The party returns to Whitemountain Hall, aka Underkeep back through the blue magic portal. The ranger and cleric are both recovering from their injuries sustained from the zombie ogre. Their bites are oozing black necrotic fluid.
Neyvara and Aelor investigate what has taken the party so long and rejoin them in the dungeon near the magic portal, where they also found the stair trap leading down into the cell. They leave the injured companions behind and investigate the rest of the complex.
They find a room with a grell and magic sword suspended in a magic circle and continue on. In an adjacent rough mined corridor they find an owlbear and they beat the creature back to a retreat, but the thing screaches loadly attracting the other denizens of underkeep.
In a flooded chamber filled with mushrooms, they battle a horde of two dozen goblins, followed by a vicious hand of Bane. They have little time to catch their breath before two hell hounds and their hobgoblin masters find them as well. After the battle they hear a bell tolling in the distance.
The eventually find the bell upstairs and it appears to have been rung by something big which has now departed and the bell has slowed. They see a tapestry leading to the balcony rustling but when they cut down the curtain they see nothing outside. The adjacent room has a temple to Bane which they desecrate and loot, finding some magic items and gems concealed behind the altar.
The continue on into a crypt where they find a half dozen vampire spawn. The creatures are easily dispatched, but during the melee, the bugbear strangler that had been hanging from the bottom of the balcony in the bell chamber, sneaks up behind Stasi the artificer and begins choking her. Aelor runs to her aid but the bugbear uses Stasi as a shield and the elf strikes his friend instead. Stasi uses one of her lighting runes to repel the bugbear, breaking it's grasp and the party finishes it off along with the vampire spawn.
They pass through another series of corridors to find the throne room of the old dwarf keep. Sitting at the top of the dais is a foul bloated, half naked humanoid. They are unsure if she was once a hobgoblin or human but she is covered in blood, feasting on the fresh corpses she has dismembered with a large carving knife. She laughs wickedly at the party as they close to attack.
The thing flies toward them, hovering magically in the air. As they fight it they see that it's form is somehow illusory, and it spits a foul bloody breath attack that hypnotizes several members of the party until they are shaken awake by their friends. When bloodied the thing reveals itself as an oni night haunter, a terrible horned beast that had ruled the crazed goblin minions in Underkeep. The thing tries to take a gaseous form to slip out of the dungeon and away from the party, but their magical attacks destroy the thing and it evaporates under their blows.
The party finds among the treasure several wooden nickels for the Crazy Wolf tavern, presumed taken off others sent to Underkeep to clear the goblin raiders. The people of Whitehead celebrate the party's victory for a couple weeks, before they head north to Hammerfast to transfer the enchantments from the items they found to their own. In Hammerfast they spend several days shopping and drinking, until they are recruited into the milita along with all the other able-bodied folk in town who are idle and not otherwise employed.
Because they are outspoken, the party is taken aside. Once they verify their identities and hear of their heroism, Lord Ironfist, the head of the militia commands them to spearhead the militia's attack on the Iron Tower of Harkenwold and Nazin Redthorn's mercenary forces there. In Lord Ironfist's tent, Artemis steals all his important documents related to the militia's operations.
The party is equipped with special arrows that silence opponents and are sent off to commence their night raid on the secret entrance to the Iron Tower. Their primary objective is to open the main gate of the tower for the militia to attack. Their secondary objective is to free the Baron from the dungeon and to capture Nazin Redthorn, if possible.
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