March 23, 118
As the fight continues, most of the party members notice that someone else has arrived on the scene. Quietly approaching the site of the battle is a White Elf woman, wearing scale armor and carrying a spear and a bow (although neither is at the ready). The party are unsure if she is friend or foe, or even where she came from, so they decide to wait to see what she does.
They keep fighting, and they finally manage to down one of the creatures. The leader's claws drop Kaplan as well, but Calanon keeps him conscious with healing magic. Finally, the newcomer steps in and acts. Producing a holy symbol, she holds it forward and Turns Undead, driving the remaining creatures, the leader included, away.
As the four creatures flee the holy light, the woman shouts, in Elvish, for the party to flee before they wake the dragon, and points to a cleft in the wall behind her. Ellyanna relays her command to the rest of the party and they run to where she pointed. The cleft turns out to contain a narrow passageway that wasn't visible from their the entrance to the room.
The mysterious elf joins the party and takes the lead as they flee down the passageway, trying to escape before the effects of the Turn Undead power wear off. The passageway contains many branches, and they soon find themselves in a maze of twisty passages, all alike. But the woman seems to know where she's going, and after about five minutes, they arrive at their destination.
That destination turns out to be a worked-stone room, which one of the icy passages suddenly runs into. The room is about thirty feet square and contains a single exit, and it seems to radiate a tangible aura of peacefulness and safety. It seems that, at some prior time, someone forced their way through the room. The single door has been smashed in from outside of the room, and the wall across from it has been smashed down, creating the opening through which they entered.
Explaining that they're safe here, the woman stops the party and they catch their breath and introduce themselves. The woman is named Feyrith, and she is a priestess of Soloneth, who Ellyanna knows is the patron god of the White Elves, although she doesn't know much about him. Once she realizes that many of them don't speak Elvish, Feyrith switches to Common, and explains that this room is consecrated so the undead should not be able to follow them. She doesn't know who blessed the room, or when, or why.
The party explain their situation to Feyrith, and she returns the favor by explaining what's happening with the White Elves. About two months ago, King Ferelon, the dragon, summoned all of the clan chiefs to speak with him. While Feyrith doesn't know exactly what they discussed, she does know that they were commanded to tighten their patrols to prevent any outsiders from passing through White Elf territory, and told that the black-cloaked figures should be treated as Ferelon's emissaries, and all orders from them should be obeyed as if they were from Ferelon himself.
Since the only real change for the average person was increased patrols along the borders of White Elf territory, none of the common people were very worried about this turn of events, but it seems that Ferelon has also been quietly summoning small numbers of White Elves, priests of Soloneth in particular, to his lair, all of whom have not been seen again. Feyrith believes that, for some reason, he is attempting to quietly destroy the priesthood.
Feyrith herself was summoned, along with a few other elves, about a week ago, and thrown into Ferelon's lair, just like the party was. She was also attacked by the undead, but was able to Turn Undead and escape, along with a few of her companions. They found their way to this place of safety.
The area that they're in is an underground complex of some sort, but Feyrith knows the exit is near, as sunlight is visible at the far end of a long nearby passage. The problem is, the area around that exit is occupied by a clan of bugbears and goblins, who are evidently using it as a lair. The other surviving White Elves are not combatants, and Feyrith cannot fight her way through on her own.
Thus, the reason why Feyrith was nearby when the party was attacked is because she was waiting for some capable fighters to be sent to Ferelon, so that she could rescue them and enlist their aid. That's exactly what she's done with the party, and she asks if they're willing to help her. Since going through bugbears and goblins seems like an easier time than going through undead and a dragon, the party agree.
Feyrith takes them out of the blessed room, explaining that her companions are hiding in a secret area nearby. They've been surviving by stealing food from the bugbears whenever they get the chance. When they step out of consecrated room, they find themselves stepping into the exact opposite. The next room radiates a palpable aura of evil and death, and as they look around they realize that they're in a shrine that's extremely similar to the one they found below Frosthaven.
Feyrith hurries them through the room. Although there are several visible exits, she takes them to the far corner of the room, past the bloodstained altar, where she slides open a secret panel and leads the group through.
Beyond the secret panel is a short passage and two rooms, with a second secret panel at the far end of the passage. The rooms are occupied by the four other White Elves. They move to one room, leaving the other for the party to use. Feyrith heals them with her divine magic and they decide to rest for the night before dealing with the bugbears.
March 24, 118
The next morning, everyone has recovered, and in particular, Kaplan and Calanon, who were struck by the life-draining claws of the undead creature in Ferelon's lair, feel back up to normal. They regroup with the White Elves and begin planning how they'll get past the bugbears.
The elves describe the layout of the area to them. The second exit of the secret area (that is, the one that the party didn't enter through) leads to a passage which, after passing by a few unoccupied rooms, leads to the room where the bugbears store their food. It's usually guarded by three of the creatures, with the rest of them and their goblin slaves living a bit further down the passage.
The party decide that they'll start by getting the drop on the three bugbears in the food storage room, hopefully taking them out before they have the chance to call for help. They send Ash-Daughter ahead to scout, and she heads to the room's door and listens at it. When she returns, she confirms that the coast is clear, and that there are definitely multiple creatures in the room, although she didn't understand the language they were speaking.
Since they'll need to carry a light source, they decide the best strategy is to break down the door and blitz the room as quickly as possible, so the bugbears won't have a chance to see the light shine under the door. Feyrith goes with them in order to help, but the other elves are non-combatants and stay behind.
Arriving at the room, they smash open the door and attack the bugbears, who are caught completely off guard. As Feyrith told them, there are three of the creatures. Unfortunately, they aren't able to kill any of them before they regain their composure and start fighting back. More importantly, they also start shouting for help.
Eventually they are able to kill two of the three creatures, but the third bugbear tenaciously won't go down, and continues calling for help. Realizing that reinforcements are almost definitely on their way, the party begin repositioning themselves into the hallway, so that they aren't trapped in the room when those reinforcements inevitably arrive.
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