Chapter 9 - Trials of the Order

The party enters a large cavern, passable via a long narrow stair. At the other end of the cavern, Brother Savra attempts to blow up the stairs sealing off access to the Abbey’s secrets forever. Savra is foiled by Kilgorin’s magic, and the hysterical monk throws himself off the stair’s edge and into the darkness. Searching his belongings, the party finds more writings and excerpts torn from the Temple’s secret library, including the Book of Keys and a description of the creature Savra suspected is behind the Abbey’s descent into madness: the flesh beard (or Illithid).

Exiting the cavern, the party discovers the Trials of the Order, a series of rooms designed to keep intruders out, protecting the secrets that lie deep beneath the Abbey. The first trial requires the party to unlock the original Foesong, a powerful protective charm created by the Order to repel the effects of the artefact.

The second trial, Bahamut’s Flame, forces the party to disable a fire-breathing apparatus in order to open the next chamber. On the steps of this chamber, the party finds a dying Drow blademistress, badly burned, and the one that had pursued them to Fallcrest. She curses their efforts with her final, dying breath, leaving the party with the cold realization that the Drow have been working to halt the evil in the Abbey, which has taken root in Aryanne.

  The third and final trial, The Oaths, consists of a large mechanical paladin, guarding entrance to the caverns below. The party, unable to recite the ancient Oaths of the Order, is forced to engage in battle with the oversized construct. The construct, slow and heavily armoured, wields a large black morning star engraved with the initials V.C. (one of the Justiciar’s of the old Order). Following a brutal exchange of blows, Zatch, renewed in vigor, runs his broadsword through the construct’s furnace, destroying it in an explosion of fire and metal.