Chapter 58
Looking around the room to see they’re alone, Dolor eyes the robed corpses and investigates them for anything of value or perhaps useful information. “Hand me that bloody cloth, will you?” Mond pulls it from his Bag of Holding and takes it to the tiefling, who compares it to a tear in the bottom of an figure’s robes. “Good boy, Grindlefoot! You found the owner.”
Moving to the leader’s corpse, Dolor shares his discovery with the others. “This tattoo of a staring eye on the back of their hand matches the painting on the door in the other room. They take this seriously, like most zealots I suppose.”
The room has three more doors they haven’t explored yet, one on each wall, north, south, and west. Figuring that they should start somewhere, Gven decides to investigate the door on the north wall. She finds it unlocked and opens it cautiously, wary of disturbing more cultists. As the door swings open slowly, the half-orc hears a loud click behind her and turns to see another robed figure enter through the western door.
Mond also hears the noise and turns in time to see the mage begin to move his hands in a familiar pattern, similar to the leader’s recent efforts. The sorcerer is quick to cast Counterspell, causing the enemy’s hands to emit the tiniest spark. Disappointment covers his face when he realizes the fireball spell was defeated before it even came to life in his hands. The spellcaster turns quickly and bolts back through the door, shutting it loudly. The companions hear muffled shouts from behind it, “Push them up against it! We can’t let them get through!”
Closest to the door, Dolor pushes up against it, trying to force it open with all his strength and is able to budge it enough to create a crack. Seeing this from the north wall, Gven bursts forward, gaining speed as she approaches the wooden door and flings herself against it to aid the tiefling. The door and those behind it temporarily lose the struggle, allowing it to open further, enough for Bilwin to get an idea. As their opponents push back, closing the opening that Gven created, Bilwin slides beneath the half-orc and tiefling to place his battle axe in its way, blocking it from closing. Gven sets her feet solidly on the ground and with another surge of strength, the door flies open, pushing back two robed figures and at least one wooden-post bed frame.
Following through on her mighty shove, Gven enters the room to see two robed figures falling backwards from her forceful entrance. She stops momentarily in the short hallway leading into the room that, with a quick glance around, appears to be a resting area with a handful of beds. She invokes her rage and draws Tempest Edge, looking at the closest mage without any prejudice or emotion, only raw irritation. She stabs him in the fleshy part of his midsection and then her follow-up attack is blocked by an invisible barrier.
The wounded man is suddenly surrounded by a silvery mist and disappears from the room, leaving the other robed enemy alone with an enraged barbarian. Defying the look of fear on their face, the remaining mage raises their hands and releases a blast of cold air towards Gven and the others in the doorway.
Even standing behind his companions, the freezing air encompasses Mond, chilling him to the bone and angering him beyond comprehension. With the natural speed and agility of his half-elven heritage, the sorcerer seems to glide past the others into the room and lays his hand on the mage’s shoulder. Uttering a few words under his breath, the sorcerer’s hand shimmers and the mage writhes in pain before whispering a Counterspell of their own to stop the vampiric touch. Still, it was long enough to give Mond a bit of health for his efforts.
“Good, I see you’ve eaten your kale.”
Picking himself up from the floor of the doorway, Bilwin pushes into the room and swings his battle axe at their enemy. He slices through the magic user’s robed sleeve, drawing blood from their forearm and causing them to jump backwards.
Now behind everyone, Dolor notices that the first mage is behind them, apparently having misty-stepped to catch them off guard. The tiefling turns and crosses the room, points a finger at the human and speaks words in Infernal. The magic user is engulfed in flames and screams in pain.
“That’s how you use fire.”
Still shivering from the freezing blast, Gven feels the anger rise from within, feeding the barbarian rage she knows so well and focuses on the mage in front of her. Pushing from the hip, she thrusts her greatsword into the magic-user’s stomach, burying it to the hilt.
“Feel the cold death of hell.” Realizing that hell isn’t cold, “Umm, or something like that. Just die already.” The mage gives her a quizzical look as their eyes glaze over in death and the body slumps to the floor.
Seeing the odds against him, the sole remaining mage moves to the center of the room, placing himself between Dolor and the others. Once again, his hands move in a familiar pattern and a small spark of fire begins to dance along his fingertips. Mond sees this and discerns from the mage’s location that he intends to kill everyone around him, including himself, by dropping a fireball at his feet. As the flames begin to quickly grow, Mond casts one more Counterspell, stopping the deadly incantation. The mage turns to look at Mond with pure hatred in his eyes.
Before the mage can react, Mond flings a mass of energy at him. Immediately after being hit, the magic-user’s face contorts in agony and his arms undulate in pain from the poison coursing through his body. Within seconds, he falls to the floor, adding one more corpse to the others.
Catching their breath and regaining some body warmth, the companions make their way to the sleeping quarters where the two mages blockaded themselves. They find four cots, two are in disarray around the doorway where they tried to block the door from opening. Two of the walls have several stone cubbies cut into them, some containing old bones and others holding dust-covered urns. It appears to have been a crypt before the current occupants converted it into a bunk room.
Bilwin enters the room, sees the recently deceased mage’s body lying on the floor. “Hmm, I wonder what these zealots are doing here.” The dwarf looks directly at the corpse and kneels down, “Hey buddy, why were you so cold?” Unexpectedly, the body moves slightly to look at Bilwin and mumbles, “We’re in a tomb.”
“Oh my, I accidentally cast Speak with Dead! Since I have your attention, smartass, how many more of you are there?”
“A lot.”
“Could you be more helpful?”
The corpse doesn’t respond for several seconds as though it’s unsure what to say, “Maybe.”
“Where are the kidnap victims?”
“He keeps his secrets close.”
“Are we close yet?”
“He comes…soon.”
Bilwin is only slightly frustrated at the corpse’s unhelpful dialog. “What can you say, not like there’s much of a brain left in there.”
While the dwarf was interrogating the deceased mage, Mond began inspecting the urns in the walls. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until he reached the fifth clay pot and noticed an unusual design on the front. Rotating it to get a closer look, a portion of the south wall slides open to reveal a narrow door. The sorcerer pushes it open and finds a dark hallway leading to another door.
“Before we decide where to go next, I could use a short rest.” Grindlefoot hops on one of the cots and tips his hat over his eyes, indicating nap time.
The group feels a little better, having warmed up from the freezing spells, recharged with some rest, and refueld with rations from their packs.
The halfling looks to the others, “Back the way we came to investigate those other doors or see what this secret passageway is hiding?”
Gven votes with her feet, opening the previously hidden door in the south wall and entering the lightless hallway. Reaching the end of the short hallway, she comes to another door and pulls it open carefully, peeking beyond.
It’s an average-sized room, roughly 20 feet across each way with three of the walls covered by bookcases filled to the brim. A voluminous bed lies flat against the fourth wall and a large, ornate desk sits kitty corner to it. A gaunt, older human man wearing a dark robe sits at the desk, intently reading from a thick tomb.
Standing behind the man’s right shoulder is a 7-foot tall, one-eyed, bipedal horror. The unusually large eyeball notices the half-orc peering into the room. “Intruder!”
Mond bursts through the doorway, pushing Gven out of his way, and raises his hands towards the two figures. A piercingly bright swathe of lightning shoots from his fingertips and slams into both of the targets.
Entering the room behind Mond, Bilwin hurls a bolt of light at the seated man, pushing him backwards in the chair with arms flailing to the side.
Suddenly a silvery beam of light shines down from the ceiling on the robed figure, illuminating him. He looks up momentarily, more annoyed than surprised. “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Grindlefoot says to no one in particular.
A thought occurs to Gven as she readies for her attack. Could this robed man be one of the kidnap victims? She moves forward towards the one-eyed creature with Tempest Edge at the ready and turns to the man, “What’s your name?” He only sneers in response and so she continues her attack, striking the monster twice before it falls to the ground. Oddly, it doesn’t appear different than it did standing, as you’d expect a dead creature to look…more broken.
The man sees what Gven has done to its protector and snidely says, “My name will be your worst nightmare.” Standing up and uttering a short phrase in an arcane language, he motions with his hands and everyone in the group suddenly feels a profound coldness emanate through their bodies as their internal organs begin to decay and a bout of lethargy sets in. With another wave of his hands, four skeletons appear in front of him, shielding him from the companions.
The last to enter the room, Dolor takes in the seemingly dead creature lying on the floor and four skeletons protecting the mage. With a thrust of both hands, a wave of force sweeps outward from the tiefling that pushes the skeletons to the wall behind them, pulverizing them into scattered bones. The mage is pushed backwards against the wall. He looks down at the one-eyed creature, mutters an incantation, and the creature stands up.
Staring intently at the mage, Mond casts Dissonant Whispers, yet the robed figure doesn’t move. He grins at the sorcerer.
Raising his axe, Bilwin charges forward at the mage. “Those skeletons didn’t work so well, did they!” Swinging the weapon, the blade cuts across the man’s chest, drawing blood underneath the robe. The often-present ethereal beer stein appears next to the dwarf and blasts the mage with its force spell, causing him to grunt in pain.
Gven turns to the robed mage and stabs him with Tempest Edge, turning the blade to increase the damage as she pulls it free.
A dark hole, roughly the same height as the man, appears next to him. Mond attempts yet another Counterspell, but it fails and the portal solidifies. Visibly hurt, he says to the sorcerer, “Better luck next time…that you try…doing that thing…you know, that you tried.” He shrugs his shoulders and steps into the pitch black portal, where it closes behind him.
The group investigates the room, now that it’s safe to do so. Dolor focuses on the desk, shuffling through the scrolls, books, and papers for anything that might be useful. All of the papers have notes written in the margins, seemingly intelligent yet chaotic ravings. He notices a few themes in the notations:
- The secrets and knowledge that people hold inside have a tangible quality that can be drained from them.
- A ritual of some sort, describing how to siphon this energy from victims.
- The first attempt to perform the ritual was on a cultist who betrayed their order.
- The phrase “Crevices of Dusk” is written repeatedly throughout the papers, referencing how they’re magical gateways to other planes populated by the dead randmonly appearing in Neverwinter.
On the west wall, encased by a bookcase to either side, is a door. Dolor opens it to find a long hallway that runs to the north and south. To the north are openings into rooms along the west side and at the southern end of the passage is a heavy door. Bilwin enters the hallway behind Dolor and pauses for a moment, focusing on something.
“There are screams coming from beyond that door,” as he points to the south. Before anyone can stop him, the dwarf darts to the end of the passage and opens the door.
The cleric sees a huge chamber, easily a hundred feet across, east to west, and with a high ceiling. On the west wall is a ledge, tens of feet above the floor with another one-eyed monstrosity standing calmly. Dangling from the center of the cavern’s ceiling is a spherical cage. Immeidately below it are six robed figures in a circle, hands raised towards the cage while their voices chant in an ominous rhythm. Inside the cage is a terrified elf, the apparent unwilling subject of this ritual.