Starter Set, Maglubiyet Sends His Regards, Session 6 Part 2

(Cragmaw Castle Altar Room)

Stealthily, the rogue Durial enters the room, finding the peeled corpse of the grick and a toppled still-lit brazier.  A small golden statue rests in the hot coals, which he carefully wraps in cloth and quickly places in his satchel.

Hearing several goblin voices in the next room, the party readies an ambush.  In a rush, they run into the back room of the temple, finding 3 goblins wearing over-sized masks standing over an altar draped in blood-soaked cloth.  In mere seconds, they slaughtered the goblins before an alarm could be raised.

Lana, the dragonborn sorcerer, sets about reclaiming this lost altar of Oghma, the god of knowledge, drumming and chanting while kneeling in front of the stone.  The sounds of her drum are met by an ethereal beat from an unknown source, and smoke begins to pour from the goblin corpses. The 2 goblin allies of the party, Fleek and Droop, exit the room, proclaiming that they have angered the evil god Maglubiyet.

The largest mask, worn by what was assumed to be the priest goblin, rises on its own, floating several feet off the floor.  The goblin corpses all rise, twisting joints unnaturally, and climb up the walls like broken spiders.  As the mask begins to chant an ancient curse, it is suddenly cut off, as Raven, the human cleric, uses the Scroll of Silence to halt the evil being's magic.

The druid, Eva, shape-shifts into a giant spider, and climbs to where she can knock the smoking goblin zombies to the floor.  As she does so, they explode in small gouts of flame upon impact with the stone floor, barely missing the sorcerer Lana, who despite the Silence spell, is continuing her inaudible drumming and noiseless prayer to Oghma to consecrate the altar.

As the last zombie falls, Lana's prayer completes, and the room fills with moonlight, brighter and brighter, blindingly so.  In almost a flash the light dissipates, revealing the room once again.  The mask is gone, and all that remains of the cruel evil-worshipers and their cruel deity is a faint bit of ash on the breeze.

The Silence spell fades, and the party realizes that they were able to keep the rest of the castle from being alerted to their presence (likely also assisted by the distracting owlbear out front).  Listening at the door, they find that not only are voices speaking in goblin on the other side, but somehow they can understand the language; they figure out that the Oghma's blessing is upon the grounds now, granting them the ability to Comprehend Languages while in the castle.

The party gathers at the temple room door to the front entry of the castle, ready to finish off the Cragmaw for good.