Meega drags the unconscious reaver back to the bugbear dormitory. Haerelben revives the reaver and casts a zone of truth. Nagum is captain of the guard. His late coworker, Morbeoth, or Billy Eyepatch Guy to the authors of his recent demise, was transformed in some kind of elemental ordeal that turned one eyeball whiter than usual. Nagum does not know the immediate whereabouts of Gar Shatterkeel; he is not his prophet’s keeper. Bromsby presses for a cult passphrase which Nagum reveals as, “A rising tide lifts all boats.”
Once Nagum has answered all queries, Haerelben suggests that he lead them to the temple proper. Nagum compulsorily agrees to the escort, but implicitly does not agree to not surreptitiously drop an item into the canal to alert any troll waiting under the bridge.
As Nagum leads the party across a canal bridge, he surreptitiously drops an item into the canal, alerting a troll waiting under the bridge who reaches up and yanks Meega into the canal with him. The proverbial tables turn again when Meega dons her water breathing mask and begins chopping down the giant troll with Giant Slayer. Lefty knocks Nagum out again, compounding his susceptibility to traumatic brain injury. Bromsby jumps off the bridge and transforms to a hunter shark just as he dives into the canal, landing teeth first on the troll. The troll claws and bites at Meega as he maneuvers under the bridge, out of sight of the rest of the party. Theren drags concussed Nagum across the bridge and holds up a steel mirror so that Haerelben can use the troll’s reflection to envelope him in sacred flame.
Lefty leans way over the edge of the bridge to fire her magic missile wand at the troll. Shark Bromsby critically bites the troll and it dies. The party scatters away from the troll when Theren wildly hucks a flamestone at it to finish the job. The troll regenerates and grabs at Haerelben up on the bridge. Lefty ignites and drops on the troll’s head, interrupting his regeneration. Theren boosts a hand crossbow bolt into the troll and he expires more permanently.
When Shark Bromsby doesn’t rejoin the land lubbers, Haerelben has a brief convo via message. Shark Bromsby is going to have a reconnoiter swim up the canal with Shark Theridan to see what their dead shark eyes can see. They follow the canal upstream where it opens into a wide underground lake with steps that emerge to the east. Bromsby drops hunter shark form and sneaks up the steps to discover what must be the cult larder, abundantly provisioned with foodstuffs. Several cultists, who may or may not be Sword Coast celebrity A-listers, loiter around a prominently positioned gong. Bromsby erupts earth through Iron Oath. The discombobulated cultists ring the gong without priming it first. The lake begins to roil ominously. Bromsby, uncertain about his chances soloing this pull, drops a fog cloud on the whole situation and beats feet as he hears more cultists pour in.
The party continues along sans Bromsby and Theridan in the direction Nagum led them but this time with unconscious Nagum in tow. They stealthily turn north entering a plaza with a dry, merfolk-decorated fountain in the center. Haerelben and Theren listen at a side door that features cult motifs that have been defaced with long scratches. Three voices speaking an unknown tongue can be heard through the closed door. From the north exit the party hears a mighty eruption of earth followed by the ringing of an unprimed gong. Theren posits that the earth cult has launched an attack. A fog cloud drifts in, and Theren posits that the air cultists have joined the fray. Lefty attempts to dissuade him of these notions. Bromsby runs in, fleeing his own chaos. Safe at last.
The motif side door throws open inwardly and out squeezes a pair of ogres. Bromsby erupts earth sealing off the imminent angry swarm to the north and injuring ogre Left. Haerelben moonbows Left, but Lefty goes with clawing Right. Theren crossbows to Left and Meega slays Left before axing Right. Theren is just finishing Right when the ugliest creature to behold, complete with seaweed hair and lifeless eyes, emerges from the side room. She envelopes Lefty, Theren, and Meega in some kind of frightening mental attack. Bromsby rays frost at her and Meega chops at her relentlessly as the hag pleads for her life and promises to take them all to Gar Shatterkeel. The hag simply drops Meega unconscious and returns to her room.
A monstrous roar from the north unerves everyone except of course unconscious Meega and unconscious Nagum. Haerelben delivers a mass healing from Sehanine. Meega springs up and pursues the hag into her room, appointed with fine wooden furniture and gold and green tapestries but devalued by the hag’s own brand of feng shui to include tiny little crabs running everywhere. Meega knocks the hag prone and resumes her chopping until the hag’s woeful pleas turn to mortal pools of blood. Meega takes a nap.
Haerelben tosses the hag’s apartment and finds a warm longsword in her bed. A quick identification reveals the bone longsword with ruby encrusted hilt is magically effective [+1] and turns warm in the presence of a dragon. Either the hag was sleeping on the longsword thusly warmed by her body, or the longsword, presumably in the perpetual presence of a nearby dragon, was warming the hag’s bed. One of these possibilities is extremely disturbing, and the other involves a nearby dragon. A nearby chest yields the hag’s life savings of 190 gp, 8 pp, a potion of hill giant strength, and a potion of resist fire.