Session XI - The Sacred Stone Monastery - Now its Personal

Standing amongst a hot mess of mutilated duergars, monks and minotaurs' bodies, the party takes a moment to breath, hearing distant banging and shouting as the remainder of the monastery's forces tries to escape their locked dormitories. Losing no time, the party undresses some of the monks that lay dead on the ground and put on the monks' accoutrement. Trash even goes as far as removing is own armor to make the disguise believable. Klaes however, despite Tico's best effort using a disguise kit, looks ridiculous at best. 

Standing guard in the hallway, Halvarth eventually hears Qarbo bursting out of his room and, working on the other dormitorie's entrance, quickly makes way for all his subordinates to come through as well. As the monk forces moves to confront the party, under his disguise, Halvarth makes them believe they have defended against the attackers who are still at large, roaming the monastery. Qarbo quickly decides to retreat to the lower levels. 

While this is happening, Trash loots all of Hellenrae's possessions from her room, sharing the goods with everyone, before moving to a door on the eastern side of the monastery. Using Hellenrae's key, the old misused and worned out door creaks as it opens, giving way to a large room filled with work tables covered in alchemical apparatuses. An ancient figure perusing and old tome sitting with its back to the door mumbles:

"I've already told you no, Hellenrae. Depart now." 

After the party protests their affiliation to the monks, the creature turns around revealing a figure of undeath. An awkward moment follows after which it states, very matter-of-factly, that he is no enemy of them but will fill this room with poisonous gas, killing everyone with a snap of his fingers if he is not left alone. Not wanting to anger it prematurely, the party errs on the side of caution and gently closes the door. 

Before heading downstairs to explore the rest of this establishment in the hopes of finding Bruldenthar, Elthas suggest they spend some more time investigating the scriptorium. Elthas and Tico find yet more academic tomes on the elemental planes, holy texts referring to earth deities, and philosophical treaties on self-denial and nihilism as a response to an overtly material world. With his naturally inquisitive mind, however, Halvarth gives attention to an inauspicious, small book whose tattered binding is covered in dust.  He soon identifies the book as being the personal journal of Samular Caradoon, founder of Summit Hall some 500 years ago. In this book, he gathers that Samular fought in the second Troll war where his brother, Renwick, was slain. Refusing to let his brother pass away, he fed him a potion of lichdom and built Summit Hall under the pretense of having a base of operation for the Order of the Knights of Samular. The Hall was outfitted with a tower which was never to be disturbed as it was to be Renwick's residing place.

The party readily comes to the conclusion that the ancient figure they've interacted with is no other than Renwick and is indeed a lich. Talks of bursting into the room and attacking it are quickly shut down on account of not being suicidal. Seeing as Renwick was not aggressive from the get go, our heroes decide to confront him again, this time with a little name dropping, hoping to get information about the Cult of the Black Earth. 

Renwick is quick to open up at the mention of his past and boasts of titles and long forgotten deeds for a few minute. The party quickly learns that Renwick is but tolerating the presence of the monks' order for the simple reason that he does not long for needless slaughter but they are getting on his nerves. He would be happy if an adventuring party were to ''take care'' of this situation so he could finally be left in peace to his studies. As a preemptive reward, he hands the party an Amulet of Health, which he said was being worn by his brother back during their glorious days. He also promises some more rewards if they find a way towards a outer plane portal which Elthas detected underneath the monastery, as this is precisely his subject of studies and expertise.

Leaving Renwick to his books, the party heads downstairs where they quickly butt heads with a group of orogs and ogres. Through fireballs, shoving into wells and kink shaming, the party quickly dispatches the jailors, keeping one alive for interrogation. The orog admits having been hired by the monks to keep an eye on the prisoners who were tasked with digging tunnels but he could not fathom why. Letting the orc leave, the party heads towards the prisoners' cage where they free roughly twenty human peasants, merchants, farmers and tribesfolks, most of which eagerly begging for food and water. Amongst them, a dwarf stands out as being calmer and grittier. 

Figham Windstone has a strange tale to tell. After the delegation ambush, he says he was fairly quickly separated from Bruldenthar who, he now assumes, was brought here to the monastery. On the other hand, himself along with a Mirabarian noble called Deseyna Norvael,  and a few other Mirabarian guards, were brought much further south and west of here. As their captor were heading due west just south of the hills, they were attacked, captives and captors alike, by bandits mounted on giant flying vultures. Among the chaos, Figham started running without looking back. He took natural paths heading deep inside the Slumber Hills in the hopes of finding the fabled Vale of Dancing Waters where King Torhild Flametongue himself use to summer. It was told that some sacred temples dedicated to various members of the dwarven pantheon were consecrated there and should provide safe haven for refugees. 

Leaving the prisoners behind, the party heads deeper in the tunnels. They eventually find their way in a dug out chamber that's obviously and ancient crypt. Klaes using his divine sense ability detects six undeads laying in plain sight along the walls of the crypt. Unsheating his weapons and carefully approaching, he does notice eyes following his movement from rotting bodies who otherwise look completely inert. As the party was about to launch an attack on the zombies, they hear Renwick's voice from the top of stairs heading up from this room saying he has disabled his defenses in this crypt which was otherwise intended to be his brother's final resting place. The party offers to find his Samular's body in Summit Hall and to bring it back here for him which Renwick gladly accepts. 

Continuing the exploration further, the party opens a door where a row of sturdy iron bars with a sliding cage door portions the entire western end of the room. Behind the iron bars, a monstruous creature that ressembles a cross between a huge ape and a beetle with wicked bronze blades as mandibles and two of its fours eyes having been put out, is pacing aggressively. While Elthas starts taking pot shots at the creature, stepping into the room, at the top of a wide set of stairs leading up, Halvarth notices a duergar suddenly appearing while pulling down a lever. The stairs suddenly fold on themselves turning into a steep ramp while the door behind them shuts solid, leaving Tico behind and the cage door slides open, letting the bloodthirsty monster loose in the room.

Follows a gruesome combat, during which Trash magically entices the creature to target only him, while Halvarth teleports upstairs, finding himself surrounded by duergars who hack and slash at his fragile wizardly body. Our heroes eventually come out victorious witnessing the duergars leaving the premises and decide not to give chase. 

They finally open the last door where rows of neatly organised young and trembling monks are facing them, clearly not wishing to give their life to whatever cause the cult is working towards. After some intimidation and persuasion, attempting to avoid bloodshed, the party descends worn stone steps and finds itself face to face with Qarbo, alone and desperately banging and shouting on a massive stone slab carved with ancient dwarven runes. Being too far gone along the cults lines and dogmas, Qarbo, much like Larrakh before him, cuts his own throat offering his soul to Ogremoch, after threatening the party with vague references to the powers down below.