Gregor Falls and Lena Rests

Session Summary: 11/19/2023

Ahhhh, JUSTICE descends at last upon the wicked! The heroes returned to the manor's depths with fresh purpose, clearing the remaining resistance with systematic thoroughness. Two muggers who attempted to impede their progress elsewhere in the city that day were dispatched quickly, and a Lovelorn creature, a being born of unrequited obsession that had been feeding on the emotional residue of Gregor's years of fixation, was destroyed in one of the manor's antechambers. The dream-ward ritual was successfully performed to protect Oleksandra from further supernatural harm, a loose end tied off while the main thread was followed to its destination.

And the Otyugh. There was the Otyugh in the sewer entrance once more, requiring another negotiation on the terms of passage. Diana and Kiren handled this with the experience of people who have conducted this specific negotiation before and know which arguments are effective. The Otyugh was satisfied again. The heroes passed again. Dignity was again the price of efficiency, and they paid it without prolonged discussion.

In the final chamber, Gregor Pendergrast was waiting. Not in the physical sense: his body was elsewhere, above them, performing for Lepidstadt's assembled elite while his dream-working proceeded on its own momentum in the spaces below. But the result of his years of preparation was present, the culmination of everything that had begun with a young boy's obsession and a murdered girl and a corrupted gate, and the heroes dismantled it with the same methodical completeness with which they had dismantled everything that had led them here.

The Whispering Lady fell again in the passages leading to Gregor's dream-sanctum. Three blood paintings were destroyed. The remaining bound captive situations were resolved using the technique they had perfected, each release clean and without catastrophe. And when the working was fully undone, the magical structure Gregor had spent years building collapsed entirely, and Charles felt the locket at his chest grow warm one final time before it went still and peaceful.

He held it for a moment.

Lena Mueller's story was over. Her justice had arrived, slower than it should have and insufficient in the cosmic accounting that suffering demands, but real and permanent! The heroes emerged from beneath the manor into the cold night air while the concert above continued, the audience unknowing, the music playing over the ruins of everything Gregor had built in the dark below!