25 Kythorn 1491

Session 17, 2/26/2021

The morning after the carnival we met in the common room of the Roc’s Nest. We were planning on heading out to visit Jensen Windmeer and see if he could add any information to what we had learned from Lorien Yost. But The Professor brought up the point that he thought that might be a multi day trip, and he wanted to wrap up a few things in town first and make sure the city would be as safe as possible while we were gone. To that end, he wanted to investigate the rumor we had heard about their being creatures seen in the town’s well.

On the way to the well, we did make a few stops. First, we stopped in to see the constable. He was very appreciative of our assistance in apprehending Merron the night before, and rewarded the group with 500 gold. We also swung buy The Sullen Dwarf to check if he had any interesting goods for sale, which he did not to no surprise.

We arrived at the well to find the area quite busy, as one would expect. The first thing we noticed, was the long length of time spent lowering and raising the buckets. The well seemed to be quite deep and was, it was in fact about 150 feet to the water below. We lowered a torch in a bucket to see what we could, and it appeared that it was not actually a straight shaft going down, but that it opened up in 3 places going down and then at the base as well.

We lowered Evelios down to the first open area. As soon as he left the shaft, he was attacked my a moving fungus of some sort, that he quickly dispatched. He called up that it appeared safe, so we all climbed down to join him.

The opening appeared to be an natural cave like area that had some finishing work done on it possibly. We spread out to search and encountered several more of those fungus creatures we quickly killed. In the south east corner of the cave we did find a body that appeared to be 2 or 3 weeks old. We found nothing significant on the body itself, but did find numerous small foot prints in the dirt around the body.

Evelios and myself were lowered to the second level. This area appeared to be entirely man made. There were identical human statues lining the east and west walls. On the south wall was a single statue. It was a larger copy of the same statue that lined the other walls. The north was blank, but as soon as Evelios and I set foot in the room, a large face appeared on the wall. It warned us not to proceed any further and then faded away into the wall and a large lizard like demon appeared.

Evelios and I attacked the demon, but it appeared to take no damage. Sylrel and The Professor, who had followed us down, also unleashed spells to no affect. I realized it was an illusion and walk up to it and it disappeared when my hand passed through it.

We searched the wall where the illusion had appeared from and all the statues, including the larger version in the south, but found nothing of note.

We proceeded down to the third level in the same fashion, with Evelios and I leading the way followed by The Professor and Sylrel. We saw a long, wide corridor leading to the west for about 100 feet, and an opening to a small room directly to our north. We heard noises coming from the north, so Evelios and I looked around the corner into that room.

There were several small humanoids in the room, waiting to ambush us. They must have heard us climbing down. They fired crossbow bolts at us and Evelios and Sylrel fired back, quickly putting an end to them. The room had two stone sarcophagi in it. One to the east and one to the west. The Professor, who should have know better, approached the sarcophagus to the east and touched it to inspect it. There was a brimstone smell and The Professor disappeared in a flash. In his place appeared several blobby flesh creatures.

These creatures were a bit tougher than the small humanoids, but were not a serious threat. However, we were very concerned with The Professor disappearing, so we moved to make short work of them. Just as we finished up the creatures before us, a secret door opened up and The Professor came through followed by one more creature that he had already hurt and which we quickly killed.

We then investigated the stone coffins. The writing on the coffins indicated that they were members of the “Unholy Tribunal of the Cult of the Grey Master.” So, we popped them open to take a look. Inside both were corpses long since dead dressed in ceremonial robes. They also had a golden unholy symbol, which we left in place.

We then explored the hallway running to the west. It was lined with empty alcoves, but nothing else interesting was there. So, we figured we had better search closer, and in one alcove we found a secret door.

The door opened into a medium sized room with a raised dais and a large, fancy stone sarcophagus on it. The walls were painted with vibrant murals depicting the same man in various scenes. As we approached the sarcophagus a figure rose up from behind it. A mind flayer!

Evelios was the first to make a move and he fired off his most powerful shots and killed the creature in a single barrage of arrows. Unbelievable, we thought. But upon close inspection of the body it was apparent that the creature was grievously harmed before we even entered the room. It appeared to have been severely beaten and had several of it’s tentacles cut off. While we found that very odd, we could think of no reason for it.

Next we went to the sarcophagus and inspected it. This one said that it held the Grandmaster of the Unholy Tribunal. We opened it up and again, we found a long dead corpse inside. He was also dressed in ceremonial robes, but of a finer nature than those on the other two corpses. The robes and other contents made it appear that the person inside the sarcophagus was the same as depicted on the walls.

This corpse was also holding a golden unholy symbol which we left in place, but was also wearing a golden ring which Sylrel identified as magical. The Professor cast a spell and identified it as a Ring of Mind Shielding. The Professor was very excited about the find, so we let him have it. Only time will tell if it contained the essence of the person who was buried in the coffin.

We returned to the shaft to head down to the final level. We could see that it lead down to a small lake of water. From our vantage, we could see no dry land. By lowering a weighted rope, we determined the water was about 20 feet deep. The Professor, perhaps emboldened by his new treasure, claimed to have a back ground in competitive high diving from his college days and proceeded to swan dive into the water below.

As The Professor surfaced he called out that he saw more creatures, then he disappeared back under the water. Evelios, Sylrel and I all jumped in after him. Evelios and Sylrel bobbed to the surface, but I sank like the rock that I am. On the bottom of the small lake, I did see a glowing female figure, that I would almost describe as angel like, moving through the water.

Session 18, 3/26/2021

The Professor never surfaced. And although we searched for him after the battle, we did not find his body. We are hoping he was perhaps caught be an undercurrent of some sort and perhaps swept out towards the sea. He is a strong swimmer and we hope to see him again at the Roc’s Nest.

Plunging to the bottom of the lake and loosing site of my companions I decided to head east and walk across the bottom of the lake. It had not seem so large when coming down and I thought that would be faster than trying to strip out of my armor.

Unknown to me, Sylrel and Evelios headed to the south at the same time I was heading to the east. They had seen figures on the southern shore and engaged them in ranged combat and then moved towards the southern shore.
As they moved toward the shore a 5th figure dropped through the hole in the ceiling and joined them, yelling out that she was there to offer help. Once they reached the shore the new comer, Ankeli, moved in to attack the creatures up close and keep their attention while Sylrel and Evelios finished them from afar.

About the time they were killing the last of the small creatures, I finally reached the eastern shore and struggled up onto the rocks there. I was surprised and attacked by two tentacle creatures that appeared to almost come out of the rocks themselves. Evelios moved to a position where he could provide me some covering fire and Sylrel and Ankeli began to look for a way over to me.

At that point the two heard something moving in the rocks behind them, but when they turned around, they couldn’t see anything. Ankeli charged in the direction of the noise swinging her arms wide trying to grab anything that may have been there. She made contact with a smaller creature and grabbed fast. Sylrel cast faerie fire but could detect no more hidden creatures.

Evelios and I finished off the tentacle creatures about the same time Sylrel and Ankeli defeated the last of the small humanoids. I edged around the lake best I could to join the group and found Evelios with an arrow trained on Ankeli demanding to know who she was and why she was there.

While his suspicion was warranted, Ankeli had appeared from no where in the middle of a fight, Ankeli had assisted us in our battle. Both sides were able to calm down and allow a more formal introductions.

Ankeli shared with us that she is on a constant hunt seeking out and destroying the undead in the name of the Raven Queen. She had followed the stories and rumors of a large amount of undead in the Larondell area and when she arrived here she had heard of our fights against the foul creatures. She thought that we would make good allies in her fight, at least for a time.

Her story ringed true, so we explained to her the quest that had brought us to Larondell and all that had passed since then. Our plans to find a way to destroy the Council of Bones, but out hope to still be able to save Rowenna and maybe lift the curse from her instead of killing her.

The last part actually was a bit of sticking point. Ankeli was of the opinion that all undead, specially intelligent undead, must be destroyed and had some issue with the idea of trying to redeem Rowenna. We argued that due to the circumstances of what happened, that the greater good would be served by redeeming her if at all possible. In the end, she agreed that if we could save her and remove her curse, she would be accepting of that as long as we agreed Rowenna would have to die if no cure was found.

After welcoming Anekli to the group, we searched the area and found a small amount of treasure and several odd magical items. The small creatures had apparently been stealing from the townsfolk, but did not have much of an understanding of what was valuable. After scouring the various camp sites and nesting areas, we approached the largest of the stone sarcophagi that lay about the place and proceeded to open it.

A large fiend resembling the illusion we had seen above leaped from the sarcophagi and attacked the group. Anekli immediately proved her worth by grabbing the creatures attention and using her magical abilities to avoid the creatures attacks. I moved in to assist, but to be honest, my attacks seemed to miss over and over and I made little difference. Evelios kept up his constant rain of arrows as normal, but Sylrel must have been specially angered because her magical attacks struck with devastating force again and again.

The angelic creature I had seen below flew out of the water and joined the fray, attacking the fiend as well. And while her help was appreciated, it was hardly needed as Sylrel and Evelios ground the creature to dust. After we had defeated the fiend, the angelic creature thanked us for destroying it and told us her story.

The creature was a Deva named Glorian, an servant of Tyr. Some time ago, hundreds of years ago, she was drawn to the area. The evil powers that were permeating the area after the failed summoning by the cult had seeped into the ground water and concentrating in the lake water that was the main drinking source for the town. The concentrated evil power had caused many changes in the people of the area and was the cause of many diseases and deaths.

The Deva moved into the lake and used her power to cleanse the water and undo as much of the damage as possible. Due to her work, the people no longer suffered the diseases and death, but were still unable to travel far from Larnondell and her power. She was hopeful that we would be successful in our quest and rid the area of the evil influence and finally free her.

After meeting the Deva, we did one final search for The Professor but could not find him. We decided we would climb out and head to the Roc’s Nest and hope he would turn up the next morning.