Damn the cult

We played a game of Talisman, with four players. 

The cast:

Arcane Scion -> Prophetess
Scavenger
Warlord
Celestial

We played with a hidden ending and Cataclysm board.

Early game was dominated by having the Toxic Spring pop up on Graveyard, and Fountain of Wisdom right next to it.

Arcane Scion got otherwise good start, but got into the nasty situation of hanging by the thread with just by one health remaining. Eventually Warlord paid for Black Knight to put the wonder kid out of his misery, and Prophetess entered the game.

Celestial had mediocre progress, not facing serious setbacks but not great progress either. It soon became apparent that it was a race between Scavenger and Warlord to win the game after Scavenger robbed the remains of Arcane Scion, getting the Talisman that gave +2 Craft in the middle and inner region. Warlord had utterly obnoxious  battle stats, but was locked behind unfinished warlock quest. This gave Scavenger the headstart to start getting through the inner region. Which was astonishing in it's own right. Scavenger had two health remaining, but managed to roll just one life lost at the icy tower thing, and even beat up the snowbeast like it was nothing. Mines and portal of power were a joke.

But then the hidden ending was revealed. Cult of the Damned was formed, and suddenly all the heroes had to set aside their petty squabbles and try to eradicate all dwellers. This... was perfectly doable, but somehow that happened when Warlord had to miss two turns, and Celestial was missing their next turn as well. This gave the cultists an enormous head start. 

Prophetess and Scavenger (who had one life remaining) were both attacking with Strength 4, while Celestial was doing just a little better. But warlord had easy enough time dispatching a stack of three.

Given the circumstances, adventurers were doing better than expected during battles. However... they absolutely started to botch their movement rolls, which meant that six remaining cultists were  able to infiltrate through portal of power after Warlord failed to attack a stack of four.

So, EVERYBODY loses.