Session 58 - Will this Madness Never End?

The party kills The Collector and finds the missing boy Lenrall before descending deeper below the Temple of Frigga, into the Sanctum of Madness.

This write up is based on our Sunday, October 5, 2025 session and was written by our scribe Carl with a few additions from myself. Thanks to our mapper Jimmy for the screen shots.  Since we are scattered around the country, we use Discord for voice communications and the Roll20 online tabletop to connect with each other.

Continued from: Some People Clearly Need Killing

Date: May 20, 4433
Location: Beneath the Temple of Frigga

1:20 AM
More combat.... will this madness never end?

We were fighting 'the Collector' and friends.

Beneddar cast a VERY effective Hypnotic Pattern that affected all the folks in the room, leaving them stunned and waiting to be dispatched.

It did not take long, with one junior member of Team Frigga taken alive for a question and answer session.

We also found the Collector's work notes, and got a little bit of information from them. Aefir spent some time studying the book of notes and learned that Sarthoggus is still looking for a final spell (everyone seems to be looking for something down here) to be able to raise his army of transformation.

We took the book for further studies.

The prisoner referenced 'downstairs', telling us that we had more levels to clean up. There is a stairway a bit northwest of this room.  He said that Sarthoggus had a BIG personality change about two months ago, and this torture and dismemberment stuff started shortly after that. From the acolytes description, Sarthoggus did not appear to be under a charm.

He said that some acolytes joined on their own, but many were (like him) just scared for their lives and caved in. There are about 100 slaves and captives downstairs, waiting their turns on the tables. He said there were Demons all over the underground as well.

Arkhelm took claws from the Stone Delver we found on one of the tables. We dropped the dead acolytes into the pit in the room across the hall. The survivor led us toward the stairs.

Reebo said that the acolyte's information fit basically with what he had seen when he wandered about a few days ago.

Moving on, we saw a light coming from a room off to our left. Reebo thought there were monsters there, and after a sneaky check he reported that someone was chained to a wall with three guards (two asleep). The light was coming from flames from the salamanders/hellbenders. 

The prisoner was Lenrall.  It was his dog, Chompers, that led us to examine the Temple.

Beneddar charmed the wakeful hellbender, keeping an alarm from being called out. We got it out in the hallway and tried to rescue the prisoner. One sleeper awoke as we tried to sneak in, and after a few seconds it figured that we did not belong.

Aefir simplified things by starting the combat and the second sleeping hellbender woke up. They were slow, but fiery, and clearly hostile now.

The fight ended soon, and we got Lenrall down from the wall. He was barely conscious, and with some of us hurt Paraselene cast one of her AOE heals. Lenrall felt ill after the healing, and barfed up a tadpole. He looked better after that.

Linrael wanted to stay with us instead of trying to get out.  

There was a sculpted fountain around a corner, with a slime drooling demon face. We left it alone.

We headed on to the stairs down, with the charmed hellbender leading the way. There were dead bodies and body parts on the floor as we proceeded.

At the end of that hallway was a room with five demons, one large and four small. We figured a surprise attack was our best bet. Beneddar sent the hellbender out to say hello, and the demons talked to it briefly, basically asking it "WTF are you here? you are wrecking our summoning".

Reebo led off with an arrow and a sneaky followup, hoping that the demons would think the hellbender attacked them.

In this battle we learned that demons WILL fall asleep if you cast the spell on them and they are low enough on the remaining hit point level, and that loud noises are bad.

And through all that, our charmed hellbender just looked around. To our surprise, with all the )*$$(# flying around, nothing had hit it to break the charm.

We pressed on in search of Sarthoggus, and some book or the other.

We went down a rough passage and came to a large cave with a bridge across a pool of blood and body parts. One of the cultists we dumped down the hole was splattered on the bridge. Must have been where the trash disposal hole comes out.

Benedaar, still wearing the robe of eyes, could see some movement occasionally pool below, about 50' below the bridge we crossed on. We did not go down to investigate.

The passage narrowed again after we crossed the bridge and turned left. We could see dim lighting, and we could see a bunch of slaves crammed into a small space.  The cavern appeared dug out in a descending spiral.  Looked like another fight coming up, with three demons guarding the entrance and slaves to free and rescue.


Continued in Session 59 - Demons, Demons everywhere