"Oh my what have you found?" as Tanrov ditches his earthbreaker for the shiny cold iron Earthbreaker.. "Thankyou mistress."
With your knowledge religion check, you recognize that there are traces of worship of Sarenrae here, from before it was desecrated. It might be a nice gesture to tidy the place back up to please her.
Everyone lacking a magic weapon will be able to find one they desire in the pile (+1 cold iron), the remainder can be used to upgrade the paladin army (no you can't sell them, as I'm providing better than is in the module so people have nice toys).
Xandarian finds a beautiful +1 cold iron rapier, raises it above his head in an heroic fashion and shouts, "Ah-HA!"
"I recognise traces of the worship of Sarenrae here, it is desecrated now though, it would probably do us well to clean this place up a bit, as Sarenraes influence here could only be a good thing."
Tanrov starts moving big stuff out of the way into figuring out a better way to clean the area
Uelarik finds a +1 cold iron dagger. He helps to clean the area.
"I recognise traces of the worship of Sarenrae here, it is desecrated now though, it would probably do us well to clean this place up a bit, as Sarenraes influence here could only be a good thing."
"Indeed", agrees Xandarian, "especially the way you all blow through a day's worth of heal spells in a couple rooms. I could use all the help I can get!!"
The cleric quickly begins to help tidy the formerly-holy site.
After you take the time to clean up the mess, and dispel the desecrate (you have time) Kevin's scimitar goes to +2.
Kevin praises Sarenrae as the work finishes and raises his sword, "I will put this to good use cleansing the Worldwound of demons like we have cleansed this temple."
"Amen", agrees Xandarian.
Nothing more here to do, so you head back to the army and move on closer to your goal.
As the PCs and their army draw within 3 miles of Drezen, one final obstacle stands in their way. The Ahari gorge ahead is filled what appears to be a seething, filthy green cloud of pale vapor, but as the PCs approach, it becomes immediately obvious that this “cloud” is in fact a mass of dozens and dozens of swarming Abyssal vermin— ravenous creatures known as vescavors. These creatures are dangerous indeed, more so to an army of paladins with no real way to damage them, for the swarms are immune to weapon damage and aren’t slowed by armor. Marching the army into the swarms is certain death.
Knowledge planes would be helpful here.
Xandarian explains a few excellent points about the swarms and Tanrov tries to complete the various bits of knowledge with his own.
Xandar manages to remember some parts of his training as a priest which didn't involve inebriation.
He realizes the swarm before the PCs is unusually large, which implies the presence of a vescavor queen nearby. These large monsters typically lie at the heart of an underground complex, where they spend months repeatedly spawning ravenous swarms before exiting the caves to hunt and seek a new lair. When a vescavor queen is deep in her spawning, the surrounding area becomes inundated with the swarms, as the PCs are witnessing now. If the queen can be found and slain, the swarms will quickly dissipate, allowing the army to move onward toward Drezen.
"We need to find the queen. Let's see if we can sneak past the swarm."
"Can we not go around?" Questions the cleric.
Owing to the nature of the railroad plot you are riding, no.
You can take a day to swap out spells for the mission though.
I will officially remove the paladin's sword from my inventory now. I guess we only got one weapon, am I right?
"I'm all for killing bugs, anybody know how to find a queen?"
"Look for a big hole in the ground I am guessing?"
Molitor recasts Mythic Barkskin on himself.
"We may be able to find the queen by looking for the thickest spots of vesicors. I would think that they would be most numerous nearest to her either that or a big hole in the ground." Kevin adds.
"Lets go look then and see if we can find the underground lair that the queen inhabits."
Tanrov will move forward and try and scout it out
Look for a cave.
"We may have to scout the perimeter of the swarm if we can't see a cave complex from here."
You watch the swarm for a while.
it becomes obvious that clouds of the ravenous creatures constantly swarm in and out of several large holes spread throughout the riverbed. The closest of these holes on the eastern side of the swarm to the PCs lies about 80 feet from the swarm cloud’s edge. The hole itself is a 5-foot-diameter opening that drops 40 feet down.
Uelarik points to the hole. ”The queen is in that hole. Move quickly before the swarm shifts.”
He follows the others to the hole.
"Anyone got a rope?" Molitor asks.
Tanrov pulls out his 50ft silk rope and grapple and hands it to Molitor
Molitor anchors the rope and looks down in the hole for danger.
(+2 for traps)
The hole seems to be clear for the moment. There's apparently a gap between swarms.
Molitor mutagens up, slings his shiny new cold iron greataxe across his back, and climbs down the rope.
The climb is quite easy as it is a rope against a wall. You make it of course.
Climb DC is 5, so unless you break under 0, you can't fail enough to drop. (everyone needs to do a climb check if they have a negative climb score, if not, we can assume you just make it)
Map is up. Place yourselves where you want.
Warm air fills this crystalline cavern, pulled through a vent in the ceiling twenty feet overhead. A continuous, high-pitched noise issues from the three tunnels ahead, a disconcerting drone melded with the discordant buzz of an angry crowd. The walls, floor, and ceiling of this cave glisten with moisture and are caked with a thick red resin resembling dried mucus, giving the chamber the disturbing illusion of being the interior of some great beast’s body.
Kevin grabs the rope and begins his descent and makes it to the bottom without incident.
Xan managed to lose hold of the rope and fall to the bottom of the cavern floor.
Molitor dodges.
Ok now that everyone is assembled, you pick the creaky Xan up from the floor.
I will let you do some healing before you go on if you want, otherwise we meander over to the next encounter.
(you are on a different day than your last excursion)
Quietly Xandarian curses, "Can't believe I got to waste a blessing on myself so soon into this s#!+hole adventure!"
You wonder through the caverns in search of the queen and walk into a larger cavern. Within you see 3 swarms of the bugs.
Order:
Marcus
Xan
Swarms
Rest
Go.
Xandarian touches his holy symbol under his armor and casts protection from outsiders (demon) on himself.