Part 20: Caught Red Handed

The party heads past the huge man down another corridor and then finds themselves in a large room.

A scantily clad woman — Metira! — lies on a stone altar, surrounded by cultists wearing robes like the ones the priests of the Broken Gate wear. With a practiced languor, she rises to a sitting position, and you notice that she’s not bound or chained. “Every ritual demands a sacrifice . . . in this case, several worthy would-be rescuers. Let the sacrifice begin!

Metira and the cultists attack right away.

As she fights, Metira taunts the party. (The cultists maintain a grim silence.) Metira to reveals the sinister side of the Broken Gate organization and explain why she bothered with the ruse of faking her own kidnapping. The short answer: she needed deluded do-gooders tough enough to pass the three tests, which ruled out the house guards and others associated with House Sedarnel.

The party overcome the defenders and knock Metira out. Alena feels overcome with longing for the nearly naked form of the woman. Something deep and long suppressed rises in side her. An infatuation with this human woman.

They find a small coffer at one side of the chamber contains 250 gp, 160 pp, 8 amethysts worth 100 gp each, a ring of warmth, and a wand of web.