The hour spent resting in the wasp chamber seems longer, but passes uninterrupted. Theren peeks his head out and sees a couple more giant wasps lingering in the hall. These latecomers are easily dispatched.
Theren blankets the party with pass without a trace as they explore through the underground nest beneath the Sacred Stone Monastery, looking for a way into the building. Darker cells on both sides of the passage attract Meega’s attention, and she discerns humanoid shapes waxed into the walls. Allana reaches out with her mind, alas without response. The shadowy shapes are cut out of their waxy strand tombs. A human wears a stone mask and an opal necklace. A minotaur bears a steel axe and Theren relieves him of a light crossbow and bolts. Both bodies have been emptied of their nutritious wasp-digested innards. Allana frees a third encased form down the hall, this one very much alive and wriggling inside the wax.
The liberated dwarf wearing a cult mask and robe isn’t Welby at all, he’s Bronard the monk. Bronard relates details of his serendipitous presence when the orange “Jerry” shard was freed from the stone column in the monastery’s basement weeks ago by the adventurers. The shard adopted Bronard and revealed the cult’s true nature to him. His subsequent escape and present rescue provides an indispensable wealth of knowledge on the cult and the building, including the location of Black Geode, the sought elemental temple.
Bronard begins to make a map to Black Geode. Meega and Haerelben encounter an apparent dead end of the hive, thwarting their hope of finding a connection into the monastery. Haerelben cuts out a fourth victim, this one not wriggling, and finds a small pouch of sand. The back of the cell appears thin. Meega pushes through into a much larger chamber lined with cells and attracts the sudden attention of many giant wasps.
Allana fires eldritch blasts through the connecting cell past Meega. Nimble Bronard threads his way into the chamber and unleashes monk hate on the wasps surrounding him. Theren, restringing his crossbow, calls out that the monstrous wasps will have to go through Meega. Meega pulls Bronard behind her, but he has none of that and runs back in while Theridan produces flames at the nearest wasp.
Haerelben failed entomology 202 back at Quastarte, but he knows a queen when he sees her emerge into the chamber. A confusion spell thrown over five of the wasps confuses them a little, but unfortunately not the queen.
The wasps fall into a defensive line to protect the queen. The adventures do the same with giant snake Theridan forming a skirmish line all on his own. Haerelben arranges for Sehanine’s blessings all around. Allana moves up behind Meega and casts Hunger of Hadar over her shoulder to encompass all but a couple of wasps whom Bronard enthusiastically engages.
The wasps prove superior to the fire cultists in finding their way out of the hunger. Theren, Meega, and Bronard pick off the escapees as Theridan grapples them. Allana’s devil sight allows her to target into the hunger and she doesn’t have to wait for the wasps to find their way out to blast at them.
The wasp queen begins to fill the room with an intolerably loud droning. She pokes her head out of the hunger and spits a couple of acid streams at Meega and Allana who manage to avoid the worst of it. Theridan interferes with her spitting best he can but she bites through his snakey bits and fills him with poison.
Theren and Bronard can no longer withstand the droning and fall unconscious. Snake Theridan reverts to elf form from the damage he sustains and succumbs to the droning also. Haerelben backs out of the chamber to a tolerable distance from the sonic attack and contemplates how to revive, retrieve, or recover the unconscious trio. Meega and Allana keep pressure on the queen until Meega manages a final superior blow on her, not a moment too soon.
The unconscious are revived with a bit of controlled violence and Meega takes care to exterminate any remaining larva. A restful hour is spent searching the abundant cells around the chamber and a few useful items are found.
A very interesting dagger causes Allana to pass out when she attempts to identify it. She determines the dagger is inherently evil and could act like a key if the matching evil lock may be found.
Theren finds a wand of the war mage and Meega learns the opal necklace she found earlier is valuable if not magical.
Bronard recognizes the chamber and guides the party out through a passage that gradually trades organic waxy tunneling for the competent stone workmanship of dwarves as they find themselves in the tunneled basement of Sacred Stone Monastery.
Traps are a concern, but more so wandering patrols and fungi so some care is taken as the party dons available cultist garb and makes its way to stairs leading further down. Bronard claims that twenty-five fortified flights of stairs descend to the Black Geode elemental temple. The structure itself is Tyar-Besil, an ancient dwarven ruin. Anyone fool enough to enter the temple might encounter Marlos Urnrayle, the Ironfang-wielding medusa cult leader, or Ogremoch, his golem-like friend. That sounds like an untenable prospect so this discovery is declared sufficient and the group’s talents turn to the task of freeing several prisoners whom Bronard indicates are held nearby.
Haerelben manages to compose a sending to Ardak to relate all that is known about this elemental temple and the one found at Scarlet Moon Hall. If things, for whatever reason, go well at this prison break then the party intends to link up with Bruenor at Summit Hall next. Ardak indicates he will join them.
Again escorted by Bronard, the party continues onward to a hallway that joins the guard room with the prison cells. Three barred jails contain some two or three dozen commoners whom Bronard attempts to calm, relating the need to be trusting and quiet. Theridan is pleased to hear snoring at the closed guard room door while Theren, aided and guided by Haerelben and Allana, picks open all three locked cell doors.
Among the commoners is an uncommon dwarf who cautiously demands to know who arranged the rescue. When the party learns the dwarf, Bruldenthar the Sage, hails from Mirabar, they realize he would have to be one of the delegates reported missing by Bruenor. Mutual credentials established, Bruldenthar helps convince the prisoners to trust and shush and to scrunch together so Theren can cover the escape with pass without a trace.
Shuffling the very large group past their jailers is not without its perils and, predictably, a roused orog appears from the guard room. His professional pride is wounded, having not been consulted in the least when Hellenrae directed every last prisoner be brought to the wasping fields for sport as patiently explained by alabaster mask-wearing, triangle sign-throwing Theren. The explanation makes as much sense to the orog as anything ever has and he offers to assist. Theren directs him to guard the guard room and ensure no prisoners escape, and this the orog does with supreme efficiency as the prison train departs.
The throng navigates back to the wasp complex without significant further incident and manages to find an exit a discrete distance from the building. Meega spends a full night hauling commoners up the ravine to safety before their absence is discovered.
Over the next few relatively pleasant days, the commoners find their way back home to Dellmon Ranch or Hamlet of Hillthorn or wherever they like. In that time, Bruldenthar unravels many of the puzzling little mysteries the adventurers have touched upon since the beginning.
The Mirabar delegation, transporting tomes from Mirabar to Summit Hall, was first ambushed south of Belliard by Black Earth cultists, perhaps explaining how Larrakh was found with Mirabar trade bars on him. Black Earth then had the Rivergard cultists transport the delegation prisoners in exchange for some of the precious books, but were in turn ambushed by the Feathergale cultists which explains the four strange shallow graves found by Larmon: the dwarven Mirabar artisan, the Mirabar soldier, the Black Earth cultist, and the suspected air cultist. Bruldenthar expresses concern for Rhundorth and Teresiel, two of his companions.
With all four temples located, the adventurers make for Summit Hall to finally conclude their roles in the war against elemental evil.