One minute we are compulsively scrubbing frescoes of Bahamut, doing Reg “Two Veg” Oakley quite proud, then I lose track of time and find that we’ve agreed to take our orders from a bunch of minotaurs and a Barl Gura demon. Wait what?
I’m struggling with the fact that the evil twisted screaming in my head sounds a little like Sir Grumbles-A-Lot Reginald Oakley right now. At least the “this is bollocks” speech sounded a lot like her Abyssal for a while.
But then again the “help” involves killing gnolls, so…. is that enough? Do I have a moral compass? I don’t think I know what they look like.
Then I realize that we were just complaining that our lives had come to revolve overmuch around the *killing* of demons. This business of literally *helping* a demon and his minotaur friends certainly qualifies as a change! OK good. Moving on!

So there we were. We were in the middle of laying waste to the gnolls, as per our contract. The gnolls for their part laid waste to a good part of Sir Oakley’s face, requiring emergency healing from Neil. Klajdu also nearly went down, and we had a bit of a scramble to take down the gnolls around him – I learned how to use my mirror image magic to basically fire around corners. Neil played a riff that confused a gnoll so greatly that he charged one of his allies attacking Klajdu. Oakley doughtily set off to defend Klajdu as well, but as he passed Ezmerelda she tried to pick his pocket. The astute reader will note that Oakley’s plate armor is relatively free of pockets. Sir Oakley detected her attempt, and grated out “I can handle you, little girl!” or something to that effect. The effect was diminished though because Klajdu meanwhile had been quietly dominated by some gnoll magic and damned if he didn’t take a huge swing with his flaming maul at Oakley’s recently-repaired face. And hit. Quite badly. Twice. And then….

Ezmerelda: We’re gonna gang rape him!
party: {silence}
Ezmerelda: Or maybe just me.
party: {silence}
Shazia: …. We should have a handbook.

Oakley once again takes all this with good grace (cmon already!) and soon after, I drop the last Gnoll archer by stunning him. While Oakley is healing up his face again and we’re trying to figure out what to do with the stunned gnoll, we take a short rest. It is strangely quiet – Neil has failed to strike up his customary end-of-encounter ditty. Apparently because he was busy having a vision. He relates this to us – He saw a knight in gleaming armor there in the room with us, kneeling before that statue of Bahamut in human form. (I forgot to mention there’s a statue in this room). This knight apparently took out a deck of cards, drew one and then recoiled in horror as he saw the card, right as chaos broke out in the room around him. After coming down (his words), Neil was able to use something he’d seen in the vision to figure out more about that magical Fool card he holds.

Also on the wall of the room, we notice carvings of Bahamut in the form of an armored minotaur, fighting demons, fighting demonic minotaurs, and even fighting Baphomet himself. Oakley grumbles. Splug, cheerfully oblivious to our moral slidings, is excited to find food scraps in the room’s garbage, and he loads up on body parts and grubs. He avers that they are non-human body parts. This comforts me not at all because it means he can tell the difference. In his excavations though we find more treasure – a mithril scepter, a silver medallion, and a fancy looking horn. I take the scepter, someone else the medallion, and Klajdu blows the horn.

This blast draws the attention of the minotaurs, who engage us in conversation from the door. Not wanting to have our stunned gnoll captive discovered so soon, we come out into the main central hall – the one with the staircase and the big black pool. (This is by the way the room Oakley said was called “Vaults” back in his day.) Ezmerelda points out to the minotaurs that we’ve honored our side of the deal and demands that they now come with us to confront Kashtari. The minotaurs begin to whine and snuffle about the damn horn. Apparently it is, or was, theirs. In the wanderings of our moral compass, a misappropriated horn ranks not very high so we ignore them and loot the place.

Klajdu picks up 2 healing potions, Ezmerelda a snazzy golden ring that looks to be worth about 250gp and Neil is now sporting an elaborately embroidered ceremonial robe with attached bands of lacquered wooden strips. it is snazzy. We put these things on and/or play with them with no reservation at all.

I end up with an adamantine rod to examine for signs of magic. Seeing the engravings which include a particular symbol of Asmodeus, I realize with a bit of a start that this is no ordinary rod. This is a relic from the “Infernal Bastion”, an ancient and immensely powerful stronghold sacred to Asmodeus. It’s disconcerting to hold it. I drink more until it seems normal again, after which I vow to try using the rod in combat.

There are some antics. Splug and Ezmerelda jump in the dark waters of the pool. Splug leaps out having taken necrotic damage but Ezmerelda just hangs out in there and takes a bath. I exercise my Abyssal and ask the Barl Gura “seriously, why are you allied with these minotaurs”, but the Barl Gura only shrugs. Reconnaissance-by-bat reports that up the stairs from Vaults is a large hall, strewn with rubble. The entrance from which to these same stairs is quite well hidden. There is something moving around up there apparently but Oakley grumbles that it’s not the temple but a different building and not worth the time. We debate uselessly with the minotaurs about whether they should let us explore their parts of the complex, but eventually we make camp for the night and sleep.

In the morning we set off to confront Kashtari, in the end declining the help of the minotaurs and the Barl Gura. We’ve got this. The slaughter of the gnolls was a freebie I guess. Fine by me. We find caltrops on the floor by the door to Kashtari’s rooms. Ezmerelda and myself each take a few for later. Splug reports that he can hear a quiet conversation happening beyond the door.

Ezmerelda volunteers herself as scout and changes into a wolf. Good to know. She sneaks in through the door and finds herself staring at the back of a huge gnoll. The gnoll is sitting at a table, also sitting at which is another massive gnoll, an equally massive minotaur, and then some fourth creature, also massive, that looks a bit gnoll-ey and also a bit minotaurish. On the table were plates, which she later told us were at that time smeared with blood and bloody things… She scoots under the huge table and listens for a while, to Kashtari talking to his minions about the dragon, and about tribute payments and schedules thereof. Splug unwisely sneaks in to join her, but he is noticed by Kashtari, who is strangely effusive and welcoming about the goblin interloper. Neil then also enters, and suavely offers his skills to resolve the dragon tribute issues, whatsoever they might be. Kashtari welcomes him as well and insists that he take up a plate from the table. Neil takes one and and finds it to have fruit and fresh food on it. Kashtari exhorts him to eat some, but Neil begs off.

It’s at this point that Kashtari looks down.
“Oh there’s a woman under the table! How charming! That was a little strange…. I have a gift for you!”

and then they try to kill us. Or at least they try to kill Neil and Splug and Ezmerelda.

Ah spiders. Who doesn’t like spiders. Wait no that doesn’t sound right.

How about “Nobody doesn’t like 4934 dead spiders.”?
It goes double when a few of them are the size of an armchair. And double again when they’re all poisonous. But who’s counting!!

So yes, spiders. Spiders poured out of dark places. Spiders crawled up and out of the everywhere. Innumerable small ones, and a couple great big terrifying ones.
Neil was unfazed, He said he’d seen this before and that if we just ignored them, they would go away. His theory remains untested.

Esmerelda sent a screaming rainbow bolt against a swarm of them.
cue Reginald Oakley, danger-seeker: “I also enjoy rainbows, as well as long walks on the beach.”

But it wasn’t all rainbows and ill-advised walks on the beach.
In fact in just a few blinks of several thousand eyes we were getting our asses seriously kicked. Which is to say, our asses swarmed and repeatedly bitten.
Neil’s healing skills were tested and passed with flying colors. He even knew when not to heal us.

Neil, to Splug “Wait, you like being bloodied, don’t you?”
Esmerelda, darkly: “I also like him being bloodied,”
wtf?

Neil also did some strange business whereby he kept unpoisoning us. With music? It was all too much to remember clearly I’m afraid. And not helping was the fact that I was teleporting every few seconds. Have Bamf, will Gtfo. What can I say.

I do remember that Reginald and Klajdu were repeatedly swarmed. Or rather, Reginald and Klajdu kept transforming into fuzzy humanoid shapes made of wriggling spiders and showing a penchant for screaming.

Reginald: “Ahhh! Get them off! Wait that came out wrong!!!!”

All the stops were pulled out. Klajdu pulled off a Great Cleave, I used the black boiling death magic curse, I think we each used almost everything we had.
Esmerelda took the cake though, or I should say the Unexpected Dessert Item. She used what in hindsight must have been immensely dangerous magic. I say this because when it missed and hit the ground the entire section of ground turned into Fudge. Magical rainbow fudge, but quite recognizable and redolent fudge. It’s one thing to say make a wall of fire, or to conjure an army of farting pixies, but to simply turn a large area of unsuspecting ground into rainbow-colored fudge…. it gives one pause.

Somehow, the spiders did eventually die. Well I shouldn’t say somehow. It was mostly by axes, flaming mauls, rainbow bolts, teleportation magic, taunting, singing and axes again.
After, we all spent a while trying to stop freaking out. Neil no doubt sang a song. We were mentally unhinged. One of us got up and started to clean the frescoes on the wall. Clearly mad. Then another and another. I gave them a piece of my mind about the apparent mission creep, but hell why not. I also cleaned the frescoes. Do what makes you feel good.
Why not just give in to the crazy.

Esmerelda: “I’ll send my bat down to map out the area!”

Not wanting to linger lest more of these Raven’s Roost bandits come by, we press on to Fallcrest, plus Esmerelda, plus Arranis, plus two oxen.

The syphilitic halfling disguise for Splug and Norbert was perhaps not fully thought through; it was a very near thing at the gate when we reached Fallcrest. Naturally a number of those manning the gate were in fact halflings. I guess I knew this would be a problem but it seemed a better idea in the abstract. Impossibly, they seemed to accept it for the moment and we were in.

The dwarf sergeant Murgeddon said he wanted to talk to us at the Tongue and the Toad. Oh boy that’ll be fun.
At our tower, there was a great profusion of notes on the door.
Increasingly irritated notes from the Tongue and the Toad about the bar tab. Did I not pay that?
A deranged love note to Fitz which demanded to be read aloud. Many laughs to be had, until both tone and content of the letter got sufficiently creepy that we trailed off.
A letter from some fellow who wants to meet us at the Nentir inn to talk about something something.
A note about a lost cat.

Perhaps from our recent lack of exposure to realworld priorities not involving demonslaying, we start with the cat. Arriving at the cottage (as was indicated in the note), we are instantly suspicious. The sweet looking old lady who lives there says that her cat has since been found and she does not need our help. Our insight skills were all sorely tested in trying to figure out if she was lying, and Neil diplomatically asked some followup questions to make sure that the cat really existed and was safely back in the cottage. Somewhat anticlimactically the cat was then cheerily indicated to us with a grandmotherly wave. There it was, haughtily watching us from a chair across the room.
Not to be so easily put off, I checked the cat for signs of illusion or other magic. Although I didn’t find any, this is different from from saying that they were not there. I was uneasy. And after I admitted to the group that it did not *seem* magical, the cat’s manner became decidedly smug.

Back in the heart of town, Neil and I slum around a bit to find out what we can. Somehow going to the Nentir inn or to the Tongue and the Toad seems too easy. But the only interesting information we can find points us either to Sir Oakley at the Nentir inn or the guard waiting for us at the Tongue and the Toad. It is the one day in Fallcrest when nobody is ranting about imps in their basement, or wanting us to rescue their nephew from the witchlight fens, or seeking a buyer for their supposedly magical snuff boxes. of all the luck.

We give up and submit to the sternly suggesting hand of destiny. We go to the Tongue and the Toad.
I wave cheerily at the barkeep, as though I do not have a large unpaid bar tab. When the subject is immediately raised by the barkeep, I protest. Were not some of these items provided gratis? Surely I could not have ordered quite so many casks in such a short time. Neil intervenes to help, and this seems positive until his idea turns out to be that I will pay my tab double if I can have more time in which to pay it. Still, I suppose it worked, in that the tab remains unpaid. Moving on. But with drinks. Added to the tab of course.

Sir Oakley – a paladin of bahamut. (A more conventional one than Fitz though; no demonskin accoutrements nor demon-cross-dressing tendencies were detected) He is descended from the founder of Gardmore abbey, and in fact his great great great grandfather was Gardrim the Hammer. He comes from up near the old city of Nera, the erstwhile capital of Nerath.

What Oakley wants from us, is for us to purge the evil from Gardmore Abbey. the place is north, close to Winterhaven. He says up near the top of the large complex of the ancient mountain stronghold, there is a temple that he wants to purify. He offers 2000 gold pieces. Gardmore is of course one of the oldest settlements of the Vale, or was. As old as Fastormel, or older perhaps, I forget. The Abbey was initially really a fortification, but it was destroyed about a century ago by orcs. Orcs and hill giants and worse if the histories have it right. So it’s a huge heavily fortified castle basically that’s been crawling with orcs and god knows what for only a century. A walk in the park!

The dwarven guard we spoke to, the one from Hammerfast – Murgeddon I think was his name. He overheard us talking and came over. He was another veteran of the Bloodspear war, that last lovely time in which the orcs laid waste to our Vale. In fact he said he fought alongside Sir Oakley at one point.
He says that he had stood at the temple mount of Gardmore abbey and saw the then-lord Markelhay go down below with his ancestral sword in hand, never to emerge.

We are intrigued. the money, the history, the mystery, the magical sword that no doubt Lord Markelhay would pay dearly to have restored (we neglect to actually consult him as to the hypothetical value to his lordship but hopefully not an egregious oversight)

To tie up the big loose end though, we pay a visit to Grundelmar. His note about the cult of the Elder Elemental Eye was after all the reason we high-tailed it back from the 7 pillar hall to Fallcrest. (Notwithstanding the higher priorities of finding suspiciously nonmagical cats, and placing hideous dolls on my pillow (NEIL!) and bickering about the price of a cask of ale. )

Grundelmar: “Thank you for coming. I hope I did’t sound too overwrought”
Shazia: “No, it’s…. you always do. Tell us about the Elder Elemental Eye”

He says they had the cult leader but that he escaped, and he was a man called Veden Cartwright. He is still a danger to us all, dabbling with evil forces as he is, somewhere up north in Winterhaven. Cartwright had been playing with dead things. (Apparently beyond flaying their skin off, or making experimental jerky). Grundelmar says he can offer us a holy symbol of the sun. In some convoluted bartering that I cannot follow, we end up with the symbol of the sun, and somehow we also agree to go investigate Veden Cartwright. I think we temporarily bought the symbol, but if we get Veden Cartwright successfully delivered to the Raven Queen, we’ll get our money back from Pelor? Commerce makes strange bedfellows, even among the gods.

————————
TO WINTERHAVEN we have gone! Sorry about the capital letters. I was dangerously sober and She was screaming a bit loud. I have a new and healthy tab at Salvina Raften’s bar. It is good to be back here. Cartwright indeed was here but they ran him out of town for doing experiments on farm animals. We hear there have been orc raids on the kings road between Fallcrest and Winterhaven. A few people mention trouble or strangeness at Gardmore Abbey, and that Lord Padraig is looking for someone to investigate.
After an uneventful night of sleep for most of us, (except for Esmerelda who stayed up gambling and flirting at the bar, unprofitably) we meet with Lord Padraig, and before long we are agreed to become his investigators at-large.

—————
To Gardbury downs we have gone! On arrival at its western part, the mystery of Esmerelda’s batshit was explained. She actually has a small bat and It has some limited ability to communicate with her via simple images.
(I presume though that she is unable to send it the image “please do not poop on me”)
She makes use of said bat to scout the western face of the mountain facing us, upon the top of which sits part of the stronghold of Gardmore Abbey. Quoth the bat — there is a secret staircase winding its way up the mountainside. We file this useful shortcut away for later and trudge around like damn cavemen, so as to “investigate” I suppose.

Trudging we go, all the way around to the east side, where sits the main gate of the Abbey, It is a thirsty business and once there, Splug and Arannis scout ahead and come back reporting that the front gate is fully manned by Orcs at the gate, gatehouse, battlements etc. And that besides orcs, it did look like there was at some point something else, considerably larger than an orc, but it was not clearly seen.

We continue around from the west to the south, along the curtain wall, as stealthily as we can. On the southern part of the wall there is a large collapsed section on wall, through which we can see an immense and overgrown garden. It is teeming with life, energy and more than a little Feywild magic. Oakley is surprised and he says he knew only that there was a garden here, a word that does not do this place justice.

Splug picks up signs that there are Displacer Beasts and Owlbears here, which puts us on edge. We see a tower in the distance, and various buildings that speak of unknown histories if not mysteries. We decide to first investigate a low stone building next to a fountain. We find there the remains of a mosaic of Bahamut, and a fountain, and er, 5 well armed eladrin warriors looking unamused. The leader says his name is Sir Barryon, and that they are searching for evidence of his father’s fate. Somehow their search led here but from here they seem to have lost his trail. And worse, his sister Anelastra has wandered off and is feared lost, in danger, captured by local nymphs, eaten by feybeasts or worse.
Quite reasonably, Splug taunts them. They are after all a singularly useless rescue party and having lost one of their number already, “almost as good as nothing at all”.

They respond poorly and not long after we politely take our leave. We agree to look for the sister but no more. Worse they have no useful information for us, having never been to Dragonroost (the defiled temple at the top)

They say that there is a path from the garden that heads northwest, in the general direction of Dragonroost, but it seems the better idea to go back around and use the secret stairs that led up the mountainside.
Otherwise why even HAVE a magical bat that poops on you.