The party question the prisoners they rescued, learning their names:
Acacia Evengloom, female human, mother of
Rinnall Evengloom, Tharruk’s newest phylactery
Gweyir Corona, female elf, kidnapped to keep rest of her family quiet
Clement Doras, human male, adventurer who just wanted to solve the rat problem
Tulayborn Thunderheart, female dwarf, forced to make weapons and armor for cultists
Sneenensnort, male gnome, planar traveler, was investigating strange magic in Crystalport
Investigating beyond the nearby door, they find Nellie’s Narthex, a tavern famous among certain circles in the Underdark and run by Aunt Nellie, a hag. She offers to help the party, for a price, to get rid of Tharruk, but they decline. They pay for rooms in the tavern and rest for the night.
That night, Valya lights one of the incense cones in the box she found, and summons a smoke mephit servant.
Wednesday, December 19, 652 AU
Exploring further, they discover the tunnels past Nellie’s Narthex connect to the Underdark.
They return to where they left the prisoners, and assure Sneenensnort they will find his backpack.
Leaving Qhask behind to guard the prisoners, they explore some more of the nearby rooms. They find a locked room containing alchemical equipment, a magic circle drawn on the ground in powdered silver, and a small library containing books on summoning devils.
Valya gets burned when she touches Better the Devil You Know, which is magically protected, so she pockets Conversations with the Dead and The ABCs of Summoning instead.
Aurelia discovers that the magic circle is still active. Wondering if Beatrice’s spirit is excluded from the interior, she steps into the circle. Beatrice whispers: That’s no fair!, but suddenly Aurelia feels claws scratch across her arm, and a barbed devil becomes visible—it was trapped in the circle.
The devil taunts the party, claiming he was summoned by the cultists to answer questions in exchange for blood sacrifice. Specifically, the cult was very interested in the party! The barbed devil knew they would arrive, and believes they will all die here.
They kill the devil, and it vanishes in a puff of smoke, but not before cryptically pointing at Aurelia and saying “the two of you will make a great prize for Tharruk”.
They go back up the stairs to the initial chamber of the temple, and enter the room with the beholder. Valya gives the password, “We are Neesha’s Vengeance”, and the beholder allows them to pass.
Past the beholder is a door, and behind the door is a stairwell spiralling down.
The stairwell is filled with black smoke that does necrotic damage to non-undead. They spend some time trying to get past. Leander heads down, unharmed, but is ambushed by something out of their range of vision and vanishes.
Valya makes it down the stairs by controlling wind around her to blow away the smoke, and finds a closed set of double doors. Opening the doors, she finds a large, ornate square chamber lit by continual flames and covered with black marble murals. There are three doors on each of the other three walls—one decorated with a full moon to the left, one decorated with a blood moon to the right, and one decorated with the total eclipse straight ahead. There are two smaller doors on the same wall as the door Valya opened, one on either side. In the center of the room is a circular pedestal.
As Valya enters the room, she hears a voice whisper in her ear: My child… if you wish to progress to the heart of my sanctum, prove your faith in me.
The small door on the left opens onto a hallway, but it’s collapsed and impassible.
The small door on the right leads to an intact hallway, and some exploring reveals a room with black crystals billowing smoke into vents around the stairway. Valya destroys them, and the rest of the party descends the stairs.
As Thaldohr enters the room, he hears the same whisper as Valya did. Aurelia, however, just hears Leave, defiler.
Across the hall from the room with the crystals, they find black robes with the symbol of the eclipse on them, much to Aurelia’s chagrin.
Further down, they find a torture room, and are attacked by a pile of corpses. One of the bodies is not dead, however—it’s Marex, the wizard working for Perrit that Fergus met, but the party doesn’t know this. His lower torso has partially dissolved into the pile. Marex tells them that Perrit was secretly working with Tharruk for some unknown purpose. Perrit offered Marex to Tharruk to cast forbiddance for him, and Azzox forced Marex to do it. When Marex was done, he was tortured and added to the pile.
Marex informs the party that there is a pillar behind the door with the red moon—if that pillar is not destroyed, the forbiddance cannot be dispelled. He also knows that the pedestal in the center of the large room leads down to the inner sanctum, and that Tharruk is down there.
Aurelia casts sacred flame to put Marex out of his misery.
While exploring further, they find a few small cells, some of which are occupied by humanoids, but they are all non-responsive, staring blankly at the walls of their cells.
Suddenly, they all get a mass sending from Utaz: “I’m broadcasting to many. Update. Wood Scorpions still attacking various locations. New threat—two necromancers, zombie army from north. Currently besieging city wall.”
Valya tries to respond: “We are deeper into chamber. Found remains of Neesha order. Also hag. Forbiddance spell active, but we know how to deactivate. Also mindflayer.”
Utaz replies: “Mindflayer and hag? On top of lich? Not good! Need to deactivate forbiddence, Atris useless up here, cannot attack targets without royal decree.”
They encounter Azzox, plus a mind-controlled Leander. They manage to snap Leander out of it, but Azzox casts dimension door and escapes.
In the room, they find:
120 gp
A silver ewer in the form of a full moon
A carved bone statuette of some unidentified creature
A black velvet mask stitched with silver thread, decorated with moons
A spell scroll of invisibility
A spell scroll of vortex warp
A potion of healing
A potion of radiant resistance
They also find a pile of items confiscated from the prisoners upstairs:
A backpack, gently billowing white smoke (from Sneenensnort)
A fancy floral pin
A spell scroll of borrowed knowledge
They also find an old, rusty keychain
The few prisoners in the dungeon are:
A cultist of Neesha who was being punished for disobedience
A Wood Scorpion named Ethan who discovered their connection to undead, threatened to go public and expose Perrit, and was made prisoner—he also implied that the barrels of explosives used to blow up the Hall of Justice was Saphielle!
A halfling, Gertrude Crow, who claims to be a clairvoyant who speaks to the dead. She knows “There is a necromancer somewhere in Crystalport!” and “They’re planning to do something nefarious!”
As they are all severely injured at this point, Aurelia casts prayer of healing.
Some more investigation reveals a hall filled with brown mold, which leads to the other side of the collapsed hallway, where they find several holy symbols of Neesha as well as a pile of dead cultists—they suspect they are cultists who didn’t pass the tests. Valya narrowly avoids getting infected with worms that spring from the bodies.
Finally, they think they have determined the correct order to open the doors—first the new moon, then the blood moon, then the eclipse… ❦