RETURN TO THE SAGE'S TEMPLE
Blackmoon 14-16, 4433
Characters:
Owen the Vitalizer, Cleric of Shang Ta 3
To Question the Sage, Again
After dealing with some details in the Moonlit Zone and resting up, the group ventured westward to the Forgotten Village and then on to the Sage's Temple. They were not troubled by any passing foes during this time... the forest was ominously quiet.
They found the temple mostly as they remembered it, a tall rectangular structure covered in carvings, surmounted by a cupola dome. Scented smoke drifted from the shuttered windows, and it seemed deserted.
The party looked into the first level only enough to find the stairs upwards. They progressed through the top floor, discovering rooms both familiar and new. They were surprised by undead in a dead garden, but Phalaros' necromancy and Uriah's turning sorted them out quickly.
After learning the undead command was of short duration and the creature would have to be destroyed in a few rounds:
Justin: "Just tell him to picture the bunny rabbits!"
They found the ritual room with a coffin of severed hands, but these proved more dangerous than before, animating and attempting to choke the group! They were turned and quickly sizzled in their coffin with several vials of holy water.
[The group visited some familiar rooms, no need to repeat everything. See the stories of the first visit]
The party found the three crone statues and attempted to trade their statistics, with some success [spending hero points helped here].
In a staircase room, they fought a brass soldier which was armed with a throwing discus, and had a sinister red glow in its eyes - the sage's guardians had been upgraded recently. This became clear when it exploded in flames after being destroyed! Salzige harvested a glowing, everburning magma-rock from the construct's remains.
The group ascended to the roof dome where they spoke with the False Sage, accompanied by nine more brass soldiers. Her manner was strange and unnerving as always, but things did not begin with hostilities. She convinced Finrod, Uriah, Getorix, Xénos, Owen, Salzige, Joe Spruce and Cassia to gaze into her moon-reflecting pool and experience a vision [Full report to come on these].
The only member of the party who didn't accept the offer was Black Phalaros, who had his own plans.
Cassia asked "Show me your true face" and was greeted with a horrifying monster reflected back at her. As she was experiencing this vision, Phalaros carefully snuck up behind the False Sage and delivered a touch attack with a rigor mortis spell, paralyzing her for half an hour.
The fight was on! Ominous red light began to shine from the brass soldiers' eyes and a tense battle developed with the party carefully trying to dance around the deadly but slow-moving automatons, while the False Sage was carried to safety by another two. Several were destroyed, but things reached a crescendo of danger when the purpose of the magma-rock cores was revealed: three statues opened their mouths and breathed jets of flame, enveloping most of the group in an inferno!
[Lord have mercy I wish I had taken a screen cap of this moment.]
When the smoke cleared, Owen the Vitalizer was unconscious and Black Phalaros was nothing but a charred corpse [coming all the way down to -20 hit points!].
While they had winged the False Sage with some arrow fire, her brass soldiers lifted her on to the reflecting pool and they floated up through the cupola dome, disappearing up into the night sky!
The party knew that the crucial moment had arrived, and chose discretion. They hustled out of the room ahead of the pursuing brass soldiers, with Joe Spruce heroically dragging Owen behind him under a storm of discus-fire. After reaching (relative) safety outside the Moon Temple, the group packed their treasure out of Room I and returned to Viridistan to offload all their loot, identify magic items, study their treasures and plot their next move!
Stay tuned for:
- Treasure, magic item & XP breakdown post
- Black Phalaros' last will and testament
- Moon visions for everyone
- Downtime thread!
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