Session 48

Chandira returns to the Dead Goose Inn, being tripped by Grim after she opened the door he was guarding while invisible. She managed to contact the Sorcerer's Cabal and close up her shop. She says that a necromancy specialist will arrive in about a month to help.

After the party sets out to return to Eldham, they encounter a small group of about 20 citizens from Eldham wearily walking the road away from the city. About 10 of them were wounded, 2 of which were infected by something from bite marks which caused their veins near the wound to be blackened. Dain managed to cure the infection with a casting of Lesser Restoration. He then healed them and the party used their medicine kits to patch everyone up.

The party arrives at Fort Elden, finding undead pounding on the gates while Tamas' mini militia picked them off from above with their crossbows. After dealing with them, Talindra notices the party approaching and lets them in. Dain inquires about Sabine and is told that Samira took her west towards the Bast Wilds for training, and they left about a day ago. After asking about the undead and being told that fog had rolled in, followed by storm clouds and a lightning bolt striking near the graveyard, the party went to investigate the graveyard and found that, like the graveyard in Eldham, the dead had risen due to the lightning bolt delivering an animation spell to each of the bodies near the strike. Dain brings one of the bodies into the fort to investigate, asking for Chandira's assistance. She used an unknown spell to determine that the undead weren't conventional zombies and had been enhanced somehow, and had an unknown bloodborne disease coursing through their bodies.

After gathering to discuss strategy going forward, Dain seemed to want to seek a weapon of Astix to deal with the undead, or to contact the Dawnstar, but with no leads on such a thing and no way to contact the Sentinels, Talindra had a eureka moment and suggested using the black powder stashed at Wolfwater to blow the undead to hell. Also, she let the party know that while they were at the graveyard, a guest arrived -- Kendel. He let the party know that he survived the attack on Wolfwater by fortunately being within Adamar's sanctum when the Paragons attacked. Talindra then suggested that to help route the undead to a location where they could blast them to hell, they should seek the help of the clerics at the Temple of Lys in Eldham. She said they could use their Turn Undead ability to act as sheep dogs to herd the undead towards the staging area. Finally, she realized based on questioning the party that the undead most likely got into Eldham via the tunnels Adamar's goblins had dug beneath Eldham when they attempted to use the black powder to collapse the human quarter of the city, and suggested they find a way to seal off the tunnels, as the tunnels exit to outside the city walls near the section of the city where the graveyard is. They decided that Kendel would oversee the militia at Fort Elden while Talindra left for Wolfwater and to gather her fellow Emerald Company mercs to transport the black powder from Wolfwater to Eldham. Finally, Merith would join the party and travel to Eldham.

The party travels back to Eldham, finding the city eerily quiet. They climbed up to the rooftops to travel more stealthily through the city and to reach the temple. However, while approaching a city street they needed to cross to continue, Dain fell on the rooftop, alerting a group of feral ghouls below along with a wight and a bodak. The party dispatched the creatures and continued along the rooftops, eventually arriving at the Temple of Lys. They knocked on the main doors after observing the many undead bodies littering the streets near the temple. After initially mistaking Grim for a ghost / revenant, the priests inside let the party in and informed them that Belegor had abandoned the temple and the priests in the middle of a battle on the day the undead attacked and escaped via what Icarus revealed after their description, was a Dimension Door spell, which confused the priests, as Dain clarified that this was arcane magic, not divine. The priests led the party to Belegor's study to investigate and they looked for the items they previously discovered there on their last stealthy visit, finding three vials of unknown substance in the desk giving off an aura of illusion magic, leading the party to believe that Adamar was disguised as Belegor, for who knows how long. This disturbed the priests, who revealed that he had made many night-time trips to visit Eldar, the town magistrate. They also found a small device on a bookshelf giving off divination magic which suggested that someone would be able to scry on the room from afar. The priests also agreed to contact the temple in Mythwell to get the party in contact with the Dawnstar.