Plain Of Cysts

The single illuminated door at the other end of the web-filled chamber is opened, and the group enters a smaller chamber decorated with small tin bird cages hanging from chains of various heights throughout the room. At the other end of the chamber, next to a door, is a bird-like humanoid standing up inside a circle of silver dust.

The creature begs the party to release it from its prison, the ring of silver dust. It explains it fell to the Abyss with the chunk of Celestia. It was placed in this room ages ago by Ardimachus shortly after the fall, for what purpose it does not know. The party decides to sleep on the decision and leaves the creature trapped in the small circle of dust. After a long rest, they attempt to test if the creature can read the books they found in the library above, and are satisfied enough with the result to push aside a small amount of dust setting the creature free. With mixed emotions of shock, fear, and glee, the creature flees from the party and its prison.

Continuing on, the party enters a chamber split by a raised platform on one half where a iron lantern sits. Splitting the room in half are floating red sigils. Employing a "mage hand", Modisto grabs the lantern from the other end of the room, and brings it to himself. After a bit of experimenting, Morgan picks up the lantern by the metal rod attached to it with a chain, and a beam of light leaps out and points to the door out of the chamber. Following it, they party is led back out to the guardian of the test who claims they have passed the Test of Judgment and the lantern will take them to the next test.

Up the stairs and out of the cathedral they find that the beam of light points past the cathedral and through more of the celestial rubble. A discussion is had in regards to discarding Kara'fen, much to his annoyance, but in the end he stays and the group finds themselves leaning on him as their guide on the journey again. They party rests in the cathedral before departing and while they remain unmolested, Salla and Chul share a cryptic vision during their sleep.

Travelling once again, Kara'fen leads the party through the landscape, avoiding several obstacles and making good travel time. They travel for five days, and on the fifth day they arrive at the Plain of Cysts. The plain is covered with hundreds of large (man-sized and bigger) cyst-like protrusions from the ground itself. Kara'fen explains that a large host of Celestia fell here and died. Occipitus wants to absorb their dead bodies, and each cyst is home to a dead Celestian, a grave of sorts while Occipitus attempts to deal with the foreign food it wants to consume.

The lantern begins to point in odd directions, the beam of light turning a full 90 degrees in seemingly random directions as they follow it through the plain. Stopping at a cyst that Modisto has detected magical auras inside of, the lamp flashes brightly and half the party finds themselves back outside of the plain. The transported half catches up with the other and they continue through the plain, this time intent on not stopping and not disturbing the cysts.

As they slowly twist and turn their way through the plain following the noncommittal light, they wander too close to a pack of large winged drakes with unfortunate venomous stingers. The drakes flock to the party, and while Morgan continues moving with the lamp, the rest deal with the drakes. In the end, the only complication is a paralyzed Snake, which Chul picks up and carries with him as the group continues to follow Morgan and the lamp.

More disorderly traversing leads them past a cyst where they can see a brightly colored snake inside, and, by chance, a twitch of life! Salla and Tercival check it out while everyone else follows their beaming guide. They easily cut open the cyst, its film-like exterior parted with a stroke of a blade, and find buried inside the jelly-like goo, a large snake with rainbow feathered wings. Several cuts and bruises cover its body, and as they wipe the goo away the wounds begin to seep blood. Salla and Tercival ply their trades as best they can, dumping all of their various prayers of healing upon the creature. It awakens with a sudden reaction of confusion and hostility. They manage to soothe the creature's concerns and after explaining to it where it is and how it got there, the creature follows them while discussing the questions of its new home.

While Salla keeps busy talking with the serpent's voice in his head, Jonl hears a woman giving orders several cysts away from the moving group. Modisto and himself investigate, to find a woman and three men having just torn open a cyst, ripping the head off of its occupant, a dead angelic creature. As they watch the grave robbers, the lamp turns direction again and begins leading the rest of the group directly toward the desecrated site. Jonl decides to start things off with a bang and tosses the rest of the golden orbs on the necklace they found at the woman and men, engulfing them in fire. The burned men each drink a vial, disappearing from sight, while the woman begins to make prayers to her god, which Modisto recognizes as prayers to Wee Jas.

Snake is given the ability to see invisible objects, but it doesnt help Chul who gets ambushed by two invisible assailants. While Snake takes care of the third, the rest of the group quickly takes down the two on Chul, the intense burning they suffered has left them severely weakened. Meanwhile, Jonl attempts to attack the woman from behind, but she turns the tables and uses magic to hold Jonl in place. A flying Modisto shoots missiles of arcane energy at her, and she retaliates by attempting to dispel the spell keeping him aloft, luckily she fails and Modisto avoids a gory fall. By this time, Snake has made his way to the priestess and his swords quickly determine her fate.

Quickly looting the bodies, and picking up the corpse of the woman, they continue following the lamp. Without any warning, the lamp flashes again and the entire group finds themselves in a clearing in the middle of a thick forest of bone. Standing on the edge of the clearing is another armored and wrapped walking corpse which congratulates the party on passing the Test of Resolve and directs them to follow the lamp to the next test.