Banishment of Catiana

Continuing from our previous session, we finish our fight against the hirelings of Count Lowls – but there is a cost to pay.

---

As the undead threw spells and darts at us, I put a spell on Catiana which would allow her to harm others whilst remaining incorporeal, which would hopefully help keep her from harm.

I moved into the cover of one of the dead plants, and Catiana moved up to the front line, where one of Lowls’ minions was fighting Sheena.

Something invisible stabbed Sheena in the back, but we couldn’t see what. Beyond the doors, standing amongst the tents and next to a covered over well of some sort was the cleric of Xamen-Dhor who had been throwing some spells in our direction. She summoned a sphere of force to hurl at both Sheena and Catiana.

Sheena mostly dodged it, but it caught my sister directly in the head, breaking her connection to this plane (and to me), and she vanished as if slain.

The shock was considerable, and in revenge I dropped an etheric shards on her, though it didn’t have much effect. As the battle raged on, I tried using bone shaker to force her through the shards, but she resisted them all.

Meanwhile, Gregor shot arrows at her – though they only succeeded at taking down her illusionary images, and Ray dropped balls of exploding electricity onto her. Eventually she was weakened enough that a final arrow from Gregor killed her.

Sheena was knocked to the floor by her opponent, but she sprung back up and ran her through, killing her.

By the end of it, the undead had been put to rest, but there was still no sign of Catiana, except maybe a hint of a feeling that she was still out there somewhere.

However, it wasn’t all over, for just as we were recovering from the fight, the cap on the well burst upwards, and a gigantic flying thing – a polyp – flew directly up and out – straight into the ethereal shards that were still covering the area. It screamed in pain, getting torn badly as it flew. When it broke free of their reach, it flew directly towards Gregor, who finished it off with a few arrows.

We were now truly at peace.

Searching the tents there were some items of equipment, but also a book, a journal and some notes. The book was the highlight – for it turned out to be the Necronomicon, left here presumably by Count Lowls. It was the book we had promised to take to the Angels outside so that they could destroy it.

Erasmus though wants to keep the book and not have the angels destroy it, which is disturbing.

Reading through Lowls’ journal, he seems to have become fascinated with his own dreams and thoughts about Xhamen-Dor, and over time gaining a design to serve Eldritch Masters by taking Xhamen-Dor into his body and travelling to Carcosa to help the King in Yellow become an elder god. He believes that this act will make him him the greatest eldritch scholar ever, though who will be left to honour him with such a title I’m not sure.

There are a number of occult rituals that he needed to complete in order to travel to Carcosa, using the Star Stelae to make a path to the black star.

Going through his notes, Lowls has a way to corrupt the bodies of the Ythians who dwell in the city, which may mean that the body of Tezcatili may be at risk as well. His notes describe the rituals that he will use to travel through time and space to get to Carcosa, plus there is talk of Yith guardians who will protect Golarian should it come under attack from Xamen-Dhor.

Right now though I am almost entirely out of magic, and Catiana’s spirit has been banished to the ethereal where she is recovering her strength. It will be at least a whole day before she can return again, and personally I’d prefer to rest and wait before going on.