The woman scouted the ruined tower, and by late morning, we were all looking at it. There was nothing left of the tower itself but rubble, and in the center was a hole leading down into what once must have been the basement. The Infiltrator spotted a tiny viper rushing for the hole, and he grabbed it and beat its head against a rock. His explanation, which I quite understand, is that it may have been a wizard's familiar, a pet used as helper and informant, and it would not due to have him alerted of our presence.
What followed was an extended battle that complimented the Infiltrator's ability's well – I am optimistic about his performance when the final battle comes. On the stairs, we were immediately assaulted with a spell that was meant to make us slip down. However, the chanting wizard had not known of our extensive training in balance. We were all able to easily keep our footing, save for the samurai's new companion and the priest, the later of whom was so afraid of falling that he used magic to create a passage through the side of the stairwell.
The stairs opened into a barracks full of cultists. One of them called out “anger death,” which we later discovered was the name of a wizard. While still on the stairs, the winged woman passed by some glyphs on the wall and vanished, I know not to where. This did not much surprise me – the beginning of a battle was an inconvenient time to leave, but I had expected her to leave since first discovering that she was not a member of the thieves' guild.
The barracks was not overly difficult to force our way through, and the first room was emptied while some of us were still on the stairs. I made things difficult for the wizard, while the rest fought the cultists, the Infiltrator often taking down several at once. While we fought in the second room, the Infiltrator ran ahead into a third, and by swinging his staff and legs in all directions, was able to keep eight cultists struggling to get off the floor. Soon, we were down a second flight of stairs, where we saw the escaped cultists – a warrior and the bartender – and another pair of wizards. The Infiltrator rushed into the middle, and I filled the area with fire, depending on his well-trained reflexes to keep him out of harm. I misevaluated the situation, however. There were so many cultists lying on the floor that, when the Infiltrator tried to find a safe spot, he stumbled over a body and was hit with the full force of the spell. Although he survived, and although he assures me it had been his own fault and not mine, that he should have been able to avoid the fire, I know that I must be more careful when using such extreme tactics in the future.
Charred though he was, the Infiltrator managed to run between a dozen cultists and take down a wizard at the other end of the room, who had been firing powerful missiles from a wand at me.
Finally, only the escaped warrior and one other remained, and they rushed into the final room, toward the magical portal the priest saw in the cultist's thoughts, and the brazier burning next to it. Another escape could have been disastrous at this point, so the Infiltrator grabbed the burning brazier away, while the priest cast a spell that filled the area around the portal with a dense sand-storm, and I sent a wave of fire from my hands into the storm. The others surrounded the linear sandstorm and attacked through it, usually missing but occasionally striking true. By the time the storm had dissipated, only the warrior was left alive, and he submitted to us without further trouble.
At first, he resisted questioning, but a bit of magic changed his mind, and kept it changed for quite a while. We learned from him that the portal led to a shrine outside the magical castle the priest had seen in the cultist's thoughts. A powerful artifact had been discovered under the castle, and the attempted control of the device had occupied the cultists for a good amount of time. We learned that this mercenary's leader, the warrior woman, was only one of many officials in the cult. The mercenary himself was not a member of the cult, and did not know much about the artifact or the Red Warrior, except that it was he, our Enemy, who possessed the artifact. He told us the names of many important people in the castle, including the cleric who watched over the artifact project. He also mentioned that the cult was leading many slaving operations in the area, for a reason possibly connected with the artifact.
The wizard had already communicated with their leader, so our presence, at least in the city, was known. That could make our task far more difficult. Our immediate concern, however, was what to do with the mercenary. The Infiltrator wanted to take him to the authorities in the now distant city, but that would have consumed far too much of our time. Others wished merely to kill him so that he could not cause trouble, or equivalently, trap him somewhere until we could return. Finally, we agreed to take him with us. He offered to serve as a guide, but even the more trusting of us realized it would be unwise to trust him.
The priest used his magic to attach heavy stones to manacles, and the manacles to the mercenary's arms and legs. In this debilitated state, we dragged him with us. The priest and the samurai have gone to town to identify the magic items we had found. By the time they return, it will late, and as we will be at a disadvantage at night, we will sleep here in the ruined tower.