Continued …
After a thankfully uneventful night in the caverns,
the party prepared to make another push towards their goal, the Rod of Narissa.
While the spellcasters prepared for the day ahead, Kern and Darnoth discussed
the malachite gems they kept finding. Darnorth, a native of these Western War
Peaks, recalled that there had been a number of gem mines in this area at the
height of the Third Imperium, so it’s possible this town’s mine was the source
of the gems. He also guessed that might explain the gnome’s presence too. Meanwhile, Turrick had wandered off to explore
through the upper works and chit chat with the gnomes, and was not to be seen
again this day.
After checking first that their rope bridge was still
in place, Riley once more called on the mighty Habuu to show them the way to the Rod.
Following the clerics directions, the party headed due east. Bypassing the
swirling pit this time (although those gems were still mighty tempting …), they
passed east out of the pit chamber into another similar cavern. Here, they
found a dais, raised about 10 feet off the floor. At the top they could just
barely see some skeletal remains and rags, while on the lowest level of the
dais sprawled an intact skeleton. In its hand rested a long brass rod, studded
with a mix of bright blue and grey gems. Sensing a trap, Darnorth first levitated to the top of the dais to find
a skull and bones, dust and scraps of cloth, and a scattering of jewelry.
Meanwhile, the rest of the party discussed the best way to get the rod out of
the skeletons hand. In the end, Riley decided matters by grabbing a 10 foot
pole and knocking the rod away from the skeleton. When nothing untoward
happened, he then picked it up. Then something untoward happened. The skull
rose from the dais and the dust formed a vaguely man-shape below it. With hair
trigger reactions, the party moved. Erijay encased the thing in a web, Riley blessed the party, and a flurry of arrows rose from the bows of the
party. All of which missed. In exasperation, Bjorn the Twice Cursed
flicked a dagger at the skull. A solid hit, it caused the skull to explode,
dropping a shower of dust and bone fragments over those below. Recovering from
the shock of victory, Darnorth gathered the jewelry from above, while Riley
gathered the bones of (presumably) Narissa from their resting place on the
lower dais, and stuffed them in sack with the jewelry.
With the object of their quest now in hand, the party
decided to explore the parts of the temple they had earlier skipped. Behind one door they found a short hallway
with three more doors. One was a faded coat of arms (a green tree on a white
field), on another was the holy symbol of Saule and the third had a balance.
Darnorth boldly checked the balance room, finding a tomb with three stone
briers, each occupied by a skeleton covered in a grave shroud. In the coat of
arms room, they found a single body, this one clad in armor and weapons. In the
last room they found four bodies. When Darnorth started to search around the
room, one of the bodies sat up and pointed a boney finger at the dwarf, who
felt (but overcame) a cold grip of fear. Darnorth, now assisted by Erijay, flailed
away with his sword before the two retreated out of the tomb, to allow Riley to
call upon the mighty Habuu to drive away the fiendish creature. Habuu,
unfortunately, didn’t answer the call this time, so the undead creature closed
the tomb door leaving the party standing in wonder in the corridor. Pondering what to do next, Darnorth recalled
the fine armor and jeweled helm worn by the creature, which was enough to
convince him to push back into the tomb and do battle. Again accompanied by
Erijay, he burst into the tomb. The creature struck Darnorth several times,
putting a painful chill into his bones, and likewise took the elf maid out of
the fight with a hold. But before long, the undead thing fell to the
dwarf, who then proceeded to loot the shield and bejewel helm.
Leaving the tombs behind, the party next explored a
pair of offices. In one, Kern found a scandalous church report that detailed
the suppressed history of the goddess Saule. It would appear that the squeaky
clean healing and harvest goddess was originally a fertility goddess of overt
sexuality, with a rather dodgy history of past worship and cults that the
church leaders wanted to keep quiet. Never one to let potentially useful
information to go to waste, the wily merchant pocketed the tract. In the next
office, Darnorth recovered a key in the desk, while Erijay opened the wardrobe
to find no robes but three sand shades whirling to attack. These were
dispatched with relative ease. The next room was another dressing chamber with
mirrors and dressing screens. Looking at the middle mirror, Darnorth saw
himself at a much older age, and felt the hand of decrepitude creep upon him. Tearing
his eyes away, the hardy dwarf shook off the effect. In spite, he tried a
Turrick and threw a stone at the mirror, which infuriatingly did not break. Out
came the crowbars, and Erijay pried the mirror off the wall, but she found nothing of
interest on the back or behind it. Kern looked thoughtfully at it for a moment,
then carefully wrapped the mirror of a pair of sacks and proceeded to stuff it
in his backpack. “This might come in handy sometime” muttered the merchant.
Having explored all obvious areas of the temple, the
party returned to the large chamber where they encountered the first sand
creature. Exploring the other exits, in the north chamber they encountered and
battled another group of sand skeletons. Most notably, as Erijay struck a final
solid blow to the last skeleton, she found her sword from the Breeding Pits of Yg turning into a giant snake.
The constrictor wrapped itself around the skeleton, and crushed its bones to
dust before returning to sword form. Shaken, the elf gingerly picked up the sword
before the party moved on again. The other two exits led to buildings similar
to those seen in the gnome tunnels. Of note in one was an unusual metal chair
that would rise up or down, or spin left to right when a lever on the base was
pushed. In the other, the floor collapsed into the cellar as Kern and Riley
crossed it, heading to investigate a trap door in the ceiling. The unfortunate
cleric was dropped 20 feet into a pile of 200 year old root vegetables. In the
end, the two choose not to open the trap door,as sand was trickling around the
edges and Kern wisely concluded no good would come of opening it.
Now done with their explorations, the party returned
to the gnome’s door and knocked. Answering the challenge from the other side,
the party waited a few minutes while the picket went to get Hulgi, who then
order the door opened. On the other side waited a band of gnomes, armed to the
teeth. And their surly leader, who expressed
his surprise to see them back in one piece. And who demanded the party now keep
their end of the bargain and resurrect
poor Hoya. After some negotiation, Darnorth was left with the gnomes as a
hostage/sign of good faith while Riley carried Hoya’s body out towards the
daylight, and used the Rod to bring life back to the fallen gnome. While the
grateful Hoya kissed his feet, the cleric noted that four of the blue gems on
the Rod had faded to grey.
Hulgi pressed the party for details of what
lay beyond the gnome’s tunnels, obviously looking for particular information.
Darnorth used his natural charm and smile to convince Hulgi to tell the party
why the gnomes were there in return for information on everything the party had
discovered. Hulgi explained that the Fairy Queen is enamored of the green
malachite gems, which are not found in the fairy realm. She had learned of the
existence of the malachite mine in this village, and the gnome clan to reopen
the mine. They started tunneling in the sand to find the mine entrance, but ran
into the sand creature and skeletons who proved too much of a match for
them. And with Booh blocking the exit
from the tunnels, the gnomes were in an uncertain position until the party
arrived. But if they could now leave with the Fairy Queen’s blessing, the
gnomes now had work to do.
Gladly
leaving the cramped tunnels behind, the party returned to Booh’s tower to find
the giant still moaning and groaning in his bed, complaining that he was still very
hungry. Riley cast a few cure spells to stop the giants moaning, and Kern
reminded the big fellow that tomorrow they would go hunt down a nice meal of
horse for him. Which made Booh happy, which made the party happy (and feeling
safe enough) to settle in for the night.
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