Your friendly neighborhood cultists

The next day, in the absence of a clear course of action, we decided to return downtown to replenish Someth's beer supply. Someth told us that in the past he had usually bought his alcohol from another tavern owner named Tomasz. He made no secret of the fact that he didn't get on so well with him. Tomasz's inn, the Twisted Spider Tavern, was located near the square that now served as a storage area for building materials. Someth had never asked for room and board so we decided it would be fair to repay him this way.
So we set out and found, as expected, that the building had also fallen victim to the invasion. There was nothing left other than a big pile of charred wood. An inspection of the east side of the building however revealed a door to the basement. To our astonishment, not only was the door not locked but the interior of the cellar was still filled to the brim with gigantic beer barrels. Laendir noticed that one of the barrel stands had been moved not long ago to make room for a small passage. Beyond it however, there was nothing more to be seen than the cold stone walls of the cellar. We suspected to find some kind of secret passage and Laendir and Nordan began smashing the wall with their weapons. They managed to break off a small piece of stonework, which revealed the stone door behind it. I leaned under the stand and found a small opening. I took out a butter knife and started poking the hole. Eventually there was a click and the stone door swung open.
 
Behind it stood some figures in black and red-brown robes who stared at us in confusion.
Fuck! This endeavor should have been easy!
Suddenly the tension in the room was clearly noticeable. Before anyone else could do anything, I started conjuring a spell. Just before I was done, I felt a strong surge of energy and my spell faded.
“Watch out folks! Something in here is able to interrupt my magic!”
Then the cultists attacked. Nordan was still standing in the middle of the door and was hit by one of the attackers. In the back of the basement, another secret door opened through which three other cultists ran into the room. They seemed to have been trained in magic and tried to incapacitate us with it, but were apparently too weak to take on our willpower.
Ultimately, one of the fanatics was about to land a hit on Laendir with his dagger. He tried to cast a protective spell, but also his magic was dispelled in an instant and the dagger found an opening, piercing Laendir’s upper arm.
One of the fanatics charged at me. Knowing well that potent magic would probably be counter-spelled again, I tried summoning a phantasmal hand with a cantrip to stop the enemy in his tracks. The spell had served me well in the past, transporting or moving smaller objects, but it seemed as if my surroundings had begun to change my magic. Instead of the harmless hand, I formed a skeletal hand that began to choke the fanatic and visibly hurt him. I didn't have time to reflect upon what had just happened, but later I realized that this type of magic was very dark in origin and was therefore banned in all of Halruaa.
 
Out of the corner of my eye I could see Laendir and Nordan pounding their opponents wildly. One of them was already showing multiple cuts and stab wounds and his robe was stained with his own blood.
The fanatic withdrew into the middle of the room, began to mumble something and then stabbed his stomach several times with his dagger. One of the cultists saw this and let out a cry of fear. He pulled a scroll from his robe and opened a portal through which he immediately disappeared. Then the wounded fanatic exploded. With horror we saw how all the blood in the room flowed to the remains of the fanatic and formed into an oversized, misshaped creature. Except for one of the cultists who had succumbed to his injuries moments ago and two other fanatics, everyone fled through the portal.
“That’s it, I’m out of here!”
 
I darted through the door and closed it behind me. It didn’t feel good to leave my companions behind but I wasn’t going to die here now, was I!?
I took a moment to take a deep breath and thought about how I could help my companions. Before we had entered the basement, we passed the square, which was frequented by quite a considerable crowd. Maybe I could convince them to help us fight off these guys? No, very unlikely. But I could try to deceive them and use them as a distraction to get my friends out of the cellar!
 
Nordan's pained voice boomed out through the closed door. Damnit!
 
I stormed down to the square and drew attention to myself as best I could. "Free beer for everyone! Help me to save what the horde didn't fall victim to and we'll have a nice evening together!"
 
It took a while, but eventually I was able to recruit a small group of passers-by for my camouflaged rescue mission. The moment I tried to open the door, it was pushed open from the inside. The meat golem caught sight of the crowd and roared towards them. Before they realized what was about to happen, he started tearing them to pieces one by one. I picked up my legs again, ducked under a blow and disappeared between the ruined houses.
 
To recap my situation, my magic was useless, my companions were probably already dead or on the verge of dying, my distraction had certainly killed two dozen people, and the only thing I could add to this fight would be to beat a bloodthirsty heap of meat two and a half meters tall with a wooden stick! I wasn’t having any it!
 
So I ran back to the other square where they had piled up the gear of the fallen and armed myself with whatever I could find at the moment. I hurried back only to find the carnage outside the building and the empty basement. They had all gone.
Maybe they had escaped through a portal like the cultists did before? I set out to search the dead body that was left behind and found a scroll in his robe pocket.
This is probably a very stupid idea, but let’s just use this portal scroll and hope for the best.
 
I promptly found myself in a different masonry, surrounded by armed guards who, luckily, were called off just before things got ugly. Laendir and Nordan had in fact been teleported here and were speaking to a hooded figure with a female voice. There was something about her that gave me the creeps.
She stated that she was leading these worshippers of Lord Godard and that apparently we had disrupted some ritual and caused her a lot of trouble. For every spell she had to counter, one of her loyal followers had been sacrificed. As far as I could tell, she wasn't lying, and the pile of corpses in the centre of the room with their throats cut was evidence enough for me.
The woman introduced herself as Kyríos and made it very clear that she was not interested in any kind of alliance with our little party. She advised us to get a uniform to make identification easier and to avoid further misunderstandings in the future. Then she led us to a room where we found all our things.
 
Wait, what? How?
 
I face-palmed as I realized that our gear had been branded with magic, probably a tracking spell and that now, since our belongings had been returned to us, we couldn’t use Shamus’s spell to find the rebel leader!
 
Back to square one.
 
I hate this island.
 
Seriously, FUCK THIS PLACE!!!