Session 23 - Au Revoir

The party began the session still locked in combat with the Brine Saints. It did not take long for them to understand that this was not a fight they could win by standing their ground. The salt pits were filled with endless undead, and more seemed ready to rise from the brine and salt with every passing moment. Their only real chance was to break through and escape.

As they fought, they noticed mine shafts carved into the cliffs around them. The place was not only a salt field. It had once been a salt mine, with passages and tunnels leading deeper into the mountain.

During the battle, the clock around Scarlet’s neck began to tick. Moments later, Ulrich appeared and joined the fight. His arrival gave the party the support they needed, but the battle remained hard and drawn out. Together, they carved a path through the Brine Saints and pushed their way out of the salt pits, leaving the preserved bodies, equipment and possible treasures behind.

Once they were clear, Ulrich explained what kind of place they had escaped. The salt mines did not only contain salt. They hid gems and other valuable materials, which made them a tempting destination for expeditions. Ulrich had been there several times before with different groups. More often than not, he had returned alone.

The party continued downward and eventually reached an old mining settlement. The mountain weather had nearly erased it. The buildings were decrepit, stripped bare and close to collapse. They searched through what remained but found nothing of use. Whatever value the settlement had once held was long gone.

With no reason to stay, they continued their descent.

Further down the path, they came upon a rope bridge. For something built in such a harsh and forgotten place, it was surprisingly sturdy. The wooden beams were slick with moisture and cold, but the group crossed without trouble.

On the other side of the bridge stood a dark, warm cave.

It reminded them immediately of the cave they had encountered before. They knew what might be inside. None of them wanted to enter, but there was no other path forward. They decided to rest at the mouth of the cave before continuing, hoping to recover enough strength for whatever waited inside.

The rest did not last.

Scarlet and Rollo took the first watch and soon noticed a Vaurgûl standing deeper in the cave, watching them from the darkness. They woke the others. Chloe put on the Mask of Seidrkona and quickly understood the situation. They were surrounded. Vaurgûl moved through the walls, the ceiling and the floor like a river beneath the stone. There were thousands of them.

The party gathered their belongings and prepared to move.

Ulrich slowly stepped backward, trying to keep his attention on the cave. Then his head struck something soft behind him. He turned carefully, fear visible in his eyes, and swung his scythe on instinct. The blade cut through a Vaurgûl hanging above them, severing its head.

That was enough.

The surrounding Vaurgûl erupted into a frenzy. The party rushed out of the cave and saw the swarm fall upon the dead body of their own kind. The creatures tore into it in a mass of pale limbs, teeth and claws, climbing over one another to eat. Some spilled out into the cold snow beyond the cave and died almost instantly.

That gave the party an important piece of information.

The Vaurgûl could not survive the cold.

They started throwing snowballs into the mass of creatures. Each impact killed some of them, but the more Vaurgûl died, the more appeared. The swarm seemed endless. Killing them only drew more bodies into the chaos.

The group began to lose hope. The cave was the only way through, but going inside meant walking straight into a living tide of creatures.

Chloe searched Seidrkona’s knowledge for an answer. She learned that the Vaurgûl had a natural predator in Khazural called the Kravhul. These creatures fed on Vaurgûl and used the spores released by dead Vaurgûl to create lairs for their eggs. But looking at the numbers before them, it was clear no Kravhul were present here.

Chloe considered transforming into a Kravhul, but she had never seen one. Seidrkona had, but that knowledge was still incomplete to her. She could feel fragments of what the creature was, but not enough to take its form.

Then Ulrich suggested another approach. He cut his bedroll and proposed using it as a cloak or shield while Winry repeatedly chilled it with Prestidigitation. The idea was simple: carry cold with them into the cave and use it to keep the Vaurgûl away.

It was a good idea, but it gave Winry a better one.

She entered her pocket dimension and went straight to the ampules she had collected in Bharum-Drakhal. She found Component A and Component B, then mixed them together. The result was Eternal Frost, the same strange frost they had seen in Nifleheim during the final day of the festival, when the longboat had been built from the same material.

Winry strapped the Eternal Frost mixture around SUN-e’s hand, freezing a large portion of its body in the process. It worked. She gave Scarlet the remaining ampules in case the effect weakened and needed to be repeated.

Then the party entered the cave.

The effect was immediate. Moisture along the walls froze as they passed, forming icicles in their wake. The Vaurgûl vanished from sight. Even Chloe could no longer feel them nearby. For the first time, the way through the cave seemed possible.

They began the dangerous trek downward.

After about an hour, they reached a junction with four paths leading in different directions. Ulrich had been there before and knew that none of those paths were the correct way. The true path was straight down.

The party realized they were standing on some kind of tarp that covered the descent. They pulled it away without stopping to question why the Vaurgûl had not eaten it. Beneath it was a passage leading deeper into the throat of the mountain.

They descended for hours.

At last, they reached the end of the passage and entered an enormous cavern. The walls were too distant to see, but they could feel the scale of the space around them. Ulrich led them forward to a spiral path descending through the cavern. High above, a small opening in the ceiling allowed moonlight to spill down, carrying soft snowflakes into the darkness.

As they moved, Chloe noticed that Winry’s leg was getting worse.

Eventually, they came to a T-junction. The path to the left was wide and led into a deep unknown darkness. Winry recognized something familiar in it. It reminded her of the Deeproot paths in Khazural, with the same feeling and smell.

The path to the right was smaller. From it came a faint breeze and a weaker sulfur smell. That seemed to be the way out.

By then, the group also noticed something wrong with Chloe.

She was distraught and distant, as if she was no longer fully present with them. She began speaking in a language no one understood. Her feet no longer touched the ground, and when she moved, she left no trail behind her. She had kept the Mask of Seidrkona on for hours without rest, and it was overwhelming her.

Scarlet approached and touched Chloe’s hand.

Chloe struck her, sending Scarlet flying into the nearby wall.

Ulrich reacted quickly. With his scythe, he removed the mask from Chloe’s head. It fell to the ground, and Chloe began to cry. Once the mask was off, she immediately felt better. She explained that during the entire descent she had felt panic, pressure and helplessness, as if she was surrounded and unable to act. She had been overwhelmed by what the mask was showing her, but with it removed, she was herself again.

While they were deciding which path to take, the Eternal Frost began to fade.

It melted.

Ulrich immediately pushed the group toward the path on the right, and they ran.

The Vaurgûl began closing in from every direction. The party ran as fast as they could through the tunnel, with the swarm moving behind them and around them. Chloe, Rollo, Winry, Scarlet and Cael made it out.

Ulrich was last.

As he tried to step outside, he was swept to one side, then the other. He drew his scythe and began cutting through the creatures, killing dozens with each swing. But there were too many.

Scarlet tried to pull him free, but the swarm pushed her around like a ragdoll. The others managed to drag her back outside.

Ulrich fell to the ground on his chest, facing the party.

The last words they heard from him were simple.

“Au revoir.”

Then the Vaurgûl pulled him back into the cave, and he disappeared into the darkness with them.

That is where Session 23 ended.