Day 57 & 58 Caves of Chaos, Chaotic leader destroyed

Cast of Characters:  Quint as DM, Emily as BreAnna, Tais and Harimad, Scott as Glade

Day 57

Wake up and head over to the tavern for breakfast.  The day is overcast as the party heads back to the caves.  They arrive at the caves without incident.  Their is still a foreboding feeling in the air.  The party heads to the entrance to Cave 9 looking forward to some adventuring.

Harimad casts light on her staff and BreAnna casts light on Tais' walking staff.  They proceed down the hall to the previously unexplored passage sloping down to the west.  They head down the slope to where the passage splits heading north and south.  The party heads south towards what appears to be a room.  The room is rather large with four pillars the reach towards a high, domed ceiling.  The floor is a mosiac of black and red stones.  The south wall has an evil looking tapestry with an altar in front of it.  On the altar is a bowl, two goblets, and a vase-shaped pitcher.  Glade casts Phantasmal Force sending an illusion of himself to walk up to the altar.  His alter ego approaches without incident.  Frederick and BreAnna approach the altar without incident.  The rest of the party cautiously enters the room as well.  The contents of the altar are loathsome and covered in blood.  They are also extremely ornate and obviously valuable.  No one in the party wants to physically touch them.  Harimad, standing guard in the door, decides to cast detect magic.  The altar glows slightly and the items on the altar glow brightly.  Glade takes 4 sacks from Harimad.  He puts one sack inside of the another and puts the other two on his hands.  He uses the sacks to scoop up the objects on the altar.  Glade gets hit with a spell that causes him to not want to do anything to get rid of the objects.  He is slowly succumbing to an evil spell.  The clerics notice something is amiss and start to confer amongst themselves.  Glade starts casting a spell and suddenly a wight comes out of the wall.  The clerics quickly cast Hold Person on Glade and the wight disappears just as Legolas fires a magic missile at it.  The party casts Lighten Load on Glade and pushed him onto a sack.  They quickly dragged him back to the keep casting Hold Person on Glade the whole way.  They go directly to the temple where Priestly was able, with the help of the clerics, to get rid of the spell on Glade.  He recounts that he was under the control of an evil force that was causing him to protect the artifacts at all costs.  Priestly destroys the artifacts leaving nothing but worthless slag left.  The party rests and recuperates the rest of the day.

Day 58

Zachary, the bailiff of the fortress, comes and congratulates the party during breakfast and thanks them for all of their work.  He tells them that they won't have any taxes or official fees while they are in the Keep.

The day is overcast again.  The party travels without event to the Caves again.  They head back to the altar room.  They pull down the tapestry and search the room for secret doors.  They don't find anything.  They decide to head north down the unexplored hallway.  The party sees two doors on the right hand side of the hallway.  They approach the first door and don't hear anything when they listen.  They go down to the second door and hear nothing there as well.  They go back to the first and tie a rope to it and open it.  They enter what appear to be living quarters.  They find a bookshelf full of instructional tomes on evil.  They take the books and scrolls back to the tapestry and dump them there.  They also find some fine plates and silverware that appears to be of value.  They decide to leave it and pick it up on the way out.

The go down the passageway and are confronted with a large group of beings streaming out of a doorway.  Glade casts sleep with no affect on the villians.  As they approach, the party sees that they are facing skeletons and undead.  BreAnna and Cassius cast heat metal on the armor of 4 of the skeletons.  They attack BreAnna and Cassius, but miss.  Round two starts with Tais casting Magic Missile at a group of figures that has appeared all the way down the hall hitting one but not enough.  Glade attempts sleep again on the new figures that have appeared.  Four of them fall asleep.  Harimand and Frederick casts Turn Undead and causes  a large group to flee.  Suddenly the hall becomes much quieter as two Silence spells go off.  One centered on the party and one on the group of figures at the end of the hall.  Part of the party retreats down the hall to be able to cast spells.  Glade casts Phantasmal Force causing a wall of fire to spring up between the party and the undead, but it has no affect on them as they are immune to it.  The rest of the party engages in melee combat in eerie silence cutting down several of the undead.  Combat continues with the undead attacking.  Glade throws an flask of oil destroying one zombie and injuring another.  More undead go down to Magic Missiles and melee attacks.  Meanwhile, the humans down the hall have been using this time to wake the other sleeping humans.  The human leader is blinded by Harimand with a light spell but manages to draw his mace anyway.  The four other humans are put to sleep.  The evil leader is hit with two magic missiles just as he swallows a potion causing him to disappear into mist, but he still has a glowing sphere attached to his head.  The sphere rushes towards the party and finishes movement in the midst of the party members.  It's hit by Legolas with a Magic Missile and falls to the ground.  The party continues to mop up the remaining undead creatures while Glade continues to stomp on the mist and hit it with his quarterstaff.  They dispatch the sleeping humans and gather around the glowing mist.  They spend some time healing and seeing what happens to the mist.

The mist condenses after about an hour to the form of a human in black raiment with a red robe underneath. Determining him to be the leader, he is slain, his head cut off, and his robes and other equipment procured. Several items are detected as magical, including his armor, amulets on both him and the other clerics, and his staff. The written material from the living quarters and the vile tapestry are burned upon the unholy altar.

The group returns to the keep and is congratulated by both the keep guards and also by Priestly. He proclaims that the holy quest is finished, with the leader (which he determines from his robes) vanquished. Both Frederick and Cassius state that they will now return to service at the temple. The group inventories equipment. The plate mail and shield are identified as being both +1; the staff is a clerical weapon called a snake staff, with the command word of "Slitherus"; this staff will encompass a hit victim and hold them fast. The amulets, being evil, are given to Priestly to destroy. He has identified the items and given the party a large gold bonus for completing the quest.