The reversal of path leads them full circle to a room inhabited by wights which do their utmost to slay the party – but to no avail. A set of doors leads to a pair of dwarven constructs and more doors -but these seem likely to open onto the prismatic wall. About face!
Further investigation of a staircase leads them into an ambush as they are blasted by a skeletal figure wielding a wand that shoot lightning into the crowded stairwell. This threat is also swiftly neutralized and the items worth plundering are swiftly plundered.
With a few avenues yet unexplored, the group regroups in front of some large double doors that are sealed in a vault-like manner. A plan is concocted to open them with the help of two long-ass ropes, and so Fingers and Digin go down the hallway to look for traps and prep the area.
At this point, a pair of hapless Delver’s Guild folk stumble into the party and ask to tag along, given the demise of the rest of their comrades. The paladin scrutinizes them and declares them to be free from the taint of evil. This is apparently untrue, for as Bayga quizzes them about their allegiances, the duo transforms – one into a flesh golem, the other into a drider – and launches an attack.
The golem homes in on Bayga and the drider breathers a noxious fog at the cluster of characters, then follows up with a cloudkill spell that slays the cleric of Lothian, the inverted pyramid delegate and the burly woman at arms. Zaal, Kegdrain, Sniffles all run to a staircase to try and climb to a catwalk to get above the lethal vapors. Digin and Fingers see a wall of greenish vapors bearing down on them and have a few seconds to curse their fates.
The battle rolls on and Bayga flees the advancing cloud, pursued by the golem. Alas, the path of retreat leads him away from the rest of the group, who are doing their best to slay the spell-slinging spider. As the deadly fumes expand, the height decreases and the party becomes aware that Bayga is not in the vicinity.
Once Kegdrain conjures a floating disc, the dead are loaded on it and they set out in search of Bayuga. They find his nine-fingered corpse splayed in the hallway of many statues, illuminated by the shimmering prismatic wall. This prompts a few minutes of load-rebalancing, but before too long, the group is making haste to leave the Banewarrens. They need only to make contact with the Lothianites guarding the approach to the place to get the living and dead loaded onto wagons that make the journey across half the city.
Arriving at the temple is a bit of a tricky thing, but the paladin vouches for the party’s innocence in the death of the scouts. There is some bad blood between Lothian and pretty much any other religion, but the cult of the evil technology demon earns bonus demerits from the Lothianites. Still, obligations are obligations and the lawfully good thing to do is overlook heresy and reward behavior.
So it is that a Raise Dead scroll makes its way to the party. Bayga is summoned back from technohell and the group spends a couple of days cataloguing loot and thinking about the next steps they should take. The Inverted Pyramid would like them to travel to a demiplane to hunt the Pactlords and retrieve a piece of the artifact that will destroy the Banewarren key that the party carries. The Church of Lothian wants them to use their vault opening powers to open vaults and find the Sword Of Truth which they think has been hidden and mislabeled as the Sword of Lies.
More information is added to the party knowledge – things that the locals never thought to tell them because ‘everyone knows that!”. The sinister history of the collection gives the group an opportunity to ponder a third path, one that carries them further into the Banewarrens.
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