On the way out the barrow, we were confronted by another adventuring group of 9 people with slings, insinuating we were wounded and had treasure to steal. Bancroft gave them the demanded 5 gold and urged us to listen to wisdom. Seacrock and I reluctantly threw 5 gold each down in the dirt, both vowing if we saw them again, we’d murder them. Riyou refused, and got a mess of slingshots aimed at her. She went down unconscious, Bancroft picked her up, and we left, me growling while I memorized their faces.
Once back in the inn, we split the money. I stuck a pinky in the potion and licked it, and they said my pupils dilated. Every noise reverberated for a bit after that. I couldn’t figure out what any of that meant. In the morning, I drew the knight of swords, reversed – overconfidence causing chaos. Riyou wanted to talk to us in private, so we took a walk in the rain. She told us she used to be a Nergal cultist, and the tablet she read had the history of her cult, and it was very bad. She wanted our help to destroy the cult. Bancroft enthusiastically agreed, since he already had a mission from god.
Bancroft put out a call for henchmen. While we were waiting, I went with Seacrock to visit Mazzah to ask about the potion, but he didn’t even poke his head out. I went to wait with Bancroft and Riyou. A St. Ygg priest, a mage, some torchbearers and a couple fighters. The priest had no tongue. Like one of the henchmen we had last time. I wonder who is taking all these people’s tongues. Bancroft hired a torchbearer and the Ygg priest. It was a miserable walk in the storm, even with our cloaks. Bancroft said his god wanted us to go down the ropes of the main entrance. We all made it down, but the priest fell and was injured, then was racist and refused Sylvanus’ healing from Bancroft.
Riyou heard whispering from the north corridor, so we went that way. Bancroft went in a little room to check a skeleton, and a giant spider dropped down. I hit it, but shadows rushed in and snuffed both lanterns out. In the dark, I heard Bancroft yell as he got bit, then he went still. I lit a torch and handed it to the torchbearer. The spider spun a web and pulled Bancroft to the ceiling. We started taking shots at it. It got aggravated and dropped back down long enough to bite and kill the priest. Seacrock cast magic missile and killed the spider. We were trying to figure out how to get Bancroft off the ceiling without killing him in the fall, when the door to the west room opened. Oh look, we found the guy Bancroft was here to kill. And the guy recognized Riyou.
She tried to talk to him, unobtrusively shutting the door to the room we were in. I heard muffled talking, then a thump. I positioned myself under Bancroft, with the dead body under as backup cushion, and waited for Seacrock to cast magic missile on the web. I caught him. I used Ert’s dagger to cut the web from around Bancroft. Seacrock grabbed the torch, and without listening at the door first, went right out despite the bad guy. I reluctantly left paralyzed Bancroft and went to find Seacrock, who said he found the bad guy down the hall dragging Riyou away. We ran after him, trying to catch up to save Riyou.