March 1, 118
A few hours pass as the party wait for Severn to assemble his team. The party rest up during this time, and Calanon heads out and buys some supplies before returning.
Eventually, in the early evening, Severn's agents arrive. They are three women, who appear to be a rogue, a wizard, and a paladin or cleric. After confirming the situation with the party, they waste no time in moving forward into the portal. The party follows behind them.
The group makes their way through the rooms that were previously cleared by the party. In the room where they fought the cat-like creatures, the agents stop to take a closer look at them, and Ellyanna joins them. On closer inspection, she realizes that she does recognize the creatures; they are magically-created monsters known as "displacer beasts".
As the three agents approach the final door to the room where Therian is imprisoned, the party hang back safely behind them. The wizard casts a levitation spell on the rogue, who opens the door. The party don't have a good line of sight and can only barely see into the room. They see the rogue levitate up to the ceiling and push herself off, while the cleric hefts her shield and takes up a defensive position in front of the wizard.
A minute or two passes in silence, with the party unable to see what's happening inside the room. Suddenly, the silence is broken by a monstrous roar, and a shout from the rogue for everyone to run. The other two agents begin backing off, and Elvish and Ash-Daughter make a run for it. Ellyanna stays in the room but backs off to the wall, while Dark Star and Calanon move forward to cover the agents' escape.
The rogue comes into view as she propels herself by pushing along the ceiling. A man, presumably Therian, is hanging onto her waist. A monstrous, insectoid creature (later identified by Ellyanna as an ankheg, a type of burrowing beast) leaps towards the pair, spitting a spray of acid towards them, but it only narrowly clips them. When they reach the door, the rogue pushes herself and Therian through, and everyone retreats down the hallway. The ankheg is too large to fit through the doorway and, after a futile attempt to hit them with another acid spray, it is forced to give up the chase.
Everyone retreats back another room before catching their breath, assessing the situation, and quickly letting Therian know what's going on. The decide to leave the ankhegs be and exit the demiplane with Therian.
Once they're out, Severn's agents leave Therian with the party and head off to retrieve the Prelate himself. Severn arrives a few minutes later and dismisses the three women, then turns to the party in order to discuss their next steps.
Although Therian has been rescued, Severn feels that Sahril should not announce her candidacy immediately. He thinks that they should wait until they have the Arch-Prelate's murderer in hand and make both announcements together, in order for them to have the strongest effect. However, they don't know how long it will be until Zorlac has finished erasing the clone's memories, so they don't know how long they'll need to wait. As Gorith will likely be growing desperate, he doesn't want to wait more than a few days.
Eventually, they decide that the party will check up on Zorlac's progress the next day, and they'll decide the best course of action based on what the wizard says. If Kaplan will be ready soon, they'll go ahead with Severn's plan, but if it will take too long, they'll need to come up with something else.
Since they're worried that they might be in danger from Gorith, Severn offers to let the party rest for the night within the Cathedral under his protection. They take him up on this offer.
March 2, 118
The next morning, as the party is eating and preparing for the day, they are approached by Malecar, who wants to leave now that Therian is free. The party agree to keep their end of the bargain and let him go, but Calanon demands to escort him to the gate so they know he's really leaving. Malecar agrees to this. Ellyanna decides to come along as well, to see if she can learn anything from the wizard, and Ash-Daughter also accompanies them, since her knowledge of the city's streets will help them move faster.
While everyone else is escorting Malecar, Dark Star heads to the Salty Locust, the inn where they told their contact in Duskveil to bring the enchanted bed and the remains of the undead from Frosthaven - they are expected to arrive today. Finally, Elvish heads to Zorlac's tower to get an update from him.
At Zorlac's tower, Elvish learns that Zorlac is making progress, but probably won't be done for at least 3 or 4 days. When he returns to update Severn on the situation, the Prelate is not happy with this, and feels that they can't wait this long. He wants to retrieve the murderer and make his move earlier than that. Elvish convinces him to at least wait until the next day, hoping that they can come up with a way to deal with, or at least delay, Gorith while Zorlac is finishing his work.
While Calanon, Ellyanna, and Ash-Daughter are escorting Malecar to the city gates, Ellyanna strikes up a conversation with him, asking about Corsica, the librarian who they encountered earlier. Specifically, she wants to know how they might be able to break Zorlac's control over her. Malecar replies that this type of magic isn't his specialty, and she'd be best off speaking with an enchanter. Unfortunately, he doesn't know any in the city personally.
When they get to the outskirts of the city, Malecar buys a horse from a nearby stable for the journey. Ellyanna, hoping to patch up his relationship with the party a bit, pays a large part of the price and sends him on his way. Afterwards, she lets Calanon go ahead to meet with Dark Star, but stays behind to ask about local enchanters along with Ash-Daughter.
Back at the Salty Locust, Dark Star sees a wagon arrive and goes out to investigate. It is indeed the party from Duskveil, lead by Ellesera, the Elven captain of the watch who they rescued earlier at Frosthaven. They've brought the bed as promised, as well as several chests full of undead body parts, gathered from in and around Frosthaven.
Dark Star asks Ellesera if there have been any further undead sightings or other unusual occurences, and she tells him that there has been a string of murders in the usually-peaceful village, all young women. No one has been able to learn anything of the culprit. Dark Star is immediately suspicious of the two suvivors who they brought back from Frosthaven, but Ellesera tells him that one of the murders was committed while they were both locked in custody, so it could not have been them.
Calanon and Elvish eventually arrive, and they decide what to do next. Hoping they can use the demiplane to transport the undead and the bed, they open it up and step through. Something seems to have changed - the walls are shimmering and wavering, whereas before they were perfectly solid. They decide to store the extra chests inside, but leave the bed and one chest outside of the demiplane, is case it somehow fails or collapses.
Needing a non-suspicious way to transport the bed through the Outer City, they hit upon the idea of converting it into a palanquin and carrying it through with someone riding it. They attach wooden carrying beams for this purpose. While they're working on this, Ellyanna and Ash-Daughter return. They've found the name and location of a local enchanter, but have decided to look into after dealing with more immediate issues.
With Elvish riding the palanquin, the party make their way through the Outer City until they get to the gate. Ash-Daughter gets them past the gate using Undercity tunnels that she used to use as a smuggler, and they continue into the New City. Eventually, they arrive at the same Undercity entrance where they found the necromancer Leravith, and head back down to meet her again.
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