Varisia, Magnimar
With the letter from the Mayor of Sandpoint, we were able to travel to Magnimar to seek help from the clerics of Desna to raise or fallen comrade, Argus. They received the letter warmly and gave their assistance on the condition that we help them with a mystery. Several of their shrines were being desecrated within a two day’s travel of Magnimar. Two shrines were left within the area that were still untouched. They haven’t been able to find any leads due to the swampy terrain…and what luck! Here we are with a body of a dead skilled ranger. So they raised him, gave us provisions and off we went.
We investigated one of the desecrated shrines on the way to the closest intact shrine. From there we found there was a red-haired woman with a spear and a young boy who have been at the shrine thanks to Argus’ tracking ability. Continuing our way to the intact shrine, we planned to set up an ambush for the fiend desecrating them. Again with Argus’ help, we were able to camouflage ourselves with the surroundings and lie in wait. After awhile, it started to get eerily quiet and we saw movement in the clearing around the shrine and we sprung into action. This was a cleric with some implement in her hand and as we ran up to engage her, her lips were moving but there were no sounds, in fact I couldn’t hear our footsteps. After a few minutes Warren, Dorian and Argus were able to get some hits in but she withdrew and summoned an insect with a very long…tongue… and tried flying off. I ran to catch up and blew her out of the air but the bug got away. I was hoping to take her in for some questioning, but hearing the thud when she made contact with the earth told me that was going to be out of the question for us. We searched her and found her holy symbol of Glondar and a cracked stone. I recognized this stone had a significance and put it in a wayfinder. These stones point in the direction of the nearest stone of it’s same kind. This should lead us to the cultists behind this scheme.
Following the stone, we came across a shrine with one of Desna’s angels pinned to an alter. Surrounding her were several ghasts entranced in worship to Glondar. We were able to sneak up to them but the bugger from before was lying in wait for us this time. Dorian dodged the hit from it’s tongue but it had this aura where you were slowed if you couldn’t shake it off. It got Dorian and Warren on the first pass and by then the ghasts were aware of us and charged. Dorian got bit by the first one, but the guys were able to beat him down. Two more faced the same fate but the last one was able to bite Argus and it looked like he got infected. Warren moved up to channel to heal us and the angel and I was dancing with the damn bug. It was inevitable that he would eventually get me. I fumbled on my toss and missed bugger and it moved up and got a hold of me. I fumbled the last bomb, got myself AND started feeling the blood get sucked out of me. Argus was able to move up and finish it off but that was kind of a scary ordeal. Could not break that sucker’s hold. I think next time I might construct a concoction to help me out in those situations! Finally once it was down we were able to turn our attention to the angel…and that’s when it turned for the worst. There was this shockwave of sound and the angel started floating off the alter. We got a look at her, and she looked like she was tormented for several years! And then something was off in her eyes. The second I looked at her our gaze met and all of a sudden I felt my gear got heavier, I was breathing harder and I could feel my skin sagging. In that second, as I was being drained, I knew we couldn’t save her. I fired a shot at her, but nothing happened. I’m out of combat options so I slammed a cure extract and took out the cure wand to go and help Argus. The angel almost sent him back to Pharasma with a hit and the swarm she summoned, but Dorian got a shot in and Argus got a good hit before he went. Warren finished her off right as his bow turned back to normal from his spell. We collected ourselves and the angel and we headed back to Magnimar.
The clerics of Desna were greatful for our work and for bringing back one of their deity’s angels. They gave us free Restorations and helped Warren and Argus fight off diseases they caught while fighting with the ghouls and the bugger. It was definitely an experience, but next time…we’re just paying for the raise if we can afford it…