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It took a couple more days for the Mothers to arrive at the Dordrien Crypts. Kurtalla was sure of the location, based on Cervan’s instructions. They had encountered no drow, but had passed through one abandoned farmstead in the last day. The crypts themselves were built into a large stone outcropping, with a single passage leading under the hill. Two mausoleums stood clear of the rock, stone buildings on either side of the rough track leading to the passage. The Mothers decided to investigate these first.

The first one they came across had obviously been opened some time ago. The double doors swung easily on their hinges exposing a chamber which had four doors leading off it. Each of these led to a room with a large stone sarcophagus. Each of these showed signs of having been tampered with, due the scratch marks around the edges. The Mothers decided to leave them alone.

The other mausoleum had its door sealed in plaster except for a small gap along the bottom edge. The Mothers cracked this open to reveal a smaller chamber than the one before, this one with two sarcophagi and no obvious exits. As they advanced into the room, two forms began to coalesce in front of them. They resolved themselves into two vampiric humans who lunged to attack, biting Jito before he had a chance to react. Before they could fight back, the Mothers had to react to a new threat: arcs of lightning shot from the back of the crypt and into the party. A number of the Mothers were sorely injured by this energy burst, but Obrana was still able to raise her symbol of Tyr and reduce the two creatures in front of them to dust with her words of faith. The magical threat remained, as another lightning bolt flashed down, so Jito and Kurtalla stepped forward and started slashing at the air where they thought the bolts began. Gaspode was hunting in his beltpouch and managed to draw forth his gem of seeing. A creature was revealed to him, perched, limpet like on the corner wall of the crypt out of the immediate reach of his opponents.

Gaspode informed his companions of the whereabouts of the master vampire and while the fighters approached him, Fonesca took the brave step of finding a bag of flour in her pack and tossing it over the area indicated. The vampire tried to avoid the flour, but was unable to miss the whole bag, so the location of his ear and left arm was clear to the Mothers. Before he could react again the Mothers inflicted enough damage on him to subdue him and Obrana promptly dragged him out into the sunlight where he perished.

Gaspode searched the remains of the vampire and found a number of items, which he shrunk and stowed. Obrana cast a restorative spell on Jito to remove the effects of the vampire bite that he had suffered. Fonesca used the “Ruat” wand to cure her companions and Obrana followed this up with some healing magic of her own. The Mothers then went over to the cliff face to examine the entrance. The door was locked, possibly barred or chained from the other side, so the party retreated to the crypt where they had fought the vampires and rested, allowing Fonesca to learn her door opening spell, and the others to regain their own magics.

When they were ready, the Mothers returned to the entrance and opened the lock with the spell. When they pushed open the door they could see the open padlock lying on the ground covered by a heavy chain that had secured the doors. Five drow lay dead a short way along the corridor. The Mothers searched these and noticed that three of them had been slain by small crossbow bolts and the others by blows from blunt weapons. They had no items of significance. Kurtalla was able to discern that two more bodies that had fallen, had been dragged off further along the corridor and into the darkness.

A short way along to the north, a opening appeared in the passage which the Mothers investigated. It seemed to be an empty set of crypts, with five open alcoves containing no grave goods. No further exits through this way were discovered. Returning to the main path, the Mothers turned south with the corridor and tried to open the first door to the east. This set off a glyph which summoned two guardian lions which the Mothers dispatched. The ten sarcophagi inside were left undisturbed by the party.