The party commits to exploring lower into the black earth cult temple in pursuit of Iron Fang. The devastation orb has up to five hours remaining so they concentrate on making progress without much unrelated chit chat. From Marlos Urnrayle’s private chamber, they exit through his escape crack into the chasm and find themselves edging along a narrow ledge that traces a sheer wall fifty feet up to the stalactites and fifty feet down to the cavern floor.
Movement above catches Bromsby’s attention. Two gargoyles swoop down aiming for Meega’s purple mohawk. Meega accepts their challenge and trips one of them mid flight. It falls away from the battle allowing the party to concentrate on the other gargoyle with Lefty getting a killing triple strike that etches it into falling rubble.
The tripped gargoyle collects itself and lands in front of Haerelben, jamming up the party along the ledge. Bromsby becomes a giant bat to circumvent traffic. Theren unleashes heavy crossbow bolts which break up the second gargoyle.
The clastic ruckus is sure to draw attention. Lefty hears voices from the room ahead. Bat Bromsby squeaks three times to indicate the number of cultists alerted to their presence and then flies in a circle to symbolize a proposed course of action. Haerelben begins loudly hammering in a piton by which they can lower themselves into the chasm to avoid the guards. Diligent guard Hugo advances to investigate and is assaulted by waiting Meega and Theren. Lefty leaps off Meega to land behind Hugo. Meega kills Hugo.
A rod-wielding cultist summons a stone hand under Lefty that grasps her and holds her in place. The other guard wales on her with a stone club. Haerelben unwales Lefty’s injuries. Yarsha the rod caster gets impatient with the slow combat and erupts earth under everyone including her own guard, even smashing Bat Bromsby into the ceiling. Theren deploys some psychological warfare by pulling his looted flaming longsword and yelling, Imix! Lefty takes out the second guard and nimbly escapes both erupted earth and disembodied hand to charge at Yarsha. Bat Bromsby swoops and lands as transformed svirfneblin Bromsby. He makes his own earth eruption at Yarsha. Yarsha jumps across a bed next to Bromsby, swinging at him with her magic rod, and flees the room.
Yarsha is quickly surrounded by the adventurers and yields. She senses an opportunity for aligned objectives and, under zone of truth, offers to escort the party to Urnrayle down in the Black Geode or Fane of the Eye if they will help with her ambitious vocational ascent by whacking Miraj Vizann, second in command of the Black Earth cult. Yarsha figures Urnrayle will easily kill the party anyway. Bromsby confiscates Yarsha’s rod, six obsidian chips, a potion of waterbreathing, and some coin.
Haerelben and Theren don the newly available guardsmen stone armors. Yarsha guides the party through the temple avoiding any witnesses. They pass the same stone statue from their first day in the temple and Yarsha makes a quick genuflection to the apparent likeness of Ogremoch. They arrive at a remote section of the chasm that offers some unfallen pillars to help break up the jump across.
Theren and Meega cross the chasm easily and take a rope end anchored by Haerelben on the near side. Agile Lefty walks the rope successfully on the first section but then falls right off into the chasm. She uses shadow step to mitigate the fall. Bromsby makes it over with only a little trouble then transforms into a giant bat to lift Lefty safely out of the chasm. Yarsha makes it over easily on her own and proposes leaving the stragglers behind. Haerelben makes a poor jump and swings by the tether into the pillar. Meega drags him across, one painful pillar at a time.
Yarsha brings the party to a hallway from the main temple entrance. They must sneak into a side room where Miraj works without being seen by the guards at the entrance. Yarsha herself is spotted, but of course she belongs here. Meega, caught in the open hallway, ducks behind Yarsha. Purple mohawks are out of place in the black earth cult.
The door into Miraj’s workshop features the carved image of a dwarf with fists of spiked clubs. Theren flashes the earth cult triangle, but the carving remains passive and ambivalent. Theren enters the workshop and finds Miraj standing in a mud pit. Stone masked Theren reports that Helldorm has summoned Miraj to the torture chamber. It sounds important. Miraj is irritated at the summons and at Helldorm’s methods in general. Haerelben has no idea what Theren’s angle is, but as the other disguised guard it seems appropriate for him to stand next to Theren and nod supportively. Miraj seems to draw insight from his mud puddle and divines Yarsha’s presence and intent. He suggests the party may be operating under some faulty assumptions. Theren is careful to keep open the possibility of a better offer. Yarsha balks at the burgeoning betrayal of their already arranged contractual conniving, but the issue becomes moot when Miraj, with a whistle, animates a golem from the array of large statues lining the room. Theren puts a crossbow bolt into Miraj.
The rest of the party rushes in to engage the golem. Bromsby begins to smash the surrounding statues with Iron Oath before they can be animated. Miraj erects a magic wall to protect himself. Haerelben squeezes past the golem to the magical wall and puts an arrow into Miraj. Theren breaks his flaming longsword on the golem and, left only with martial weapons ineffective against the golem, heads for Miraj with drawn shortsword. The golem knocks out Yarsha. Meega trips the very strong golem giving Lefty some great prone shots at it. Miraj magically suggests that Haerelben should protect him instead of hurting him. Bromsby doesn’t like the sound of that suggestion and dispels it in between breaking the statues.
Haerelben repairs his own injuries from Miraj’s withdrawing earth eruption. Theren buckets damage on Miraj and kills him. Meega and Lefty continue to team the golem and it hangs on by a thread after Meega chops a hand off. Haerelben tries to steal their glory with a longbow shot. Theren joins the fun and hucks two acid vials at the fading golem. Meega finishes the golem.
Yarsha regains consciousness as second in charge of the black earth temple and rightful heir to the mud pit. Bromsby beats Yarsha to the contents of Miraj’s wooden chest where he finds black crystals, alchemical ingredients, and plenty of coin.
After a short rest to dress wounds and to repair all of Theren’s broken weaponry, only four hours remain until the bag of holding a devastation orb can be “safely” checked.