Ellathane Cathedral, Part 3 (The Return of Andar)

As we all stood around and watched a monstrosity crawl in through the window, we prepared for the inevitable battle to come. Our expectations were soon met, but not right away. This Deformed Flesh of Mytar had some tricks up its sleeves to try and lure us over to the dark side. First through some manifestation of its body, as a peace offering, it returned to us a missing companion, Andar. Although we were all ecstatic about see our lost companion again, at first, we were unsure if this was real or a trick. It looked and sounded like Andar, but we were skeptical as to the validity of the situation. As it turned out, we eventually believed that what we were seeing was indeed the truth, it was Andar in the flesh.
 
Then the lies started. The Deformed Flesh of Mytar told us that all we had been taught and had learned about the deities was untrue. It told us that all of them were manipulative and the reason for all of the pain and suffering in the world. It said that converting to its side would stabilize and right all of the wrongs brought on the people by the false deities. Luckily, none of us were buying the falsehood that it was preaching. We did learn two major facts: 1). Mytar is the one responsible for the corruption that is invading Fabel. 2). The deities of Fabel are Mytars' children.
 
Its persuasions were strong. It offered Willow her family back that had perished when the corruption erupted. It offered Vater peace so that he could return to his family and live out his life surrounded by his wife and children. It offered Aura answers to the questions that she had about herself and her faith. Both Enna and Andar were offered the thing that they most wanted. Everyone refused and told it where it could stick its offers.
 
The inevitable fight commenced when we all refused its offers. We quickly found out that this thing was not a fiend of any kind which made some of our damage less effective that it could have been. During the early moments of the conflict, Enna's book started to glow once again. Somehow it had ended up on the floor and as Enna reached down to pick it up Aura tried to prevent her from grabbing it. I grabbed Aura's arm and prevented her preventing Enna. One of the missing pages reappeared glowing a soft golden color. Enna read the words which happened to be a powerful spell called Wrath of the First-Mother. This spell caused a beam of white-gold sunlight to shine down from the heavens and burn away the creature's outer shell of protection revealing the actual red flesh of the monstrosity. After that it was just a matter of dealing enough damage to kill it. At one point, two bizarre creatures emerged from the body of this monstrosity, but once it died, they died.
 
We all breathed a sigh of relief and decided to take a much needed rest to recuperate from our recent ordeals. We did search through the goo that the monstrosity turned into upon its demise and found three items of magic. I was bestowed with a pair of gauntlets, Gauntlets of Deliverance and a genuinely nice shield, Sir Varion’s Shield. There was also a small mechanical bee, a Clockwork Healerbee, that was bestowed to Willow. As we rested and contemplated our new items, there was a loud explosion-like sound that came from above us, the whole room shook, and some minor debris fell from the ceiling. I just assumed that the citadel had collapsed. We would soon learn that the disaster was far more than I had thought.
 
Upon leaving the grand hall, Aura and I were grateful to learn that the waterfall had once again returned to its pure state and did not harm anyone as we passed through it. The fountain out in the main chamber had also returned to its holy water state. We decided that going back up through the citadel would not be the best of ideas, so we instead exited the fountain chamber through the sewers. This way was just as smelly and disgusting as we had expected it to be. We did encounter some denizens of the sewers, some cave fishers, but they did not pose much of a threat and were soon dispatched.
 
Once out of the sewers, we were met with a sight that was both bewildering and unexpected. Most of Malletford had met with some type of disaster. It looked like the city suffered some type of major earthquake, meteor swarm or some type of giant entity had strode through smashing everything in its path. Buildings were smashed and collapsed all over the city. We even found a large trench about ten feet deep and twenty to thirty feet across that looked like a dry riverbed across part of the Trading District that destroyed most of the Ellathrane Cathedral. We decided to make our way to the stables to retrieve our horses and leave the city while we could. Along the way, those of us that could, help as many injured citizens as we could. We applied first aid and I discreetly used my paladin abilities where needed. For the more seriously injured we used magic, being as cautious as possible not to be seen using magic. Unfortunately for some of the more serious cases we could not be as discreet as we needed to be and some in the crowd saw what Willow was doing and turned on us even though all we were trying to do was help. When the situation started turning ugly, Willow transformed herself into a butterfly and flew away. That only seemed to enrage the mob more and Vater, in his usual asinine way, decided to antagonize the mob even further to the point where the mob was ready to attack. As it turned out, I was able to calm the crowd down enough for us to leave the situation without any bloodshed.
 
We made our way across the riverbed trench and to the stables only to find that it had collapsed. We assisted the stable hands to remove enough rubble to get to the horses that survived the ordeal. Unfortunately, not all of our horses survived. I was relieved to find my horse Sonny had survived along with Willow's horse and Vater's horse. This only presented a minor problem that was easily solved. Enna and Aura, the two lightest companions rode Willow's horse, I shared mine with Andar as Sonny was a large horse standing a full seventeen hands high, which left heavyweight Vater on his horse. We had also been able to salvage some saddles and tack from the ruins of the stable, enough to be able to get by for now.
 
As Willow had flown away earlier, she messaged me that she would wait for us at the sight where we had found the overturned wagon on our first outing from Malletford. The five of us on our three horses soon made our way to the site that Willow had indicated and joined up with her in her panther form.
 
Since we had all been on the go for more than twenty four hours, we decided to find a safe place in the woods to set up camp and take a much needed long rest. After eating a long awaited meal, we settled down for our rest, setting watches to guard against trouble. Enna had earlier in our ordeal expressed concerns about Aura, so I made sure that the two of them did not take the same shift on watch. As it turned out, Willow and Andar took first watch, Aura and I took second watch and Enna and Vater took last watch.
 
I must confess to being perplexed. We were told by the All-Mother, on her deathbed, that we would find Ellamendia, and Amare in the catacombs below the cathedral, but all we found was Ellamendia. All of our searching and investigation, we found no evidence at all of the staff. What we did accomplish was to find the book and to release Mytar into Fabel. Were we duped by the entity possessing the All-Mother, did someone else find the staff, or did me miss something in our searching? With the city in ruins and nowhere else that we can think to search, we decided to head north and follow the lead that Andar had started after we had found the All-Mother and the betrayal of Barbos. We are on our way to find the Ruins of Elendon, that ancient city fortress buried deep in the earth.