- Half-way through the group's long rest the altar starts glowing faintly
- Theophania makes breakfast which is oatmeal made on a tiny oil burner with dried fruit and brown sugar and then dried beef sticks
- Then Tiff packs away all her things in her Bag of Holding
- They then discuss order of operations
- Theophania goes up and ritually casts Identify through her goggle on the tendrils, which starts growing over her finger and hand a few minutes into the casting time
- The tendrils were created by a necromantic ritual, and it's taking some kind of magical energy from the alter and diffusing it out into the world
- Tiff's finger and hand look like they had started to decay, but only a skin deep hurt. Her hand still functions okay
- Osiris casts Dispel Magic on the abjuration aura protecting the altar and the aura disappears with a small pop
- She tosses a small pebble and it hits the altar
- Now that the protection spell is gone, Theophania casts Detect Magic as ritual through her goggles and there is an aura of conjuration and necromantic magic on the altar whereas the tendrils just have necromantic energies
- With the additional information, Osiris casts Dispel Magic again, this time at the altar focusing on the conjuration element of its magic, which vanishes with a puff of air
- Tiff can see that the energy is no longer flowing through the tendrils
- Osiris casts Dispel Magic on the altar again this time, but it doesn't work this time
- She tries again this time with small, but more directed energy, and the glow gets dimmer and smaller until it collapses in on itself and then explodes outward in a wave of necromantic energy
- Osiris starts beating on the altar with her warhammer and the top cracks
- Rusty gets out his portable ram and tries to hit the altar, but he can't get a good angle on it because it's so low, so he takes Tiff's tiny Light Hammer, and managed to break a chunk of one of the corners off
- Osiris then hands Rusty her warhammer and he manages to break it in half pretty quickly
- Under the altar is a skull with a weird darkness in its eyes and mouth
- Osiris notes that the skull is not undead
- Theophania identifies (with an arcana check not the spell) that it is a magic source where magic from another plane of existence, like the Shadowfell maybe since it's obviously necromantic magics
- Osiris tries poking the skull with her hammer, but the skull doesn't move and the darkness starts to creep up the haft of her hammer
- Tiff casts Magic weapon on the hammer and Osiris swings it down on the skull, which explodes leaving a pool of inky darkness that starts creeping across the room
- Everyone backs up to avoid the blackness touching them and Osiris casts Moonbeam and it cancels out the blackness where it's touching it, but it's like sopping up water pooling under a gushing pipe that's still gushing
- The pool of blackness stops expanding when it's about 30' across
- There is a narrow walk-way around the edge of the room, but not much more left
- Osiris asks Tiff for a jar, so Tiff pulls like five sample jars from her BoH
- Osiris takes one and scoops up a sample of the inkiness, but it whips out and withers her hands pretty badly
- Rusty slashes the darkness with his greatsword and there are ripples through the "pool" and when he pulls the sword out the ichor sticks to the metal and the seems to disappear into it
- They are quickly running out of ideas and options, but they don't want to leave the pool of darkness unattended.
- Leaving only half party to guard would just get them killed, so they take the sample Osiris collected and a chunk of the altar which she convinces Tiff to put in the bag of holding
- They make their way back to the city level as quickly as possible and it's now around midnight
- Osiris takes a deep breath of what she thinks should be her first breath of fresh air in over 24 hours, but she smells the stench of decay
- Lyrielle hears a groan and then a disturbing giggle from the same direction that Osiris smells death
- Osiris starts walking that direction and sees two halfling-sized figures run past, but they don't look right
- They turn to look at Osiris and they are clearly undead
- She looks around and she sees several more in addition to those two
- She returns to the group and they convince her to send a message to someone (Rowan Amblecrown) at the Temple to meet them here while they kill the undead roaming the streets "Emergency. please come to the Curlywhit Boarding house immediately. Undead everywhere. Open necromantic portal underground. We need backup and more clerics. Help. Please."
- She receives the response, "Many neighborhoods overrun with undead. We are holding the temple. City guard doing its best to protect people. Do what you can; survive until morning."
- Osiris immediately orders everyone to fall back to the Boarding House, picks up Tiff, and starts running
- 2,000 XP ea for 36,290 XP total ea.
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