Want to help? Consider becoming a Patreon.

The party woke in the morning and resumed their pursuit of the thieves

• Inside the cave, the party found themselves under attack by creatures known as Piercers. They quickly made their way through the cavern, discovering that one of the Night Blades perished due to the Piercers; one by the name of Chirun, who was the brother of the leader of the Night Blades.
• Once past the cavern with the Piercers, the party ended up in a cavern with an underwater lake and waterfall. On the other side of the lake, a path through some unknown fungi led up to a cave where Argo spotted someone watching them.
• After tripping a few traps and discovering a few others in the fungi, the party made their way to the cavern.
• The party made their way through the cavern; however, at one of the splits in the cavern, suddenly found themselves rushed by a figure that slammed into Argo and turned out to be Arakzar, the leader of the Night Blades.
• As combat started, it became very clear that Arakzar was not attacking the party alone. The evil dwarven paladin, named Blackstone, who followed Skortaurian, the God of Spite, slammed into Bodrag and cut him deeply.
• Prenstar, down the cavern a bit, was casting and helping the Night Blades until confronted by Luna, and realized “escape” was the better plan.
• Dreadblade, after the ambush had been triggered ran up from the main cave and joined the combat.
• The battle against Arakzar was a difficult one, and with the help of Tenjii’s poison, the party was able to fell him. Dreadblade and Blackstone however, pressed the attack, forcing the fighters to remain on the defensive.
• As they did so, Prenstar appeared again, next to Arakzar, and whispered a command that restored Arakzar to life.
• Ariana cast Hold Person on Prenstar, who found themselves immobile, and helpless as Luna delivered a killing blow to them.
• Arakzar rose to his feet, barely healed, and found himself felled again.
• Dreadblade was paralyzed by Tenjii’s poison and killed by Argo, while Bodrag managed to deliver a killing blow on Blackstone.
• This left only Everella unaccounted for, but an examination of the area, revealed no additional tracks, indicating she may have abandoned the Night Blades before entering the cave (or possibly even before that).
• The party returned to the Wildwood, bringing evidence of the defeat of the Night Blades. While their chief seemed reluctant to hand over the relic bow they had recovered from Frenur’s body, it was Bodrag who managed to convey the entire process of the battle, and how difficult it would have been to take any of the Night Blade prisoner because of how lethal they were. The Wild Elf leader agreed to surrender the relic bow to Luna.
• The party then began traveling back to Guardstone, when one night, they noticed a huge caravan of the Broken Hand Orcs headed north.
• When the party reached the Lake of the Sunken City, they learned that many of the merchants were edgy because many had been attacked by a large caravan of marauding Orcs who murdered and stole from the merchants, and cut off their trade routes to the east, causing their normally (reasonable) prices to sky rocket.
• From there, the party eventually returned to Guardstone and turned over what they had found, reporting all that had happened.
• They were reunited with their Dark Elf comrade, Omen, who in private explained to them the ordeal he had endured.
  • Saric’s men had located a secret passage to the Night Blade‘s thieves guild; a passage that the thieves had been using to smuggle items beneath the city. Omen, and two of Saric’s most trusted warriors were sent to examine the tunnel.
  • After passing four riddles, they found the base of the Night Blades, where Omen had found several ledgers – but no official names were written – everything had been in code (though some names had stars next to their names).
  • Omen also found a Gray Elf Wizard who claimed to be one of the members of the Night Blades named Brin. Omen and the guards tied the wizard’s hands together and took them with them as they continued to explore the thieves guild.
  • They discovered the diary of Ionacular, who, in her confession, admitted having strong feelings for Brin. She also had several notes, later in the diary explaining how Brin seemed to go through wild mood swings; sometimes he was tender, other times, cold and callous. Even later still, the diary notes how she saw Brin on one side of the thieves guild, and went to another end and saw him there; unsure how he was getting around so fast.
  • Another account, by Dreadblade, expressed distrust in Brin, and that something seemed very unusual about the wizard.
  • During a battle with a creature, Omen was badly wounded and poisoned and forced to retreat back to the surface after the creature had been killed. Tended to by priests, the disease was cured and Omen returned to Saric to report what he had found.
  • Omen chose to question Brin further, along with Saric’s two warriors. When Brin proved to be less than open about discussing things; Omen turned to magic and cast a spell that sent Brin into a fit of fear. After getting cryptic messages, such as “We are everywhere”, “It’s what my people do”, “We will replace you”, Brin – or what appeared to be Brin – suddenly changed form and lunged at Omen, its talons ripping Omen’s flesh wide open, forcing Omen to stumble backwards as the two guards stepped in front of him and defended him. They subdued the creature which turned out to be a doppelganger.
  • Omen suddenly realized, they may have a larger problem on their hands; if Doppelgangers had actually managed to murder and replace key people. Feeling unsure who to trust, Omen kept this information from Saric.