The constant beach activity may have attracted the underdark demon, but it attracted it on another beach across the lake. Or something. Either way Hilde retreats into the room behind her and surprises a strange fish person thing. Her will holds out and she is not dominated and she slowly retreats out of the room, with her knowledge of the arcane telling her this is the race that built these ruins in the first place. Hilde casts invisibility on herself and makes her way across the beach where Lelenia has come looking for her. No sign of the demon, which for the sake of the session not turning into new character building is probably for the best.

Meanwhile Elanor checks the sarcophagus and after finding some contact poison opens it up. She finds fat sacks of cash and an absurd number of gloves. Bundling it all up the party regroups and decides its time to head back to town, what with everyone kinda beat up and Melgarin reduced to the intelligence of a very smart cat.

Arriving back in town the party decides to do some administrative tasks and figure out what all they've looted. Elanor and Hilde chill in the inn and drink the case of wine she found in the bandit storeroom while identifying stuff. Dividing out the stuff they want versus the stuff they don't the next day they sell things and the party as a whole ends up with a ton of cash. The group goes shopping and orders several things. Facing some downtime in the winter months, Hilde decides to try to investigate some names in the journal and gets nowhere. She then tries to join the wizard academy, and finds its more of a magically inclined country club. At this point she shrugs and spends a couple months doing magical tasks for contract while Loskid carpentry things to help buy a house.

Months later the party is going about their day when they hear the sounds of demolition down the street. Heading out they see the roofless shack and a warehouse have collapsed. As they get closer they see a giant bug like creature is burrowing into the buildings of the city and knocking them down. The party recognizes it as an umber hulk. Normally this kind of thing might not get the party to care about it but the umber hulk is heading toward their house where their stuff lives so they care more than usual. They quickly learn that umber hulks with a glance cause confusion, as Elanor, Hilde, and Melgarin all become confused and start gibbering incoherently, attacking each other, attacking random Cauldron citizens, and sometimes feeling pretty normal for around 6 seconds. Elanor shanks a random person who gets too close and Melgarin cuts Hilde a few times before a mob jumps him. So it's all up to Lelenia who does enough damage to anger the umber hulk as it continues to rampage. The town guard arrives, and throwing a couple of magic missiles into the fray causes the umber hulk to head into another warehouse. Lelenia continues her attacks and eventually the umber hulk goes down with multiple warehouses needing significant renovation.

Shackled City Home
Last time: Session 25
Next time: Session 27