Bathhouse Cult of Slaughter

We followed the sullen hall towards the sounds of tortune. Steps lead us down into the same kind of fetid water as before and I found myself surprised how much I appreciated the safehouse was a far more sanitary basement than this bathhouse's.
 
We saw that two people were preparing a bound elven man as some sort of ritualized sacrifice, torture, or delight in pain. This clearly required intervention on our part, thus we proceeded to intervene. The vanguards charged forth and interrupted their rites. It appeared that one could all upon a statue's metal gauntlets to animate and assault us. I tried to help in battle, but I found my attention split. My Refusal of Shadow was refining itself over the course of the stressors and I began to feel overwhelmed. Coupled with the absolute indignation I felt towards the profane I was witnessing, I fear my mind's eye was not upon the fight in front of me but instead upon a fight within.
 
Fortunately, none of us were particularly harmed, and my medical training (gratitude to my mother) let me patch us up after the cultists were put down. I also tended to Balvin, the elf man. He claimed to be a merchant who was ambushed in a street (with his bodyguard killed in the process) by the cultists. I am grateful that we rescued him in time, and Calliope escorted him safely to the bathhouse above.
 
We found a room with the odor of natural gas. I covered my beak with thick fabric, sneaked through the room, and scouted deeper within. I found a hall of rooms and many doorways all around. I also found an altar of bones and skulls; I feel my feathers shiver to just recollect it. I returned and the party elected to go elsewhere.
 
We stumbled upon the workings of a necromancer, and I ambushed her with my bow. Before the rest of us could spring into action, she threw magic upon us. I didn't know what the nature of the magic was, but I witnessed what appeared to be serpentine black flames or smoke roiling towards us all. I tried my best to dodge it and avoided most of the magic, but some still struck me and tried to wither my flesh. My comrades seemed overall to avoid the magic, but Makaan's sister was struck strongly by it. Avindir elected to end the conflict swiftly and blasted the wooden beams supporting the ceiling and collapsing the room upon the mage. Later, I realized it was vengeance for killing Kipi the familiar cat. Avindir assured me she was not truly dead, but merely unsummoned or something along those lines.
 
While Avindir and Makaan excavated the room, Makaan's sister and I kept lookout and put down a poor, bloated, diseased rat. Avindir found some magical tome (the third or fourth down here; so many cultists appear to be wizards), then we moved on.
 
We found a room with two prisoners in it, but one was dead. Fortune smiled upon the second, for she (a tiefling woman) was still alive (but unconscious). It looked like her wounds had salt packed into it. The cruelty was significant, so I washed out the wounds and closed them up with some balm and care. I brought her to consciousness when I felt her body wouldn't unduly be in agony, and she told us her name was Vanatta. She distributed wine and spirits as a job and had no reason to be taken. She told us of hearing stone grinding on stone and water splashing north of her, then Calliope escorted her back to the bathhouse to rest with Balvin.
 
We proceeded north, cleared out the halls of enemies (again, I felt myself ineffectual in combat; my internal conflict seemingly louder than the external one), then the party (Avindir especially) found a secret door.
 
We opened the door, sneaked in, and found what looked to be an assassin of some sort (wearing a skeletal mask) attacking a large, maul-wielding warrior. It was pretty clear to the party that the assassin was not an ally, so we intervened and helped defeat the assassin (again, I was not of much help). I tended to the large man's wounds and we heard his story.
 
The man was named Mordden Deylidre. He told us that the mentor we seeked was with his mom in her estate. She was not a kind woman in the upper city; she funded the cult we just fought through in order to sow discord and distrust for the current duke of the city and to show his incompetence. The cultists received payment from her coffers via his brother Amrin (who was a broker working out of the Curse of the Princess tavern; that sounds familiar in my song, but I don't recall how). The mother loved Amrin the most, considering Mordden to be a disappointment. The eldest brother Thaddwell controls or uses invisible imps to spy upon the city (sounds familiar, for sure). Mordden, in turn, was an "enforcer" or a "street tough". I immediately felt empathy towards him.
 
When I looked upon Mordden, all I saw was the scion of a family who abandoned him and the pain of living a life on the streets without self-provided meaning. I used to be like that in my youth, and I didn't want anything like that to continue on for him. He might have been here to help ensure the slaughter cult's offerings to the Dark Dreamer cult were passed on smoothly, but his family betrayed him and sent assassins to eliminate him.
 
I reflected in that moment upon my masters and my fellow monks. I would not be nearly as successful, self-controlled, or content as I am without their guidance. Mordden deserved the same; he deserved to have a chance to rise above fighting in the streets and find a purpose to help his community. And thus, I spoke to him (violating my disguise, as I realized in retrospect) and pleaded for him to find a way out of this danger, to find a purpose, and to live with purpose. I think he saw something in me that I saw in him, and I felt a connection with another person (and a non-kenku, which was even more surprising!) that I rarely felt before. I think he understood me and I understood him, and he hopefully begins a path of self-awareness and kindness.
 
He told us more, now that we understood each other. His brothers literally scarred his face with flame when he was a child, his mother was "zealous" in a path towards Xatris (dark lord of tyranny and cruelty), and how his familial estate's sewers were converted to a clandestine temple to (in my opinion) a profaned concept of Xatris. There was some attempt to free a locked-away fiend of some nature in this profane temple, but we had a chance to stop it.
 
He offered us a letter of standing to enter the upper city, but it wouldn't grant us passage into the manor. After all, his family tried to have him assassinated. Why would they let in strangers vouched by their unfavorite scion? We thanked him for his kindness, encouraged him to leave the city (with the other two prisoners we found in the cult of slaughter), and to forge a new life of virtue. He began to leave, then let us know that (as a possibility), we could take Amrin's person as a hostage to gain access.
 
The party looted some of the treasure meant for the Cult of the Dark Dreamer, but left the coin. That way, if they did come, we'd still be able to follow the money to their true seat of power.
 
We did take two potions of healing, a beautiful silvery plate armor (later identified as mithril; good for Calliope), some agates, a magical helmet (a helm of underwater action), a porcelain mask (a mask of disguise), a wand (wand of secrets), a magical pearl (pearl of power), and something significant to me: a bronze crown of five spires.
 
When I saw this crown, I immediately thought of the crowns of Ilos, the Supreme God of Light; Korion, the Supreme God of Order; Thuses, the Supreme God of Darkness; and Raxas the Supreme God of Chaos. In the stained glass of our temples and in the paints of our murals, the four supreme gods had a recurring theme of a five-pointed crown (vertical for Ilos and Thuses, inverted for Korion and Raxas). This felt significant to me. Later, it was identified as a crown from the imperial treasure of the Holy Empire of Subratha, which was rumored to be ruled by an immortal favored by Korion.
 
We rested back at the safehouse that evening, and I felt my soul's crucible refine myself even further.