The guardsmen follow close behind.

The reek of burning wax wafts through this morbid chamber, with several tall, misshapen candles being the apparent source. Workspaces strewn with tall beakers of foul-colored liquids, parchments covered in insidious symbols, and cages of whimpering rodents fill large alcoves in both the northern and southern walls. A pair of huge stone doors hang ajar to the east, revealing a long hallway leading further into the dark. At the room’s center stand four large, cylindrical glass vats, each filled with a bubbling emerald fluid that tints the chamber’s light a noxious green. Within each suspension floats a malformed abomination—something part human, part angel, and part horse—things of half-formed muscle with dead, fleshless equine skulls. Three of the forms are motionless, but the fourth twitches now and then.

"What the fuck..."

They slowly walk across the room.

The guard's wizard casts detect magic and peers at the vats. "They're magical. Don't touch them! I think these are demons of some kind, but I'm not sure."

"You need devil's blood for Infernal Healing, is there anything that uses demon blood?" She probably doesn't need to keep her concentration on the Image at this point, but there's no point dropping it yet.

"Not that I'm aware of, but I'm sure they had some dreadful use for it."

The marines continue forward into the next room.

The long hall opens into a circular chamber rising into a high dome. Seven basins jut from the walls, ensconced within evenly spaced alcoves that circle the room. Each is filled to the brim with a unique liquid—blood, bile, milk, or other unidentifiable fluid. Each fills the air with its own distinct reek, creating a noxious, eye-watering bouquet. On the floor around each basin lie several small, empty metal boxes carved with images of skulls. At the room’s center, rising from a wide pool of crystalline water, is a golden statue that is both erotic and horrifying. The statue depicts a beautiful nude woman who is human above the waist, but below this, the figure is nothing more than a skeleton.

The wizard is still detecting. "There's an unhallow in here. One of the basins is magical, the rest aren't."

The marines search the room. One of them turns back. "No more hostiles, as far as we can tell."

She drops the Image. It's too far away to be relevant, and taking up too much of her attention.

"Is that real gold? Where did they get that much? And how often are Unhallow components sold in the city? Unless this went through the Asmodeans, they should have left traces. Or migrated here from somewhere else, in which case the question is what brought them here."

The first captain snorts. "Oh, it's merely gold plated, if it's real at all. Someone with that much gold would sell it and buy something actually useful."

"The components for hallow and unhallow are the same. I don't know if anyone has sold them recently."

"We'll ask the Bank if they have any records that could match."

"Even so, how many Hallows are cast regularly? It's fifth circle and it lasts, there aren't that many regular casters in the city or that much need for it, so the component sales should be obvious. The sculpture's also impressive work, and it looks too fine for Stone Shape even setting aside the detailing on the gold. If we can't trace the materials, we might seek the crafter. Surely they can't have been here for more than a year or so, how many master sculptors were unavailable for commission for long enough to make something like this?"

Time passes. The guard finds no more hostiles within the facility, and soon enough dozens and dozens of guardsmen have descended the elevator into the temple.

No stone is left unturned, no door unopened, no cabinet unsearched. They free the seven people strapped into the strange devices. They're barely alive and need a channel to even stand upright. They find a secret door in an unassuming wall. It opens into a living space and contains a full size alchemist's lab. Another room contains a glass display full of animate undead bones. A channel destroys it. Many rooms contain books and notes. All is collected.

Magic items are identified and placed in a pile. They recover seven magic breastplates, twenty-eight potions of cure light wounds, two potions of barkskin, a major breastplate, a major vicious scythe, a belt of mighty constitution, a headband of inspired wisdom, a major cloak of resistance, a block of incense of meditation, a robe of bones, a wand of cure serious wounds with 27 charges, and a wand of remove disease with 8 charges.

They also recover a variety of mundane items, including two grim candelabras made from human hands encased in silver, several sticks of exotic incense, twelve bottles of Nidalese midnight wine, a rune-etched onyx sculpture of a skull, twenty-three black onyx gems, a crate of rare Vudrani silks, diamond dust for restoration, a diamond for raise dead, and a little over five thousand silver shields in coinage.

The mundane items are worth an estimated 100,512 silver shields. The magic items are worth an estimated 686,797 silver shields. In total, the guard recovers 787,309 silver shields worth of loot from the hidden temple of Urgathoa.

An impressive amount of money which will all go to people who are not her. Not that there was any way for her to get a reasonable share of the proceeds of this raid, of course, and accounting herself impressively in the combat should improve her chances of managing that if there's a next time. Plus the other advantages of having multiple guard captains who respect her ability to fight above her circles. Doesn't make her any happier. 

(Alright, yes, obviously some of the money goes to the Pharasmins in case they want to raise their dead. Still! If the call for volunteers had included a tenth of the loot to split between them as a Fairness-touched captain judges equitable, they could have funded nearly eight people at ten thousand shields each! Ten thousand shields for one day's work will get you a lot of spells! This isn't even Ulon's teachings, Abadar should be enough to fix this. That's what he gets for working through a human church. Greedy idiots who can't manage basic long-term incentives even when their lives so often do depend on it.)

The guardsmen seem to have mostly forgotten about Tencednil. They've brought down an alchemist, who is current poring over a huge stack of books and notes the guardsmen have collected. He delivers grave news. The Urgathoans have created a terrible fungal disease called blood veil. Physical contact spreads the disease. It is impossible to recover from without magic once contracted. A typical human dies within seven days. There is some form of immunity, manifested rarely by Varisians, but the Urgathoans still have not figured out what causes it. The fungal spores have already been infused into part of Old Korvosa's water supply. They also used magical coffers in the room with the statue to bind the disease to coins, which they made purchases with.

She casts a few longing glances at the cloak as it's identified. She doesn't actually expect to get anything, but she can at least make them feel bad about it.

"If it's incurable without magic, it's going to keep going around, it won't fade away like a normal influenza. Old Korvosa is a bit isolated by the Narrows, but people travel between there and the Heights every day, in large numbers. If this blood veil doesn't die out, it's going to catch people with actual money, and it's going to keep happening. The Abadarans won't strike preemptively even if it would be cheaper overall, but if you tell them under Truthtelling there's a threat of a magically incurable epidemic — and if it's in the currency it'll be everywhere, not just Old Korvosa — they can ask around the nobles. Better to pay for two or three Removes today than buy another every time it gets back up there, even setting aside how it looks to spend good shields curing the new disease. If you do this right, and it hasn't started spreading yet, we may yet avoid a quarantine longer than a week or two." And emergency rates on Remove Disease for a full week will keep Mother happy and keep the temples happy, and the guard just got a substantial influx of money to make up anything they couldn't get out of the Heights. She's not going to say that, though.

The guard will certainly consider her advice, but this is beyond the authority of a captain. A report is being composed for the Field Marshal about the situation. They're going to wait for her response.

That is a reasonable procedure for them to have. "Should I stay around for a debriefing, or are we done here?"

The captain shakes his head. "I don't think that will be necessary. Your help was much appreciated during this operation. If you're looking for paid work, we contract spellcasters with proven skills. You may be first circle, but that was good thinking back there. If you want, I can put in a good word with the spells office."

"Thank you! It would be appreciated, I could always use the money. And if the things you risk are anything like this, I'm all the more convinced helping the guard is a good use of my time." They're probably not, but if her being available is the difference between an evil cult sticking around and leaving Korvosa, she will happily be available.

Home, then. She collapses into her hammock quickly today, all her jitteriness leaving her exhausted as it fades. That was far more of a risk than she thought she was taking, but far more of a reward than she expected to find at the end. Even if she didn't get any of the cult's stash, a good reputation with the guard and her name on their list of people to hire are useful results. Could she have done better? Almost certainly, but she did well enough, the plague is as prevented as it was ever going to be, and she survived it all. Anything more than that can happen tomorrow.

KORVOSAN CARRIER
STARDAY, SARENITH 6th, 4708

URGATHOAN CULT DESTROYED, PLAGUE STRIKES OLD KORVOSA

The papers print tales of the heroics of the guardsmen and marines, and dire warnings about the blood veil. Instructions on how to tell infected coins from clean ones without touch can be found in every paper. Many of the wells in Old Korvosa have been closed under the watchful eye of the Guard. Unrest begins to grow. The weather is partially cloudy with lots of sun.

The newspapers on this day were different in Tencednil's first vision.

They certainly were! If the cult would have been destroyed without her intervention, she wouldn't have gone to nearly as much trouble!

It's been a while, possibly long enough to check whether Anton and Julio have made any progress on their selling. There were also some books from the first vision she was going to ask them about, and they might also be looking into their Acid Splashes, which would make it more convenient.

First she checks at the Bank for any mail Mika might have sent her, though. Hopefully she was fast enough to prevent him from catching the plague, but if not, he might have sent a letter.