Sessions #57 & 58: The Ritual

Two-part recap this time since my post for Session #57 didn't show up.

The party headed to Gravestone Hill Abbey, where they found a priest, Father Dameron, in disguise - the priest turned out to be a follower of Vecna in disguise, with two doppelganger assistants. The party defeated them then headed down and found a dwarf paladin being subjected to a ritual by another follower of Vecna - they freed the dwarf, despite their mistrust of dwarves in general, and defeated the follower, Lis the Vile, and his skeletal minions. They learned that the dwarf, Hefeweizen, was here looking for his sister, who had gone missing.

Heading deeper into the secret tunnels below the abbey, the party was subjected to a powerful sleep spell which trapped them all in a nightmare. They each had to navigate the nightmare and the dangers within to escape - Deckard was confronted by a room of unusual shadows which attacked him, Hefeweizen was trapped in a pit full of snakes and spiders, Vorgym was forced to navigate a cave full of swarming bats, Amnon had to contend with a haunted house full of ghosts, and Shivra was pursued around a field by a scarecrow.

One by one, the party escaped their nightmares and found themselves in a cave. Sangria was being subjected to a ritual by a lich, accompanied by a brain in a jar they recognized - Lazlow Dirgwyn, back for a third time. Sangria seemed to be possessed by some sort of fiery disposition, her eyes burning like flame, her hair flickering in the air as if it were fire, and her mouth moving as if she spoke wordlessly to something. The party attacked Lazlow, and were confronted by a number of nightmare incarnations corresponding to what they'd fought in the shadows. The battle proved immensely difficult, and by the end they were nearly defeated, but Lazlow's lich form was shattered, the nightmare incarnations were dispersed, and the brain in the jar was crushed. The brain in a jar turned out to be the lich's phylactery, its destruction destroying the lich for all time, it would seem.

The party managed to rescue the unconscious Sangria, upon which the hold of the strange ritual was broken, and we stopped there for the night. The Coterie is defeated - what will be next for the "Heroes of the North" and their new dwarven companion?