From the diary of Vida Pankhurst
Stone to flesh and flesh to stone. Decaying flesh beats cracking bone.
Entering through our special window again we decided to explore down a different set of passageways. We found a locked door which Joe picked and inside we found prisoners taken from Nulb. And thank mighty Joramy Mae, Joe’s sister, was inside safe and unscathed. How the bloody hell she managed to stay looking so beautiful in her state of duress is simply astonishing. Anyway… we freed them and showed them the way out. They told us they were due to be sacrifices for the Earth section of the Temple. Also some man who claimed to be a sailor offered to join us, but that last bloody thing we need is another man getting in the way so we sent him packing.
We opened another door nearby to reveal a horde of foul ghouls who attacked us on sight. Between us we made short work of the disgusting creatures mostly thanks to mine and Samson’s divine powers. More of the beast were found in adjacent rooms though and as we battled our way through them larger more powerful undead, known as Ghasts, entered the fray. We smited them with weapons and holy fire and, even though their foul claws succeeded in paralyzing Joe, they fell before our combined might.
Retracing our steps revealed much treasure and a pair of Mae’s underwear, which is a treasure in itself! Those salacious men tried to take them of course, but I confiscated them for safe keeping. For the sake of the girl’s own privacy you understand! Pressing on through the chambers we found what must have once been a banquet hall, but now lay in ruins. I found a magically shield around there to add to my growing repertoire of magically items.
Then we found a ruined study to the side of that room. Whilst I investigated a fireplace in there a bloody huge great snake attacked me from inside it. The thing managed to bite me before I could lop its bloody great head off, and I felt its poison creep into my veins within moments. The men continued to look for treasure whilst I emptied my stomach into a corner. ‘O don’t worry about Vida she’s a dwarf. She can take it.’
I managed to shake it off a little; albeit feeling a bit weakened and we doubled back to investigate another corridor we passed. We found a door at the end and opened to reveal a small bloody army of humans loyal to the earth temple. They trigged a trap in the corridor and Fillian plummeted into a pit which began to fill with oil. Then they began pelting us with arrows. Ugg and I slammed the door shut after taking substantial damage whilst Joe and Sameson pulled Fillian to safety using Ugg’s rope.
They pulled him out just in time to meet another group of earth temple devotees that exploded out of a secret door behind us, also armed with bows and arrows. Ugg and I released the door and charged the men behind us whilst Fillian cast a web spell to entangle all the men in the room in front of us. I’ve never had so many bloody arrows in me at one time! Fillian then turned and cast a sleep spell on the men behind us and I did what was necessary again and ensured they would never awaken, whilst Ugg, Sameson and Joe dispatched the ones still awake.
Then the oil filled pit Fillian had been in seconds before started to bellow fire so we entered the secret door and circled round to another entrance to the room with the entangled men inside. Knowing they would break free soon we set fire to the web from outside and let them burn within the wrath of my mighty goddess. And so ended our first strike against the earth temple!
Feeling rather pleased with ourselves we looted the treasure found amongst the charred corpses of the earth temple devotees and continued to explore the area. After some exploration we came across a huge chamber littered with bones. Obviously some big battle happened here when the temple was first razed. Picking our way through the room it came as no bloody surprise when some of the skeletons animated and attacked us. Sameson and I annihilated most of them with a wave of our holy symbols whilst Ugg smashed the remaining undead back into piles of bones.
Hoping to find some valuable antiques amongst the bones I cast detect magic but was rudely interrupted by two bloody big ogres charging into the room. These ogres were frothing at the mouth under some kind of rage and one of them knocked Fillian cold out with one blow. Ugg and Sameson took on one each but the raging ogres quickly began to take chunks out of them. Joe at this point seemed to be having a dance off with the last remaining skeleton from before, so it was up to me to heal Ugg and Sameson before the ogres made them into bloody mince meat.
Finally Ugg bested the ogres and I set about healing everyone before we carried on. In a side chamber we found a chest and a load of money inside. Unfortunately we didn’t get to keep it long because Sameson, like a fool, charged into a side room and was taken hostage by another ogre and a small horde (or should that be a pack!?) of gnolls. They agree to let him go if we turned over all our money and left through a secret door in the bone chamber. I felt like letting the bloody acorn worshipper pay for his stupidity but in the end we agreed to their terms and went back to the secret door.
On the other side of the door was a thin ledge going up and down a massive pit which we seemed to be about halfway down. Learning from our earlier encounter with the bloody hydra we opted to go up the ledge, or at least that’s what we tried to do but Joe fell off whilst trying to scramble up the ledge at the top of the pit and started to fall down. Luckily he had that flaming feather fall ring on so he glided down rather than plummeted to his death. Sameson tried to grab him as he floated down but ended up falling as well.
The rest of us had no choice but to shimmy down the bloody ledge as they glided down to the gods know what. Luckily we found them both unscathed in a huge chamber with some sort of sacrificial bowl in the centre. The ledge ended about twenty feet from the floor of the chamber, but we managed to pull up out of the incense scented room before anything inimical happened to them down there. It’s a blasted miracle that the two of them managed to curb their usual male propensity to poke around and incite trouble. I have a feeling that if they had probed around too much down there then we would have been in a whole load of trouble.
Anyone this time we managed to climb back up along the ledge to the top of the pit and clambered out back into the top chamber of the temple of elemental evil by where the air temples altar lies. After much debate we opted to count our blessings and rest for the night. If only I could count on the night of restless sleep my companions can, but she…<page ripped>
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