Session 09 (2025-01-03) - Greg

Last time

• The temple’s enchantments and our visions revealed a connection between the order of Hospitalers and shadowy forces.
• We counted 7 orc scalps, 3 goblin scalps, and 1 ogre scalp during this session’s adventure
• We discovered eight potentially powerful artifacts in the fountain chamber: 2 swords, 2 shields, 2 lutes, and 2 spellbooks. Barrick and Bikke have claimed the swords and shields. Gavin is carrying the lutes and books. Bikke in particular seems quite attached to the new weapon.
• We discovered a goblin hoard and looted what we found of value there
• We cleansed the hospitaler temple.
• Our next step is to explore deeper into the cave system, possibly crossing the small bridge to the spire where the Laguna-kin reside.
• Radovan went with the orc captives down the mountain to a safe distance, discovering the remains of our old camp.

Radovan Returns

While we are tidying up after the battle with the ogre and talking with Nadia, Radovan returned to the group from further down the mountainside. Radovan set the children up with essentials at the camp before returning.

Nadia bristled a bit at Radovan’s approach, but set herself more at ease seeing that we recognized him. “I don’t know what’s going on at the other side, but I don’t think we have much time. Are we ready to get kinetic?” We agreed with Naida and crossed the bug bridge with her.

The Spire

As we approached the other side of the bridge, we see an orc who’s been pushing prisoners over the edge of the cliff to the forest hundreds of feet below. Bikke fires a crossbow at the orc and combat begins.

We took 5 orc scalps in the fight. The goblins chose not to engage us, so we did not engage them. We discovered female prisoners in a pit including Pocket, friend of Nadia.

We infer that the orcs started killing prisoners when they saw we were about to cross the bridge.

Barrick negotiated with Snarl, the senior goblin soldier. Snarl spoke with unusually refined Waterdeep-accented common. Snarl was glad that our extermination of the orcs freed them from the bad deal they had, so they were happy to let us kill the orcs and give them an exit. Gavin continued the discussion asking Snarl about what we’ll find in the tower. Snarl told us that the Laguna-kin hold the tower in layers below the ground. There are fewer than a dozen orcs in the tower including Laguna-kin and their guard.

Kira examined the wasted druidic grove. There are clear signs of desecration such as steel meat hooks pounded into trees and other trees being cut down. The grove is probably 200 years old from its birth and Kira’s best estimate is that the grove has been wasted for 20-30 years.

Hugh started freeing the captives who were chained to the tree. Nadia and Pocket stayed with the prisoners. The rest of us proceeded to the spire temple built around another fountain. This fountain had a mildly bitter taste and provided 1d12 hit points, temporary if over max.

The Temple

The rooms below the surface are very dark, so we had to light torches and activate torches/light sources. We see ruins in the same style as the other ruins above ground, left by the Order of Hospitalers.

The first room in the temple had a deep hole that started to narrow after about 20ft down. The second room looks like a ruined library. Barrick triggered a trap that caused books to fly around the room and hit him.

The party defeated the laguna kin after a tough fight.

The final room of the temple contained Mother Viola Laguna, a human woman dressed and tattod as an orc. The room is profoundly damaged with a deep chasm in a back and contains 4 statues of Hospitalers. The icon of the Order of Hospitalers in the room is fully defiled with offal and defecation.

We fought Mother Viola Laguna and two shadow elementals and were somewhat victorious after a challenging fight where Bikke, Hugh, and Kira were knocked out.

As the elementals were unbound upon Laguna’s death, the shadow elementals referred to Mother Verduna as a hag, a dream creature from the shadowfell. The shadow elementals wish to reunite with their “third face”, the shadow elemental still trapped under Bad Doric.

Gavin agrees to let the shadow elemental read the location of Bad Doric from his memory to show the elemental where its final face is trapped.

Gavin learned from the experience that the shadow elemental is an alien intelligence incapable of interacting with mortals in a meaningful way. It has no interest in remaining in the material plane, it wants to reunite with itself and leave.

The party levelled up to 5 after this fight.