Session 8 - Forgotten Ruins and Mystery

We speak to Lucinda about Alistan and she suggests we make our way out of Pentareach for the time being while she does some investigating into our claims about Alistan being the person responsible for us being kidnapped as well as his illegal fighting nights he holds which he told Malaphor about.
 
Walking back to the Lords Lavish tavern, I see a young Tiefling boy shouting out "Conflict in Murath, the dragonborn are at war, Kaladan calls for aid" and we pick up a newspaper.
 
In The Lords Lavish stable, our horse and cart aren't there. We go into the Lords Lavish and don't see Brada, but a Half-Elven man at the bar. He mentions Brada dipped in a hurry in the morning and won't be back for a few weeks. We demanded compensation for our missing horse and cart, which we were given 60 gold for after pressing the man.
 
I made my way to the Shining Thoroughfare with Austar and Malaphor and went to Mantlestar and bought a 300gold diamond for 180, under the circumstance that in the future we only go to Mantlestar for our needs in the future which we agreed to.
 
We then met up with Ape outside the city walls and made our way towards the Blacktop Pass and decided to camp out for the night with Raskin's new spell, Leomunds Tiny Hut. Before Raskin set up the hut, we noticed a farmhouse in the distance, by itself. We decided to rest for the night and check it out in the morning. In the morning, the farmhouse was no longer there but the grass was pressed down as if it was there.
 
We make our way to the Blacktop Pass and notice a small house, smaller and damaged. We approach and checking inside is 4 bodies, 3 human, an adult male and 2 children and 1 weird insectoid looking thing with a cats tail stitched to it.
 
We find a passage in between 2 of the mountains, and a very beautiful grove, but as we make our way up the pass, Malaphor and Raskin point out the lack of animal sounds in the bit of forest we just walked through.
 
At the top of this mountain, we found grass, trees, and 4 or 5 ruined buildings dug out of the mountain itself like a plateau.
The architecture of the buildings indicate they are hundreds of years old, there are also cave like paintings at the back but they're carved in. There is a sun like symbol carved in each of the buildings but it doesn't resemble a symbol of a god, it's close to the symbol of Pelor, but not quite.
 
Seems like multiple mountains of the Blacktop pass are holding up this plateau. As we round the left curve at the end, 200 feet or so ahead we see a sight to behold. Another small grove fanning out in front of us, greener, more trees and bushes. At the other end is a row of 4 or 5 semi circular fashioned stumps to an entry way. In the centre, a large 11 foot entryway, carved out of this Blacktop, much better crafted than the other buildings. 2 forms curled up sleeping at the entrance at the top of the steps. They look canine and have a creamy white colour to them.
Beneath their head, is a large red bulbous sac that rises and falls as they breathe, like a frog.
A sharp tendril like tongue, which comes out about 1 metre out as one of the creatures lifts its head up.
Strong long snout, snake like.
 
We managed to defeat the two beasts, as well as 2 snake like creatures that appeared out of no where and latched onto Ape. The two canine like creatures had very slight stitching on them to stitch the frog like sac on the neck.
 
Large chamber, with 2 statues of rams butting heads with each other.
On the other side of the dish, is a lever which Ape pulls, and a slight grating noise below Ape, part of the stone flooring moves back and reveals a long wooden box which had a very well crafted silver great-sword which Ape is now wielding.
 
The symbols and iconography indicates it is related to Karaka, a lesser god of giants, usually worshipped by Goliaths, another title for Karaka being The Ram Lord.
 
Common knowledge, Elves are not fans of Laelosia, due to it's rules over magic and due to Elves natural affinity to Magic they decided to move to Lasselanta, an island off the western coast of Sansura.
 
We head to the left passageway which leads us to a hallway with various rooms and at the end of the hallway is a stair case which spirals down. The stone changes and is more flagstone and cobbled compared to above. At the bottom we see 2 doors, the door on the right is ajar and a door ahead of us that is closed. The door ahead is blocked by crates with iron supports on the edge.
 
The room on the right has a long table with candles on it, and notes scattered everywhere within the room, as well as various body parts, bones and stained pools of blood.
 
The notes on the left table are in Elvish which Austar can read. Some of the notes look like journal entries and general notes.
Austar starts reading the notes out loud. The notes talk about finding a home, and hearing voices and then finding a "god" and details their experiments on various creatures.
 
We see a body in a side room, body is ice cold to touch, sunken eye socket and eyes rolled back, mouth aghast. Skin taught to the bone, as if it's life force was sucked out of him. Austar tried to speak to the corpse, but as he cast the spell, the body turned to ash.
 
I hear a shuffle in the room to the left, and we find a set of keys on the cloak left over from the corpse that turned to ash. Ape then opened the door to the left and a large humanoid goat form charged at Ape and attacked us.
We quickly killed it.
 
I find in a crate, a Magma Mace In the centre, slowly revolving giving off heat, is a ball of magma. It looks like a little sun.
 
Behind the door at the top by the hole in the wall, a purple worm like creature attached itself to Ape's face.