The party escaped to the foothills surrounding the village. After finding a safe spot close enough to observe the day time activity, the party managed to take a long rest. Afterwards they evaded a patrol while circumnavigating the village to arrive by nightfall at the Shrine of Mitra.
The party decided that the shrine deserved a closer inspection. Old Cornelius seemed to be a true Mitra worshipper and the acolytes around him very suspicious way back in their first encounter with them. The party looked for any potential ways back into the dungeon and quickly discovered a tile that was hiding a trap door. I did my best to emphasize it was a trap door, but alas þordis was hasty and opened it without checking for traps. Stone ornaments rigged to collapse when the trapdoor opened came crashing down on her. She failed her reflex save and took the full brunt of the impact. Since Rolland has a running DNR rule for his characters, she quickly bled out and joined the Knaves 3 in the ever-expanding thief graveyard of this campaign.
The party was then surrounded by the four dodgy acolytes who did turn out to be quite nefarious. One held Old Cornelius hostage, a dagger to his throat. So with no time to mourn their fallen comrade (or properly loot her body), the party was thrown into combat once more.
Rolland took the role of Poundfoolish, and just to add insult to injury, he rolled a fumble. The fumble result, alas, was a broken weapon. In this case, it was the named short bow Eyefinder. Fortunately, it’s not magical and can be repaired, which is more than can be said for poor þordis.
But in spite of that fumble, the acolytes proved to be ill-equipped to deal with the party. Nicklas cast Sleep and sent Old Cornelius to a magical slumber. While his captor succeeded in his save, this did mean he was now stuck holding his captive up. Stacia paralyzed another acolyte. And Calvert teed the head off of the other two, while also entangling his shield in his armor with another fumble. But the acolytes were slain, and Old Cornelius, awoken by a kiss by aspiring Prince Charming Nicklas, was rescued.
Old Cornelius (or Old Cock if yer nasty) thanked the party, calling Stacia “Child of Mitra.” He gave her a magic ring he had to help aid the party. When she put on the ring she was greeted by a telepathic voice in her head who seemed very happy to meet her. My delivery reminded David of Brian Blessed, which I am happy to lean into.
The spirit bound to the ring is a Lion of Mitra named George, Prince of the High Peaks and Champion of the Faith. And George is overjoyed to bring the fight to the Set worshipper!
The party then cleared the rubble and bits of þordis that covered the trap door and descended into a chamber. Within the chamber was a sense of holiness. And before them was a human male on his knees, clad in golden plate armor. His eyes sealed in meditation, a few mechanical clicking sounds and distant whirring as he breathed. He held a silver longsword across his legs and a lion-adorned shield at his side. And that’s where we called it.
