Tittlin and Momen finally finish haggling over the assortment of magic items, making a few trades for some things that seem like they’ll be more useful to us. We head back to the Wyvern and make our way inland towards the marked location for the abandoned altar. We find our way to the large glowing ruins, seeing some strange spatial distortions surrounding it, and Ghurdhe! She came to check it out in advance, but hasn’t found anything of particular interest so far aside from the fact that it IS in fact magical - divination magic, to be specific. The distortions remind me of what we saw near Westerby, the town that was near the forest which linked to the Faewild. Each of the ten pedestals around the perimeter of the circle has a large rune on it, one of which I place my hand on to see if it acts as a button or if I can feel anything. I do sense the faint sensation of the “weave” that Momen keeps talking about, and I gesture to him and Ghurdhe to do the same.
Ghurdhe believes that the circle was once used by lower-level spellcasters to cast higher-level spells outside of their abilities. Seems like as many people as pedestals can contribute to casting a very powerful spell. Momen and Ghurdhe decide that we might as well run an experiment with the altar while we’re here, with me as the guinea big - I step into the middle of the glowing circle as each of them place their hands on two pedestals each, counting down from 5. Upon reaching 0, a bright light envelopes me and the whole altar begins to glow. I feel… astute. And I suddenly have very vivid foresight! About a minute into the future, to be precise. I answer a few of Momen’s questions before he has the chance to ask them, and then see a vision of three mages approaching the altar from the south. I quickly motion to the party to take cover to the north, and sure enough the group of mages comes up to assess the altar. From their conversation, it becomes clear that these are the folks who are also looking for the nesting dolls. The decision for their next search location comes down to a coin toss, which I foresee is going to land on heads - sending them to the dungeon. We definitely want to get there first, and thankfully Tittlin is able to use the Amethyst Lodestone to give the coin a light boost. The coin lands on tails, sending them to the manor where we just came from.
Having bought ourselves some time, we make our way to the unexplored dungeon. We portage the boat to the next river southwest and then sail along the coast, heading back inland once again. 6 hours later, we arrive and Ghurdhe meets us there. Large stone statues of people praying flank what appears to be the main entrance, in addition to two minotaur skeletons. There’s a large unmarked stone door to the north, but upon inspecting it via foresight I don’t see any way to get in through there. I’m itching to fight these minotaurs, and we decide to attack them head-on before any further investigation. A few ranged attacks from all of us make quick work of the first, and Momen does a crazy ice blast from his fancy new staff to take a chunk out of the second which is promptly finished off by Tittlin.
We begin making our way inside with me leading to foresee threats. Two flameskulls are lurking around the next corner, and we have a brief strategic discussion before I charge in and begin slashing with my Crystal Greatsword. We dispense of them quickly, and Ghurdhe sprinkles some holy water on them, causing them to disintegrate. I foresee around the corner, past a curtain which appears to lead to the catacombs, and then past the large double doors in front of us which appears to have a Zombie Beholder behind it.
We prep for combat and I swing the doors open, with Tittlin immediately blasting it with his immolating bow. I deftly vault over one of the benches along the north wall, spawning the meteors from my diadem and hitting it with a couple as Momen moves in to the south. The beholder floats up several feet into the air and begins firing rays at Momen and I, which I manage to dodge while Momen takes a direct hit. Ghurdhe moves in to heal Momen, and I rush in to finish off the zombie beholder with the radiant damage from my greatsword. We examine the room, with Ghurdhe determining that it’s likely a shrine to hell (which would also explain the undead). She suggests that the three flasks of anointing oils will give us a bit of a boon, and I tell everyone else to use it since I’ve got plenty of an advantage as-is.
I foresee down a couple paths behind curtains, spotting a clear path behind one and a swarm of zombies behind another. Tittlin worries that they might screw us over later, so we decide to deal with the zombies first. Momen throws down a fireball, obliterating the curtain, but it turns out it’s actually a zombie clot. It lurches forward and envelopes Momen, rolling away to the north. I sprint after it, managing to cut it down quickly and then excavate Momen from the disgusting mass. We back up away from the horrific stench to regroup and strategize. To mask the smell on him, I pass Momen some of the dwarven beard wax and Ghurdhe lights a censer of incense, swinging it around his head a few times.