Surging Vengeance

The party emerged from the Temple of Howling Hatred and traveled back up Knifepoint Gully toward the Sighing Valley and Feathergale Spire. Shining brightly against the early morning gloom, they noticed a great blaze atop the spire! The stars burned fiercely in the clear sky above. "There's mischief afoot at the tower!" LiKi exclaimed. "Oh shit," Kahntun barked out, assuming that the fire cultists had assaulted our heroes' newly-claimed stronghold. Suddenly, an intense rage and thirst for vengeance overwhelmed him. He glanced up at the moon as it dipped toward the rim of the surrounding valley wall. "If that genasi is responsible for this, by Selune, it will be his last mistake! Let's get up there . . . now!"

With that, each member of the party broke out into a sprint, headed for the foot of the rocky spire. LiKi hopped atop her summoned dire wolf, taking the lead as it leaped ahead. Once there, they climbed the rough stones of the tower's base, making their way to the stable on the bottom level. They rushed up the stairs to the grassy grotto on the pinnacle and quickly realized what was going on . . .

Our heroes seemed to have unceremoniously barged into some kind of aarakocra funeral service. Although the feathered warriors noticed the arrival of the party (they probably noticed their emergence from Knifepoint Gully far below in the Sighing Valley, so keen were their eyes), they did not halt their ritual.

Eight aarakocra floated in a circle around the pyre, beating their wings in slow, synchronized succession, sending powerful blasts of hot air toward the angry, erratic flames which belched black smoke, ash, and bone splinters swirling into the air.

What remained of the bodies of the dead members of the Feathergale Society fed the flames. LiKi fingered the winged ring upon her middle finger, remembering the haughty noble Thurl Morroska's and at the same time witnessing his remains and the remains of his underlings' return to the elements as a noxious mix of fire, smoke, and ash: swirling wisps of particles dancing before the deep blue of the early morning sky.

The aarakocra seemed to be cleansing the valley with a ritual or perhaps honoring the dead? It wasn't totally clear to our heroes what was going on. Although no friends to the Howling Hatred cultists, perhaps they felt respect for fellow warriors?

Strangely, Leopold could comprehend their auran chants. His understanding seemed to be channeled through his new spear, Windvane. He could tell that they were chanting repeated couplets which, in his mind, he translated into common as:

"Upon the air the spark of life is borne, yet it's a borrowed thing to us; just as the breath we take, we give it back, our matter is but nebulous."

So moved was Leopold by the simple truth of this repeated verse and his sudden comprehension of auran that he immediately began to strum a profoundly melancholy tune on his lute, adding a rich musical tapestry to accompany the aarakocra's chanting.

After the ritual ended, Khazatlan flew down to speak with Leopold, confiding to our bard that he had had a vision. Leopold would be the one to liberate their kidnapped elder Khazra from her subterranean torment. They urged him to fulfill this part of his destiny.

Shortly after this episode, LiKi received a message of sending. Suddenly Dreidoth's voice spoke in her mind. The druid, and fellow Emerald Enclave member, hailed our gnomish sorceress: "Greetings LiKi. Nettlebee Ranch safe, secure. A member of our order must speak with you soon; meet her at Rivergard Keep within the tenday."

And with that, the party said farewell to their aarakockra allies and set off east for their other new claimed stronghold along the Dessarin River.

Spell: Sending; A Message from Dreidoth

As our travelling adventures turned a bend and Rivergard Keep came into view, each of them could tell that something was terribly wrong. Besides there being no hearths emitting smoke, the place had an eerie, deathly-silence about it. When they came even closer, they could see that mud caked the walls of the great keep and the surrounding towers and walls. Apparently there had been a flood, or perhaps the river had angrily arisen to reclaim this piece of land. In any event, the place was a mess. The grounds were steeped in a marshy muck; the chain protecting the docking area had been ripped clean and lay at the bottom of the river just a few yards away from their sunken keelboat.

They approached cautiously, keeping an eye out for an ambush. But none came, even after they crossed the threshold of the broken portcullis and entered the castle yard. The only sound or movement came from a murder of crows staring intently down upon our heroes from atop the temple along the northern wall.

When Alexander opened the door to the central living chambers, a troupe of grisly jack-in-the-boxes rushed out at him. The room had been completely filled with water and as it surged through the open doorway, so too did thirteen bodies of drowned merchants and serving people, horrible, distorted masks of torment frozen upon their face. When the party moved away from the deceased, the crows rushed in to begin their much anticipated feast. Disgusted, Kahntun vowed vengeance for their lives. But who or what was capable of this kind of devastation?

Rivergard keep was in shambles. What's more, the party could not determine if Justran Daehl (the water cult spy from Red Larch who had tried to poison them) or the priest they met at Scarlet Moon Hall, Saruki, had been captured by their newly deceased allies.

Alexander noticed several ropes tied to the crenelations on the eastern wall looming over the river. When they investigated they discovered that each rope was attached at the ankles to a dead warrior in full armor. They had been lowered into the river to drown. A few of them were missing upper torsos. When hauled up, it appeared that they had been bitten in half by a very large shark, their entrails left dangling to feed the nibbling fish. Seven of these drowned warriors were Knights of Samular. Two of them were members of the Order of the Gauntlet, and as fate would have it, they were in possession of a correspondence addressed to Marcheons Kahntun and Alexander. But whatever the message said, these two kept their counsel to themselves.

LiKi meets a new contact.

As they were deciding what to do with the deceased (the ground was too mushy to bury them within the keep, the kindling too wet for a pyre), LiKi suddenly saw a cloud formation to the west spell out a message in the draconic language which only she among her friends could understand. "Reidoth sent me. Meet me at the treeline. Come alone." Although she was fairly certain that she would be safe, Leopold cast invisibility on himself and accompanied her.

The moment Liki entered the dark forest two hundred yards west of the castle gate, a new friend stepped out of the shadows.

Gnomish ranger and fellow Emerald Enclave Member, Jarsali Ethanaseth.

After a brief introduction, LiKi suggested they retreat behind the safety of the walls of Rivergard Keep, but Jarsali just stared off at the waterlogged castle and declined. Her wolf mount's ears rotated this way and that as it tracked each movement within the forest for what LiKi guessed to be a mile or so. It was obvious that these travelers were on edge; however, even though it was clear that the wolf was aware of Leopold's presence, he paid him no mind whatsoever. Here's what LiKi learned:

The Enclave was enlisting LiKi's help in a rescue mission. An Azer named Fuegron was known to have been kidnapped by the fire cult. They believed that he was being held and forced to craft powerful weapons deep within the Temple of Eternal Flame. Although she couldn't say why, Jarsali informed our sorceress that she should do what she can to free him as soon as possible. Thinking back to the intense battle she took part in inside Scarlet Moon Hall, LiKi thought she had a good idea where she could find an entrance to the temple.
LiKi and her party were then to escort the azer to Goldenfields, far in the south.
Something cataclysmic had occurred at Rivergard Keep.
Jarsali arrived four days ago and made a hidden camp in the forest. She kept a sharp eye on the goings on at Rivergard Keep. The Knights of Samular sent out regular patrols and captured two humans who approached the gates separately.
Then, two days ago, she witnessed a group of what looked like water cultists approach the portcullis which opened immediately without them having to knock . . . as if their arrival had been planned by a disguised interloper.
A group of mysteriously dressed cultists entered the castle yard and placed a large box on the ground, from which emerged a shimmering orb. These strange hooded figures then stood around the floating orb, chanting until a flash of brilliant blue light exploded into the sky.
They ran away, but as they were leaving, heavily-laden clouds appeared out of nowhere overhead. For the next twenty-four hours, the rain was relentless. It was more intense than anything Jarsali had witnessed in all her ranging on the wide lands of the north. Soon the river rose to assault the castle and its grounds.
Then, the strange party returned and slaughtered all the knights and their servants. The moved through the water like they had been born to it; it was a blood bath. According to Jarsali, the murderers never reemerged from the keep. LiKi knew that they could probably be found in the underground temple beneath the castle. This is where they would pursue these villains!

TL;DR

The party witnessed the arrakocran ceremoniously burning the bodies of the dead members of the Feathergale Society.
LiKi received a message that she was to go to Rivergard Keep to meet a fellow member of the Emerald Enclave.
Rivergard Keep was a mess, apparently having been severely flooded; what's more, everybody there was dead.
Kahntun and Alexander found a message on two dead members of the Order of the Gauntlet. It was addressed to them. They read it and consulted with one another.
LiKi's contact told them about a strange orb that was brought to Rivergard Keep by water cultists. The orb erupted, releasing the devastating energies of the flood.
LiKi was tasked with rescuing an Azer from imprisonment in the Temple of Eternal Flame beneath Scarlet Moon Hall.

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