Reversing their path, they circle into a room inhabited by a wight who tries his best to kill the party, but to no avail. A series of doors lead to a pair of dwarven structures and more doors, but these seem more likely to open into a prismatic wall. About the face!
Investigating the stairs further, they encounter an ambush, where a skeletal figure with a cane bolts lightning down the crowded stairs. This threat is also quickly neutralized, and any items worth looting are swiftly looted.
With some trails yet to be explored, the group regroups in front of some large double doors sealed in a safe-like manner. A plan is made to use two long ropes to make a hole, and Fingers and Digin head down the hallway to find a trap and prepare the area.
At this point, a pair of unlucky Delvers Guild members stumble upon the party and ask to join them, considering the rest of their comrades are dead. The Paladin examines them and declares them free from the taint of evil. This is obviously a lie, and when Veiga questions them about their loyalty, the two transform, one into a flesh golem and the other into a driver, and begin attacking.
The golem takes aim at Veiga, and the drider sprays a noxious mist on the group of characters, followed by a cloud-kill spell that kills a Lothian cleric, a representative of the Inverted Pyramid, and a strong armed woman. Saar, Kegdrain, and Sniffles all run to the stairs to climb onto the catwalk to avoid the deadly vapors. Digin and Fingers see a wall of greenish steam closing in on them and have to curse their fate within seconds.
The battle continues, with Veiga fleeing from the advancing cloud with Golem in pursuit. Sadly, the path of retreat ends up taking him away from the rest of the group, who are doing their best to defeat the spell-throwing spider. As the deadly smoke expands, the group loses altitude and realizes that Baiga is no longer nearby.
When Kegdrain summons a floating saucer, the dead are loaded onto it and they set off in search of Bayuga. They found his nine-fingered corpse spread out in a hallway of many statues, illuminated by a wall of shimmering prisms. This requires a few minutes of load readjustment, but before long the group hastily leaves the Bainwallens. They only have to make contact with the Lothians guarding the approaches to the location, load the living and dead onto their wagons, and make the journey across half the city.
Reaching the temple is a bit difficult, but the paladin vouches for the party's innocence regarding the scout's death. There is some bad blood between Lothian and almost every other religion, but the evil tech demonic cult brings even more detriment to the Lothian people. Still, a duty is a duty, and the legally good thing to do is to ignore heresy and reward behavior.
This means that the Raise Dead scroll will arrive at the party. Veiga is recalled from Technohell and the group spends several days cataloging the loot and considering next steps. Inverted Pyramid wants them to go to the Demiplane, hunt down the Pactlord, and retrieve some of the artifacts that will destroy the Key of Banewarren that the party has. The Lothian Church wants them to use their vault-opening powers to open the vault and find the Sword of Truth, which is believed to be hidden and incorrectly labeled as the Sword of Lies.
It adds more information to the party's knowledge that the locals may not have thought of because “everyone knows it.” The collection's sinister history gives the group an opportunity to ponder a third path, one that leads further into House Banewarren.
