Confronting Leldrin

General Summary

The party are hurled from a magic portal, landing in the corner of a dark cave. They spend a moment collecting their thoughts, confused by recent events.
Looking around they notice a green glow emanating from the tunnel out of their cave, Giltris makes out the sound of chanting.
The party sneak forward to investigate, looking over the ledge they look down into a large chamber, in a circle around the great roots of the Emerald spire, there stands a ring of robed figures chanting. Deciding that whatever they are up to must be bad so it will be a good idea to stop them, The party plan how best to deal with the cultists. Ragnaros jumps down from the ledge as Astra casts a spell on him that makes him grow in size, Ragnaros bellows a challenge to the Cultists who turn to him still chanting and proceed to fling blasts of magic at him.
A Voice is heard from the shadows ranting that the party would not stop him, They recognise the voice as Leldrin but cannot locate him. Realising that he must be under some kind of invisibility Astra casts dispel magic revealing Leldrin while Hauflin calls lightning down on the cultests. With Leldrin revealed Giltris atempts to snipe at him from the shadows but misses all her shots. The battle begins in earnest, the few remaining cultists being quickly taken care of, Ragnaros, Astra & Hauflin trade blows and spells with Leldrin, until Ragnaros takes one to many Ice blasts to the face and goes down. Hauflin rushes over to stabilise him. With the ritual interrupted the magic that was being channelled starts to go wild, energy sparking around the room. With Ragnaros back on his feet after some healing magic the party manages to knock out Leldrin and grab him up as they rush through a Tunnel opened up by the roots of the emerald spire. The ground shakes and the ceiling glows red and hot, it seems that the lava Hauflin released in the chambers above is eating through. The party find themselves in a chamber with a set of statues holding strange glowing glass spheres. In the next room they find a large dragon statue, exploring around reveals no exit and the way they had come is ominously lit in red. During the exploration Astra finds an unusual book, she is unable to read the text but deciphering some of the images she thinks that the glass spheres need to be fitted into the dragon statue, when the party do this the statue rears up and from it's outstretched hands conjures a magic portal. With the room shaking and the alarming red glow approaching, Astra reluctantly jumps into the portal. She finds herself atop a large tower looking down over a dark, ruined city, she doesn't recognise it, she calls back to the others letting them know that it is safe. One by one they all jump into the magic portal.

Things go wrong

Once they are all atop the tower they recognise that they are looking down on Parlainth from one of the castle towers, no sooner have they come to this realisation than the sky is lit by a great pillar of energy parting the clouds as it shoots up into the heavens from the vicinity of the Collage. The tower shakes under them and they hear an ominous laughter. The still bound and gagged Leldrin is floating behind them laughing with a sound they can here in their minds. (Hauflin realises that Leldrin is dead, something else is inhabiting him) "Yes, Free finally, I must thank you, you fools have no idea what you have done." The voice in their heads cackles. Thinking fast the party push all their power into Ragnaros who praying to Garlen gives a mighty swing of his Greatsword and decapitates Leldrin, The body falls to the floor and the party breath a sigh of relief, that is until the bloody body melts through the floor and continues to melt it's way through the floors of the tower. The tower begins to shake and crack, Astra casts feather fall on the party and they all jump off the tower, behind them the tower collapses with a boom. The party opt to hide in the ruins rather than risk crossing the city by night.
While keeping watch Giltris spots large numbers of hobgoblins emerge from the castle and begin searching the area, fortunately their hiding place is good and they are undisturbed until morning. In the morning the hobgoblins are still searching, the exit from the city isn't far but the less stealthy members of the party wont make it unseen. a plan is hatched Giltris will cause a commotion and distract the hobs while the other run for it, once they are far enough away she can slip away, this plan goes off without a hitch with the party making it to the explorer town of Haven with only a few near misses and a peppering of arrows. In town they proceed to warn everyone that Castle Triskelion is up in arms and likely to send a force to Haven as soon as it gets dark, evacuation plans are soon underway with the party managing to book passage on an airship bound for V'strimon.