Wait. Is This Fucking Play About Us?

We continue our battle with the 2 statue-like creatures in the cave. We know that force damage and other physical types of damage do not seem to be that effective against the creatures. Using his maul and spirit shroud activated, the creatures call. Caulkin investigates their bodies, and we see inscriptions to Lliira made by Cadderly on the underside of their armor.

We move forward into the cave further and come across a set of bars, that look like they’re from a cell. Caulkin sneaks ahead and looks through, hearing breathing from beyond. Brylwynn uses dancing lights and we see two sleeping humanoid figures on the wall.

Brylwynn says “Hello” to the figures and tries to wake them up. The closer figure, a female, stirs awake. She says “who are you? What horrors have you come to do now?” and she backs away into the corner of the cell.

• She says that many things in the cave have claimed no harm, but lied. The woman looks beat to shit, very unwell, malnourished, but crass as she talks to us. She is suffering from several levels of exhaustion, and she is unable to do much.

Her companion on the ground still looks worse than she does. We give them Caulkin’s jerky and some water through the bars. Brylwynn asks who captured them here to which she replies the creature who owns this cave system. 

• After a brief debate, we vote to open the door to free them. As Caulkin unpicks the lock she says, “finally, freedom!” She limps forward and takes a sip of water. As she does, Glittr recognizers her as Iza. The male on the ground is a weak Venneak. 

• They were called to the cave by the Ki-Rin. Whatever creature is in this cave needs the blood of Lliira to get the magical maul. Iza states that they have been unable to free the magical maul from its resting place. She offers to help provide an incantation to restore the bridge that was previously a hologram. 

• Iza is at 4 levels of exhaustion and Venneak is at 5.

We walk across the bridge to go even further into an uncharted portion of the cave. We see a large room ahead of us. To the right, there is a large pedestal which goes up to another landing on a more circular platform. In the large room to the left, there is a large room that like a shrine and religious antechamber to Lliira. 

We take a brief short rest in the shrine room. After the short rest, Glittr feels the eye emerge from across the river. There is a sensation and ripple that Lliira’s magic protected the group from another attack from the floating eye. Iza teaches us the simple 2 sentence password to use the rune to teleport across the river. 

We get teleported across the river onto the platform in the middle of the river. We see a gigantic, stonewrought statue of Lliira. There is a light illuminating the area. The pink/purple square is a giant white marble sarcophagus and at the head of it is a shining maul, glowing in shimmering lights. The red line in the back represents a ridge, almost as if we are in a domed cathedral. We can’t see whatever lies upon the ledge as it is so far up.

In our heads we hear, “I will kill you all. Save the paladin who will wrench the maul for me. I sense one of you has already fallen victim and it will happen again.” Glittr feels an even stronger presence of Lliira, her magic and her presence. “I will rend your friends to ash and dust as you bow to my feet.” As we hear this, a creature floats over the ridge. 

• Calla gathers that its comment about someone falling, was about her village being attacked. 

We begin battling the Beholder. The battle is tough as she continues to hurl beams at us from her eyes, using a magical silencing cone, and wrapping us in invisible tendrils. With Lliira’s blessing, the group manages to evade several disintegration rays and other KO rays. As Pearl is turning to stone, Brylwynn is charmed and paralyzed, and the party is getting beaten down, RC uses lightning arrow and shoots the Beholder in the eye, killing it. Its body falls to the ground in a sizzle.

We regain our footing and brush ourselves off. We decide to take a look at the sarcophagus where the magical maul once lay at the head of. We look at the tomb and notice runes on the side of it, written in Celestial. It says:

• “Brave adventurer, if you carry the divine favor of Lliira, this maul is yours. May it scatter the darkness and your foes like it once did for me.”

Glittr’s eyes and mouth begin to glow with energy and the world seems to pause for a moment. Lliira appears before him at the foot of her shrine. She says, “G, at least! You’ve come such a long way since I met you in Baldur’s Gate.” She asks him to share with her some of his stories in which he carried her mission forward. “It is your devotion to the cause that drives you to these things.”

Long ago 

We all had a piece of the puzzle to seal him away. Kelemvor crafted a dagger, this is the only thing that can deliver the killing blow. Lliira created the Shadow Shards. We need to activate the shadow shards. Destroying them allows him to return to the plane at full strength. We must reactive them all to summon him back to this plane in a restrained state. The Raven Queen, she alone is a memory. To protect this magic, she is the only . She has two pieces of this. She has the magic to activate the shadow shard. We need to seek her favor to activate the shards. In her realm, we need to cast Haephastus’ soul to cast him away forever.

• She leaves him and the magic enters the Maul. He is already attuned to this maul. Rare item. Not at its full potential yet. “Channel your divinity when using it, it’ll grow stronger and stronger.” Magical +1 weapon. Restore your channel divinity once per long rest. Cast detect good and evil once per long rest.