Session 5 Overview

Red: Party Location     Amber: Current Destination

Bastion Zenith Amenities:
Cabal Armory: Arms and Armour (Blacksmith Dayne, Armigers in Training)
Cabal Mage's Quarter: Arcana and Spellcrafting (Signifer Ashlotte, Paralictor Merryck)
Cabal Infirmary: Medical Assistance (Signifer Xenastasia: Also a dabbler in Necromancy)
Cabal Library: Full of Old books and Magical tomes.
Cabal Black Chapel: A Chapel to an unknown Faceless Deity, Empty and Neglected
Cabal Interrogation Chamber: Information extraction and Prisoner punishment (Torturer Xzavier)
Cabal Prisoner Block: Prisoner holding cells for lawbreakers and criminals.
The Hall of Blades: The Bastion's War Room and Diplomatic Nerve-Centre.
Arch Lictor's Quarters: Arch Lictor Emmerich's personal quarters and office.

The Arch Lictor explains to Nefarion and Ysera that there are no current missions for them at present, and they are free to enjoy some well deserved R&R until further notice. After the meeting with the Arch-Lictor is adjourned, the party disbands briefly to explore the Bastion. There seems to be talk going round about a fight and a makeshift arena is being prepared in the central courtyard, and Hell-Knights are gathering to watch. Nefarion decides that he will require speed in his duel against Heinrich, and in preparation trades one of his acquired magical weapons (a +2 Unholy dagger) with Signifer Ashlotte for a +2 Furyborn Longsword, and spends additional funds on a Mithril Tower Shield.

OPTIONAL BOSS FIGHT: Black Sentinel Heinrich
Towards the end of the evening, the ominous seven feet of Sentinel Heinrich strides into the Bastion, the portcullis closing with a metallic crunch behind him. The crowd is roaring in excitement and anticipation, they have waited far too long for a good fight to the death.
The fight starts well for Heinrich, who deals a number of deadly blows to Nefarion, but Nefarion prevails long enough for some outside intervention. All of a sudden, the arena is coated in a thick fog, leaving both combatants vision impaired. The Arch-Lictor has also arrived to watch the duel, and in response to the magical fog, he demands to know who had caused this. Who had interfered in this honorable fight to the death? Hel is later identified as the perpetrator (or rather, Hel's ghost companion; Mel.) The Arch-Lictor orders her to retract her ghost's involvement but Hel claims she is unable to control her companion. He orders Nefarion's own sister; Ysera to dispel the fog cloud, but after numerous attempts, she fails to exact her master's request. With the two opponents stalking each-other in the fog, Heinrich seems lost, his situation exacerbated by his greathelm; which offered limited vision without the fog. Nefarion manages to take advantage of the situation, and performs a number of deadly flanking attacks on the Black Sentinel, eventually performing a decapitating coup de grace. Eventually the fog is dispelled by three combined Signifers working together and just as everyone can see the battle again, the beheaded Heinrich crashes onto the floor with Nefarion sheaving his longsword. The crowd's cheers silence in disbelief, and then then the sound of clapping can be heard from the Arch-Lictor. The crowd then respond in kind, and Nefarion is hailed as the champion of the fight. The Arch Lictor congratulates Nefarion in his efforts, but also pulls both Hel and Ysera aside, expressing that he will be dealing with them both later for their failures.

Ysera is given a formal warning for her failure to dispel the fog, and the Arch-Lictor gives her a  callous reminder of where her loyalties lie. The Hell-Knights always come first, even before Family. As punishment for her lack of control, the Arch-Lictor places a hand on Hel's face, and precedes to burn a hand-print. When Nefarion went over to the Infirmary to get patched up, he spoke with Signifer Xenastasia, who he learned was a practicer of Necromancy. He offered the head of the assassin they had stopped from killing the Prince, to see if she could reanimate it. The head came back to life, and Nefarion (along with Sij at this point) had only a few minutes to collect what information they needed. After a surreal and demoralizing conversation, they learned that the assassin was sent by his Dark Master (a man, he claims was not of his world), he also divulged that his master lived underground near the City of Ostenheim.

 Prior to this, Sij had been in the Black Chapel of the Bastion, trying to communicate with the statue of a deity he presumed to be Zero, the God of Death. He returned to the Chapel with Nefarion and they placed the assassin's head on the altar. Sij offered his own blood to the statue and he managed to provoke a reaction (albeit a weak one). They both decided that more blood was needed, and so they decided to go to the Cabal's Interrogation Chamber. They meet the Bastion's resident 'Interrogator'; Xzavier, who appeared to be quite deranged and sadistic toward the prisoners he kept. When they asked him for some blood, he said that there was plenty to acquire from the prisoner in the corner; a young, whimpering girl of six. Sij and Nefarion refused to harm the girl and tried to convince Xzavier to use a different prisoner instead, he eventually agrees, but not before he stabs the girl in the arm with a rusty key, and squeezes fresh blood from the wound into a bowl. After some convincing, they manage to liberate the little girl at his mercy (They later identify her as Severine; whose crime was stealing gold from a nobleman.) and throw him Ayres; a feral human female whose crimes were for serial accounts of rape. They leave the Interrogation chamber with a bowl of blood.
Cynthia the Vampire also visits this room, and gorges on a Half-Orc Rapist Prisoner.

Sij and Nefarion return to the Chapel, and offer the bowl of blood. It seems to work, and the head of the assassin (which was placed on the altar) begins to seemingly sink inside the stone. In response, a deep exhale of a sinister voice resounded speaking "Rakh'Shaal". They take this information to Signifer Ashlotte, and she translates it as an ancient dialect of Abyssal, meaning 'Two Days'. When she asked Sij where he head it, Sij explained that is was Zero, the God of Death, responding to their offering. Ashlotte seems bewildered, and claims that statue is of a faceless figure, and not of Zero. She states that there is a theory that the chapel is thousands of years old, older than the bastion itself, which was built around it, and it's masonry was made to mimic the black polished stone of the chapel. She doesn't understand why Sij and Nefarion see the Deity differently to her.