Dragonbane Session 5

 Session 5 (13/5/23) 11/4 Orla Makander Bastonn & Markus recruit three new adventurers at the Inn - Tym, Halveld & Lothar. 12/4 Party head north, reaching the Temple of the Purple Flame mid afternoon, after Orla recruits a bear on the way. Sinister Briars wrap the Temple. One novice adventurer is immediately lost to a pit trap; intelligent skeletons in the pit ask the party to close the Portal to the demon realm. Orla kills a Giant Spider battling Sathmog cultists, the 4 survivors are friendly and lead them down to the Undercroft, but a terrible mutant  Manticore slays the cultists before falling. Two twisted demonic cultists guard the Portal to Sathmog's Realm and welcome the party. Orla Makander Bastonn & Markus enter the Portal. In the alien city, Makander Bastonn & Markus find the last piece of the emperor's statuette & return, but Orla is lost for six hours before finding her way back. 13/5 Bastonn's loud whispers are overheard by the demon cultists, who attack and are destroyed. With great difficulty the party breach a rusted iron door, freeing the intelligent skeletons. The party rest up - before dawn they hear a frenzied mooing and see a cow flying over the treetops, ridden by a demon!  Returning to the surface, in the sunlit temple gardens the party find Hafarmal, an elderly Elf Wizard from the West, whose eyes have turned completely black. He is reluctant, valuing the effect of the Chaos energy on the garden plants, but when shown his reflection and his black eyes (formerly green) he is convinced to use his magics to close the demon portal, laying the animated skeletons to rest. That night the party return safely to Outskirt.

14/5 Next morning the party head up the hill to the Temple, using the four pieces of the dragon statuette to open the Crypt of Um-Durman. After some scorching from a lightning trap they solve a puzzle and are able to claim the Sword. But on exiting the Temple they are accosted by the Mallard Quasimund, a horde of demon cultists, and Anabella the barmaid, commanding a swarm of Vampiric Bats. A terrible battle rages on the temple steps, with many falling on both sides. Makander charges into the thick of the enemy. The bat swarm is destroyed, and many cultists fall, but both novice adventurers are slain. Anabella, revealing herself as a high priestss of Sathmog, stabs Markus with a poisoned dagger. At the last, brave Makander too is overwhelmed by numbers and falls. 

Quasimund, Anabella and their six remaining cultists press in upon Bastonn and Markus, both badly wounded, while Orla shoots from above. Things look very grim...