Sorry this is later than I said it would be. Please add anything I may have forgotten or fix any mistakes I may have made. Cardinal Thorn updated the contract and Vinha (and Riss?) signed. We were then given three days to do as we wished within non-restricted sections of the manor. We also received a circlet and a pendant. Vinha met up with another group and talked to them about their missions. Tek performed a ritual to make the brands seem to disappear. Sandra tried to find Cardinal Thorn, but he was nowhere to be found, so then she worked out a lot. Korabb tried to find out more about Cardinal Thorn's past, but all he found was a genealogy book that ended way before Thorn's time. Then, Cardinal Thorn said he wanted to test them and told them to retrieve a sapphire pendant from the cellars. Tiadora called it the "Nine Lessons." We went down the stairs and came to a room with a single door. There was a message on the keystone over the arch from the stairs to the room that talked about deception. We didn't see anything else in the room at first, so Sandra opened the door and fell into a spiked pit. The others helped her get out of the pit and did some more investigating. Vinha found a hidden lever that opened a door. There was a hall to the next room, which also had an inscription, this time about not following the herd and not fearing icy derision. It was cold. There were three doors in the room, two of which were heavily used, and the other of which was covered in moss. It got too cold for any of us to approach the door, but Korabb remembered reading about a moss that absorbed heat, so Tek used a ray of frost, which killed the moss and allowed us to pass into the next, very long hallway, ending at a third room with a new message, this time about shattering what blinds us and reducing our enemies to ash. The room is completely dark, and despite Tek's light spell, it keeps getting darker. There's an obsidian sphere in the room. Korabb wants to smash it, but as he approaches, some mist vampires appear and begin to attack. Korabb manages to smash the sphere, which only makes the mists angry. We fight the mists and eventually kill them, mostly through a nifty trick Tek manages with lamp oil and the spark cantrip and Sandra's amazing necromancy. We're ready to move on to the next room . . . and we suspect, due to Tiadora's mention of the "Nine Lessons," that there will be nine in total. Oh boy.
