Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Part 13 - The Temple of Dooooooom



On the morning of the 4th day, I realize Briar has been gone for a long time. I go to check the stables and there’s a large crowd outside. Araja asks the town militia what happened. All the stable boys are dead. It’s a bloody mess inside. Even all the livestock are minced meat. I’m shocked and angry - angry at myself, angry at Briar. I’m sad for Briar as well. Araja tells me Briar wasn’t in the stable yesterday evening. Now I’m angry at Araja for not telling me in the first place!

We return to the inn. Araja’s unicorn is missing, but she thinks he went for a walk in the woods. Isaac comes up with a plan to wish Y’dey into the city where there’ll be plenty of people to incarcerate her.

Araja becomes increasingly concerned about her unicorn. Isaac pulls out the Marauders Map. He see’s the unicorn…but there’s no sign of Briar, probably a good thing. If I ever see her again, I will kill her. I can’t forgive her for what she’s done, after all I’ve done for her. What kind of “Circle of Good” was that anyway? Briar is clearly EVIL!!! I know I’ve known that for a while, somewhere in my subconscious…but everyone needs a second chance, right…? Psssh, clearly I was wrong. My mother always taught me to give people a chance, my father on the other hand, was a lot harder. They had to prove themselves. Looks like you were wrong this time mom…or were you? Clearly something was troubling Briar…I wish she would have opened up to me…I will miss her.

We go in search of the unicorn. Clearly he’s taken a beating from Briar. Why though? Briar couldn’t get near the unicorn to begin with. I knew the unicorn made her uneasy, but she never told me why. Isaac can’t detect any magical aura’s around the unicorn that used to be there. He’s also wet…The town’s water was enchanted by St. Cuthbert to remove magical aura’s…So Briar purposely splashed the unicorn with the water in order to attack him?

It was true. As Araja spoke to the unicorn in that strange language he preferred to use, Araja glares at me and tells me exactly what I’d suspected. A contingent of the town militia comes over and asks if the unicorn saw what happened. Araja translates for the unicorn. The town militia is not happy. They want us to leave once we’ve taken care of Y’dey…figures. Kicked out of another town. Will we ever be able to walk into a town and not have everyone hating us by the time we leave?

A short while later we congregate at the jail with the town militia. Isaac invigorates us with haste and wishes for Y’dey to the jail. Suddenly there’s an explosion and a lot of screaming. Someone yells, “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?” Isaac and Bar Wench dies. Y’dey is dead. The jail crumbles around us…

Suddenly we’re back outside the jail. It’s still intact and the militia is there, waiting for Isaac to make his wish…

As Isaac opens his mouth to utter the wish, Araja screams, “STOP!” The word dies in Isaac’s mouth as we all look at her. Araja tells us the unfortunate happenings. Now we are forced to go to the evil temple and extract Y’dey, kicking and screaming.

Rekka gives the unicorn a circlet and he turns into a catboy! I stare at him confused. Briar always turned into a human. I let the matter go. I ask Araja if the unicorn knew anything about Briar, why she was evil, what her plans were. All Araja can tell me is that Briar reminded the unicorn of his time in Hell and he knew she was evil.

We look at the map. Slick and the cleric are somewhere in the ruins of Nulb. We go to the eerie ruins. Rekka goes to investigate and reports that that cleric is tied to a cross and Slick is building a fire beneath. We rush in. Gideon kills Slick.

Cortanna: “Good bye Soap, you scum!” I mutter forebodingly.

Isaac rapidly takes the cleric down from the cross. Soap and the other heroes had turned on her. They were collecting some evil artifacts for Y’dey. The map they had revealed the locations of the artifacts.

We go down a hole into a cave. We explore the tunnels and come to a room with a dead earth elemental.

Rekka: “They’ve got one of the artifacts.”

We back track to another room. This one is filled with memphits. We decide to come back to this room later and find another room where there’s a large pool of water. Suddenly the unicorn morphs into a dolphin and plunges in. Araja follows him after transforming into a mermaid. What is going on? At the bottom they find an octopus. Isaac is pulled under by one of the tentacles. The next thing I know, a rather large octopus flies out of the water, smashes into the ceiling, and pops like a water balloon on a hot summer day, very much dead. Araja and the unicorn find one of the artifacts before they resurface.

We find another room that’s full of fire. Isaac puts on some gloves that make him immune to the fire. The unicorn follows, also seeming immune. What else don’t I know about the unicorn? Just then a bunch of fire imps pop out of the ground. I pull out my weapon handle, ready to fight!

“Might I assist you?” a voice says in my head. It recommends I use a halberd. Wha-wha-what? Araja kills the enemy in front of me, and suddenly my weapon handle turns into a bow, “Shoot the farthest one not engaged in combat,” the voice says. I look at the weapon handle in wonder, and then quickly comply.

Something down the hall shouts, “Human, come now!” Isaac shouts back at us that there was a red dragon blocking the path, but now its gone, and Y’dey is just a head. We make it past the fire and continue down a flight of stairs. Rekka finds 3 of the artifacts at the bottom of the stairs and grabs them. We come to a room with three doors and we pass through the middle door.

There’s wispy things flying through the new room, which Isaac quickly identifies one as a djin.

Isaac: “We have come for your artifact!” The djin only laughs and disappears.

After a tough battle the djin surrenders and gives Isaac the artifact. Gideon finishes him off. I spot something floating in the air and use my goggles to get a better look. There’s 3, cloud like, items that I collect and give to Isaac.

In the next room the air is filled with an electrical charge. Araja touches the floor and is severely shocked. Isaac puts on a new pair of gloves and melts a path for us through the room. As we try to pass by, some iron golems come to life and slowly advance. Our magic has no effect on them and they spew poison gas. Araja and Gideon drop dead. The iron golems turn on Isaac and kill him. My weapon handle turns into a whip. The electrical energy from it as I attack the golems seems to subdue them. While I fight off the golems, Rekka manages to recover Hubert and makes a wish.

As Araja’s about to step into the room Rekka stops her. This time Rekka uses her rust dagger to make a path through the room. The golems don’t pursue us. In the next room there’s a foul stench. The floor is foggy and there’s a pool of water on the floor. Araja throws a fuzz ball at the pool, which turns into a bear and it melts in the pool of acid. Isaac freezes the liquid and there’s a shriek. After a while it goes quiet. Isaac breaks the ice and finds the final artifact in the body of a dead creature.

We continue on down a dark hallway. Araja lightens the hall, and there’s a door at the end with 5 slots in it for the artifacts. Suddenly Isaac charges down the hall and starts punching the air, only each blow makes a solid hit. A woman appears. She takes a swipe at Isaac, but misses. Isaac puts a collar of command on her and tries to interrogate her. I extract a list of her followers to take to the militia when we get back. As it turns out she was serving Erythnull.

The next bit is a blur. I think I was too shocked to really know what was going on. Everything started collapsing around us. There was a hard gale. We made it out of the temple, or what was left of the temple, but then it was being sucked in by an unforeseen force, along with the rest of Nulb! Rekka transformed into a dragon and carried me Gideon and Bar Wench out of the city. The winds were so strong, we nearly didn’t make it. And then we were at the dwarven ruins. The winds seemed to die down and everything was quiet.

No comments:

Post a Comment