Triangulate the location of the third temple somewhere in the forests of Komy, Russia. Get a satellite picture of a clearing a few miles out and we hop aboard Cygin airlines with our now standard temple raiding gear. We know the general location of the temple and head that way through the forest. Our progress is slowed by the thick snow and underbrush. This gives Red time to study the forest intently as he pads along in his four legged wolf form unhindered by the snow. Red draws our attention to signs that other Uratha have been through here recently. He doesn't sense the presence of any loci though so we might be on the outskirts of the local pack's territory. I extend my sight into the shadow as we walk to make sure we aren't being followed that way and we all keep our eyes open. After a few miles of trudging through the snow we come upon a cave in a small clearing. As we scout out the entrance to the cave I extend my senses and search for any consciousnesses in the area. I get a sense of a few human level ones and I alert Ohm who extends out his life sense to pinpoint where they are. Ohm says there are a few coming in and out of his range behind us in the forest. I use his coordinates to scry the location and I see several Uratha prowling as though anxious but waiting for something. I pick one and open a telepathic link. I listen in for a bit first as they discuss what they are going to do with the intruders which I assume is us. I then communicate to the one I have linked that we are not here to fight and that we have business in the cave. The Uratha is of course a bit freaked out at first as I try to explain how I am able to communicate with him from afar. I ask if we can come out and speak with his alpha and explain our presence here. He tells us to stay put and the alpha will come to us, so we do. Several minutes later the alpha arrives with a contingent of Uratha. I had my conquest aura out and set to provide a sense of comfort. To let all in its radius know that I am their friend. It's a great ice breaker. I wait for the alpha to glance us over and smell us before I speak. I tend to take a small amount of pleasure in the looks on the Uratha's faces when I meet them for the first time. The pause as they notice the amulet of the Red Wolf hanging around my neck. The raising of the eyebrows when they smell the wolf in me. The double take to make sure they were scenting the right body and then the look of pure confusion that I have labeled the "WTF" look. When that look appears is when I begin to speak and say "It's a long story".
The alpha of course wants to know why we are here. I tell him that we have business in the cave. He says there is nothing down there but a metal cube. He goes on to talk about how all the Uratha in the area have become drawn to this cave recently. Even the Pure showed up. The alpha and his pack have been guarding the cave and they aren't sure why. They just know there is some kind of power down there. I figure this temple must then be devoted to the Thyrsus and the primal wild is calling to the wolves. The alpha says he will let us go in if we promise to bring back whatever power is in the temple calling them. We try to tell him that we don't know exactly what is in there but we will keep an eye out for anything that may have to do with this calling but we can't promise anything. I hope that at least by taking the crystal inside that the temple will cease its primal aura and the Uratha can go back to their regularly scheduled lives. The alpha still isn't quite sure what we are talking about when it comes to magic but he my aura is at least keeping him friendly and he lets us go in to the cave. The cave isn't that big and we eventually hit a dead end and the cube looking just like the others. I invest the mana into it and we enter the portal into the temple.
We head towards the right side first as we have in the last two temples. I wouldn't say we were superstitious or anything but it's worked out well so far and I've learned not to argue too much with the universe. This time Red keeps his eyes open and find the trap in the corridor before it stabs Danno, all though in this case it was a huge as boulder like in that old Indiana Jones flick. Moving into the big room it becomes obvious that this is the spirit side as my spirit sight shows a whole lot of angry looking spirits through out the whole big room. Without much thought I just know I can get us through this. I tell everyone to gather on me and stay with me. I put up a mobile ban against spirits around us and march on into the room. The spirits aren't quite happy with that but they just can't seem to get past the shield. I'm hoping these are all lower tier spirits and won't have the ability to mess with mage spells. The universe is apparently happy with my previous offering of always taking the right hand corridor first and lets us through the spirit room unscathed. We move on into the circular room and it is empty until we all step in. As soon as the door closes I see a large ass spirit coalese into existence, the others don't see anything because I forgot to give them the spirit sight, oops. I alert the others of its presence as it lashes out at Red and does something we don't immediately notice. As I enable the others to see the spirit we notice Red is looking at us kinda strange and then he does his throwing trick at Ohm. Ohm manages to deflect it but before he can react the spirit reaches out at him and then he has the same glassy eyed look Red does and he pulls out his swords and starts toward Red. This was apparently the spirit's plan and it gathers itself up and goes into a defensive mode. Danno and Hector lay into the spirit but are barely scratching him. He is just expecting to sit there while we kill each other but I have other plans. I reach deep into the supernal and call down the power of a grammar school timeout. I scold Red and Ohm and tell them to stop fighting and go stand in corners on opposite side of the room and they do. The spirit notices his plan is now not working and comes out of his defensive cocoon to take some one else over. Danno and Hector were ready for this and beat the shit out of him. As the spirit dissipates his control over Red and Ohm leaves with him but mine is still in place. So many thoughts on how to humiliate them why they are my puppets springs to mind, but I can't, we are on a mission and it would be bad form so I release them.
We make our way over to the life side. The big life room is filled with a greenish looking fog. The floor is missing and there are only four pedestals leading to the other side. Danno sticks his arm into the fog as actually cries in pain a bit. Ohm deduces that it is a blood based poison which is why it effected Danno. Ohm manages to stem the flow of the poison and purge it. Ohm thinks the only way across is to make us very resilient to the poison but that is going to take some time so we take a little rest and wait.
<-----AEMP----->
Sitting in this temple waiting has got me thinking. The past few months seem to have flown by. Its almost as though this saving the world thing has become some kind of job, it has become routine. Running through these temples has been enlightening but it all seems the same. The genealogy research, hunting for blood samples and now getting pieces to a bad ass artifact that we have no idea what we need it for. I feel like someone is just pulling my strings. Maybe this is really how the whole hero business goes. My perceptions tainted by all the movies and comic books that show only the good parts. Its not that I don't mind this, so many mages would kill to be inside of these temples. I enjoy having to use our heads and I always enjoy fighting alongside these people who have become my family. Its just that I feel disconnected from the fact that there is this evil guy out there trying to destroy the world and we really have no idea how or when. We still have the last mote somewhere in the desert possessed by some thousand year old vampire. Maybe it's a good thing that we are being drawn away from thinking to much about the end game. Maybe it's the universe's way of keeping us from getting to overwhelmed with all this shit. Problem is I think it's having the opposite effect. I'm starting to feel the seeds of doubt growing. We couldn't even take out some forest spirit and we are supposed to take out an ancient evil vampire who also has the power of a mote? I'm starting to feel like we are just the pawns in this epic battle. Just here to do the grunt work and round all this shit up and then someone else will save the world. I guess its not a bad thing, could have worse jobs. Then again maybe it's just me. I've only been in the supernatural business for less than a year. Shit that's a lot of maybes. This self doubt train isn't helping. Well looks like Ohm is finally done with his ritual, his timing in this case is impeccable as I need something else to focus on.
</----AEMP----->
We haul ass across the pedestals with Ohm's boost to our immune system keeping the poison from setting. Head on into the circular life room and wait for the doors to close. In the center of a room is large thorny plant creature. Danno isn't in the mood to get up and close to those spikes and pulls out his gun and starts shooting at it. The rest of us follow his lead and try to stay out of its reach. We soon find out that its reach is quite far as it unfurls two long thorny appendages and grabs Red and Ohm. Red does his wolfy trick and slips away from the grab. Ohm is kinda stuck so he does the only thing he can think of, he sets himself on fire. Danno's eyes get real wide for a second as he sees that but he is far enough away to control his fear. The plant kinda screams and lets go of Ohm and instead grabs Danno. Danno turns into his mist form and escapes. The plant thing and Danno seem to share the same fear of fire as Ohm runs right into it and gives it a hug. He takes some damage from the spikes but it is a fair trade as he now has the plant thing on fire. Few more fire hits and ranged attacks and the plant thing turns to mulch.
--
We head back to the center room to see what is in store for us. As we finish entering the room the doors close and what can only be described as a thing materializes before us, all 30 ft of it. It kinda looks like the troll from the previous temple but of course four times as big and four times as ugly. Hector roars at it and engages it as a greenish mist begins to emit from the walls. It punches Hector with force that would kill an ordinary man. Its skin is like trying to punch through a tank and our first few attacks seem like scratches. I scramble its particles to try to create a weak spot and while it helps a little this thing's skin is still hard to get through. The thing gets a hold of Hector and starts trying to rip him apart. Ohm focuses his swords on the the things arm and manages to slice a tendon which helps Hector escape from the grip. The poison continues to emanate from the walls trying to push us closer to the thing but I'm not having any of that and I rely on the still active resistance from Ohm to ignore the effects. We soon see why it was trying to push us closer as the body of the thing erupts into fire and begins burning the rest. Danno has to get out of the way and resort to using his guns which are having a hard time penetrating the thing's skin. The thing is having a grand old time absorbing amounts of damage that would have killed anything we have previously fought several times. It reaches out again but for Ohm this time and nearly bites his head off. Ohm stops moving and the thing tosses his limp body to the side. Ohm is losing a lot of blood but appears to still be breathing. We are already running low on resources and the thing still lives. I conjure several of myself and have them all attack the thing with every ounce of power I could manage dealing tremendous amounts of wounds but the thing still lives. At this point Red is now down and Hector is climbing right up the thing's back and goes for the jugular. The thing finally notices that the poison isn't doing anything to me so he sets it on fire so now I have no where to hide. I borrow some power from Red and temp the Abyss one more time and open the thing's mind to the universal consciousness which starts to eat away at him. Things aren't looking very good. Ohm is bleeding to death, Danno has already been burnt badly by the fire and is now trapped by the things fiery body and the fired poison behind him, Hector is bleeding badly and his own resources are tapped. Red's supernatural healing kicks in and he rises to get another all out blow at the thing and coupled with the ongoing mind assault the thing finally collapses. I invest my remaining mana into Ohm's pattern so he stops bleeding and so he can get up and walk out of here. We are all bloody and drained and looking like we were run over by a freight train a few times. Hector seems to be enjoying himself immensely and thanks us for a good fight. Wierdo.
We grab the crystal and the thing's head. With the crystals' guardian dead the lure this place had over the Uratha seems to have waned. As we appear back in the cave a few Uratha are waiting for us. They are quite surprised and just stare at the thing's head. We tell them this was the thing drawing them here and they can have the head as proof. They are just happy the pull is gone and they want nothing to do with the thing's head so we will take it ourselves. I think with a little work it will make a nice fort for Oopy.
At this point I don't even have enough mana left to portal us home. I scourge my own pattern to generate enough mana to get us home. I must have been tired and didn't pay as much attention to fighting back the Abyss when I cast the portal though. As the portal finished coming into existence I felt the oh so familiar feeling of the Abyss trying to leak in and I reflexively took the hit. Unfortunately I was barely standing from the fight and that hit was too much. As I lost consciousness and fell towards the ground I could have sworn I heard the universe taunt "Ha Ha".
Cygin