Session 27: Something Dark Awakens

 

The Adventurers discover that something vary dark in the cave has awakened. Something that thrives on death.

Written by our scribe Carl with a few additions from myself. It is based on our Sunday, January 1, 2023 session. Jimmy took the screen shots on Roll20.

Continued from: The Bandits' Cave

Location: On the Brushwood Trail, Halfway between Brushwood and Modron.

We had just finished up with the bandit cave, with some bandits still tied to trees outside with Paraselene on guard. We were thinking we needed to rest some, to get back spells and abilities.

We rounded up the horses, prisoners, and Paraselene - and took them all into the cave.

The Plan was to give the surviving bandits a bedroll, food and a knife and send them on their way with suggestion to find a real job.

Reebo and Nattie went outside to gather those outside, and Aefir and Shadow went to look at the locked and barred door. What could go wrong?

It seemed dimmer inside as Reebo and Nattie headed out, or at least it seemed the coin with the light spell on it did not reach as far out as it had.

Going back, the horses were not happy going into the cave. They needed blindfolding to be more comfortable, so Paraselene stayed with them near the entrance.

As Reebo and Nattie headed back with the remaining bandits, the light from their coins got even dimmer. They turned around and headed back - the lighting returned to normal as they walked back toward the front door.

Natalie and Paraselene stayed with the horses and bandits while Reebo went to get gear for them. He hit a dim zone on the way back as well as the way we had tried before.

Standing near the back door of the cavern, Aefir cast Divine Sense. He sensed evil throughout the cavern, but the door itself was neutral. Reebo described the dimming of the light, mentioning that it was most dimmed near a big crate they had seen earlier.  Aefir could not find a central area of the evil emanations from where he was.

While looting the dead bandits, the group noticed that the bodies were decaying VERY rapidly. In a relatively few minutes of time they had decayed as if for days.

The inside folks headed out, checking the crate as they went. Aefir did another Divine Sense, and figured the crate was the central point of the evil he had detected. When they got out, the bandit prisoners told us there was an old stone obelisk in the crate. It predated them taking over the cave (only a couple weeks ago) The bandits said they had trouble sleeping, but there were no other effects that they noticed.

Aefir was in a quandry, he wanted to go back in and destroy the evil icon in the box, but not wanting to risk the entire party. Arkelm did not want to get close enough to do an identify, and did not want to touch it in any event.

One bandit who died outside the cave was NOT decaying rapidly like the ones inside. Worth noting and another reason to not go back inside.

April 26th, 4433
We slept on it, and sent the bandits on their way.

Arkelm did detect magic on the loot, but only the bag of holding and potions radiated. Our mage had reconsidered overnight, and agreed to walk in with Aefir and do a detect on the box and the icon inside it. They went inside - a holy artifact of some kind, not so much a school of magic but necromantic and clerical.

We went back to the road, heading to Modron.

Some time before noon, about two hours to go to Modron, we came to a crossroads. Lost Man's Trail to the right, Modron to the left, Brushwood behind us.

We went left, or at least we started to. Off to the right was a group that did not look friendly. A leader and bunch of minions.  Aefir screamed UNDEAD!!!! and set for battle.

Looked like a priest and a group of acolytes, and we girded our loins for combat.

The priest led off with a Flame Strike on Aefir, pretty much settling it on FIGHT!!! We fought back.  

Paraselene yelled "He is a priest of Proteus!" 

Beneddar said, "That religion was banned in Modron when the city was reestablished after being destroyed in a battle between Proteus and Modron (the goddess, not the city). Looks like they are back."

The acolytes chanted some gibberish nonsense, but we saw no effect initially.

In pretty short order, that battle ended.  We checked the corpses, took two as prisoner.

We made it to Modron.

First thing was to turn the prisoners over to the temple of Mitra.

Beneddar was born there and was able to show us around for what we needed. Most of our mission was doable here, but we would have to go on to the City State for Reebo to find a mastiff.

We would try to get City state coinage, for the CURRENT tyrant, when we sold stuff.  Some old currency was circulating in Modron, and could be changed, but we stressed the current coins for selling.

 
 
Continued in: The City State of the Invincible Overlord