Session 10 – Chapel of Saint Brenna (Part II)

The undercroft gate. The mephits friendly behind them. The winch system ahead. The droning from the south tomb — low, constant, liturgical — filling the dark.

They went deeper.

The Winch System

The undercroft's doors were controlled by winches — and there was only one immovable rod between them.

Doc Skizzet and Frankie took the problem in hand. Doc stationed himself at one winch; Frankie at the other. They worked the timing. They held the rod. They watched the stairs for anything coming down behind the party.

The party moved through.

The Crypts

The north and south crypts held stone slabs and the remains of clerics and paladins of the Sacred Flame, interred with candles still burning and gemstones set in their eyes. Their weapons lay beside them.

In the north crypts, one of those weapons was Twilight — a greatsword that shed its own dim light, resting in the hands of a paladin who had carried it into the city and never carried it out.

Drakzen saw it.

He left it where it lay.

Saint Brenna's Tomb

The south passage led to her chamber.

The candles around her slab had gone out. Water had been leaking through for fifteen years. The rite that should have kept her at peace required candlelight and dryness, and she had had neither.

Saint Brenna rose.

The fight was not easy and not long. When it was over, Drakzen knelt beside her remains and began the Rite of the Last Ember — the funerary liturgy of the Order of Light, performed over a martyr's body in the chapel built around her, by the last knight of the order that had stood her vigil.

He placed her remains on the sarcophagus.

He lit the candles.

He spoke the names.

Saint Brenna is at rest.

The full liturgy can be found here: The Liturgy of the Last Ember

The Hidden Reliquary

With Doc's help, the party solved the timing of the doors and reached the Hidden Reliquary — a circular chamber built around an unlit pyre, dominated by a statue of Saint Vitruvio himself, his hands raised, bearing the Sceptre on open palms.

Drakzen touched it.

A voice spoke in his mind — a question about burden and light, about whether he was willing to carry what he was asking to hold.

He lit the candles. He lit the pyre. He set himself on fire.

The Sceptre came free.

He wrapped it. He said nothing about it to anyone outside the party. The group exited the chapel.

The Falling Fire

They were waiting outside.

Katja Braun — a thin, certain woman who led eight cultists of the Followers of the Falling Fire — had come for the Sceptre. She believed it belonged to her prophet. She believed the meteor that destroyed this city was the Sacred Flame coming down to earth, and that the relic in Drakzen's hands was a holy object claimed by a faith that understood it better than the Silver Order ever had.

Drakzen did not lie to her.

She did not stand down.

The fight that followed was hard at the edges — Tough Luck took serious damage, Rustar was hurt — but the party held the ground. The Falling Fire strike team was defeated. One cultist ran.

Katja fell.

Before the end, she spoke. Not cursing them. Not pleading.

"You think the Flame is up there. You think it sends light down. You haven't seen it fall."

"We aren't cultists. We're the ones brave enough to take communion."

"...you'll see. You'll all see. Lucretia has."

The session ended here, on the chapel grounds, with the Sceptre wrapped and hidden, and one cultist somewhere in the ruins, running.

NPCs Encountered

• Saint Brenna — mummified remains of the martyr, animated by fifteen years of doused candles and leaking water; fought and defeated; laid to rest by Drakzen's rite
• Katja Braun — Falling Fire cult fanatic; led the strike team sent by Lucretia Mathias; defeated in combat; spoke of the Sacrament before the end
• Ser Bryce Landry — departed with his Silver Order knights while the party was in the crypts

What Was Carried Out

• The Sceptre of Saint Vitruvio, wrapped and concealed on Drakzen's person
• The memory of what Katja said
• One level of contamination for Six, from casting during the fight
• A question about what the Falling Fire actually believe — and what communion means to them

Loose Threads

• The escaped cultist is somewhere in the Outer City
• The Sceptre is in Drakzen's hands; Ophelia Reed is waiting for it
• The Ansom debrief still has not happened
• The party has not yet left the chapel grounds

Next session: Session 11

Previous session: Session 09 – Chapel of Saint Brenna (Part I)