Coldfinger

25 November, 595

Part II

After the battle and looting of the body, the group investigates some noises coming from upstairs. They encounter some bandits looting a large room. Baxtor asks them to surrendor, but curiously, they refuse. The 3 looters are drawn out and beset upon and killed.

At the end of another corridor, a large group of bandits are busy ransacking a trio of rooms. The party hides among the hallway and waits for them to come out. Two emerge, and Alastriel throws one of the fireball beads, burning the thugs and bursting the hallway into flames. A long battle ensues with the 8 bandits trapped between the a dead end and the Lords of Chaos waiting at the end of a fire-filled hallway.

Sonja gets impatient and crawls out the window and alongside the edge of the building, bursting into one of the bedrooms further down the hallway. Meanwhile, the rest of the group cuts down most of the invaders, but not before Alastriel is struck down. After the skirmish, Alastriel is revived. Trapped in a fire-filled room, Sonja and Kyladrian easily climb out the window and down two stories, but Baxtor is not so lucky, falling to the ground and knocking himself out.

Another healing potion later, Baxtor is back on his feet, and 4 members of the party plans on rushing into the building to check out the basement before the whole place burns down. In fact, there are 5 bandits found down here; 3 of them are hoving over the body of a headless corpse, whilst the other two are at the end of the far hallway, next to an iron-reinforced door. Sonja tosses one of Alastriel's fire beads into the room, while the wizardess runs back outside to bring in the other two of the party.

The reinforcements arrive too late to prevent Sonja from going down, but 3 of the enemies are eventually slain, and the remaining 2 give up. The door at the end of the hall is found to have a curious brown frost radiating an intense cold; in fact it has warped the door, and 3 additional bodies lay frozen on the floor in front of it. Salla gets the prisoners to break down the door with his axe, and they find inside a cold Shensen, the female drow who resides at the Lucky Monkey as caretaker of the shrine of Farlahngn. Shensen is happy to be rescued and reunited with her friend Alastriel, but is disturbed to hear that the inn is on fire. She notes that the fire can be a deadly combination with the brown mold she splashed on the door.

The group scoops up Sonja and the headless corpse (who is determined to be Sarcem, the high priest of St. Cuthbert), and leaves the building in a rush, stopping only to pick up the bags of loot left by Tongueater. They bring the prisoners out of the building and release them, (including the 2 naked ones tied up in the common room) then ride away on their horses toward Cauldron. As they leave, the 4 bandits are seen entering back into the complex. About 20 minutes later, they here a loud explosion from the direction of the inn. Presumably the fire had reached the basement.