The day after the ceremony to free Xon, three of his companions were kind enough to accompany my brother and I on our first mission for our temple. We had been asked to find Brother Durham. He, along with two Acolytes, had descended into a cave system beneath our monastery, and had failed to report. The standard divinations were being blocked, and so Talengar decided that someone should be sent to investigate.

Descending into the cave system below was easy enough. Just beyond the barrier, we were set upon by ghouls. The negative energy in the barrier had reanimated the bodies that the earthquake stole from the crypt. I discovered that not everything is dead beyond the barrier, for we discovered both stirges and a large amount of fungus. Beneath the fungus, we found the bodies of our fellow acolytes, drained of blood. Bellum, the dwarf who had accompanied Xon, indicated that the far corner of that chamber looked as if it were a caved in passageway. Perhaps that is where the stirges, fungus, and orcs originated.

We found Brother Durham after a furious battle with some Orcs. They had waited in ambush for us, but it didn’t help. Thalin laid many low, and after we crossed the chasm, we discovered Brother Durham. That is, we discovered what was left of him. He seemed in bad shape. He had been bound and gagged, but I suspect now, that it was his own doing. As we recrossed the chasm, he attempted to hurl Annu into it, but was stopped by Dante, the Asimirian monk.

Once Durham revealed his true colors by draining a portion of Dante’s life with a touch, Thalin and I knew that we must destroy the abomination that our brother had become. Calling on the holy energies that bind the death and destruction of the Greater Devil, I banished the vampire, and he retreated at the sight of my faith. Dante’s hands burst into flame as he pummeled the fleeing creature, and it was mere moments before Brother Durham left this plane for a second time. We gathered some treasure that the orcs, or Durham, had stored in the back of the cave, and returned to the surface to report what we had found and done. Thalin and I took a fifth of the treasure to donate to the monastery, agreeing that those that helped us were more than welcome to keep the rest.

The day after the undead assaulted the monastery, all of Xon’s companions reentered the caves below the monastery to search out the evil that had corrupted Durham. They returned with a body, a spellbook, four shields, and four longswords. The body quickly evaporated in the light of day.