Many weeks have passed since the party's last major mission when Helena calls them in for an urgent briefing. The surveillance operations
on the Black Dogs have been highly successful and after many months of carefully watching and following
the right people the location of the headquarters of
Those With The Black Hand has been discovered. It would appear they
are based at a concealed temple in the far north east of Miredor near Fal Carth. A team from the agency has been monitoring the temple
for a few weeks in preparation for an infiltration team to enter the building searching for information on the cults sympathisers in Miredor.
Sadly one of the surveiilance team (despite instruction not to do anything too risky) has entered the complex and not returned. The party are to rescue their colleague, an Autognome called Zetafor, and also steal the required information.
During a previous mission the agency had the rock gnomes of the
Yellow Mountains build a small (non-sentient) construct who was a duplicate of the Autognome.
The party take the construct with them and make use of the agency's new teleportation circle network to travel to Fal Carth and rendezvous with the surveillance team
at their magically concealed base overlooking the temple's main entrance. They learn that the situation has been somewhat complicated by
a temple patrol kidnapping a rock gnome who they think may have something to do with their Autognome prisoner or at least be able to
help in his interrogation. After some discussions the party work out
a plan to enter (and exit) the temple invisibily during the changing of the temple guard which occurs every six hours.
Disappointingly Helena has informed the party that it would be useful if the temple priests did not discover they had been raided
as the authorities would actually like to arrest many of the cults sympathisers before they are warned they have been compromised. Even
more disappointingly for the party they manage to do precisely that, sneaking in and out of the temple having found the location of the
gnome and Zetafor on an initial scouting mission. Zetafor usefully has a photograhic memory which means than none of the documents have to
be stolen or laboriously copied in any other way. The party return to
Ostelor but the surveillance team is left in place in case firther action against the temple is required.
A few weeks later with the bulk of potential arrests completed Helena gives the go ahead for a further raid on the temple this time
with a target of killing or capturing the senior leaders of the cult. The party had discovered previously that the cultists use magic drums
to induce a trance-like state in the junior members of the cult so that they are forced to meditate for an hour every day. They decide that
this would be the best time to attack the temple. The guards outside the temple are not close enough to the drums to be affected and
some of them are 'enhanced' individuals but the party sneak up on them and prevail. The inner double doors of the temple are huge and forged of iron so require two of the party to open each door. As they do this they can see the high priest at the altar over the heads of his
meditating congregation at least 160' away. The party have a plan to reach him within seconds though and No Name sweeps in on her griffon
to deposit Horatio near enough to be able to attack the priest before he has a chance to react.
The problem for No Name is that she is not used to being on the party's front line and is not as robust as Horatio. As Horatio hacks
at the priest other clerics and magic users join the fight from the first floor balcony and Fireballs and Flamestikes are
soon raining down on the party. The party respond with tentacle attacks and Silence spells but soon No Name is unconscious and fighting for her life. Beorhtric lays a Mass Suggestion on the congregation advising them to leave the temple which even those who resisted the
spell can see would be a good idea. While the party work out how to reach the targets on the balcony they heal No Name. Circe decides to
release Grimalkin (who rarely leaves her side) to join the fray upstairs. As the party engage the remaining high level magic users, however,
the elite 'enhanced' orcs of the temple turn up to defend them.
To the naked eye it might have looked like the party were outnumbered and in danger of defeat at one time but that would have been before you realise that all
the owls, cats and tentacles milling around are also fighting for our heroes. Slowly the magic users are neutralised and the orcs although tough prove unable to take on the party without magical support. The remaining inhabitants of the temple are rounded up without too much trouble and the party strip the temple of its valuables to compensate them for their trouble.
Much is discovered about the temple from
its documents and the interrogation of the prisoners taken to give the rulers of Miredor pause for thought.