Hadrian's eyes widen slightly at the cultist's attempt at enchanted speechcraft. The man was surrounded, trapped like an animal. His eyes filled with hate, or something worse. The young noble looks ahead in time, considering the possibilities. Imagining the scenarios that might take place from here. His gaze falls to the young woman and the pit. Cornered animals could be such wicked beasts.

Rox raises his scimitar against the cultist with a gleam in his eye as he realizes he has an advantage against the prone figure. 
Action: Scimitar (21, 5 to hit), (7 slashing damage)

Dropping his weapon, the young noble moves closer to pick up the bound woman, "Don't panic. I'm getting you out of here." He lifts her in his arms, moving to put as much distance between her and the cult leader as he can.

Those red eyes close momentarily as the goblin's curved blade cuts through his back. The spectral blade shimmers again, but once more retains its form.

As Hadrian scoops the young woman into his arms and retreats, the cultist swings a fist out wildly (Reaction Unarmed Strike: 12 to hit), but his target is moving away too quickly. While the young noble hurries across the room to deposit the woman at a relatively safe distance, the cult leader rises to his feet.

Enraged that his quarry has been taken from him, he pulls an odd asymmetrical sword from within his robes - the blade itself is wavy instead of curved or straight. With a snarl, he whirls on Xarian, slashing the young guardsman across his belly(Melee Attack: 21 to hit, 6 slashing damage, 3 necrotic damage). The Blade Ward he had put up earlier flashes momentarily, then shatters completely as the cultist's blade breaks through.

His hateful gaze turns to Rox next, and the spectral blade swoops through the air, digging(Melee Spell Attack: 19 to hit, 8 force damage) into the goblin's shoulder.

Xari and Kite!

As Xari stands, panting with emotion more than exertion, maul in held in one hand after his attack, the somewhat amateurish Blade Ward cantrip the big man is concentrating on fails to block the Cult Leader's vicious slash at a gap in the torso sectioning of his scale mail.

But his Shield doesn't fail.  Desperately splaying the fingers in a half-remembered reactive gesture he has only made once before, back in Amphail, Xari looks almost surprised as the blue-tinged arcane barrier springs forth just in time to barely deflect the blow from the Cult Leader's blade.

Once again, Kite feints and thrusts across the Cult Leader's field of vision with his blue-tasseled spear, helping distract the villain.

Xari grips his maul with both hands once more for long enough to bring it around in a sideways backhanded blow.

"W-What evil being or... or star do you make these... these sacrifices to you bloody bastard?"

Kite's Action:  Kite takes the Help action against the Cult Leader, granting advantage to Xarian's attack.

Xarian's Action:  Xarian attacks the Cult Leader with his maul, with advantage due to Kite's help:
Maul to hit:  13
Maul damage:  8 (bludgeoning)
Maul Topple Weapon Mastery:  On a hit, the Cult Leader must make a DC 14 CON Save or be knocked prone.
(Also on a hit, the Cult Leader must make a DC10 CON Save to maintain concentration on his Spiritual Weapon.)

The madman's eyes go wide as a second barrier materializes, sending his blade skirting off the edge of the arcane shield. He flinches as the spear whips in front of his face again, distracting him from the maul that slams into him, sending him back down to his knees. This time, his concentration fails and the spiritual weapon blips out of existence. Roga pokes her spear into the cultist once more, drawing blood as the blade rips through his other leg.

Rox and Hadrian!

Rox screams some curse in goblin as the blade bites into his shoulder, raising his scimitar and raking it across the cultist's exposed flank after Xarian knocks them down again. After getting his revenge (or attempting to), the goblin ducks away from the fight, retreating towards Hadrian and taking cover behind the pillar.

Action: Scimitar(14, 9 to hit), (8 slashing damage)

"We'll get you unbound and out of here soon, just hold on." Hadrian returns to his feet after gently lowering the woman to the ground, turning back towards the fight. He approaches the prone cultist with scorn in his eyes. Briefly his gaze flicks to Xarian's maul, studying the weapon's exterior. He reaches an arm out, and a copy of the weapon forms from mist into his hand. On the final step towards the cultist, he arcs the heavy weapon over his shoulder, bringing it down on the villain's head. 

Movement: 15W -> 10NW
Bonus Action: Pact of the Blade - Conjure pact weapon.
Action: Maul(14, 12 to hit), (16 bludgeoning damage)

As the conjured maul falls towards the cultist's head, he looks up at you with something like a knowing smile, red eyes still burning with hate. Then the hammer head finishes its arc, crushing his skull in with a disgusting crunch.

Out of Initiative.

The cave goes silent, save for the labored breathing of you and your companions. The pressure that had been building behind your eyes does not disappear.

It grows worse.

As you look open through the hole in the ceiling, the red star seems impossibly large, almost like a second sun. The chamber is bathed with red light, as the pain in your skull begins to thrum in tune with the pulsing beat of whatever evil hangs in the sky. At the edges of your conscious mind, you feel something leviathan lurking...

Xari blinks, as if waking up from a vengeful fever dream.  As the final cultist in sight falls, he stows his maul and puts a hand to the throbbing pain in his temple.  He looks around the cave, a touch of panic creeping into his deep voice, his stutter worse than ever.

"I-I don't know what that thing is.  The b-bleeding star.  W-we have to g-get out of here.  A-all of us.  Cut the r-ropes that t-t-tie them.  L-let's go!"

The big man does not wait to see if his companions agree, but suits his action to his words.  He grabs the strange blade the cult leader had used and runs around the room, cutting the bonds from as many captives as he can so the entire group can make an escape.

"E-everyone, w-were there others that y-you saw that are s-still alive here?" He asks as he frees them.  "Or is th-this all of you?"

Hadrian makes the mistake of casting his eyes upward, looking directly at the red star. He sways on his feet momentarily, feeling a sick rise in his stomach. Xarian's voice cuts through the ill sense, and he shakes his head to clear the feeling. He drops the maul, disappearing before it even hits the ground as a dagger forms in his hand.

"Why is it getting worse, we stopped their ritual didn't we?" He manages through gritted teeth as he works opposite the big man to free the captured travelers.

There are five bound prisoners in all, a mixture of young men and women small enough to be carried off by the cultists. One of the young men, "s'all of us. They already....Miriel..." With squinted eyes he looks towards the pit, and you connect the dots. The scream you heard earlier belong to her.

Roga. Kite. Rox. The now freed prisoners. All are now clutching their heads as the air itself seems to vibrate like the inside of a drum with each pulse. The guards try to help the travelers towards the nearest tunnel. The small goblin crawls on his knees and elbows, face hidden in his hands.

Your mouth goes dry and a sharp metallic odor fills your nostrils.

You're halfway there. Each step is more difficult than the last.

OoC: Make a WIS saving throw, just the PCs don't worry about the NPCs you control. Hadrian makes his with disadvantage for acting the fool who looks at a solar eclipse without protection.

For a moment, Hadrian pauses his struggled march towards the exit, woozy on his feet once more.

Saving Throw: Wisdom 9

Xari barely hears the others.  A roaring fills the big man's ears.  His mind feels as if it is an elastic band stretched thin and on the verge of snapping.

Xarian's WIS Save:  5 (re-rolled with Heroic Inspiration) --> 3

Vaguely you are both aware of the others stumbling and crawling around the corner of one of the tunnels - though what becomes of them after that you do not know. In the chamber, a particularly powerful thrum of the very air pushes you down to your knees, heads bowed down. The pulses increase in frequency, and your hearts race to match them. Just when you think your chest might burst - the pulsing stops, the red glow of the star vanished. Silence fills the room.

You lift your heads, and see it. A figure in dusky gray, like the color of volcanic ash, featureless as their shroud covers them from head to sole. Eerily, you notice the bodies of the slain cultists missing.

'Deai ondallain!'

The words rip through your skull like a dull knife, paradoxically familiar and alien to you at the same time. The pain in your head doubles.

'Aldun ulluri Oiadan, oa ocas ulan!'

You don't know why you know, or how. But you feel the creature to be jubilant. Triumphant. Happy.

'Om gelir om na sanbsa lo?'
Does it rise, does it sing, for the price of the soul?

The figure underneath the cloak shifts, as if to tilt their head. Expectantly. They take a step towards you, and as they lift their foot you catch a glance of bright, glowing red skin beneath the cloak.

'Om salamād?'
Does it speak?

You're unaware of when it began, but you begin to hear a second phrase layered beneath the first, in a language you understand. The voice is black as the void between stars, soft as fresh snow.

For the moments after the room's thrumming ends, Hadrian still feels and hears the roar of his own heartbeat in his ears. He forces his eyes closed, focusing on his breathing to try and calm his racing heart. When he opens them, he sees the lower half of the ashen cloak. Slowly his gaze rises, eyes widening as he beholds the creature. Featureless though it was, he could now help but feel a sense of awe. Or perhaps it was terror.

He winces as the voice dances through his mind, once again holding a hand to his head. Slowly, he pushes himself to his feet. At some point he had dropped the dagger he was holding, and so he holds out his hand as if to summon a weapon. It speaks again, and he instinctively bows his head, letting his arm fall to his side. Strangely, this time he understood it.

His brow furrows, and he brings his gaze up to view the creature fully again.  "What are you? What are you asking from us?" He asks warily.

Saliva hangs in a ropy strand from Xarian's slack jaw as he gazes glassy-eyed at the unfathomable being before him.  His head rings like a sharply struck bell and his skin feels stretched too tight over his large, ungainly frame.  The big man clears his throat.

"Um," he begins, perhaps inauspiciously.  "Y-you got a pretty bad sunburn there, buddy.  Like all r-red, you know?  Might w-want to get that looked at."

The cloaked head turns towards Hadrian, tilting at an odd angle. Then they are gone. The young noble would feel a weight over his shoulder, a breath on the back of his neck, and the touch of ice cold fingers on his shoulders. From behind, you hear a voice.

Ol zir amma.
I am here.

Aldun ulluri Oiadan, ulluri Olpirt, ol zir amma.
Clay child of Oiadan, a child of Light is here.

Xarian glances over to look at his noble companion, and sees two slightly blurred beings occupying the same space, as if each of his eyes revealed something different. The figure shrouded in a cloak the color of ash, clad from crown to toe. And a tall woman, red skin aglow with a gentle light. A single pale eye peers out at him from behind a curtain of black hair. She shifts her head slightly, enough to send her hair cascading down her back, revealing a smile that could melt even the coldest heart. There was something terrible in her beauty - it was too perfect. Too ideal.

In another blink, she is in front of Hadrian again, cradling his face in her hands. Though her touch is soft, her fingertips feel cold as ice on his face. She tilts her head again, answering his second question.

Hadrian
Another life flashes before your eyes. Hadrian, overlooking the Sea Ward from a balcony of the villa, Patriach of House Bladesemmer. A slightly older Hadrian, wandering Piergeiron's Palace, Open Lord of Waterdeep. The other great city-states of the Coast raising his banner. Hadrian holding sway over the Sword Coast as no other Lord could. A thousand years his reign goes on. Ten thousand years.

Xarian
Gerrard's shuddering form lays at your feet - his spirit broken more than his body. The guard-captain, his son, and the bastard Lord Warder who enabled them both are chased from the town by an angry mob. It isn't enough, the subjugators are still out there. His gaze turns to Waterdeep. Xarian leading an army of the downtrodden, the forgotten, and the damned through the streets of the City of Splendors. The manors and palaces burn. No more bullies. His gaze turns to the rest of the Sword Coast.

The both of you are rocked back on your heels as the visions take and leave you in a mere moment. The red woman's hands grasp Hadrian's shoulders. She cradles Xarian's head. Her hands hold the nobleman's face. She holds his left arm in an iron grip, holding an ivory needle to his vein. She holds Xarian's right arm, needle pressed into the crook of his elbow. Your heads hurt again - there are too many hands, too many of her.

'Om gelir om na sanbsa lo?'
Does it rise, does it sing, for the price of the soul?

The lilting voice asks the question of you once more.

Hadrian recoils from the vision, from the star, woman, being. "Do you think I'd be here if that's what I wanted?" He askes incredulously. Shaking the strange sight from his mind, he tries to focus on the creature, just one of them.

When that fails, he glances at Xarian, and then to one of the tunnels leading out. "We need to leave."

Xarian blinks and swallows at the doubled image of Hadrian.  At the vision of the impossible woman from the bleeding star.  And then at the inexorable fractal future of him turning into the warlord of the commonfolk, forcing the proud to kneel.  He tastes bile at the back of his throat.

I have to admit... I have to admit... some part of me wants it...  wants it so bad I can feel it in my bones... gods help me...

He is jarred back to a memory of old Orlan, visiting him in Amphail's Temple of Ilmater after Gerrard had beaten Xari to a bloody pulp in the practice yard.  The Sufferers had taken Xari in after his friend Timothy, the chandler's son, had carried his body there.  They had likely saved his life, and after half a tenday, the big man could listen, if not speak himself yet.  Orlan had shaken his head at the look in Xari's hazel eyes and murmured something unexpected.

Those who battle bullies should take care that they do not become one themselves.  For when you gaze into Gehenna, Gehenna gazes back into you.

"I think I finally know what you meant," Xari whispers to his own memory, closing his eyes and shuddering, his stutter gone.  "I think I finally know."

He turns to Hadrian and nods.  "Let's go."

Rejected, the woman with starlight for skin seems to wilt like a scolded child. With a pop the many visions of her solidify into one, slowly backing away from you with arms crossed. When you turn to leave, in the instant she leaves your vision, you see her again standing near the tunnel you planned to exit from.

She doesn't block your path, but looms near it. Arms still crossed.

'Umal doshae? Om branuran doshae?'
Then what? What does it desire?

They step in front as you near, leaning over you.

'lo doshae, om na? lo doshae, om gelir?'
What price will it sing for? What price will it rise for?

It desires to leave. Hadrian thinks sarcastically, though he dare not speak such disrespect aloud. Still. This goddess, star, whatever it may be...It was not what he expected given the nature of its followers. He purses himself, controlling his breathing and forcing himself to think. "Why are you so keen on making a deal with us?" He tilts his head to look up at the looming star-thing, searching their pale eyes, as if he could glean truth from such an alien and unknowable face. "Om branuran doshae?" The syllables feel strange rolling off of his tongue, but it should help get his point across. He hoped anyway.

Insight: 14

His own (and Hadrian's) ability to understand the astral demigoddess' mind-bending language is beginning to bother Xari more than the lack of such ability would have.  When he hears his companion apparently translate the question he asks, the big man turns to stare at the nobleman.

He's always seemed different to me.  Different from other nobles.  Which I think he is?  A noble, I mean?  Anyway, he doesn't seem to look down on people and treat them like dirt.  And apparently, he can also speak to aliens.  Wait, can *I* speak to aliens?  Not sure I want to find out...

Though in truth, he appreciates Hadrian's question.  Xari himself sticks to Common.

"Never had much of a singing voice, myself."  The big man's drawl is laconic.  He trudges towards the exit.