The Keep on the Mysterious Isle

16 Pharast, 537 EM
 
As we sail away from the isle more questions than answers swirl in my head. We knew the Cult of the Starseed had been there, but I did not expect to find such destruction, death, and pain.
 
It seemed like just about every creature, living or dead, seemed to be affected by the remnants of, or perhaps the act of creating, this 'Starseed', the wispy blue otherworldly substance that we keep finding in the wake of the cult. there was a cow and a halfling in the main fort that seemed to have been driven mad and either killed and kept animated, or at least had lost grasp on who or what they were. The fort above ground looked like a gruesome slaughter had taken place. Both the bodies and the building showed signs of blade and spell, all that remained of the inhabitants was blood stains and corpuses. We climbed the tower up to the beacon, finding more of the same until we reached the top. Here we found the arcane lighthouse beacon broken and pulsing its eldritch energies out into the room. I attempted to use a scroll of mending to repair the beacon to no avail. We spotted what appears to be a magical lute which shows faint signs of potential intelligence. I asked it for consent before we grabbed it and fled the beacon's presence.
 
Next we descended into the dungeon below the keep. initially we found what appeared to be a fairly standard armory, trade supplies, and a moldering larder. As we proceeded deeper into the complex the walls went from smooth to more rough worked stone. We came across a desecrated shrine to Erastil, I touched the broken idol and was overcome with a vision, that I can assume was sent to me from Erastil himself, of the horrors that took place here, and that gloom weighed over me for the many hours.
 
We proceeded deeper into the caves and found ourselves in what appeared to be a nursery. as we inspected the room a pair of animated corpuses emerged from the thickest of the Starseed's miasma. We managed to dispatch them in fairly short order. when we explored the room further we found a scrap of a note "Beyond the veil lies salvation." and a journal from the Cultists outlining their intention to "Take the precious cargo." I assume meaning the children as we have found no children among the dead. Mr Pea noted a branch of the Starseed appeared dead, near its base he found a glass bottle with sea salt crystals on its rim.
One of the passageways in the cave appeared to have suffered a cave in, and upon inspecting the rubble we thought we heard scratching, thinking that it could be a survivor we ran over to the rubble, only to be greeted by a pair of otherworldly beasts. Resembling paper skinned lions, with a blueish hue and... tentacles? As we dispatched the first two, we heard sounds of more digging through the rubble, feeling fairly exhausted from the days events so far, we deemed retreat as an appropriate action. Mr Pea grabbed me and carried me, much to my displeasure, back to the entry to the catacombs. We locked the gate behind us and withdrew to the ship to rest and gather our thoughts.
 
Some 10 hours later we ventured back into the catacombs. The beasts appeared to have withdrawn back to where they came from for the time being. Our first stop was the desecrated shrine of Erastil, where Mr Pea used his magics to restore the idol to its whole state, this releaved the affect that I had experienced from the day before, and restored my mood back to my normal self.
 
We next explored a passageway to the north. Here we found another room overrun with Starseed. The room appeared to have served as a makeshift hospital ward of some sort, cots and used supplies strewn about among the Starseed. While we took in the sight of the room more of the animated corpuses again emerged from the miasma and lunged to attack us. They took their pound of flesh, but we managed to put them down. We noticed what appeared to be an intact supply cabinet that had not been ransacked yet. As I approached the cabinet, it lunged at me! suddenly I was facing down what I had only ever read about, a Mimic! Quite fascinating, but also terrifying, the rows and rows of teeth and its large, glue covered, tongue lashed out at me. Just as it revealed its self, Mr Pea yelled something about being right back and just freakin' ran out of the room! How unusual. Mei and I laid attack after attack on this foul beast, it managed to get me in its glue once or twice, but I managed to twist away before it could really cause me great harm. Mr Pea re-emerged wielding, were they javelins?, he threw one, missed and tossed the rest and charged into the fray. We managed to put the beast down, working as a pretty well organized team.
 
Beyond this chamber we found a small clear pool of water, purified sea water seeping through the stone of the island. I went out on a limb, gathered a handful of the water and splashed it on the nearest Starseed. The water appeared to kill off the growth. I came back to my comrades drinking of the water and praising its seemingly magical affects. At first I was unsure if this was a good idea, but soon realized that everyone was doing it, so I might as well join in. I must admit that the water did seem to bolster my physical strength.
 
Next Mr Pea and Wei pointed out that we walked past a very ominous doorway and chamber yesterday near the nursery, so we returned there, I must admit that in my fog from the desecrated altar I must have missed it. We entered and the room appeared to be the den of a large spider, we cautiously entered the room, and were soon set upon by the very beast we feared. We fought with her for quite a while, and she caused me a grievous wound just before Mr Pea smashed the life out of her. Just as Mr Pea turned to offer me some healing magics, through the door came more of those unnatural feline beasts. Mr Pea threw a bolt of magic past them out the door and the floor burst alive with writhing grasping vines we fought off the first set of beasts and the remaining creatures began to trickle in fighting through the vines. Wei and I took turns firing shots at them as they appeared dispatching them one by one until they seemed to dwindle in number and stop all together.
 
We inspected the chamber in detail, identifying an ornate locked stone door that I was unable to pick, then a small chamber beneath a stone throne. Inside the chamber we found a handful of survivors of the attack on the keep. They thanked us for freeing them and pointed us to where the key for the door might be, but warned us that last they knew the leader of this group of cultists had gone through there and locked themselves inside, warning us that this would not be an easy fight.
 
We decided that we would return to the ship once more and gather our strength. We tasked our shipmates with keeping a watchful eye on the keep and alerting us of any change.
 
Another 10 hours passed and we returned to the catacombs, prepared as we could be to confront whomever or whatever was on the other side of the door.
 
We prepared as best as we could and opened the door. In the room we found 3, dark elves, threatening a poisoner. Next to them was a sinister looking portal, glowing with arcane energy, seemingly building in power by the second. They issued a threat demanding that we keep our distance or they would execute the poisoner. Mr Pea, bless his heart, stepped inside to get a better look, and this was taken as a sign that we would not be taking their bargain. The battle was fast and violent. Mr Pea took the first wound from their leader, a mighty wound it was, I managed to force her retreat with a gout of flames to her face. They attempted to conceal their locations with some supernatural darkness spells, which Mr Pea and I managed to counter with light of our own. Wei Was unleashing a few volleys of arrows before drawing her sword and rushing into battle. I managed to unleash a mighty snowball again directly into the leader's torso, causing her to rethink how threatened by us she was. Right following that I felt a grip of her magic constrain me, as the 'poisoner' charged me and nearly took my entire arm off with one swing, but still I could not free myself from the magical hold. Mr Pea and Wei had dispatched the remaining two dark creatures, I think Mr Pea was nearly removed from this plane himself at one point. Just when things were looking their darkest, a familiar voice echoed through the door to the chamber. It was Prax, coming down to see if he could lend a hand with whatever we were working on down here! He instinctively called out to Erastil, not knowing weather or not he would answer, and he did, a wave of positive energy washed over all of us, reviving our spirits, and bodies. that was enough to turn the tide, Wei lunged forward and dispatched their leader with a mighty stroke of her mighty sword, as she fell I felt her grip on me loosen and I mustered the most acidic ball that I could and flung it at the false poisoner smashing into her face and causing a boiling burning to flow over her face, as she jumped through the now fully charged portal. I briefly thought about following her and finishing the job but truly felt drained and ill prepared to face whatever could have been on the other side. Just before the portal closed, I grabbed one of the thunderstones we found in the cache earlier, and activated it and tossed it in, just to keep whomever could have been waiting on their toes.
 
From there out the rest of the day was relatively calm. We worked with our crew and the survivors to clear the keep of its remaining useful supplies onto our ship and set sail for Stanton's Bluff to resupply, trade, and seek additional crew.