Into the Shrine of Heironeous

Godsday the 18th of Planting, Common Year 589

The party woke early and continued their investigation of the valley. In short order a set of stairs was found carved into the hillside. Following the stairs, the adventurers came upon a plateau where sat two shrines next to a cloudy lake. The shrines were in disrepair and when the party entered the first of the two, they found it to be a defiled shrine to Heironeous. A search of the blood and feces covered shrine revealed holy writing on the base of the statue of Heironeous.

Naimi insisted that the party cleanse the shrine so the group went to the lake to get water. While filling their water skins, the group thought they heard something moving through the lake. Instead of investigating the noise, the party returned to the shrine and began to clean it. With Schmidt keeping watch, the party cleaned the blood, feces, and evil writing from the statue of Heironeous.

Things took a turn for the worse when Schmidt sounded the alarm. Someone was approaching the shrine! The party hid behind the base of the shadow and watched as a band of ten skeleton warriors entered the shrine. Before the skeletons could act, Sarison cast a web on them and the party methodically smashed the skeletal warriors to pieces.

Once the battle was finished, Rain and Naimi went to work on deciphering the meaning of the writings on the base of the statue. With a bit of effort the two were able to determine the phrase to utter to cause the statue to move and a stairway to a lower level was revealed. Naimi descended but was immediately injured by a glyph of warding. Rain and Sarison determined that there were two other glyphs in the shrine and steered clear of them.

The stairs ended in a study filled with religious tomes. Rain searched the room and found secret doors on the east, west and north walls. The rooms behind the secret doors were filled with more religious tomes, divine scrolls, holy symbols, twenty vials of holy water, an enchanted light mace, an enchanted chain formed from black metal, and five potions of cure light wounds. Taking what they needed, the party went back up the stairs and caused the statue to move back to its original position covering the secret entrance to the lower level of the shrine.