The black storming clouds that covered much of the French mainland begin to part, and you look out to see the sun beginning to peak over the horizon. Sunlight shines on your bloodied tear-stained face for the first time in what has felt like months. The sky lights up with smears of pink and orange in a beautiful dawn, as the once dark and sinister lands of France are bathed in golden light. You watch as the spires of ash and obsidian begin to crumble to the ground, the acid flats begin suddenly drying up as the green glow against the warped hills is snuffed out and replaced by the shimmering dawn, you watch as the eyeball trees begin to shrivel away and wither. You begin to cry into eachothers bloodied shoulders, thinking of the great toll this mission has had on you and your friends. You at first think of the divide between you all, of the cracks Elvish had spread, of the civil war between you all that Wimbledon had caused, but you don’t seem to remember those as the times with your party. You remember getting shitfaced in Mirador after the Boulder Rolling competition, back when nothing mattered and you were happy. You remember Vlad telling stories of great monsters and heroes as you wandered the forests in the Shaggin Wagon. You remember gambling your money away in Dirt and sharing a laugh with those who you managed to put aside your differences with. You remember secretly going and picking flowers from Fenrimir’s garden while everyone else was asleep. You remember glaring off at the vast galaxy atop the Monastic Peaks in the mountains, hand in hand. You watch the corruption of France wither away, and life begin to reclaim the island. A single white flower had sprouted from the ash-cluttered soil before you, and you admired it. This mission has been the last year and a half of your life. Together, the eight of you filled that time with laughs, tears, alcohol, and blood. Some came and went, some brought love, some brought betrayal, but through it all, it was the 8 of you that were in it for the long run. The Shaggiteers had braved Hell and High Water all for this mission. So much stress was brought by the burden of saving the cosmos from Orcus, but now…. You were free. Sudai was free. Dawn brought not only a new day, but a new era over Sudai. One of peace. One of freedom. And as you sit hand in hand, at the end of all things, you consider the question. What was the price of this freedom?*
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In Avernus, an enraged Tiamat vows to finish their mission and find The Imagineerium themselves.

## Characters

* Vex Amanthal
* Ailynn Daedra
* Brock Lee
* Stionis Ero
* Zachary Cragglecock
* Faerie Longstaff
* Camiel Chavine
* Yakaza Kibutzu (Ghost)
* Algar
* Orcus †
* Darmishir (Ghost)
* Boog (Ghost)
* Kevin Orangefingers (Corpse)
* Darvim Metalcutter (Corpse)
* Benedir Stormbraid (Corpse)
* Vlad Ironcock (Ghost)
* Elvish Presley (Ghost)
* Ms. Tibsy †
* Fenrimir
* Clint Cragglecock
* The Swordsman
* Gamling Stonefinger (Corpse)
* Captain Barebeard (Ghost)
* Skrunko
* Zariel (Vision) †
* Hyralt (Vision)
* Favyn Elkfein (Ghost)
* Tiamat

## Soundtrack

* Moloch's Army Arrives
* Forces of Light Arrive
* Miss Tibsy Charges
* Magicycle Charge
* Brudgard
* Orcus's Theme
* Battle Begins
* Battle
* Battle
* Guardian Assembles
* Faerie Gives Up
* Faeries Punch
* The Fall of Brudgard
* Epilogue

## Trivia

* The session required 14 people in a VC at once: 1 DM, 8 party members, 1 guest character, 2 NPC voices and 2 music bots.
* Ms. Tibsy's charge was timed to the song The Battle of Pelennor Fields (Return of the King).
* A personalized death description was written for each party member in the event of them dying.
* This session was written at the same time as A Journey Beyond and Misplaced Trust.