Progress Report

Mistress Jevvica,

The cleric Bemmut has left our party to take responsibility for the church of St Thessina. For this I am grateful. In his place we have a dwarven cleric named “Shark” or something similar who seems much more even-keeled. The party has accepted him without question, so perhaps it wasn’t just me that was concerned about Bemmut.

What does concern me is that Bemmut sent this cleric along with notes for everyone. I don’t know what the others received but my note said simply I’m watching you. I have revised my assessment of Bemmut from disturbed to unhinged—that the church could select such a person as a spiritual compass for others makes me wonder whether the whole church is riddled with insanity.

We returned to the Banewarrens but once more failed to make it to the Quaan. Instead we investigated the area beyond the ward. The new cleric had Bemmut’s journal and was able to find some notes relating to Danar and the password was amongst them. Hearing the dwarf mutter as he struggled to make sense of the writings did nothing to ease my mind regarding Bemmut.

Proceeding onward we were confronted by a vision (I presume of Danar before his corruption) warning us of the evils ahead and advising us to turn back. We ignored this warning in pursuit of our quest to reseal the Banewarrens.

This part of the Banewarrens must have been glorious in its prime, though I do not fully understand the point of such splendour in a structure whose goal is to be sealed for all time as a tomb for evil items of great power. Presumably during Danar’s corruption the frescoes were defaced, fountains were toppled, and all other things of beauty destroyed. In one such fountain the apparently stagnant water turned out to be some animated ooze that I believe the wizard Damien called a black pudding. According to his lore the creature was not affected by bladed or pointed weapons and so I sought to provide protection for Aeriana as she used her wand of magic missiles. The thing inflicted terrible damage and could easily have killed more than one of our party members were we not so well equipped with devices for healing and for mitigating damage. I will need to find myself a bludgeoning weapon before our next excursion.

Once we were recovered from this battle we pressed on and found a room which had once held an altar that, as with all else, had been destroyed. In this place we were nearly brought undone by someone that appeared human who had the unholy ability to turn the living as a cleric does undead. As he was doing this a group of undead assaulted us from behind and as I fled headlong from this person I felt the chilling touch of my lifeforce being drawn from my body.

The battle then continued on two fronts: Ignatz and Sir Lucius battled the human while the remainder of us fought the undead. I had more of my lifeforce drained as the cleric turned those that he could. Some of the undead were equipped with long-handled weapons and I could not ensure the safety of those behind me but the cleric took it in stride.

Eventually the undead were destroyed, and the human had been forced to flee in the form of a dark smoke. Aeriana was able to transform herself as well and pursued to see where he had hidden himself. While she watched, we found our own way to him. The entire length of the hall we had to traverse was riddled with traps, perhaps the nastiest of which was the teleporter at the end that would place you back at the start of the hall to confront the other traps again. Ignatz was able to disarm the traps, though not without being teleoprted once so it was good that he had disarmed the other traps.

Assuming that the erstwhile human was, in fact, a vampire we were expecting to find a coffin but instead what we found was a small metal box with a tube protruding from it. With no body to destroy, our only option was to destroy the box and indeed when we did that we saw the black smoke dissipate. Score one for the good guys.

At least this time we left nothing unresolved as we returned to town. The others were generous enough to contribute the funds necessary to have my lifeforce restored by the church; though with their recent actions I wonder whether some more sinister tarnish will emerge in time.

Eternally yours,
Avach