Gygax & Greyhawk Session # 53- The Paladin and the Cultist

Skeef Hawkridge (Half Elf Druid 6/ Thief 6) 
Goro (Half Orc Cleric 5 / Fighter 6) 
Chanee (Human Paladin 3)
[Svagola (Human Fighter 4)]

Date/Time
Needfest 577 Earthday (midday) - Needfest 577 Earthday (afternoon)

The party returns to the main chamber containing the split alter stone. They find a new pair of lemure have emerge from the gash and pushed the stuffed tapestries aside. Skeef uses his cloak to change self into the form of a cultist, thinking he might control the devils. But no luck and the party slays them instead. They go looking for other clues and ways to deal with the alter. Passing through the rest of the long gallery with the horrific paintings, they encounter more lemures. In the process of killing these, Goro look too closely at the paintings and is forced to run off into the unexplored darkness in fear. The rest of the party follows, and after finding Goro they backtrack to figure out where they are, and then continue on with their exploration. 

After a series of mundane rooms, they come to one suite of rooms with a quartet of cultists cowering behind barricades. In the ensuing melee and spell slinging, three are dispatched to Moloch and the last, the one in charge, is captured. Questioning is at first ineffective, until Chanee gives the captured cultist a hug and replaces threats with comfort and understanding. This confuses the captive, who becomes more cooperative. They learn little however, except that they have probably already dispatched about half the cultists but the leaders are still extent. Most interesting is that the lemures are not being summoned at the cults behest or control. 

After looting the remaining rooms in the suite (including an iron box that Skeef cannot open and the captive cultist is forced to carry), the party passes through another horrifically illustrated long gallery.  Off of this they find two more suites of more opulent rooms. Access to each is barred by a locked portcullis. The first Skeef in unable to open, and the party is driven off by the spell slinging cultists within. The second the druid/thief is able to unlock. Beyond the party finds a dark chapel with an alter and idol of Moloch. There they battle another trio of cultists and slay them without mercy. The room beyond is a vestry with a chair, armoire and a strange sigel on the floor. Skeef opens the armoire, finding a trio of fine velvet cultist robes and a lurking lemure which must be dispatched. In the armoire's locked drawer the thief finds nothing. But about that sigel ...