After an overnight stay up the rope in the smoldering feast house and a retooling of spells and tactics, the group returns to the sewers in search of the presumed portal. Slogging to the site of the ambush, little is seen so they decide to press onward. After a brief period, there is the sound of distant buzzing – like that of a giant fly. Recalling that one of the demonic foes was indeed a giant flying maggot thing, they prepare for contact.
Soon enough the flying foe appears and the cleric sends it back to its home plane. The group presses on to the next intersection and is ambushed by a pair of poison-breathing, trident toting demon beasts. The battle is fierce and the missiles of the mage fly frequently as do the flashing blades of various party members. Once both are defeated, the group stops for a brief bit of blood draining and preservation, hoping to parley the ichor into a spell component or use it for a potion base.
As they finish up, the noise of the fly creature resumes. The cleric finds a silver lining, opining that they must be close to the portal, ,given the rapidity of return. A light spell illuminates the sewer tunnel and reveals the fly and another trident wielding demon closing rapidly. The Lad psrings to his feet and begins lobbing marbles from a magic necklace. One after the other they explode into huge balls of fire that singe the party members and slay the attackers.
They press on a bit further and find the portal guarded by a four headed abyssal hydra. Upon realizing that it will not move far from the portal, the group unlimbers the mage and his staff of power. Lightning bolt after lightning bolt rains upon the creature as the fighters lob a few desultory arrows in the creature’s general direction. A b it of this, a bit of that and the creature is defeated. The group pools magical resources and sends the mage to close the portal which he eventually does.
Job well done, the group returns to the burnt feast hall and begins making inquiries about the antique collector to see if a motive for demonic interest in his demise could be discerned. The tales are many. Some mundane, some tall, all inconclusive, In any event, Kormier decides that the church needs to know what is happening and the group returns in haste to the Tormite temple.
The church is debriefed and the group is rewarded in various ways. As they spend a few days resting, they discuss what avenues to pursue in the near future. Eventually they decide to resume investigating the rise of the Horned One in the distant east. The church provides a teleportation to the base of the mountain in which they encountered an elemental lord and freed said lord’s brother. They receive information that indicates that the Vessel of Souls was captured en route to Ausfang and is being held near the edge of the great swamp that separates the plains from the walls of the Horned One;s capitol. Thus informed, the group plots briefly and sets off in pursuit.
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