Wednesday, January 10, 653 AU, continued

• Thaldohr and Qhask, who passed through the portal after a day of waiting, finally catch up with Bill, Aurelia, and Valya, thanks to Qhask’s excellent tracking. They spoke briefly with the inhabitants of Sanctuary, and were dismayed to learn that they’re trapped.
• The rest of the party fill Thaldohr and Qhask in on what they’ve learned, especially about the possible origin of the black statues.
• They continue down the hall. After a few twists and turns, they see an ornate door on the other side of another pit spanned by a short bridge. The door is made out of some smooth dark stone, like slate, and it’s decorated with a strange sigil. They don’t recognize it, but it makes them uncomfortable, as if it means something sinister.
• Qhask notices some strange cracks in the wall to the left of the door. Aurelia casts detect magic, and determines that the door is protected by some sort of abjuration magic. She inspects further, and finds tiny runes carved around the perimeter of the door. But as she approaches the door, a stone golem strides out of the wall where Qhask noticed the cracks.
• During the fight with the stone golem, Galsin tries to push Bill off of the bridge—he’s been charmed, somehow, by his time in the monastery. Bill restrains Galsin while the rest of the party destroys the stone golem.
• Valya reads Galsin’s mind; he’s filled with anguish at failing his “master”, but below Galsin’s thoughts Valya hears another voice, something inhuman, which says SEEK ME BELOW. Then, Valya is forcibly ejected from Galsin’s mind.
• Not sure how else to handle the possessed Galsin, Qhask hogties and gags him and they leave him behind with the wolves.

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• They open the door to reveal a short hallway that terminates in a square chamber, lined with smooth grey stone, chipped and worn with centuries of use. There is an abstract red-and-gold mosaic on the floor. To the north is a staircase descending into darkness. To the east is a hallway, and to the south there is a short hall ending in a door, ajar, through which they can hear ripping, tearing noises punctuated by insane giggles and see flickering light. The door they just opened is in the west side of the chamber.
• Bill sneaks up to the door to the south and peers through the crack. A group of ghasts are tearing at severed limbs and torsos in a pile at the center of a large chamber. The walls are decorated with crude murals of robed figures conducting humanoid sacrifices. On the far wall is a mural of a red-robed figure seated on a throne, as if overseeing the carnage. Additionally, a tiger-man is just finishing emptying a sack of body parts onto the pile. The tiger-man tells the ghasts that there will be more meat tomorrow, turns around, and heads back toward the door. Bill darts back to where the rest of the party are waiting, and motions for them to hide. They close the slate door and listen—they hear the tiger-man descend the stairs at the north end of the chamber.
• Aurelia suggests they throw a fireball in the room with the ghasts and shut the door. They all agree they need to take out the ghasts, so they open the door again. Aurelia notes that the mosaic in the center of the chamber is magical—in fact, inspecting closer, it’s a symbol spell. She warns them to give it a wide berth.
• They head south toward the room with the ghasts. Thaldohr throws open the door, and they attack the ghasts. The stench in the room is overpowering, and some of the ghasts turn out to be spellcasters, but the party emerges victorious. During the battle they question the ghasts, and determine that there are nothics somewhere on the lower levels of the monastery—the ghasts are here to dispose of the many bodies of sacrificed victims that are brought up from the lower levels. The ghasts also mention that the master of this place is called The Scarlet Lord.
• Once all the ghasts are dead, they investigate the room. All the body parts are humanoid—some drow, humans, and halflings, all fresh. There’s not a single head in the pile. Aurelia sets the pile on fire, and they exit the room and close the door.
• Valya wants to find the Scarlet Lord and deal with the cult, especially since they seem to be involved with the black statues, but Qhask and Aurelia want to find the nothics, extract their eyes, and get out, since they’re low on resources and health.

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• They don’t want to encounter the tiger-man, so they sneak their way down the hall to the east, hoping to find an alternate stair to the lower levels. They come to a T-junction—to the south are several doors, and to the north is another junction with a hall heading east.
• They ignore the doors and head north, then east. In the south wall of this hallway is another short hallway lined with jail cells. At the end of that hall is a one-eyed creature that looks very similar to Cecil—a nothic! The creature appears to be asleep at a desk. Valya creeps forward, but steps on a pressure plate that activates a glyph of warding, catching Valya in a blast of fire. The nothic, of course, wakes up and attacks the party with psychic blasts.
• During the battle, they discover that one of the jail cells is occupied—a young human woman named Ilyana from Ilek-Vaad. She begs them to rescue her, which they do after they defeat the nothic.
• Ilyana says she’s been here three weeks, taken from Ilek-Vaad in her sleep. There were other prisoners here too, but every few days another prisoner would get taken from their cell and led away, and soon after screams would echo from somewhere far off.
• They notice that Ilyana has old bite-marks in her neck, potentially from a vampire. She reveals that she was taken from Lord Desmond’s castle—he recognized her talent for magic and gave her lessons in exchange for her blood. Lord Desmond was tutoring about a half dozen “students”, she thinks. She also mentions that she hasn’t been able to cast a spell since she woke up in this cell.
• According to Ilyana, a pair of drow came to visit the cells a few times, speaking something to the nothic in a language she didn’t understand.
• Ilyana is surprised to learn she is at the Monastery of Kixist—she thought she might have been in the catacombs under Ilek-Vaad. According to Ilyana, the Monastery is ancient and mysterious—Lord Desmond mentioned it a few times, saying he occasionally sends them sacrificial victims. She doesn’t know what for.
• Under the desk where the nothic was sitting, they find rations, which they use to restock their own supplies. They also find two potions of healing and 385 gp in the desk drawers. Under the chest is a padlocked chest, which Bill unlocks. Inside, they find a rusty iron sphere, about three inches in diameter. They’re not sure what it is, but they suspect it might be magical. They throw it in Torba.
• Qhask extracts the nothic eye intact, and they also throw it in Torba. Ilyana asks why they’re taking the nothic’s eye, but Aurelia says they can’t explain.
• Out of earshot of Ilyana, Aurelia tells the rest that she guesses Ilyana was sent here as one of Desmond’s sacrifices—he probably got bored of her.

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• They continue on their way down the hall. On the left side of the hallway are two large statues of robed humanoid figures with masses of tentacles sprouting from their sleeves and hoods. Between the statues is a mural of strange, worm-like creatures presenting unidentifiable objects to a creature in red robes sitting on a throne. Beyond the statues is an ornate door inlaid with silver runes.
• Valya inspects the statues, discovering strange recesses in their bases. Aurelia, walking further ahead, falls into a pit trap. They manage to avoid the rest of the traps in this hallway and make it to the ornate door. There’s no obvious keyhole or way to open it, and it’s obviously magic, so they decide to retreat and try a different door. They head back, past the jail, and open one of the doors they ignored on their way in.
• The door leads to another hallway filled with statues of terrified humanoids—perhaps not statues originally, though, as there is a basilisk prowling around the far end of the hall. They debate whether to fight the basilisk. While they’re debating, they hear another door from the north. A drow turns the corner. Luckily, he thinks they’re the new recruits, and offers to show them to the dormitories. He refers to someone named Prathus. While he has is back turned, Qhask shoots him in the back. He runs back the way he came—to the dormitories, it turns out—and alerts his companions. Worse still, three basilisks from the hallway join the fight.
• They keep the drow alive for questioning after killing the others. His name is Keldax, and he was chosen by his people in Nerren to work at the monastery—a great honor. He knows of the Scarlet Lord, but has not seen him. He is said to bestow visions and powers upon his followers, and has been here since time immemorial. Many cannot withstand the visions, and are driven insane. Keldax says that there are powers even beyond the Scarlet Lord, and that one day his masters will rule this plane.
• Keldax and the others were tasked with cleaning and with kidnapping victims to sacrifice to the Scarlet Lord’s insatiable hunger—they are the ones who kidnapped Galsin. After the Scarlet Lord is done with his victims, Prathus brings up their parts to feed to the ghasts.
• Keldax’s boss Prathus is the tiger-man. He’s also met Elmon, who spends all his time in his workshop carving statues from the black stone of the Smoking Mirror. Elmon is a nothic, and there are others. Keldax has never been to the lower levels of the monastery. He knows that another servant of the Scarlet Lord lives behind the door with silver runes, but they’re under strict orders not to disturb them.
• They execute Keldax after they learn everything they can from him.
• They search through the dormitory while Aurelia casts prayer of healing. They find 1542 gp, a potion of greater healing, spell scrolls of detect evil and good and dimension door, fancy silk vestments with gold embroidery, and an ebony wand traced through with fine white webbing.

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• After their rest, they head across the hall to a storage room. They briefly look around, but there’s so much junk that they don’t bother searching through it for valuables. They briefly discuss whether to cast detect magic, but Aurelia doesn’t want to waste her few remaining spell slots.
• They head to where Keldax said Elmon’s workshop is. The door is suspicious, so Valya convinces Aurelia to cast detect magic anyway. Then, since she already has it active, Aurelia sighs and checks out the storage room while Bill and Valya deactivate the magic door. Aurelia finds two magical items; a mace, and a compass. She pockets them, returns to the group, and doesn’t say anything.
• Elmon’s workshop is a large L-shaped room. All around are masonry tools and razor-sharp chips of the obsidian stone. A half-finished statue squats in the center of the room on a low table. Elmon is nowhere in sight. Valya smashes the statue, which shatters into innumerable pieces. They search the room, but don’t find anything valuable. Aurelia notices that some of the tools have the symbols of Rhoklo, but they’re scratched out.
• There are two other doors leading out of the room. One leads to a small foul-smelling storeroom with a bucket in the corner. The other opens up onto a wall of inky blackness—the room beyond appears to be under the effects of a darkness spell. Aurelia channels her radiance of the dawn to dispel the darkness, and reveals a small room with several trapdoors in the floor. There is another door on the opposite wall, but beyond it is more more magical darkness. Valya enters the next room and carefully feels around for more traps. She finds a few more trapdoors, and then finds another door in the opposite wall. She also feels a skeleton, which she pulls back out of the room and into the previous room. Its robes contain 54 gp, a potion of healing, and a holy symbol of Rhoklo around your neck.
• They see the flicker of a ghost, and hear someone whispering help me… you must free us… The ghost appears, and appears to be a human male. He introduces himself as Doram, and says he came with Elmon to this place, but when he saw the others turning into nothics he avoided their fate by drinking poison. He begs the party to put the rest of the nothics in this place to rest.
• Doram warns them that the Scarlet Lord was already here before he, Elmon, and the others arrived, and that the party must avoid the Scarlet Lord at all costs. He can feel the curse on the party, and knows that approaching the Scarlet Lord will greatly accelerate their transformation. Then he vanishes.

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• They navigate the second dark room and emerge into an alchemical workshop. Various potions are bubbling in cauldrons. One cauldron is full of viscous bubbling purple sludge, the other gives off pure shadowstuff, and a third is rapidly boiling light green oil. Hundreds of meticulously labeled bottles of ingredients line shelves along the walls, and dried herbs hang from the ceiling. Tending the cauldrons is an old woman. She turns her milky white, blind eyes to the party and says it’s about time they showed up.
• The hag introduces herself as Maggie Rodentrabble, one of Nellie’s sisters. Elmon employs her to find shadow crossings, and in exchange she gets body parts for her alchemical experiments. She motions to the shelves, and they notice with horror that the jars are labeled “eyes”, “ears”, “noses”, and so on.
• Valya asks about the shadow crossings, and Maggie says she could tell them where one is, for a price. Aurelia is adamant that they do not make deals with hags. Maggie says she enjoys the status quo, and that she knows something is coming, though she doesn’t know what, and doesn’t want to know. She mocks the party for getting cursed to become nothics, but hints that she would be willing to betray Elmon to help the party stop whatever is coming.
• They tell Maggie they’ll consider a deal, but they’ll have to think about it. They ask if they can leave through the door to the north, which appears to be the other side of the door with silver inlaid runes, and Maggie cheerfully informs them that it was never locked.
• As they leave, Maggie reminds them that if they get anywhere near the Scarlet Lord they’ll transform into nothics, and Aurelia offers the vial of Tears from Kyasha’s Pool in exchange for a potion of sphinx bile to protect them from the Scarlet Lord’s aura. She also throws in a sip from the shadowstuff cauldron for Valya, which gives her the ability to cast shadow blade.
• Maggie warns them not to drink the sphinx bile until just before they face the Scarlet Lord, as the protection won’t last for long.
• Ilyana asks if Maggie can improve her magic, but Maggie just cackles and says she can’t improve something that no longer exists. Ilyana is shaken, but decides to stay with Maggie until they’re ready to leave, since she will be safer there.

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• They decide to descend the stairs back near where they came in, hoping they won’t find Prathus, who Maggie confirmed was a powerful rakshasa, immune to magic. Just in case something horrible happens, Thaldohr leaves to escort Galsin back to Sanctuary, so they won’t break their promise to his parents.
• At the bottom of the stairs is a large hallway stretching to the left and right. Qhask stealthily pokes his head into the hall, and sees large, misshapen pink brutish creatures. They’re waiting and looking around—definitely guards… ❦