Session 23

📍 Location

The tunnels beneath Shadukar and the hidden approach beneath its cathedral.

⚔️ Scrap and Distant Thunder

The battle that began in Session 22 ended beneath the cathedral. The party defeated the three elite warforged, searched their bodies, and gathered what they could salvage. Then they continued deeper into the tunnels.

Ahead lay more darkness. Above them, the city sounded like a battlefield.

M.A.77 and Renoir heard fighting overhead: explosions, distant clashes, and the rumble of violence spreading through Shadukar. It sounded as though the warforged were bombarding the city from afar.

Smaller clashes echoed from somewhere below as well. The sounds suggested that warforged sabotage squads were fighting elsewhere beneath the city, but the party could not locate them. They heard those distant battles; they did not encounter squads along their route.

A King Among the Wreckage

The sewers eventually led to hidden entrances beneath the cathedral. A couple of hundred feet ahead, another battle echoed through the passages. Warforged battle sounds mingled with a familiar shriek.

One of the three black wraith knights was fighting there.

The party watched it destroy a squad of ten elite warforged. The soldiers fell with terrible ease. Their numbers were not enough to bring the wraith down.

But the fight had damaged it. For all its strength, the black knight was not untouched—and the party chose that moment to attack.

The Black Knight Falls

The party confronted the wounded wraith in the access area beneath the cathedral. Sunlight weakened its spectral form during the opening exchanges, but ordinary magical blades struggled to cut through it. Each successful strike seemed to accomplish far less than it should.

Near the knight, a draining presence sapped their strength. M.A.77 endured that aura as the battle continued. When the sunlight faded, the wraith recovered its full spectral bearing, but the party kept fighting.

Kael, Renoir, Tak, and M.A.77 wore it down. At last, M.A.77 dealt the final damage. One of Shadukar’s black wraith kings was slain.

Its draining aura ended with it. The party recovered a Ring of the Black Sovereign from the fallen wraith and identified it.

The Way to the Heart

The knight’s defeat changed more than the battlefield. Energy released by its destruction opened the door that barred the way beneath the cathedral.

The party had reached a passage they could not enter before. Behind them lay the wreckage of the warforged and the place where the black knight had fallen. Above them, Shadukar’s battle continued.

The way to the heart was open.

Progress & Rewards

Tak, Renoir, Kael, and M.A.77 each received:

• 100 XP for the warforged encounter, awarded once for the full battle across Sessions 22 and 23.
• 120 XP for defeating the wraith.
• Session total: 220 XP per character.

Confirmed treasure:

• 40 gp worth of warforged salvage: weapons, armor fittings, and equipment. Shared party ownership; no sale or individual distribution recorded.
• One identified Ring of the Black Sovereign, recovered from the wraith. This custom level-6 ring is worth 250 gp. Its recipient is not yet recorded.

The party remains level 5, with 270 / 800 XP toward level 6. They need 530 XP to advance. See Campaign Progress.