Story 5/22

The night started out with the group entering an extended rest. Prior the rest, they unlocked the gate for Amaras who decided to lower the gate and rest for the night. Monashe also took a piece of one the bane's axes.

After the rest, Amaras spoke with the group, who had collected 39 ears at this point. He agreed to pay 1/2 of the bounty for the ears, and asked the group to help get behind the magically guarded doors. If they got through the doors and eliminated any threats on the other side (which he would pay 600 gold for) then they would get the other half.

The group agreed, and got to work on unlocking the door. After solving two different puzzles to unlock the door, they made it through. On the other side of the door, they found a stairway leading up the main spire of the keep. Hawkmoon found that the top of the keep was covered in black moss.

Once at the top, they found a large room that wasn't locked, but they could hear strange voices on the other side. They decided to entered it. Inside, they saw Thorrak, the Leader of the City Guard (Amaras's superior), and the two Thalstead politicians all being restrained by souls of the dead. They also found objects in each of the 4 corners of the room: a fire, a poison cauldron, an ice crystal and a floating eye. A bald man (Ustalar) was standing near the center of the room surround by swirling souls. In the center of the room, rifts were opening up and a shadowy figure was attempted to exit the rifts, but kept getting pulled back. There were 3 distinct rifts that were opening, but the shadowy figure was always the same.

The group investigated the room a bit, but ultimately engaged Ustalar in combat. Ustalar broke into 4 different shades, each powered by one of the objects and boosted further by the swirling souls.

The group managed to defeat Ustalar and sealed the 4 objects to prevent him from recharging, all while the shadowy figure grew in size and presence.

After Ustalar's defeat, the shadowy figure appeared for a moment, looked at Ustalar and said "Pfft, weakling.... Next time I will be more careful about who I choose". The figure then reached out at everyone in the group and began to pull them towards the rift.

Right as they were about to enter the rift, the figure's pull on them broke and the rift closed. Each person in the group immediately had a flash/vision of something unique to them.

The room began to return to normal, but each member of the group started to feel incomplete, almost as if a piece of their soul had just fragmented....

Klon went to aid Thorrak, who was unconscious but without heavy injury. Monashe found the politicians to be heavily injured, and the leader of the city guard to be unconscious but not too hurt. Beorn decided to tie up the politicians after finding notes on them that indicated they thought they were going to be leaders in some new government of Thalstead. Beorn also found a robe worth 1000g.

Beorn then inquired to Aeowyn about her people and anything from her past. Aeowyn indicated that she lived outside of a small city that had humans and hamadryads living there. The town was attacked while she was away.

Khaelis mentioned that he needed to return to his homeland in the mountains to the west. Erevan and Monashe talked amongst themselves. Klon said that he saw Beorn fighting along side the Raven Queen against the shadowy figure from his dream, Beorn claimed he knew nothing about that.

The group talked with Amaras and he gave them the remaining gold for the ears they had. Each person got a total of 1400 gold ((39\*200 + 600)/6).

Amaras said he and his men were going to continue to work on the city and help the displaced residents. They had found a few undead walking around and a few hit squads, but some of the nefarious people involved in the plot had escaped the city. There were rituals being conducted at the chapel, and the marketplace was deserted.

Klon and Thorrak spoke when Thorrak awoke. Thorrak was indirectly urged by the Raven Queen to seek out Klon because of a bad feeling surrounding Thalstead. Thorrak explained that he thinks Nerull was behind the Thalstead purge. Nerull was the god of death long before the Raven Queen, and in a battle many years ago the Raven Queen defeated him 1v1. Klon explains his dream of seeing multiple people fighting with the Raven Queen. Thorrak says he needs some time to reflect and determine his plan. He gives Klon free reign to do as he thinks best, and he will dispatch followers of the Raven Queen to help clean up the city.

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