29 Kythorn 1491

Session 22, 4/30/2021

The next morning we gathered to consider our next steps forward. Once again The Professor was no where to be seen. Perhaps he had overindulged the night before while trying to distract Ravenna from our true purpose. Or maybe something he had read in the library had distracted him from the task at hand. Either way, we decided we would move forward without him.

We had made great progress in our main quest to save Ravenna and destroy the Council of Bones, ridding Larondell of the evil that had plagued it for years. We now knew how to save Ravenna and return her to human form, the names of the members of the Council of Bones and that if we destroyed all four members the Reaper’s ability to reincarnate would be ended allowing a final confrontation and an ending of the evil.

The question was what to do next. Of the four members of the Council, we knew of 3 and where to locate them. So it seemed we had two choices. Either research the fourth member of the Council or head to the temple and assault it with the plan of trying to free Ravenna.

While it seems important to know the whereabouts of each member of the council in order to bring things to a close as soon as possible, it appeared it would be easy to locate the fourth member. As the ghost of a local noble, surely there would be local records or memory of such a family and their holdings.

As for assaulting the temple, it had to be done sooner or later. And if we did it while we still had Marrik with us, we would be able to use him as a blunt weapon against the cultist.

In the end it was decided that we would assault the temple. There was no way we could keep Marrik tied up indefinitely and it would be a sore loss to not have his assistance. We took some time in the morning to prepare ourselves and then headed out towards the temple. According to Marrik it would take about a days travel and he could sense that the leader of the cult was indeed at the temple.

We arrived at the location of the temple late in the day. The temple itself was located underground. The entrance was a set of large metal doors set into a hillside inside a forest clearing. We looked around but could find no other entrances or windows of any sort. Evelios investigated the tracks before the door and determined that there was regular, but not heavy, traffic of small groups.

We asked Marrik about what he remembered about the layout of the temple. He said there was a large entry way behind the doors which normally contained a few guards. Then a series of rooms set into the hill including living quarters, worship chambers and such.

We felt somewhat unprepared, but we figured we needed to keep moving. There was no way to tell when the next group would show up. It could be days away or just hours. We decided that we would use Marrik to his fullest at this point. We would open the doors and let him charge in and follow after 10 seconds or so. We hoped he would get their attention and we would be able to follow in and mop up. Marrik readily agreed and he was near in a frenzy to get started and hopefully get his revenge and end his torment.

We opened the doors and Marrik rushed in as planned. We heard a screeching noise followed by several large thumps and more screams. We waited our agreed upon time and then entered after.

The entrance was a large room with a sunken section in the middle and several doors leading off of it. There were three figures in the room. Marrik and two very large, hulking men dressed in heavy armor. One of the guards appeared to be paralyzed and the other was fighting with Marrik.

We swiftly joined the fight thinking we would have the upper hand, but the other side was shortly joined by a powerful priest of the cult. But our plan was a good one and Marrik drew most of the attention and took most of the damage which he promptly regenerated.

After this initial fight, we wanted some time to orientate ourselves and decide on our next action, but Marrik was having none of it. He immediately charged further into the temple searching after Zaremba. Ankeli tried to stop him, but he slipped past her. Without a better plan, and not wanting to loose track of Marrik, we rushed after him as fast as we could.

Marrik had a decent head start and made several turns and headed deeper in the temple. Annkeli was not too far behind followed by Evelios, but Sylrel and especially I were some way behind. I could hear yells from up ahead, but by the time I arrived it was already over. Marrik had located Zaremba and beat the life out of him with his own hands. I arrived just in time to see him call out for Mira Gorman and then dissolve into mist. We assume after taking his revenge his soul was released to the afterlife.

While we were distracted by Marrik’s final release, we were attacked from behind once more by a powerful priest of the cult. This time it was just 4 on 1, and although I was knocked unconscious, the fight was short and brutal with the priest being cut down by Sylel while trying to flee. A search of the living quarters the priest was fleeing through revealed some gold and 3 potions of greater healing.

We also found a diary kept by the high priest Zaremba. It was mostly garbage as one would expect of such a person, but there was a few important passages in which he discussed his helping Ravenna with her plans for revenge. She is building something called a plague golem in the dungeons of the vampire castle.

Returning to the room where Zaremba had been slain, we discovered 4 large crystalline pillars. Each one seemed to swirl with a gas or fog inside. Upon approaching each one a figure would resolve itself. One was Ravenna and another the Shade from the asylum.

In the third was a small child huddled around a fire in a sewer. The boneclaw loomed over her, but not in a threatening way. The child was recognizable as the little girl we had seen in town being teased by the other children. This confirmed my suspicion that the boneclaw was being controlled by someone. I am not sure how we will deal with this, as killing a child would be most unsavory.

The last pillar showed a scene with two ghostly figures in it. The figures appeared to be in a cellar of a mansion or fancy house of some sort. On ghost appeared to be in chains and crouching, cowering on the floor. He appeared to be an older person. The second ghost appeared to be a younger man, but he was also sickly and frail. He loomed over the older one threatening him.

It seemed apparent that the cult used these pillars to keep track of the 4 members of the council. Ankeli cast a spell to investigate the crystal for Ravenna, but determined it was most likely only used for the scrying and was not the crystal we were searching for.

We continue to explore the temple and the next room we entered was a good sized room of worship with 4 pillars and 4 brazziers in each corner and an alter close to the north wall. There were also 3 cultist in the middle of some sort of worship. These were only normal worshipers though and Evelios took them all out in a flurry of arrows.

At that point we searched the room and in doing so we set of a trap of such hideous design that we barley escaped with our lives.

Session 23 5/7/2021

After making it out of the worship room with our lives still intact (barely), we decided to take a short break and reorientate ourselves. Oddly enough, while we were recuperating, The Professor finally caught up to us. Gharrus, the owner of the Roc’s Nest, had let him know where we were headed and he had caught up as soon as possible.

After our rest, and catching The Professor up, we decided to continue exploring the temple. It was a close call because of our condition, but we did not want to leave and give anyone the time to remove what we were searching for. So we went back to the room with the 4 pillars and then headed north from there.

The passage lead to a large, round room. The floor appeared to be covered in some sort of seething concoction. It was not lava, but brought that to mind. Throughout the room were raised walkways we could traverse and in the middle and alter with a large crystal upon it. Possibly the crystal we were in search of.

We entered the room and spread out. Then we began to approach the crystal, but were surprised when a large demonic creature flew down from the ceiling and confronted us. The fight against the creature was long and tough. Ankeli was pushed from the walkway at one point and thought to be loss, but she was able to teleport back up to join the fight. We relied heavily on The Professor as he was well rested and could call the full might of his powers to bear.

After defeating the demonic creature we were able to finally approach the crystal and inspect it. We used an identify spell to gain as many details as possible. This truly was “Ravenna’s Crytal”. We learned that if we killed her in it’s presence she would be transformed back into her human form. Alternatively, if she choose to make the transition herself, she could voluntary change back to human. But doing so would be risky, and she may not survive the transition.

At that point we had quite the lively discussion for sure. Was it better to try and kill her, risking ourselves, but ensuring her return to her human form? Or, should be try to persuade her to make the transformation herself, and if so, should we inform her of the risks and how would knowing of them affect her decision making? In the end we came to no decision and tabled the discussion until later.

Once again we had to decide to either continue exploring the temple or leaving while we still could. We felt we had defeated the worse that the temple could contain, but one could never know what might lurk in such a building. It was at this point that The Professor admitted that the ring of mind shielding he had found contained the soul of a former cult leader.

It seemed the soul was actually quite annoyed, even angry at the current cult leadership and members. Apparently they had fallen far from their “illustrious” founding and we more embarrassing than not. He seemed interested in assisting us if it would lead to an end of the current incarnation of the cult. With that goal in mind, he informed us of the location of a powerful weapon that would assist us greatly in our battles to come.

The spirit lead us back to the worship room that had been the site of the deadly trap and instructed us on how to disarm the trap. We were not so quick to trust the spirit, so we all waited outside while Ankeli followed the instructions. Amazingly, the spirit spoke the truth and Ankeli was able to disarm the trap and were then able to open the sarcophagus. Inside we found a number of items such as a dagger and several goblets. Then, hidden in a false bottom, we found the true treasure, The Sword of Tyr. The sword is a strong magical weapon in general, but appears to have additional powers against fiends.

We did a further search of the temple and did not find much more of significance. We decided to return to the Roc’s Nest at that point and rest before deciding our next move.