======== Scouting the black obelisk ========
As the group wanders across the city Freya gets a mild headache which slowly worsens all day. You are unsure what the cause could be but it is definitely distracting. Everything about Kylorin is too loud or too flashy and reflective since she came back. Celadon's laugh is too grating. You just feel out of sorts.
Lindal scouts forward on his own to get a better view. The camp at the Black Obolisk is a defensive outpost ringed with log palisade to repel large creatures. There is an opaque magical hut inside perimeter, but most noteworthy of all a 15 foot tall rune-covered black obelisk looms over the camp casting a sinister shadow over the camp. Lurking on the cliffside over the campsite are clumps of gargoyles at which the guards patrolling the camp perimeter glance anytime one of the gargoyles move. A path of broken vegetation leads to the camp but is now barricaded with crude wooden barricades designed to impale any large creatures approaching the camp.
Hiding in shadows the Opaque dome conceals much of the camp from you but Lindal scouts closer to get a better look. A black robed mage studies the obelisk taking rubbings and going into the dome with them then reappearing to run other experiments. Dragonborn guards patrol the wooden barricade but as teh group has seen in the past they are not very observant and Lindal can almost crawl right up to them without being noticed. After a while one of the guards on kitchen starts cursing after opening a crate in the mess tent in back of camp. He complains that the rations have been infested with ants again and effectively ruined.
Lindal croc is whispering to you where you lay much closer to the camp than the others.
======== Croc's Bargain ========
Croc: "Hey so it occurs to me that with those pearls we could make it big out there if we just went off and did our own thing. Think, you are the only priest in the world who could remove the death curse. We could totally fleece all those rich kings who have suddenly noticed they are not able to buy their way out of death anymore. I mean I can hide the pearls in a way that no one else can sense them if you are afraid of being fond out. Just think on it. Why are you risking your life when you can make a fortune and find some other crew of suckers to go plumb the depths for you. (croc sounds a bit nervous, you think he may be scared of Acererak and worried that whatever he has left in the fort might be more than he can deal with and not relishing the idea of becoming a trinket on some shelf again.)
======== Assault on the Family's Outpost ========
While watching the camp after about 2 hours of planning the group is readying an attack when the hut disappears for a moment. Lindal having already gotten into position throws a silence spell over the mages making it hard for them to cast any spells. Eddie goes first and throws a fireball into the camp toasting a majority of the guards and badly burning a couple magicians but also somehow managing to break the black Obelisk from which a Nafreshnee coalesces and starts to attack indiscriminately.
Having damaged the Obelisk a group of gargoyles launch themselves from the cliff and attempt to tear Eddie apart.
The Nalfeshnee at first did not consider the Kylorin and Freya a sufficient threat as it gleefully hacks into the soft bodies before it.
Celadon focuses on dispelling Matilda Zagmira's necklace between buffs and with a little help from Eddie manages to force the Aunt back into the pendant around her neck. The sister - surrounded by chaos and dieing family members on all sides runs into the nearest opening in the cliff and tries to use magic to get the hell away. But the cackling of a hag is soon evident from the same opening and Lindal dashes forward he sees a hag with a Bag over her head stuffing the etherial mage into a soul bag before disappearing.
Kylorin wades into battle against the demon throwing smites like they were beaded necklaces at a religious holiday. Freya takes a moment to drink deep from her stash of dark dwarven draughts and grows large and fierce before tearing into the Nafreshnee with her new magical sword dealing blow after gruesome blow. The Nalfeshnee is grabbed by Eddie in in a large crushing magical hand while the front line all take turns wailing on it. Crushed, Burned, and stabbed the Demon soon goes back into mist form and attempts to get back into the Obelisk but Eddie uses his magic hand spell to continue pulverizing it until the demon's binding can no longer sustain it and it disappears with a anguished wail.
The fighters put down the gargoyles harrying Eddie and an examination of the campsite turn up some scrolls as well as teh rubbings form the now destroyed Obelisk. The rubbings read thusly:
Fear the night when the forsaken one seizes
Death's mantle the seas dry up the dead rise and I,
Acererak the Eternal, reap the world of the living.
Those who dare enter take heed:
The enemies oppose.
One stands between them.
In darkness, it hides.
Don the mask or be seen.
Speak no truth to the doomed child.
The keys turn on the inside only.
After puzzling over the cryptic message a moment Eddie uses locate object to locate his sister via the pendant she was wearing and feels her presence roughly 100 feet straight down. Examining the entryway he detects a number of magical auras but one of them is clearly a variant of dimensional anchor that as far as he can tell puts others at the hag's mercy when they attempt to move ethereally. This is probably what happened to his sister as far as he can puzzle things out from the fact she was casting dimension door when the hags seized her.
======== Entryway to Tomb ========
A short tunnel ends at a slab of worked stone, whose edges are marked by relief carvings of grinning skulls. Four lines engraved at the center of the slab cross one another to form a star, with both ends of each line marking the location of a cube-shaped cavity cut into the door—eight cavities in all. The door is riddles with holes and the ceiling 15 feet from the door looks designed to shut access to the hall when the door is interacted with.
Inspiration
Eddie - for briefly seeing his sister in control of her own body. It was subtle but the mannerisms were hers and not Zagmira's. So you now know she is alive. Somewhere roughly 100 feet straight down from where you are standing.
Experience (challenge based) 3400 Individual => 48931 cumulative
Zagmira and camp of minions - 1400
Nalfeshnee - 2000
Allies
Seraph - now larger and paler and a bit more connected with Kylorin
Donaar - Dragonborn thug caught hiding in bushes after attack.
Treasure
Scrolls
Tiny hut x 2
Locate creature
2 Spellbooks
(No new spells)
Money
210 gold
140 silver
Pair of electrum skull earrings with tiny red rubies for eyes (25 gp)