Much earlier, Serai, Aliya, Shurrin, and Mara had learned that a shipment of chaositech, discovered in something called the Vault of the Kython, was coming into the city through Mahdoth’s Asylum. The time had come for the shipment to arrive, and so the group moved to intercept it. It had always been Sister Mara’s mission for the Church to stem the tide of dangerous chaositech into the city, and the others agreed with the goal to varying degrees; Serai had a slightly new outlook—he actually wanted some of the chaositech for himself, to study.
Mahdoth’s was an underground asylum for insane spellcasters, those afflicted with mental maladies that no remedy or spell seemed to allay. Most of the place utilized magic- dampening fields, which made it extremely hard to use spells there. The group members didn’t know whether those who ran the asylum were a part of the chaos cult conspiracy or not, so they went in cautiously. Their plan was to turn Serai over to the asylum as an inmate so he could observe things from the inside. The rest of the group would wait close at hand in case trouble started.
And of course it did. Serai spent a strange night among the inmates and soon found an exit from the asylum to passages that went much deeper underground. From there, the cultists were transporting large gray cubes as well as a variety of weaponry and devices. Serai attacked, and all manner of chaos broke loose—so to speak.
Mara, Aliya, Shurrin, and Zophas intercepted the chaos agents coming down from the city to meet with those bringing the shipment up. In the ensuing battle, which extended down into the asylum itself, some of the inmates were freed, including a particularly dangerous mage whose name was unknown, even to the staff. He used soul magic to conjure a tyrannosaurus into the middle of the battle, then escaped.
The administrator of the asylum believed that the adventurers were attacking the place and did his best to hold them off with his own guards. Finally, who should appear but Mahdoth himself—a beholder who had long ago been reformed of his monstrous ways by a group called the Brotherhood of Redemption. Mahdoth would tolerate no threats to his charges—the inmates—and thus began attacking everyone, both the cultists and the player characters.
Serai discovered the hard way that the strange gray cubes were storage containers holding some sort of liquid power—the pure essence of chaos itself. This liquid began to spurt out of a pair of cubes after he used a fireball to attack the cultists transporting them. The cultists also brought with them kython: horrible monstrosities from ancient times, when the chaositech was created. These creatures were amalgams of serpents and insects.
Eventually, the characters defeated the cultists and the kython, and recovered most of the rest of the chaositech. Some was turned over to the Church of Lothian for examination. Some Serai took. The asylum returned to normal, although a few guards had perished in the fight, and the nameless mage had escaped. Even Mahdoth himself was appeased.
