The earthquake destruction orb sitting in the middle of Red Larch has up to eighteen hours before activation. Even if the plan is to transport the orb someplace safe, the bag of holding might prevent, or at least minimize the damage.
Theren carefully begins removing, itemizing, and arranging on the road all the party’s accumulated treasures. His loaded crossbow keeps at bay any would-be looters from the liberated onlookers lining the road.
Theren is nominated for placing the devastation orb into the bag of holding. He employs a new critical thinking philosophy, LOGIC (Loads Of Good Ideas Constantly), and begins to disassemble the orb’s lattice container. The others, including a few townies, gasp at his audaciousness. Theren adjusts his LOGIC and carefully places the intact assembly into the coat’s bag of holding and closes the opening. Haerelben accepts the coat from Theren and straps it on tightly.
The party takes a short break to decompress. The townies take this opportunity to register their discontent at having Red Larch brutalized on account of the party’s destructive foray into the Black Earth temple.
Meega and Bromsby have a solemn discussion with Vallivoe’s kids about their future. Now that Vallivoe has been juiced, Red Larch offers negligible potential for their futures. Meega hits on an idea: her parents, empty nesters now, have always wanted seven scrappy kids to look after. Would Vallivoe’s kids like to go live with Wayvoran-Chero and Cherry-Zo, Meega’s parents? The bunk beds win them over.
Lefty goes to look for William the Stable Boy at the Swinging Sword, but she can’t find him anywhere. Best not to think about that. She does find the party’s cart intact, suitable for carrying the former contents of Theren’s coat pocket and seven weary orphans. There are no horses in the stable, but Bromsby helps yoke a nearby cow. The cow is nominally qualified, yet entirely unwilling, to work as a draft animal. Meega, both suitable and willing, agrees to pull the cart. Theren loads his treasures and Meega loads her orphans.
Haerelben puts on some stone armor and performs the somatic component to speak with one of the dead monks, jamming his fingers into the monks ears and lifting his head.
Is it ready?
What?
I think you’re an imposter! Red Stone …
Fang!
Haerelben drops the monk’s head back on the road with a sickening crack. Maybe knowing the cult countersign will save them a fight someday.
The party, the orphans, the pocketed devastation orb, and the laden cart leave Red Larch for the Lance Rock elf gate. Meega, Theren, and Lefty take the orphans and the treasures through to Ardak’s cottage for the night while Haerelben and Bromsby camp at Lance Rock so as not to endanger Quastarte any more than usual.
The orphans have a romping good time scattering to explore the house’s rooms, closets, nooks, and crannies. Theren does his best to monitor their sticky fingers, although Theren himself can’t resist exploring a badger drawer or two. The fun is interrupted by a knock on Ardak’s door. It’s Ardalia, summoned by the house when they came through the elf gate. Ardalia seems a little exasperated at the intrusion, but who can resist an orphan wearing a dwarf’s shirt? Kawaii!, Meega observes in orcish.
On the other side of the elf gate, Haerelben divines from Sehanine the likely result of putting a devastation orb into a bag of holding. Sehanine’s executive assistant laconically replies, Putting the orb in should be safe.
Meega writes a note for her parents which Ardalia takes with the orphans. Lefty, Theren, and Meega get a nice rest. Meega gets up early, discovers how to summon ingredients with Ardak’s food pantry, and cooks up her specialty: eggs scrambled with peppers, flatbread strips, and roasted red potatoes. They take hot food through to join Haerelben and Bromsby who had an equally uneventful night.
Bromsby suggests the rested party should attempt to beat the marching black earth army back to the temple by using the spellguard basement elf gate to perhaps catch Urnrayle undefended. This has the added advantage of putting the devastation orb where it will wipe out the earth temple should the bag of holding not contain the mayhem as hoped.
They make it as far as the spellguard provisioning clerk on the ground floor. He’s not in the habit of letting crazy people into the quartermaster stores, but he is in the habit of activating the silent alarm to summon a phalanx of spellguard. They detain the party at the brig where General Wallis will probably eventually get around to visiting them. To expedite, Haerelben makes a sending to General Wallis directly, explaining that they are trying to get a devastation orb out of the city. That gets prompt results.
General Wallis arrives with arcane professor Mentzer who quickly scribes a circle around Bomb Haerelben. Professor Ether, air elementalist, arrives with a magic box inscribed with protective air runes, the earthquake orb’s natural enemy. Rotund dwarf professor Corundum, still unsteady from the previous evening’s ale tasting, arrives with earth expertise. The learned men of elements confer and offer to transfer the devastation orb from the bag of holding to a deserted or desert plane, minimizing exposure during transport with protective spells. They do agree, however, that as long as there is no earth in the bag of holding then there is no earthquake possible in a bag of holding. For the safety of the city, Haerelben agrees to keep the devastation orb in place and leave the city for the remaining eight hours.
The party convinces General Wallis to allow them to depart through the elf gate, the existence of which is news to her and everyone else. Professor Ether unhelpfully offers to seal this obvious menace behind them.
Back in the temple of Black Earth, cultist-dressed Lefty leads the way past a guarding earth elemental who was obviously hired to replace the golem with the critical impact security vulnerability that allowed access to anyone whose hands could form a triangle. Honestly, the elemental isn’t much better.
Lefty rounds the corner to Marlos Urnrayle’s chamber. There is but a single guard who queries Lefty: Red Stone. She answers entirely incorrectly: Larch! That suits Theren just fine as he puts a well-aimed high damage bolt into the charging guard. Meega chops him dead.
Bromsby uses Iron Oath to barricade side passages, slowing down any cult response. The party dons the muslin masking Theren purchased after reading about the medusa experiments. They enter the chamber looking for Urnrayle, but the muslin makes every statue appear lifelike. Haerelben notices the heads have been cut off the statues. With no sign of Urnrayle, Bromsby casts locate object to find Iron Fang. He gets the weakest possible sense of it, but in the downward direction.
There are several hours remaining until the devastation orb could safely be checked, so the party decides to search through Urnrayle’s escape cave for a way down.