On the way from Rivergard through the Sumber Hills to Stone Monastery, the adventurers, and their three Watchful Knights in watchful attendance, follow a winding gulley path. Without warning or provocation, a boulder crashes upon Theridan’s Knight, less watchful than he should have been. Alerted, Meega’s Knights and Simon step out of the way of the next two boulders. The group can see the origin of the salvo, three Earth Elementals emerging above them from the rocky hillside.
Theridan and Meega charge up the hill with their Knights to engage the elementals and Theridan outs another combatant, Guy Two equipped with stone armor and a morningstar, hiding behind an outcrop. Guy Three and Guy Four, similarly equipped, reveal themselves. Theren, expecting heavy resistance, skirts around the path to get a better view of Guy Two and marks him as quarry. He fires a crossbow bolt using a sharpshooting technique designed to inflict more damage, but the bolt goes sailing over his mark. Simon and Allana send up rays of frost and eldritch blasting from their position on the path while Haerelben sends Sehanine’s blessings to Meega, Theren, and Allana who all seem capable of much quicker attacks these days.
Elemental Three merges into the stony hillside, and Elemental One botches a boulder throw at Allana, pinning Guy Three to the ground. The other ambushers and adventurers converge to melee range and it is Guy Two who gets the worst of it, attacked by Theridan’s Knight, punctured by Theren’s extra effective bolt, and gloriously overkilled by Meega’s axe. Meega’s Knight, Simon, and Haerelben next go to work on Theridan’s focus, Elemental Two, while Allana hexes and blasts Elemental One.
A priestly New Guy wanders down the path from the opposite direction and rudely throws acid on Bear Theridan as he engages Elemental Two. Elemental Two has a choice of targets and foolishly picks on Theridan’s Knight giving an opening for sentinel Theridan to counter attack, and Elemental Two crumbles moments later from Theridan’s continuing ursine attentions. Haerelben passes along Sehanine’s appreciation so that Bear Theridan feels a little healthier. Seeing that Bear Theridan has the hillside situation well in paw, Meega and her Knights turn to engage New Guy and his bodyguard Guy One.
Allana, struck by a boulder from Elemental One, notices aloof Guy Four moving toward Theridan and knocks him back with a taste of eldritch blast. But then Elemental Three re-emerges menacingly next to her and Simon who welcomes him with a firebolt. Allana attempts to shockingly grasp Elemental Three but it takes a couple of tries until she and Haerelben, curing her light wounds, can safely escape his long reach while throwing spell damage back at him. Allana blasts him into pebbles.
Elemental One, finally contrite about accidentally pinning Guy Three, removes the burdensome boulder and chucks it at Bear Theridan, now engaged with Guy Four. Theridan gets bludgeoned back into Elf form momentarily, but regains his bearing and, with an assist from his Knight, kills Guy Four.
While Meega mixes it up with Guy One, New Guy lays down some area magic with earth tremor and a follow up sonic attack against Meega and the Knights. Launching his own sonic attack, Theren screams, “Die!!” at New Guy and caps off Meega’s Knight’s damage with a lethal crossbow bolt. Meega quickly dispatches his demoralized bodyguard Guy One.
Theridan’s Knight, Theren, and Meega’s wrecking crew converge on Elemental One and he crumbles from the focus. Theridan and newly freed Guy Three go to work on each other and Bear Theridan bites his head off.
As the violence crumbles away, the stone armor worn by the Guys crumbles away, and the adventurers’ hopes of using the stone armor for infiltration of the Stone Monastery crumbles away. The Guys are relieved of their stone masks, and Priest New Guy, whom Meega discovers was actually Priestess New Girl, is relieved of her garment and a stone hand, as though from a statue, engraved with the message, “Marlos bestows his blessing upon you and looks forward to seeing you again.”
The resumed trek to the Stone Monastery is interrupted once more so that everyone may fully rest before arrival. Haerelben asks Sehanine to heal the Watchful Knights before resting since they are more watchful than restful. The group members who survived the first visit to Stone Monastery recount their experiences for the new members, and curious Theren sticks his hand into a void of one of the Knights injuring himself and demonstrating the Watchful Knights are not ticklish.
Refreshed, the group discovers a security upgrade at the Stone Monastery: two disagreeable Minotaurs guard the front door and they have been trained to say, “No!” in two languages, close acquaintances of Renwick Caradoon notwithstanding. Desperate to make some kind of inroads, Allana name-drops Marlos which certainly amuses the Minotaurs for some unestablished reason, but the only possible entry through the front door would evidently be over their dead bodies and Haerelben is not bullish on that prospect.
Backing off some distance, Meega gathers looted cloaks and robes to dim the fiery Watchful Knights. The adventurers “sneak” past the guards who respectfully suppress their laughter and wait sportsmanlike before pursuing. The party members use their head start to unsuccessfully hide behind available terrain while the guards close in.
Wishing to avoid gratuitous confrontation with the Minotaurs, Simon produces a six inch length of rope, suitable for stimulating his cat familiar or for creating an extradimensional space six inches off the ground; he does both. The adventurers and their attending Knights climb into the space filling it to its capacity of eight with a little druidic fudging. The guards attempt to enter but the universe forbids it and, after brief contemplation, they depart in existential crisis.
Perceiving no observers, Theridan leads the party to the garden gate. Theren, familiar with his brother Rollen’s fatal disagreement with Simon regarding the best way to break into a lich’s domicile, prepares to cast a silence spell around Simon. Simon tauntingly attempts to jump ahead of Theren along the garden path but becomes entangled in the interposing hedgerow. It’s all fun and games until three shadow creatures ambush the party, attacking and sapping the strength of Simon and Meega. Meega and Theridan each dissipate a shadow. Allana wounds the third and it hides in the hedges, but Simon finds it with his magic missiles. A short rest in the garden reverses the harmful strength effects just as Theridan predicted.
A bit of reconnaissance by Simon’s mouse familiar confirms Renwick Caradoon, the lich of Stone Monastery, is at work in his laboratory. Meega considers her core competencies and passes the medallion of Samular gifted by Ushien Stormbanner off to charismatic Allana who knocks on the door. Renwick yells out for the unsolicited visitors to go away, but at least he is using his words instead of his cloud. Simon mentions the medallion and that piques Renwick’s interest enough that he dematerializes the door and is face-to-face-to-face with Simon and Allana.
The adventurers and Renwick quickly discover a mutual dislike of the cohabiting cultists and begin to build a friendship upon the foundation of that dislike, as so often happens. Renwick relates his tragic backstory wherein he and his brother Samular fought together in Troll War Two and, when Renwick was slain, Samular fed him the necromantic potion that turned him undead.
Moved by Renwick’s plight, Simon offers to help. Renwick seeks only to restore himself to life, and Simon and company are not powerful enough to help, not yet at least. However, if they could clear the building of the cultists then Renwick would agree to keep them out in perpetuity. Further, Renwick offers several valuable magic items to help with the task:
Amulet of Health [CON to 19, DMG 150]
Potion of Greater Healing [4d4+4, DMG 187]
Potion of Hill Giant Strength [STR to 20 for 1 hour, DMG 187]
Scroll of Invisibility [reference PHB 254]
Scroll of Snilloc’s Snowball Swarm [reference EE companion p. 22]
Most importantly, Renwick offers the party safe haven in his lab giving them inside access to the building and time to plan.