S05E10 – Misty Archways

Vignette fades in:

Baldur, a prison guard, is killing time thinking about his family. One of the prisoners, an old humanoid, starts talking to him and quickly gets to the topic of his wife and the future of his son. The prisoner offers Baldur a thousand gold pieces if he helps him break out of the prison. Baldur isn’t impressed with the offer but, a few minutes later, the shrewd old man convinces him and they concoct a plan.

Vignette fades out.

The group just went through a misty archway which left everyone naked and in a dark room full of undead creatures. After a quick assessment of the situation the group decides it will be wiser to hit the monsters with blades and arrows instead of naked fists and soft skin and they ran away from the undead. Half way through the corridors, the group breaks up sending the old and the sick to the hallway with a hidden passage in a wall while the rest runs towards the room where they previously saw clothes and weapons from old tomb visitors. After retrieving their possessions and regrouping they go back to the entrance hall with the curvy path and the mysterious decorations. There Fenna spots the mummy gazing at them through a mask on the wall. The group configures the rocks on the misty archway from that hall to orange and crosses it. They appear in the empty mummy’s room. They first block the door leading north with the lid of the sarcophagus and then they storm into the antechamber with the undead and a shiny sword standing on a pedestal.

A fight with the undead ensues. Gudmundur and Torggar end up quite battered but the group manages to put the Deahtlock Wight, the skeleton, the zombie and the specters into a permanent dead state. Throughout the battle Ada approaches the pedestal with the sword and, before touching it, her worst nightmare appears in front of it: a huge undead zombie spider. She manages to keep her poise, picks up the sword and throws herself against the last standing specter killing it in the process. Ada decides that the black grip with demonic figures, the black blade exhuding a black mist around it and the warnings from Mara-kai are not worth leaving such a lovely blade and she keeps it. While the group is still deciding whether to go for the window in the room and try to escape the stronghold through the outside walls they hear the mummy breaking the lid and entering the room next to them. The group decides to run away once more and go to the entrance corridor but Ada prefers to ran to the window and wait for them hanging on the wall with her spider boots.

Another vignette fades in.

A younger Zabha, Lohra the daughter of Osirik and several other demon lords are attending the brief funeral for Osirik, the demon lord, during the final days of the great battle between demons and angels. After Osirik’s sarcophagus disappears into the tomb they start discussing their battle strategy in their against the angels. Zabha is trying to convince the rest that they can still win the war but Lohra is a mess of an emotional state. The chief engineer who designed the stronghold is just thinking about retiring and doesn’t participate much. Zabha ends up proposing a plan to ambush the angels in their upcoming final attack and he convinces Lohra to go outside with him to scout the terrain and prepare the ambush.

Vignette fades out.

Once the mummy leaves the area near the antechamber the group finds one more misty archway. They pick up Ada, wait for Torggar and Gudmundur to finish translating some runes in the new room and cross the archway appearing outside of the stronghold. The group heads to the dimensional portal to get back to their plane but Torggar announces that someone needs to make a pledge to do something horrible in order for the portal to reopen. A few seconds later the water trembles and Torggar announces that someone appears to have made the pledge and the group crosses it.

Once back in their plane they get out of Malon’s mansion and arrive to the inn with great joy to everyone. The innkeeper announces that the priest arrived and that the wedding between Lauranthal and Rilien would take place tomorrow.

The group suspects that the priest is an impostor.

Torggar tells the group that the Prophecy passage that Fenna found in the Gromsson fortress has little symbolism and most likely is talking about Ururl and Negoth. Mara-kai’s passage is more symbolic and it seems to be making reference to very distant events. Torggar and Gudmundur also tell the group that the symptoms and circumstances surrounding the affliction of Mara-kai’s father may be due to very ancient artifacts. They also reveal they have both beeng pursuing different machinations of Zabha because the Prophecy seems to be referring to him in various places.

Dawn arrives. Arancon leaves the inn with Tolomar to try to find out what is keeping him in that vegetative state. After getting a new dress for Ada the group heads to the wedding. Ada and Fenna will try to get close to Lauranthal while Mara-kai, Dave, Torggar and Gudmundur will stay among the gents. After leaving the inn the group meets Eldil and two other guards. The group updates Eldil on the latest developments. Eldil reasons that they don’t have strong evidence to indict Malon. On top of that Malon has bought more than of the garrison and he also has the cultists on his side. The balance of power is on his side at this point. They decide, nonetheless, to go to the wedding.

Once outside the temple where the ceremony will take place Fenna and Ada talk to one of the guards to try to get closer to Lauranthal but the guard resists and sends another guard to ask Malon what to do. While they wait the Fenna notices the same dark green color below the guard’s armor that the cultists wear.