Session 10
Clearing the Temple
Clearing the Temple
After a savage battle the group decided to rest. During the last watch footsteps were heard echoing, coming down the corridor. Three humanoids approached and introduced themsleves as The Red Chord. A particularly ruthless mercenary gang slash treasure hunters. The mul gladiator thanked the players for making their work easier and immediately attacked by throwing a spherical object inside the room that made a popping sound and bathed many of the group in magical energy.
The fight started badly with the psionic gith using his mental powers to remove thre members from the combat somehow. They just all disappeared. Morhen, however, shortly afterwards peppered the gith with arrows, dropping him where he stood.
Two of the group returned and the battle quickly turned against those who had disturbed the group. Although no cake walk, the enemy was dispatched with little trouble. Shiv however did not return from whatever the psionicist did to him.
The group made there way down a rough hewn corridor damp and smelling of rot. A phosphorescent fungus grew along the floor. Safi went ahead, wild shaped as a giant psionic cat. Towards the end of the corridor there was a branching path on the right and a mildewed wooden set of double doors directly ahead.
Beyond the double doors the group found an ancient storage room long since blanketed by fungus. This fungus covered the walls, ceiling and what remained of the floor. A huge hole had opened up in the center of the floor.
Safi took a brief exploration but did not find anything though he felt something brush his leg. Fazanna tossed in a bolt of fire before closing the doors. Zyel then rushed in bravely but was bombarded by a mass of spores from a myconoid that paralyzed her. Another Myconoid grabbed her and threw her in the pit.
Thus began a most difficult combat in which the group antagonized the myconoids and most of the group ended in the pit fighting some sort of magical vine. The peaceful myconoids were mostly dispatched but the two groups ceased hostilities to recuperate.
Having enough of these ancient ruins the group took the rough corridor to the right to a set of ornate stone doors. Beyond which was some type of sacrificial room with a stone slab and another pit. Flickering purple radiance shined up from the pit which appeared to emanate from a small object at the bottom. Shank crawled down and found a virtual hoard of silver and other treasures, including the shard of a golden crown glowing with pruple light.
Due to the overwhelming amount of ancient silver coins and other treasures the group, not wanting to leave any behind, emptied all their bags and removed all their clothes to create new bags. Fazanna used a magical spell to create these new bags from clothes,
Upon exiting they found their friend Shiv. The whirlwind surrounding the Face in the Stone was gone. The merchants they had saved were also gone, with their belongings. More troublesome, however, was the thunderous footsteps of something ominous heading their way. In the distance they made out a giant tortoise with a fortress on its back.
This was the lich wizard Yarnath the Skull's undead walking fortress named Slither. They could tell it was hostile and they quickly attempted to elude the lumbering thing. Through a variety of clever tricks, stealthy maneuvers, and a whole lot of grit, they managed to elude their pursuers, for now.
Spotting a patch of green in the otherwise yellow landscape the groups finds what appears to be a flowery oasis under a rock outcropping. Shank runs up and picks a flower but then immediately succombs to a magical sleep. Out from the back of the hole comes a ruddy brown insect-like creature with long antennae. It scuttles over to Shank but then moves on towards Fazanna before being beaten off by the group. It slinked back into its hole.
After they wake up Shank and try to rest inside the watery home they notice a skeleton holding a book at the back of the cave. Shank again finds hinself in trouble when he rushes over and grabs the book. A purplish black beam of light races from the books and stops his heart momentarily and saps his strength. It was a wizard and he had placed a curse on his book. The magic of the oasis begins to fade as the wizard's skeleton collapses and the plants begin to die and the water begins to vanish.