After a short rest for wizard Tatters and warlock Creep, Tatters opens the white gate to the west. Any direction away from the brutal shadow-infested temple of extraction that nearly killed Bizzle will do. Tricksy checks the door beyond for traps and uses the skeleton key to unlock it. Slick gets her dwarf on and barges into the room.
Slick finds another shrine of extraction. The room features weird red mist stripes in the air, as though the air were being whipped. Slick invites all comers to meet her magical greataxe of finesse. There are four who RSVP: a red wizard, an apprentice wizard, and two dread warriors. Creep parleys with the apprentice and closest warrior using his eldritch bolts of conferring. The dread warriors retaliate against Creep and the red wizard vollies magic missiles at him, but Creep catches the missiles and puts them in his pocket. The apprentice scorches Slick.
Bizzle charges at a dread warrior, shoving him into the shrine’s force field. The dread warrior unexpectedly goes through harmlessly instead of bouncing off prone like Bizzle always does. Tricksy and Tatters take on the red wizard at range but Tricksy snaps a bowstring. Slick buries her magical greataxe of finesse into the apprentice and he starts to topple over, but then doesn’t. Creep finishes off the red wizard with eldritch blast and turns to accept the apprentice’s surrender. Surrender is not forthcoming. Instead, the apprentice scorches Creep while the dread warriors battleaxe him brutally.
Slick chops down the apprentice. The group focuses damage on one of the dread warriors. Bizzle’s scimitar gets the killing blow. Tricksy replaces her bowstring in time to drop the other dread warrior.
Looting of the red wizard produces a wand of binding [7 charges of which 5 expend to cast hold monster and / or 2 expend to cast hold person] for Tatters, a scroll of scorching ray, a scroll of thunderwave, a potion of flying, and a glyph key and skeleton key for the area.
This extraction shrine suspends a human male. Tricksy, expecting another Therzt situation, sends an arrow at him, but the arrow sticks in the shield. Creep charmingly pushes into the shrine and inquires whether the human wants to be freed. The human manages a noncommittal groan. Slick, Creep, and Tatters wreck the shrine.
The released human introduces himself as Kieren. This chosen of Ilmater was taken against his will and, unlike Therzt, isn’t disposed to Melf himself with an acid arrow any time soon. The party realizes Therzt was NOT trying to contribute life energy to Szass Tam’s phylactery enhancement, on the contrary his participation was his ultimate failure. Kieren regards himself as both moral and ethical, but also too tired to help fight. He’ll wait in the lobby. Tatters offers Kieren some extra clothing.
Tricksy, beaten up trying to enter the shrine, drinks both of One Arm Andy’s healing potions. She checks for traps on the door going north. Bizzle, in excellent health from his earlier salvage bar snack, takes lead into the scarred marble chamber of tangible unease.
Bizzle steps to one of the four shadows accompanying a wraith and a deathlock wight in here. It’s probably not one of the shadows that nearly killed him in another room, but definitely a close relative if Bizzle is any judge. This one dies in only two revenging scimitar sweeps.
Creep and Tatters work out some strategy to neutralize the shadows first. Creep eldritch blasts a shadow down and Tatters hits another with a firebolt good enough to kill it, but the fire doesn’t bother the shadow so much and it endures.
Creep taunts the wraith who, taking the bait, drifts across the room. Creep scooches around the wraith and uses his shield to frighten it into the corner of the room. Slick tauntingly calls the wraith a baby.
Team undead makes a poor opening attack. Tricksy doesn’t fair much better as she breaks another bowstring and misses dropping green slime on the wight from the ceiling. Bizzle fells the wounded third shadow and Slick axes the wight.
The cornered wraith lashes out at Creep with a life drain, irreparably injuring his life. The room itself seems to help the wraith and Creep feels himself at a disadvantage. The wight, despite his own immediate problem of Tricksy dropping alchemist’s fire on his head, capitalizes on Creep’s condition and sends over a lethal gravebolt. Creep crumples.
Bizzle charges the wraith looming over dying Creep and attempts to push him away from Creep into the corner. The wraith and Bizzle slap at each other and the wraith definitively holds his ground. Tatters rushes to cast cure wounds on Creep. Tatters has that nightmare where he has a healing test but realizes he never studied cleric spells, except it isn’t a nightmare at all. So instead, he evokes up a copious salvo of smartened magic missiles at the wraith. Tricksy, overseeing the final conflagration of the wight, turns her bow and slays the wounded wraith easily. She considers shooting the dead wraith with a second arrow.
Bizzle adds healing potion to Creep who is a quart low. Creep rests, entertained by the others comically failing at entering the extraction shrine.
This extraction shrine suspends a half-elf female. Tricksy and Slick deface the runes to release Irisoth, chosen of Loviatar. She regards herself as ethical, but generally on the side of evil. Creep reckons to put her with Kieren so they may defend each other, but first extracts a solemn promise from Irisoth not to kill folk unless they kill her first.