Day 27 – Out of the frying pan into the fire!

Day 27 – Out of the frying pan into the fire!

Twice tosse these ashes into the fire, 

Thrice sit thou mute in this enchanted mire.

I'll show her a bloody accomplishment! Today we woke up and went on the giant's errand to capture Moradin knows-bloody-what! The giant told us not to deviate but we ignored him and returned to where we captured the umber hulk yesterday to see if it had any treasure. Turns out it did. Not much though. Some halfling-sized boots that wouldn't bloody fit me, a few coins and a bottle of perfume. Insultingly Fillian tried to give this to me because I'm a woman! Well I made him regret that by throwing the bloody thing at his head and despite missing, got great satisfaction in watching his horrified face as it shattered against the rocks.

So after that interlude will resumed the task at hand and found the room where these 'dogs' are meant to be. Although, it seemed less like a room in the depths of the temple of elemental evil and more like a green pasture out in the countryside. A light brighter than the sun shone down from above and if there was a ceiling up there then we couldn't bloody well see it. The floor seemed to be covered in verdant grass and to the far side of the chamber was a huge rock with two figures chained on top of it. My keen eyes made out a man and woman bound in chains. Swarming below them was what appeared to be wild dogs and giant rats which tried to leap up to the rock to attack the prisoners. Occasionally one would succeed in doing so and the woman would do all the work (typically!!!) in beating them back down, whilst the male prisoner lay prone.

In the distance and perched upon rocky pillars surveying the scene on the rock was three creatures we recognised as harpies. Now I don't need to be a bloody elf wizard to notice there was something odd about this scene. The rats and dogs appeared to notice us and most of them stopped trying to leap on the rock to come at us easier pray on the ground. Well or so they thought.

I stepped into the chamber and prayed that the mighty shrew should surround me in a ring of blades. She granted me this boon and I met the jackal-dog things in battle. Ugg and Sameson moved into the battle too, whilst Joe peppered them with his bow. Then the harpies took to flight and the illusion on them disappeared. They were not harpies at all, but gargoyles. The illusion was put there to frighten us more. Still gargoyles are bloody bad enough and we looked likely to be overwhelmed by the sheer number of rats, jackal dogs and gargoyles.

Fillian may be a bloody dolt of a man elf at times but you gotta give him some credit for being a bit perceptive when it matters. He called on his magic to create his trademark magically web across the middle of the room. He had seen through the illusion in the chamber and realized that the ceiling was in fact only 20 feet high and used this to support the web. Most of the creatures on the other side got caught up in this trap or remained trapped by the rock. This gave us time to handle those on our side of the web.

Unbeknownst to me at the time Ugg slumped over asleep due to magic. I heard Filliam yell a warning that there is a magic users somewhere in the room. I would have given it more bloody heed if I didn't have three dog jackals snapping at me through my ring of blades. Out of the corner of my eye I saw one of the gargoyles trying to circumnavigate the web in an effort to get to me, so I conjured a spiritual warhammer and sent it to attack it to prevent problems later.

Smoke billowing about the room and the screeches of rage from dying jackals and rats belayed the fact that Fillian had set fire to the web with a burning hands. He's bloody learning that one! So I crushed the skull of one of the jackals and turned to face the biggest one. It looked me in the eye and tried to do some sort of magic on me. My amulet of wakefulness glowed around my neck and I realized it this beast was trying to use a deep slumber spell on me. It didn't work though and so instead it transformed before my eyes into a human female wielding scimitars. It was a bloody were jackal! I switched to using my magical dwarven waraxe and with the help of Fillian, who was blasting away with that magic missile wand of his, we gave her a messy end!

Moving forward along with Sameson who was doing battle on the other side of the room we attacked the gargoyles who had landed to rake us with claws and fangs. The woman on the platform suddenly revealed that she had not be chained up at all and transformed into a hybrid jackal-woman creature and leapt down to attack Sameson with her scimitars. I was hacking away at a gargoyle at the time, but it seemed he managed to best the woman beast and despite taking heavy wounds we managed to come out on top again!

Amongst the corpses we found some coins, potions and scrolls. Of course I didn't get bloody any of it because these greedy men swiped it all up before I could lay claim to a single coin! I clambered up on the rock and freed the man bound there but he seemed to be of a weak disposition because he awoke and then promptly fainted again when told where he was. I only bloody said temple of elemental evil! Eventually we managed to get out of him that he is a carpenter from Faloona. So not Mitrik then! I lost interest after that and we decided that the right thing to do would be to let someone take him back to Hommlet to recover from his ordeal. We gave Ugg a swift kick in the unmentionables to rouse him from the sleep spell and he agreed to do the task. Although personally I just think the bloody coward didn't want to face the giant again!

We carried some of the dogs back and Scorpp demanded to know where the ugly one was! He didn't believe my lies so luckily Fillian and Joe managed to convince him that Ugg had fallen down a pit or some such rubbish. This didn't seem to do anything for Scorpp's mood though because he decided he wanted to eat one of us and asked Fillian who he thought would be most tasty. He decided on Joe and was just about to eat the poor pickpocket when I instead told him that the fire temple had plenty of nice people to eat and they had insulted him as a king. Thankfully he took the bait and furiously told us to ready ourselves for battle before marching us up there.

It's about time we brought down that area of the temple! I've been waiting for this for a while. So I cast protection from fire on us all and we kicked open those double brass doors again and made it clear that this time we weren't there to scrub their floors. With Scorpp there we made short work of some bugbear priests, but one of them retreated to the fire pit at the far side of the temple and seemed to be doing a summoning incantation there. In the pit what seemed to be some sort of portal opened and fiery forms could be seen growing inside. Scorpp stayed up by the doors of the huge chamber to swot bugbears and priests that were trying to come through a curtained area, whilst the rest of the men went into the room to kill the bugbear priest. I planted myself by the portal and waited for all hell to bloody break loose.

It wasn't long before fiery salamanders burst forth and duplicated themselves with magic. I raised the holy symbol of the true goddess of the flame high and attempted to seize control of the creatures. They proved resilient but I soon had one of the salamanders under my control and made it attack the others. Their fiery attacks proved impotent against the protection of my goddess on myself and my companions, and that combined with Sameson's circle from evil spell and Scorpp lumbering over to help squash the fiery lizards lead us once again to victory.

But the fire temple was far from finished yet! The main doors burst open to admit the high priest of the temple and two of his acolytes. As we traversed the room to meet them in combat a side door opened to reveal two far more imposing figures. Both had red hoods and one was clad in black armour and had the markings of a high priest of the greater temple, none other than bloody Hedrak himself, whilst the other wore the jet black robes of an evil mage. It just never rains but bloody pours in this place! Hedrak yelled at the high priest of the fire temple, who it turned out is called Lord Chess, that if he can't defend his own temple then they are unworthy. Then the bloody cheek of it he told Lord Chess to bring the bodies down below afterwards. I said 'don't worry, we bloody will'.

They didn't seem to take too kindly to that because Hedrak called on his foul god Iuz to blast me with unholy fire. Thankfully my goddess absorbed the worst of the flames with a protection spell. The mage blasted Fillian with magically bolts, but he too was protected thanks to a magical broach. It shattered into pieces though. After this, typically male, ostentatious show of power Hedrak and the mage strutted off and left the fire temple to its fate. At this point three bugbears charged into the room from nearby and blinded Scorpp momentarily with a curtain in his face.

I called on Joramy to give me holy might and battle was joined was more. The priests came in casting and one tried to shatter Joe's bow unsuccessfully, whilst Lord Chess stunned Sameson with a sonic blast spell. The battle felt like one big bloody blur to me under the holy might of Joramy's power, but before I knew it all the bugbears and priests were dead except Lord Chess. Realizing his defeat he cast a spell to merge into the rock, making it impossible for us to finish the job and splat his brains all over the temple floor.

We knew he couldn't stay hidden forever so we decided to wait and explore the chamber. This would have been easier if Scorpp hadn't started to demand we get Lord Chess out the rock with our bare hands. I let the men reason with him whilst I investigated the firepit. I cast detect magic and saw what appeared to be a chest glowing down in the embers. Under the protection of my goddess I retrieved it from the pit and called my companions to help open it. They seemed to have reasoned with Scorpp and were relatively unscathed, well all except Joe who the giant had shook and dropped on his head.

In the distraction Lord Chess emerged from the rock and convinced the giant, with his serpent tongue, to side with him and leave to find better treasures. So we had no bloody choice but to let him escape, else Scropp would have swotted us. Bah, we'll get him later and at least he took that bloody giant away with him...that overgrown man was really starting to get on my nerves. Finally we're free of him. We opened the chest easily and inside was a ring, some potions and an odd sword. Even though I bloody had to go digging around in the fire for it everyone else laid claim to the treasure. Fillian reached for the ring and set off a bloody trap that cleaved his hand clean off.

I don't think I've ever seen so much blood in my life! Part of me thinks the elf bloody deserved it for pilfering, but I helped Sameson bind the stump anyway. We tipped the chest upside down to get the treasure without setting off the trap and I took a potion or two this time. Then the elf bloody began to talk to the sword. Of course I thought the blood loss had gone to his head, but it turned out that the sword is a magical sword that can talk into your head. At least that's what some of the others told me, but it never did so to me. Maybe these men are making it up or the fumes in this room were getting to their heads. How the blazes should I know what goes on in their male brains.

Anyway, Fillian took the sword and we went for a look around the fire temple's side chambers purloining everything from the tapestries on the walls to the clothes of the now dead inhabitants. In one room Sameson found a bottle of what I and Fillian recognised as drow poison. Horrid stuff. I bloody hate drow! Under the mountain we killed the things on sight. Fillian understandably whipped this out of Sameson hand and smashed it on the floor. It is said that the very existence of the drow is an insult to the elves in the same way that the duergar are to my people. Well I say 'my' bloody people but what sort of people treat half of their own people as inferior based upon their gender! At least the bloody elves don't do that. In fact, come to think of it, I heard that drow societies have women in charge. Humph maybe that ain't so bloody bad after all. But I digress...

We thought that Ugg might have returned from his errand taking the carpenter back to town by now and we realized we never told him where to meet us. Our guess that he might head back to where Scorpp quarters were proved accurate. Ugg told us he had taken the carpenter safely back and what's more the 'talking' sword 'told' Fillian to give it to Ugg as a more suitable owner. Frankly I've never heard such a load of ashes! Thankfully the giant was not longer in his quarters and so we raided insdie although it seemed to be strangely empty of treasure considering! Weakened by our battles we returned to the crypt we had been using as a rest area and tried to get some shut eye after our most productive day! Only I knew that once again my shut eye meant another battle with that bitch!