The Secrets of Howling Hatred

The Adventurers returned to the now sumptuously decorated prisoner holding area.  The priests had prepared the room in anticipation of someone they called Yan C Bin. The party rested here for a long time, waking to find the priests in the corner, murmuring in an intense but quiet debate. Desenya gestured towards Sorin, wanting to draw him away from the priests.  They shuffled to the nearest corner of the room and she revealed she was part of a delegation from Mirabar on their way to Summit Hall to lay to rest a fallen hero.  After seeing him and the party fight the air elemental, she now felt the party could be trusted.  

Desenya explained that the delegation had been attacked by a different cult called Black Earth, with most of the delegation killed and a few taken prisoner.  Later the cultists form Black Earth were attacked by members of the air cult who called themselves Howling Hatred.  She asked if Sorin and his friends would help her find the survivors of the delegation and rescue them.  If they did she expected that the party would be greatly rewarded and welcomed as great heroes in Mirabar.  Sorin conferred with his companions and they agreed to help.  

The party noticed a new prisoner, leaning against one of the walls.  He introduced himself as Balderpoor but was unsure how he ended up in the caves.  The priests explained that he was another prisoner ready to be sacrificed as part of the ritual.  The priests also spoke of a book which held the secrets of their cult.  Aerisi had kept it in the dwarven tombs in the upper level but the priests guarding it had been killed by unknown creatures.  The tombs had been sealed off leaving the book inside.  They felt the book might help them to understand what had gone wrong with the last ritual and help them perform it correctly to summon Yan C Bin and the cleansing power of elemental air.

Skonn now wielded Windvane and after the long rest felt he understood the weapon more.  The priests bowed down to him, seeing him as the true and mighty heir to the air; disowning Jarlier as a false prophet.  Skonn commanded the priests to lead them to the tombs and a priest called Sieg showed them the way.  The party set off with Skonn, Sorin, Arnogall, Balderpoor and Desenya alert and ready for action but the rest of the party seemed distant and detached.

Sieg led them back through the caves, up a shaft, through stairs made of the skeleton of a long dead purple worm and back into the dwarven city.  Sorin found five ballonpacks, that Sieg explained could levitate the wearer for 10 minutes.  He told them that the tombs were up ahead across the plaza but Skonn demanded that Sieg take them right to the tombs.  He obeyed leading them to the sealed doors which Skonn forced open with brute force. 

Inside the party could see pairs of red eyes amongst the darkness.  Ghouls attacked the party, swarming Skonn who was paralysed.  Balderpoor threw fire whilst Sorin and Arnogall rained down arrows and the ghouls were easily dealt with.  Arnogall looted the room taking 13 statues that had been left as offerings to the dead.  Skonn read the book learning that Windvane contained a piece of Yan C Bin, the prince of elemental air.  If enough sacrifices were made under the Air Portal using Windvane, Yan C Bin would be able to enter the material plane through the portal.  Throwing Windvane into the portal would close it.  Also the book described another ritual, performed at the portal using Windvane, that would create an item of great power.  It was not clear what that item was.

Skonn then turned to the priest and stabbed him with Windvane. A battle ensued but before the priest was killed he managed to knock Sorin off the cliff edge into the chasm below.  Luckily, Sorin still wore his cloak of feather fall and suffered no harm.  He used one of the backpacks to levitate and simply walked up the face of the cliff, returning to the party finding Skonn had burnt the book.

In the stillness of the gloomy tomb the party contemplated their next move.