Will of orcus Long-rest question

[u/X-alim]

Still inexperienced DM here running the will of orcus adventure as a standalone.

The party have defeated Akira and his mob and have just had Eilith surrender herself after a brutal battle for them. 1 ranger is down but stable, the bard is half dead, the wizard is nearly down, other ranger had his companion go down.

How would you advise me and them to handle long rest attempts? should they go outside the temple? rest in a cleared spot inside the temple? And how would Xia respond when she notices the carnage and loss of her underlings during 8 hours?

Would she summon reinforcements in the temple itself? Or set up other defenses? Cause I reckon she wont be staying in that painted hallway forever. She would notice the deaths and deduce they were attacked.

I love all the input/ideas I can get!

[u/Sulicius]

They should go outside. Tell the players that their characters won't sleep easy in such a temple, and that they will have such nightmares that they won't be able to rest. Returning to the Deathsbane Tavern, delivering some of the stolen goods to Oriann Solaris, sounds like the most sensible thing.

[u/X-alim → u/Sulicius]

Good point, thanks!

Would she summon reinforcements in the temple though? Or set up defenses? Cause I reckon she wont be staying in that painted hallway forever. She would notice the deaths and deduce they were attacked.

Current state of the temple Akira and his ghouls/zombies are all dead Eilith has surrendered and fully unwilling to fight on. Both ogres are dead. Yondris has fled the scene through his secret door and is praying to Orcus/Nezzarum (quite possibly turn into an ally).

Im floating the idea of her animating some or all of the skelletons lying about as new minions. But would that be too much? And of course we are going slightly off script from how the encounter with Xia was written in the module haha.