"You seem tense." - "I'll be fine."

[xancredible]

The recap for Monday's session is a little late but I've had a busy week, so please forgive me.

Last we left off, everyone was taking a long rest at the end of the ice tunnel to recover their precious few hit points. At the start of the rest, Aether was still with the group, but at some point while everyone was drifting off or simply resting, they disappeared quietly into thin air - quite literally disappeared. Given that something is wrong with Lucifer, and that Aether was a warlock with Lucifer as their patron, maybe the two things are connected? (On a meta-gaming level, Aether's player dropped out of the campaign.)

During the rest, we checked in with all the characters to see how they're doing at the moment.

Ronnie is still anxious and of two minds. If what's behind the door defeats them, Steve (from Admin) was wrong, which means that Ronnie is not destined to do the thing she's worried about being destined to do. If they win, they win, but then it's also more likely that she's as fucked (existentially) as she worries she is. It's both a win/win and a lose/lose situation (Schrödinger's existentialism). She takes 1 point of psychic damage from the stress that she won't be able to recover during this long rest.

The Tigress is not happy, but she's glad that they're doing something; they're moving. You gotta keep moving, and they've been stuck doing the same thing for so long, and it's good to be doing something else that wields actual results. And she's cold. She's trying to stay away from all of them, but she would like to steal some heat so she's, much like a kitty cat, halfway across the room - in your presence but not *with* you.

Paul is, on one hand, also relieved to be doing something else than repetitive tasks. He feels like the weak link because he was losing hit points and needed help from Ronnie in the last session, and he doesn't think he deserves that help. He's not deliberately avoiding anyone but keeping Ronnie between him and Cadmus because Cadmus is made of fire and Paul doesn't like fire. I made Paul's player roll a stress die - have I explained this mechanic yet? Get in the comments! . The stress die roll was a nat 1, so Paul drops down to a d4, takes psychic damage (he won't be able to recover it during this long rest), and has disadvantage on wisdom saves and initiative rolls until his next long rest.

Finally, Cadmus is not feeling particularly anxious or stressed, but is getting into battle headspace, thinking that this might be a long haul and this will be doable. He's done it before, he can do it again. He's trying to let things wash over himself, trying to analyse the previous fight in the tunnel to figure out who's good at what for future strategies.. Prepared to do this as long as it takes to get it done. He gets to help one (1) character with their disadvantages because he's watching all of them as he thinks about this, and he chooses to help Ronnie because he's had the most interactions with her so far. This means that Ronnie gets to restore all of her hit points after all.

The way he helps her do this is by teaching her how to meditate. Paul heard some of that conversation, too, and might try meditating at a later point in time, but he's too keyed up right now to manage it.

Incidentally, being taught how to meditate, appears to be a huge turn-on for Ronnie. Unfortunately for Ria, the dice really want her characters to be perceived, so she rolled a 9 on deception while James rolled a 17 on insight, which means that Cadmus did notice Ronnie checking him out but he's decided not to act on it now.

Beyond the great gates, Mr I was waiting, appearance slightly different than before, but still as condescending as earlier. He's quite far away from the group and their non-magical attacks don't deal that much damage, but he, in turn is dealing out Strangulations, and little kisses on cheeks that stun people. Some of those little kisses failed, and the PCs got attacks of opportunity in - in the Tigress' case those even dealt full damage because that Pirate's cutlass is magic!

At some point, Paul, our good catholic boy, finally realised that they're fighting Judas Iscariot, and he promptly insults him and calls him a traitor.

Ronnie also succeeds on a religion check and figures it out as well. She rolled a nat 20, actually, and therefore got the inkling that calling him a traitor would only fuel him instead of hurt him. She tried a different tactic and tried to get him to let them go by telling him that she hasn't even done anything yet, she's trying to actually do the thing for which she's been condemned to hell. (Here's a little nugget for the other characters!) Judas is willing to let her go - but only her. All the others are traitors just like him.

Paul tries a second time and yells "He loved you!" and Judas smiles back, and says "And I loved him. That's why I'm here."

The Tigress deals a good bit of damage and almost gets him down, but he stands back up again, bloodied and still smirking.

Cadmus has no idea of Christianity, doesn't know anything about Judas or Jesus, but gathers enough insight from what's being said around him that he can make a little speech on his turn. "You say we're like you. You know us. Then you know that what we did we had to do. We had no other choice. I for my part would do it again if I had to, because it needed to be done."

At this, Judas teleports right in front of Cadmus, crying tears of blood. What Cadmus said sounded just enough like forgiveness that he feels absolved. Everyone has hated him for milennia and all he ever wanted was for someone to understand that he did what he did because he loved Jesus and was afraid for him. He never meant for it to go this far but it was the divine plan and Jesus trusted him - and only him - to do this. Finally a person, a single person, who doesn't know anything about him, doesn't know what he did, just that he's here in this deepest circle of hell, the one reserved for traitors of the worst kind, and that he, much like this group, probably doesn't deserve this punishment. He gives Cadmus another kiss on the cheek, and this one doesn't stun, it's cool in a pleasant way even to a fire genasi, and he whispers "thank you", before dropping to his knees, and freezing over completely. A small, shimmering object falls to the ground in front of him - a charm for the bracelet, shaped like a sack of coins.

On the other side of the cave, a door opens into a staircase and there's a glittering curtain of icy mist but it doesn't look harmful - just like a curtain that marks the exit from the 9th circle of hell.

This is where I ended the session. The players get to use their level 5 character sheets next time as we ascend into the 8th circle of hell :D