Argone escaped the demon that had lunged at him from the mists at the end of the last session.
The party defeated the cultists before they could murder Eric Pierce. So far, they had found Sari and Eric, but Eli was still missing.
The party observed a hideous demon face pressed up against the glass-like surface of the water that screamed at them to “serve”. Once the magic items were no longer being destroyed and no more blood of the innocents was being poured into the water, the face pulled back and disappeared.
The party found a few magic items, including Captain Drake’s Eye Patch, which Kriick claimed.
The party rushed to deal with Keledeck and were unable to approach him because of a wall of force. He screamed “Who sent you to Saltmarsh?” “Why are you trying to stop us?” “You have stopped us here but you will NEVER be able to stop all of us! The King of D’Hara needs his army!”
Keledeck then ran through a portal and was gone.
The party saw another gate and unlocked it to find two mages tied up on the floor, one of them unconscious. Once untied, the unconscious one was found to also be 7-feet tall and dressed like Keledeck.
The other mage was a gnome named Bregor, who introduced himself and said that he had been captured, drugged and brought here simply because he was at Keledek’s tower in Saltmarsh learning spells when a demon-like thing overcame both him and Keledek. They had been brought here to the Tower of Zenopaus, which had only recently destroyed.
After reviving him, this Keledek thanked the party. Once they explained to him who and where they were, he freaked out and said that everyone was in grave danger. He had been kidnapped by evil beings who stole many of his magical items and had been destroying those items and murdering children at a sacred pool in this cave/dungeon. He explained that the tower above was destroyed a week or so ago because some cult, working with the demons that had captured him, were trying to break the seal to the Underworld and release demons into Vala.
At this point, Poke Topaz explained that he was a Noble Wild and that the Noble Wild are those few animals that the Gods, following the Purge, “awoke” and gifted with intelligence. He explained that this was because the Gods imprisoned the Runelord named Deskari, the leader of the Magocracy who had led the war against the Gods, in the Underworld with 5 locks that were to be guarded by the Humans, dwarves, elves, halflings/gnomes and dragons. If those locks failed, Runelord Deskari and his demon legions would be released back into Vala. He explained that the Noble Wild had had to decide whether to serve or challenge, and had finally decided to serve.
The faerie that the party had met earlier, whose name was Escalla and who turned out to be a faerie princess, reported that she normally would not reveal herself to others, but had decided to because two of the locks had failed and the others were in danger. She said that Poke had come to the Moonwell in the Draspine Mountains to get help. She further explained that Noble Wild and the Fey routinely patrolled and checked on the status of the locks, and had realized that they needed to alert Vala and seek help.
It was at that time they had found that the Moonwell had been poisoned and the archdruid who tended it was missing. Poke heard a cry for help from Keledek’s owl familiar and had come to the Tower of Zenopaus because of the sacrifices. Unfortunately, he was captured by the cultists but Escalla, using her invisibility, eluded capture.
Keledeck said that the party must get a very rare relic out of this cave before demons came to secure the place. He added that the demons would come because they now knew that the cultists that were serving in the caves were dead. Argone and Hestia had both heard of the relic, a magical sword named Bride. Basically, Bride took strong simpletons and other naive males as husbands, and using sweet words and promises of glory, got them to wield her. Once she had a husband, she tried to steer him into attempting tremendously dangerous activities, which usually resulted in the husband’s death in some tragic way. When that happened, she would lie waiting until another potential husband came along and the songs would continue, with husband after husband dying in combat after taking her as their Bride.
Poke, Escalla, the two kids, and Keledeck stayed in his study to rest. Keledeck gave the party 3 healing potions (common) and one greater healing potion.
The other members of the party had a confrontation with Ayesha regarding the deal she had cut with Roark Two Teeth in the Saltmarsh jail, where she was going to get the town council to let him go because he had told her that Skerrin, a supposedly evil man who was the butler to the Solmor family, had killed a woman who may have been part of a slaving operation. As Ayesha was a paladin, the party did not understand why she would make a deal with compulsive liar to solve the murder of another extremely evil person. The party members tried to question Ayesha, but were met with silence. They then argued that the party was tired from their previous fight with the cultists and needed a rest, but Ayesha pushed ahead into a dungeon that they had been warned contained man-eating crocodiles and a horrific gauntlet of traps. Feeling a responsibility to support her, the rest of the party followed.
The party came upon an underground lake in their path that was infested with crocodiles used to being fed with the bodies of the cultists’ human sacrifices. Alma, using her speak with animals, convinced some “full” crocodiles that they would bring a different type of meal the next morning, and placated the one hungry crocodile with the body of a wolf they had previously killed. With all of the crocodiles full, the party was able to get across the lake and found a treasury of coins (225 gold, 50 silver).
The party came to the gauntlet of traps spotted the body of someone who had been killed after making it halfway through. Alma tried to send her mushrooms through, but they met the same fate.
Kriik succeeded in making it through the gauntlet with some amazing acrobatics and was able to grab the backpack from the dead character in the traps.
Kriick celebrated at the other end and shut the traps off, only to be suddenly faced with a skeleton minotaur that tried to gore him. The party defeated the skeleton minotaur and some hungry rats and found “Bride”, the relic that Keledek has discussed.
