Session Six

Kythorn 24th, The Year of the Crown, 1351 DR

Setting out from Dawnsrest with the morning light, the Worthy Blades began to track the kenku sneak across the settled fields and hedgerows of northern Cormyr. They briefly encountered the unfriendly farm folk who live in this hard scrabble land at the foot of the Stone Cliffs before moving on. Eventually, their quarry led them to the cliff face of the escarpment, and carrion signs of the kenku's territory were everywhere in the woodlands at the foot of the stone face.

A disturbance, a raucous flight of crows, drew the party's attention. Examination revealed a small host of vile kenku and ravens tormenting an exceptionally strange, large creature who seemed to be made entirely of rock. Both Elwrynn and Rohan identified it as a galeb duhr, a very rare type of earth elemental native to the Realms. Enraged by the kenku's treatment of the solitary creature, the party surged to attack, getting the drop on the bird men and swiftly wiping out both the kenku and their raven flights.

Briar Rose braved the rage of the bleeding galeb duhr to bestow Sune's healing touch upon him, earning his regard and thanks. He informed the party of the traps that awaited them if they scaled the cliff near the kenku's home nest, and instead opened a way through the very rock with powerful earth magic. He then spoke of another man who sometimes came with the kenku, a human who smelled of blood and magic. Puzzled but undaunted, the Worthy Blades entered a small, exposed cavern and climbed to the top of the plateau from within an abandoned well at an long neglected farm. From their new vantage, they found that they had bypassed the kenku encampment, spying a large stone hill breached by a black cave entrance. The whole hill was swarming with ravens and guarded by kenku sentries. Using both magic and subtlety, the party was able to annihilate the sentries before they could sound an alarm. Upon infiltrating the cave, they discovered that the dark structure was being used as a nursery for dozens of purple kenku eggs, and was also the shrine for their harpy leader. Sothiss, the harpy, was discovered in prayer to a vile altar of bone, stone, blood, and feathers. Briar Rose identified the symbol as that of Raa'kaa, a minor divinity of storms, carrion eaters, and divination. The natural cavern in which the kenku made their nursery here seemed to open up against an ancient elven tomb, sacred to Sehanine. The harpy seemed unsurprised to see the Blades, and spoke of her divinations revealing that this was to be the moment of her death. She seemed ready for death, but was determined to take as many of the party with as she could.

As the battle began, Rohan and Ka'mil surprised her by luring her flocks of hidden ravens into the room with a sudden toss of glittering gold and annihilating them with gouts of flame. Enraged by the loss of her "children", the twisted cleric summoned forth an enormous, fiendish raven to menace Elwrynn while the rest of the group surged to attack. A brutal battle ensued, and some of the party were nearly finished by the mighty strikes of her heavy mace, but ultimately, the harpy and her fell pet were vanquished.

A quick search of the dark chapel revealed the cache of the kenku's brigandage. A barrel of fragrant and exotic "death cheese", various cases and barrels of foodstuffs in various states of decomposition, a strong chest containing 3,000 golden lions worth of silver trade bars produced by the Three Stars Trading Coster based in Espar, and the personal effects of the harpy herself. While searching, though, Elwrynn discovered something else, a pale blue glow emanating from behind Sothiss' crude altar, in the wall of the elven tomb. Clearing away the stones, the Blades discovered that the blue glow outlined a mystical door in the stone wall, traced with elven symbols spelling out the name of the family interred within the crypt, House Vaeloth, a long extinct gold elven house and one of the lesser families within Clan Symbaern. The magic of the "kin-door" seemed to respond to Ka'mil, and with an effort of will through the Art, he activated the portal to the interior of the crypt.

Within the tomb of House Vaeloth, the party discovered a single room, ornately carved with scenes of the forested past of this now largely bare region of Cormyr. The room played host to six stone biers, upon which rested the eternal remains of elven warriors of long ago. All were covered in shrouds, but had long since rotted to dust and bones, except for one. It seemed the magic of her shroud had not faded, and so preserved her beauty for centuries, just as she was when she had died. Briar Rose's prayers to Sune revealed that there was a single undead in the room lingering about the preserved corpse, but that there was no sign of evil in the crypt. When Ka'mil spotted a Symbaern betrothal ring upon the finger of the gold elven woman, he disturbed the magic of the shroud in attempting to remove it, causing all of the warded years to finally consume the last body of House Vaeloth.

Horrified at the desecration of the sacred dead, Elwrynn, Briar Rose, and Mariam urged the party to leave the crypt before doing further damage. In sadness for the beauty lost, Briar Rose called out a consecration to Sune, to bless the dead in their rest. Sune's will manifested strongly, restoring the preservative magic of all of the shrouds and the pale beauty of the sleeping dead beneath. After Ka'mil withdrew from the crypt, the "kin-door" closed once again.

A brief debate ensued in the chapel, with the party torn as to how to address the kenku eggs remaining in the nursery. Elwrynn, Briar Rose, and Mariam packed them into the discarded barrels of food stuff, securing them with straw from their nests, and loaded down with both treasure and the kenku eggs, returned to the Lathanderite monastery of Dawnsrest.