Tanyl moves back to the western edge of the south facing wall where something looked off to him earlier and takes a closer look.  After a few moments, he finds a stone that seems out of place, and pushing it here's a light click and the door begins to slide to the left behind the bookcase, fresh damp air rushes towards him as well as the sounds of water, the door has only opened a few feet when it suddenly stops and a woman's voice says,

"Who is there?"

Tanyl anticipates that anyone hiding might be prepared lest they be found by the intruders -- and he doesn't want to fall victim to such preparations.

"Sister?  We've come to provide aid."

"Who is we, and is all the temple freed of the invaders?"

Perking up at the sound of the voice, Delta is glad they pushed on and searched the room a little more. She trusts Tanyl to do the talking though, and she continues to search the bugbears.

OOC Are any parts of such a creature known to be edible?

"We are four who came from Stormhaven, and I doubt you know us.  My name is Tanyl, for what it's worth.  But we were asked to come by the sister of one of your members.  Her name is Minnow.

As for the invaders: we don't know.  We've dispatched three, but we found you relatively quickly and have not been through the entire place.  Do you know how many there are are, or where they might be holed up?"

At the mention of Minnow, there are hushed whispering beyond but the voice close to the door,

"We cannot risk losing our place here, Elhonna go with you but leave and do not return here unless the Temple is completely safe".

With that, the door slams shut and the sound some locking being done is heard.

Tanyl turns to the others. "Well, that's gratitude.  I guess."

He doesn't shout it, but he says it loud enough that maybe it's heard inside the panic room.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:40, Thu 29 Apr 2021.

Each of the bugbears has two large sliver coins simply decorated with an X on them, probably made from melting other items down.

In reply to DM Bard (msg # 97):

With a sigh, Delta opts not to carve up the bodies, though he takes the two coins, and tosses on the Matthias for examination.

He wonders if Vala would like the ears or something as a trophy, but she opts against it, figuring she would get them herself, and she didn't want to offend her.

Matthias had been paying attention to Tanyl's through-the-door conversation and doesn't notice that Delta has thrown an object his way until the last moment. He awkwardly flinches and then snatches the coin at the last minute, once he realizes it is just a coin.

Trying to play off the clumsy exchange, he turns the coin over in his hand and searches his memory for any recollection of the symbol's meaning. In truth, he is not thinking of the coin at all. He is thinking of the sisters and their peril.

He absent-mindedly pockets the coin and addresses his companions.

"They're scared," he says simply, "and don't know us from Erathis," driving the point home with a common idiom.

"Vala, Tanyl, lend a hand, let's remove these brutes from the monastery and then drive out any others." Matthias means to deposit the corpses outside the monastery, so as to not further defile the holy house of Ehlonna, and then continue their exploration of the monastery.

Vala notices Delta's odd interest in the Bugbears and wonders if she should question her friend's delicious food a little more in the future or if ignorance would be bliss.

"I suppose they are scared but they aren't making this job any easier," she groused, pulling one of the goblinoids by it's legs.

"I say we clear the place of the living invaders, so they don't come upon us with our hands full of their dead comrades."

With a shrug Delta pockets her coin. "At least the waterfall is close, we can toss them down there."

The next half an hour passes very quickly.  First, the bodies are removed from the Monastery. Second, a slow and careful exploration of the rest of the monastery takes place.  The double doors at the end of the entry are unlocked, and beyond is a large temple with a statue of Elhonna as the main feature.   To the south of the temple, another set of double doors stand slightly open.  Checking it out, is a large living quarters, with both private and semi private sleeping areas for eight people.   The room also has a kitchen type area, a communal table with many chairs, and is decorated with things from nature, pine cones woven into designs, dried flowers, and the like.  It not destroyed, but certainly a bit of mess and still smells of bugbears though none are present.  A careful search shows that no one else is in the monastery, the immediate threat is gone.

Returning to the library, and reporting such, leads to the door being opened and you find through it a beautiful grassy alcove with another statue of Elhonna in the center of the grassy glade.  A stream of water falls from one of the walls, follows a stream through the glade, and then cascades in a waterfall from the southern end.

There are six women, and three unicorns here.  They have clearly been camping here for some weeks.

The eldest, speaks, "Elhonna bless you" even as they head back into the library and away from the sound of the falls.

ooc: Monastery Map is Updated

In reply to DM Bard (msg # 103):

Stunned and amazing at the glade inside what she expected to be a small room, Delta spins around looks up at the wonder around here. (And though she doesn't say anything, it is in her nature to wonder if this is some sort of an illusion, and she looks for any mistakes in shading or shadow that would give such a thing away)

As they head out in to the temple, she speaks.

"Ummm... on our way here we found a baby Unicorn, that was hurt. Poachers. A ranger came along, and between us I think we made it better, but we though you should know, in case, you know, the parents are here."

She paused, uncertain for a moment, then continued.

"Is there a Guppy... er, a Sister Guppy here?"

Vala looked a little lost, her brow furrowed with uncharacteristic thought as she tries to grasp the odd room - that and fight the urge to pet one of the unicorns. Warrioress or no they where very pretty.

The smallest of the acolytes walks to Delta and pulls back her hood.

No introductions are necessary.  Though a cropped hair, the smallish woman is truly the twin of Minnow.  She leans over and hugs Delta for a moment before speaking.  When she does, its with his sisters voice exactly.

She has tears in her eyes, "You saved the colt?  What about Bren, and Rachil,  they went out to warn the rest of the herd, any sign of them?".

Returning the hug, because, heck, Delta loves to hug, the young gnome shook her head in the negative.

"I'm sorry, we have no knowledge of Bren or Rachil, good or bad. We found no one else. However I would ask that you consider writing a letter to your sister before we leave, and we can deliver it for you."

She was suddenly feeling a bit guilty for having wanted more money for helping these people, an she was glad the others talked her in to coming along.

"Once we are sure this place is secure, maybe we can go look for them?"

She glanced at the others.

Tanyl shrugs, demonstrating his indifference.

He isn't so concerned about the lack of monetary rewards; he is, however, still a bit miffed by the apparent lack of gratitude from those the party rescued.

Matthias looks to his companions, "I did not see any other sisters when we searched the monastery. Is it possible they could have been abducted?" He says this in a lower tone. His face pales at the thought of what the big, hairy brutes might do to the sisters.

Turning back to the sisters, "We defeated three monsters. Do you know if there were more than three?"

Matthias suggests to his companions that perhaps they can look for tracks or any evidence of the bugbears leaving the monastery. If only the ranger were here, he laments.

The elder woman who first spoke to Tanyl, adds,

"Forgive my manners, I am Hana, the Abbey of this humble monastery.  I'm afraid we don't know the full number of those who broke in here.   Elhonna teaches us that all of creation is blessed, and we try to live lives of non violence.  Clearly though, without your help, we would have been in serious trouble.  I thank you for risking your lives to help us.

The creatures came to our doors twice before and threatened us, saying we needed to move on, that we were disturbing their own home, spoiling their water supply.  We kept our doors shut and tried to reason with them.  We do pray outside and bless the water, apparently that offended their leader.  The second time they failed to get in our doors, they said they were going to get their leader, The Mighty Tegroth they called him and that we'd be in big trouble.  We were worried enough that we began gathering our unicorn friends here to protect them.

Turns out, it was not an idle threat, when they came back the next week, something just ripped our doors off their hinges.   We retreated to our outdoor sanctuary and hid there.  All except Bren and Rachil, they were still out trying to find the other two unicorns.  I fear for their lives now, knowing you've told us.   You say you helped a unicorn, if it lives, it may know what became of them".

Matthias listens Abbess Hana relate what she knows and nods at the appropriate moments, to encourage her to be as forthcoming as possible. Whe she has finished, he responds to his companions, "We need to find the ranger with all due haste!"

Of course, the ranger was incredibly secretive about his whereabouts, but he was their only lead.

Hana looks around, taking in the mess, blood, tossed books, and injuries on some of the group,

"Daughters, heal them, clean our home, busy yourselves....and bring me one of the creation stones...".

This last is met by a mix of stunned silence, gasps, and even a whispered prayer or two.

Quickly though the women break into movement, first healing all the injuries to those wounded, others begins cleaning, washing blood from the floors, putting books back on shelves.

One returns carrying a clay stone, the size of a small chicken egg and hands it to Abbey.

She takes it and quickly with two quick twists breaks into four nearly equal pieces and hands a part to each of you.

"For what you've done, and what I feel you are going to do, we have little wealth to offer you, but this is a Creation Stone of Elhonna.  If you all agree the time is right and join it together once again, and speak Elhonna's name, the power of creation will be yours for a moment. It will be fleeting and only work once, but you hold the power to restore a life that was lost, use it wisely".

Awe fills Delta's face as she receives her gift. A powerful token indeed! She carefully places it in a pouch other than the one with her pet in it. She does, however, let the rat  out to sit on her shoulder to get some fresh air, as she feels these are people who would not be offended by the rodents presence.

"It seems like anything big enough to tear your massive doors open that way would be easy to find. What kind of creature would be offended by blessing their water though? Most curious."

She rolled the name Tegroth around in her mind, and tried to get a feel for the language. It had to be big enough to boss around bug-bears. She feared it might be some sort of giant.

Vala tries her best to look pleased at getting a rock as payment for their services. She slips it into her pack for safekeeping.

Still maybe this 'Mighty Tegroth' had some real (gold!) treasure. It was a happy thought...