Sphinxes of brass, dead ogres and a new threat: “The Ayin”

• Nalkris, Eladrin Warlock servant of the Raven Queen and his Raven Avarace
• Cade, Half-elf Warlock who looks quite young, sparkly starry eyes and his crystal familiar Patrick
• Murdrum, Half-elf Sorcerer Warlock who has shoulder length white hair, is fairly young and braids his hair in the front, wore crimson and black mage robes, and his Tiny Servant
• Dimble, Forest Gnome Draconic Sorcerer, with a very nice twisted branch-like staff in his hand
• Horace, Half-Elf Sorcerer Cleric, older, had a mightly long grey beard, matching his hair, weathered skin from his time as a sailor, dressed quite shabby, matching his shabby looking shield which had a storm cloud painted upon it
• Cavendish, Aquatic Half-elf Cavalier Hexblade, clearly the most experienced of my travelling partners, not showing any fear or doubts about his ability to handle anything we should encounter, glad to have him with me.

Objective: Find Ogrish trail and follow it near edge of Briarwall Forrest.
If not able to find, go further north and investigate the Keep with the 2 Sphinx Statues outside, making it appear as a shrine

At first we just travelled north, passing some old ruins with broken arrows around, but it was clear the battle they was from had happened a long time ago and everything would been cleared out by others a long time ago, so we continued north along the road, stopping when we noticed something far away in the distance up in the air to our southwest, perhaps a Hippogrif or even a Griffon, but it was too far away to pose a threat, so we continued on after a brief pause to look at it for a few minutes.

We was unable to find clear signs of the Ogrish trail, but did find old drag-marks that seemed parallel to the road, which we continued to follow, through those drag-marks seems as old, or older, than the road itself, making me doubt they was connected to the ogres.

As we neared the location of the keep, we did actually run across Ogre tracks, which we followed and they was seemingly leading towards the keep, making our two objective merge into one, all of the sudden.

Just outside the keep, we found the corpses of two dead ogres

They had clearly been slain by something which had first pierced them and then ripped them apart, but it seemed to clean and mechanical for it to have been claws or teeth which ripped them apart, making me speculate it might be a giant version of Murdrum’s Tiny Servant, if that would even be possible to construct for those who tangle with gears.

We continued inside the keep through the gate, which had a moon symbol on it, and across the courtyard, between stables, kitchens and other doors, was several more ogre corpses sprew around.

Then we heard a distant gutteral orcish or goblin-tongued low deep voice cry out something foul, and the corpses around us started to stirr, and soon we was surrounded by the zombies and skeletons of these dead ogres

We fought hardy, I closed the gate to stop a skeleton and zombie from the outside to flank us thusly, but still, manuvering around proved difficult, as only Cavendish had the courage to remain in melee with these foes for long, the rest of us trying to stay at a distance, and they was soon joined by a still living, but clearly corrupted Ogre, who might brought his fallen uncorrupted comrades back to corrupted undead existance to deal with us, and he was an even greater threats than the undead.

Yet we prevailed, and started searching the keep.

While the rest of us was searching some long abandoned living quarters adjacent to the courtyard, we suddenly heard the sound of combat, as Cavendish has ventured, alone, further inside, and had run afoul some guardian, which striked him hard enough that only the selfless sacrifice of Patrick saved the life of Cavendish.

Using Avarace to quickly fly in, and my Eladrin gift of the fey-step, I looked through the eyes of Avarace and was quickly in to assist Cavendish

The enemy?

A blob of silver

A living…spellcasting…strong…. tough…blob of silver

This thing struck down Cavendish in a single blow, and then conjured a wall of fire, instantly frying Avarace and ruining my Armor of Agathys, it resisted my repellent blast and was not pushed back, and while it was damaged by the magical energy of my agonizing blast, it healed all of it almost instantly.

It broke down the walls of the keep to pursue Cavendish, who had smartly started to retreat and told the rest of us to do the same, and then it teleported itself away from us.

We then found out, through books recovered after we took a short rest before daring go in to find out more, that a Wizard named Holzalosun had taken residence in the keep at some point, and had tried to do experiments with conjurations and summoning stronger and stronger and stronger monsters in to put under his control, trying to circumvent some limitations on magic put on this island by forces unknown.

But in the end, he was betrayed, or as he said in his own words in a book of research notes we recovered

“The spawn of Zariel has killed me. The Ayin promised me great power but I was a fool. The creature I summoned is death to all, there is no controlling it. I lay here wounded and fear I will not draw much more breath.”

“They tricked me into doing their dirty work, I should have headed the gardens warning.”

-Journal of the wizard Holzalosun, recovered by Cavendish from his dead hands ontop of his bed while fleeing the silver blob.

Then we ventured home, running across some thugs on the way who fleed the moment they saw Cavendish at the front of our group, and we just assisted the Ruined Oak city guards in pointing them in what way the thugs had fleed, later finding out the city guards had successfully captured the thugs trying to make ambushes on the road.

Just leaves me wondering.

Why would someone summon something from the First Layer of the Nine Hells, which is the domain of Zariel, and who are these “The Ayin”, who tricked this misguided wizard into doing so?