A lot of things went down this week. I will sum up only what I KNOW people caught.. The party fought giant toads, plague zombies, electrical oozes, a horde of skeletons in a room full of flooded pits where Seldion barely rescued Arcas from certain death. As I said, busy session. (smaller parties move faster and kiddos were very well behaved for a change)
At the bottom of the temple of eternal flame the party faced down the power at the center of the corruption. It was an intelligent undead named Azmeer by Kassen's crypt. Azmeer had the Rolf's sister whom he had drained to regain some of his vitality. Azmeer it turns out was one Kassen's companion and later a rival. Round 1 of combat he cast unholy sword as his opening move then swung twice a round at 16 damage a hit. The party was in deep shit.
Seldion turned invisible and stole Azmeer's magical pendant which made the spells go down and Azmeer became a pushover. (Well he took >60 damage, raised multiple skeletons as a standard action, and could self heal, but the party managed despite all that.)
Seldion slipped the chain of power onto Qimae and she stopped dead and after a few minutes of internal battle said "No, I will not destroy you all" and looked shaken. Ariel said she could not take the chain safely, but then Kassen appeared and offered to help. But even he was only was able to take Azmeer's "burden" after taking his own chain which was broken during the tomb's desecration and bestowing each link as a one time boon to members of the party. (Kassen's boon - you can reroll a single roll once.) Only then after giving away his own chain could he take the other chain's burden without being corrupted by its power.
He said the chains had each held part of an artifact used to open a gate to another realm. That realm was used by an archmage (Tar-Baphon) who attempted to "bridge the gap to the powers of divinity". The Archmage failed and the attempt annihilated all creatues living within a week's journey of the portal. The attempt ripped a hole through reality into the negative energy plane.
Approximately 100 years ago Kassen and his allies (Azmeer, Iramine, Seldion) recovered part of the key to the sorcerer's private realm (Xin-Grafar) and managed to piece it back together over time but after Seldion died in the private realm the group retreated, spooked at the danger, and the realization at how powerful the Archmage had been and how badly he had failed despite his powers. Ariel said "the gap" has become ever more deadly over time and the world could easily be destroyed by another attempt.
Kassen then revealed that his last ally Iramine was behind the recent corruption of his tomb and that she may have assembled the key once again. The raiders were working for her but when Azmeer killed the supposed leader of the raiders another raider, Norgorber used a wall of blades to stop Azmeer then bargained as voice of the living god for the key fragments. Norgorber promised Azmeer godhood for his help taking Kassen's key fragment and then for staying to suppress Kassen while Norgorber returned to Iramine. (Worth noting Norgorber has reputation for working from shadows and using unwitting pawns to get what he wants.)
Ariel was extremely creeped out by the news. She had heard of this person before.
The party made it back to town and met with a man (Cyrul - man with tattoo on face from first session) who had information about the town where is the key is known to have been taken but outsiders are not allowed to enter. (He said the Living god's followers have incited racial violence between the Elvin leaders and human populace while laying blame on outsiders) The party set up a meeting next week to meet with the man. (He was on the run from the cult of the living God and would return after shaking his pursuers.)