session XXIV - tinderstrike

Slowly making their way past the vestibule, the party quickly comes to a stop in front of a closed door behind which, voices are heard. It dosen't take too long before Halvarth opens it, finding himself face to face with a retinue of Eternal Flames cultists. As the wizard attemtps his usual diplomatic approach, Tico who's reading the lead cultist's thoughts, understands the latter is expecting a hand symbol. Performing the only hand motion they've learned in the Sacred Stone Monastery was apparently not very flattering for the cultists who all attack at once. 

A battle that appeared won from the get go turns hugly as an evocation wizard joins the fray along with a handful of magmins, a herd of hell hounds and a company of hobgoblins led by a lieutenant. Despite the hardships, our heroes manage to dispatch all enemies. 

On the east side of the room, a closed door painted in red with a black stylized cauldron symbol upon it.  Luckily, Tico manages to slip an arcane eye beyond the door. He notices Vanifer sitting on a dais looking bored while Nalaskur, flanked by a drider, seems upset.

Trash casts an arcane lock on the door before the party retreats to safety for a rest. A few hours past before they are finally ready to push the attack onto Vanifer.   

With an invisible Elthas scouting ahead, the party slowly makes its way in the room where only Nalaskur is now present, having taken Vanifer's place at the dais. It is with surprise that an arrow suddenly pierces reality and stabs him in the shoulder. Trash, Kella, Tico, Halvarth and Savra then burst into the room, following up on Elthas' attacks. While the party focuses the drider, Nalaskur begs them to stop the onslaught for parlay. 

It does not take too long before Vanifer, having had enough, enters the room from a secret door to the south east, sneering at Nalaskur for being naive and summons fiery walls at the team as fire elementals reveal themselves from within the smoking braziers.

Vanifer and Nalaskur's plan of negotiating with the party having clearly failed, our heroes make short work of the red tiefling who vanishes in a flash of fire and smoke with all her clothing and equipment dropping to the floor. 

They find, in her pile of equipement, a finely ornated flint dagger which Halvarth recognizes as being magical. With an identify spell, he recognizes it as being called Tinderstrike, an equal in strength to Windvane. 

The party turns its attention to Nalaskur who had dropped his weapons and surrendered. He admits having known of the cults' existence for a while. He argues the cult were keeping each other in check, having mortal enemies in at least one other cult. He blames the heroes for having disturbed the delicate balance preventing one evil from becoming too powerful. By exterminating the Sacred Stone and Howling Hatred surface level operation, other cults had become emboldened which turned into the attack on Westbridge and the destruction of Womford. Now with the fall of the Scarlett Moon Hall tower and the Vanifer's defeat, the Crushing Wave cult will become unstoppable.

With the help of a charm spell, Tico convinces him that he's also member of the Zhentarim. He manages to establish a rapport with the mob boss and tries to get him to help the refugees at Summit Hall. Although Nalaskur responds in the affirmative, anyone can easily understand he's simply saying whatever will keep him out of troubles. 

After he leaves, the party send a message to Sister Garaele, informing her of Nalaskur's potential apparition at the surface and he should not be trusted. She answers with a troubling reply, stating the blessing on Summit Hall had been lifted, many of the refugees had already perished and undead monsters were lurking in the woods. 

A brief discussion ensues with regards to this situation but everyone agrees there's no help to be brought before a decent night of sleep. Looking through Vanifer's hidden room reveals a couple magical scrolls along with notes and schematics.

Sifting through the notes, Elthas manages to find a rough sketch of Tyar-Besil with a more detailed version of the north western part, along with instructions on how to use a magical stone disk in the shaft towards the Node to the elemental plane of fire. 

There also appears to be a lot of incoherent rambling. References to an entity called Imix, referred to as the prince of fire. Fabulations towards a scorching baptism and reverences to the sweet smell of burning flesh along with excruciating details by which one should carve the firery cauldron into the forehead of sacrifices before plunging tinderstrike into their hearts to strengthen Imix with souls. 

With these disturbing images, the party rests for some time before tough decisions would have to be made.