In the Red Larch quarry, Bromsby frees nine nearly juiced survivors of the Black Earth incursion. They relate being dragged into the streets on account of a group of adventurers, memorably including a purple-mohawked quarter orc, snooping around town. The townies can’t even look at Meega, irrationally blaming her for bringing down the wrath of the Black Earth and getting their friends and family juiced, including one Endrith Vallivoe. Tabaxi Lefty doesn’t exactly instill confidence, either. Don’t cats eat people? Of course not, people taste nothing like fish, or so Lefty has heard anyway.
Unnerved, one of the townies makes a run for it. Lefty attempts to grab him but then must resort to severe injury to knock him out, preventing any unwanted attention. Theren picks up the unconscious runner and leads the townies up the steep quarry bank safely away from the town road. He revives the unconscious panicker and advises them to flee.
The party takes cover in the Mellikho Stoneworks office building where Haerelben and Bromsby can observe more cultists occupying the road in town. Four monks protectively surround a box-like object in the road. Two guards oversee nearly fifty more townies cuffed along the edges of the road.
Meega feels a tug on her leg, one of Vallivoe’s kids who remembers Meega and her cheerful bubble pipe from better days. The furtively visaged kid relates that a Black Earth force, maybe three dozen strong, departed east. Only the six cultists down the road remain in town, plus the weird box thing.
Lefty collects the stone fashions of one of the quarry guards, throws some dirt on herself, and wanders up the road to learn what she can. She paces her stride to appear like a dawdling human rather than a swiftly gliding tabaxi. Bromsby transforms to a quick moving underdark rothe and gives Meega a quiet ride behind the buildings down to the cultists. Theren, after a couple of tries, takes a firing position on the roof of Mellikho Stoneworks. Haerelben, who twisted an ankle climbing out of the quarry, hobbles north to maximize the impressiveness of his longbow range.
A guard greets fellow cultist Lefty. Does Malthus need more material? Lefty’s noncommittal, avoiding answers makes the guard suspicious. He challenges her with the passphrase,
Red Stone …?
What?
Red Stone …?
Meep?
The suspicious guard disarms Lefty. She claws at the guard and backs away.
Theren’s well-aimed crossbow bolts flit past Lefty and into the guard. Go to Nessus! The other guard comes to his friend’s aid with a morningstar hit to Lefty. The monks remain disengaged but rearrange stances into a menacing pose undoubtedly named after some deadly viper. Haerelben’s longbow arrow, shot short by a fair bit, tumbles harmlessly by.
Rothe Bromsby charges in from between buildings and slams into a guard. Meega uses the impact to backflip off, fatally landing axe first into a guard. Theren uses a trick to pull extra tension on his crossbow for extra damage, unfortunately absorbed by the trigger mechanism when the bowstring breaks. Undaunted, Theren draws his hand crossbow and slays the other guard.
The object protecting monks rearrange their stance yet again into something even deadlier than a viper, like a mongoose.
Rothe Bromsby circles around and charges through two monks, ramming the second into the ground. Lefty takes on the first and Theren finishes him with an eye bolt. The monks fight back with triple kicks. Haerelben sees the pace of cult killing and hobbles back toward the tussle, yelling out to save a cultist for interrogation. Too little too late as Rothe Bromsby makes another ramming pass. Lefty takes out a monk leaving just two for Meega. Meega chops both dead in a single move. Impressive, if not helpful.
Theren sets about repairing his crossbow. Derothed Bromsby frees the townies. They don’t know much about the orange orb suspended in the lattice box, but they know it’s called a devastation orb. Bromsby takes some vital metrics on the orb: twelve inches in diameter, ten pounds in weight, elemental earth in nature. Haerelben happened to read about these things before: they tend to be wondrously rare items meant to release devastation on an urban center on the order of, say, Thel’Usarin, the Meliamne brothers’ clockwork goldfish vision of destruction by fire. This orb is ready to trigger any moment within eighteen hours. Theren uses the helm of identification and determines this devastation orb is loaded with triple magnitude earthquakes.
What to do?