The party observes a ritual in progress through the slightly ajar door. A terran-chanting priestess and her quorum of cultists stand around a pit where a bald, grey, svirfneblin lady is chained to an obelisk. Black pudding oozes over the prisoner.
Theren wastes no time popping into the room. He sends two crossbow bolts vaguely in the priestess’s direction and pops back out again. Bromsby erupts earth under the proceedings killing one cultist. Lefty heads straight for the priestess while the scimitar wielding cultists, met by Meega and Bromsby, clog the doorway. Theren takes out the priestess and then comprehensively atomizes a cultist’s head with an overcharged bolt. Lefty drops the two cultists blocking the doorway. The black pudding envelops the prisoner. Haerelben banishes the black pudding to a harmless demiplane where it spends an anxious minute not eating.
Haerelben revives the prisoner. Rescued svirfneblin Rukh Glitterstone, an undertraveler like Bromsby and Lefty, was captured by Black Earth while exploring the Fane of the Eye below. From what she’s seen, it seems as though the four elemental cults are channeling up some elemental mischief through elemental nodes deep below.
Lefty finds a box of samoa cookies on a cultist, but concludes, to her own disappointment, they must be poisoned and she smashes them to crumbs. Bromsby checks out the obelisk where the black pudding resides in its porous surface. He spots an object in a crevice and retrieves an oiled bamboo flute.
The group cleans up the hallway outside the pit room and piles the slain cultists in the pit. When the black pudding returns from the demiplane to its porous obelisk pit home, it finds several freshly-butchered cultists set out for supper. The svirfneblin has been removed from the menu.
Cult-dressed Theren answers a knock at the door. Cult guards drop off a bound and gagged prisoner. Cult-dressed Lefty accepts delivery on behalf of the slain priestess. The parcel is none other than presumed-dead druid adventurer and dear friend Theridan. How Theridan held off an army of fire cultists at the Vale of the Dancing Waters is a story for another time and another place. For now, he is in bad shape, clearly the object of extreme torture, and deprived of his druidic capacities.
The party makes a quick escape through the nearby elf gate to Quartermaster Schmeck’s supply room. Theridan and Rukh are left in Quastarte to convalesce. The party resupplies and researches the bamboo flute at the library.
The party uncovers nothing definitive about the flute, but it is clearly magical, probably powerful, and possibly associated with air elements. For lack of any better ideas, Theren volunteers to “play” the flute. In addition to its great potential as a powerful elemental artifact, Theren demonstrates the flute’s application as an instrument of torture.
The party [level 9 now] returns to Red Larch to retrieve their cart. The denizens of Red Larch offer unimpeded access out of town for the controversial adventurers to make an uneventful journey overland to Feathergale Spire and its nearby elemental air temple.
A search is made of Feathergale Spire for a safe passage down to the floor of Knifepoint Gully. No such passage is found so they descend by a winding path down the steep edge into Besilmer ruins. They locate the entrance to the air cult operation where Haerelben’s original team met its demise. The sounds of wailing become discernible and then louder as they approach. Haerelben self medicates with a potion of invisibility.
Air cultist flight suit wearing Theren takes Meega and Lefty “prisoner”, securing them in manacles. Bromsby takes bat form. They enter a zigzagging corridor prodigiously lined with arrow slit murder holes. Haerelben puts his eye up to an arrow slit murder hole and finds himself invisible-face-to-bird-face with a wailing kenku. Bromsby switches to spider form and crawls through an arrow slit murder hole to check out the several wailing kenku. Theren theatrically bullies Meega and Lefty down the hall. A kenku puts an arrow into Lefty. Theren, with his faux authority rudely usurped, “accidentally” puts a crossbow bolt into the kenku. The party rushes through the rest of the murder hall while Theren attracts several kenku arrows.
Haerelben explores ahead, opening a door into a courtyard where an air cultist is conducting an ensemble of flautists. The conductor is highly dissatisfied with their performance and berates the flautists. Then he berates the interrupting flock of kenku squawking, “Imposter! Imposter!” The conductor well-knows when an untalented group of hacks have misrepresented their fluting proficiency, thanks very much.
The kenku give up on convincing the conductor and take matters into their own wings. They charge Theren and Lefty, just peeking through the door. Suddenly it occurs to Theren that he has cuffed Lefty and Meega. He scrambles to free them while Bromsby rays frost at the attacking kenku. The kenku are swiftly defeated and dragged out of sight before the conductor approaches to inquire whether the unpleasant interruption is over. Imposter Theren assures him, quite truthfully, that the unpleasantness is over KA-KAW!
Haerelben explores ahead and finds three starving cultists chained to three obelisks in seemingly ritual fashion. What is it with cults and obelisks?
