Session 3: The Figure in the Shadows Pt 2

General Summary

When last we left our intrepid adventurers, they had just awoken an arboreal guardian of the Rain Temple. Roots wrenched themselves from the ground, tossing paving stones like ballista missiles. Retreat was an option, but that would mean entering the temple through the front, itself guarded by a dozen or more Scorpion Cult warriors.   So our Thieves press on, dodging and darting their way across the difficult terrain (double the cost in movement!) to what they hoped would be an easily opened doorway to the relative safety of the temple's interior.   Ruhst and Trajinous make it across first, ducking under or dodging around the flailing limbs of the Living Tree, taking advantage of the fact that it seems to have focused on Kelpip as the interloper most worthy of being squished.   One great root heaves, sending a 200 lb paving stone flying at the gnome. The rock hit him solidly, casting him ten feet into a wall and not killing him outright only due to the magical sheen of armor he had summoned into existence at the last moment.   Percy and Fallenbridge take different routes around the outer circumference of the hollow. Fallenbridge takes to the right, while Percy leaps from stone to stone to get to Kelpip's side, where she immediately scoops him up and tries to continue on. But the gnome will have none of that and struggles free, running away from Percy just in time to be struck by the sweep of another mighty root.   Percy decides that the best way she can help the ungrateful Kelpip is by throwing herself into a one-on-one fight with a tree and hope that will buy the gnome the time it will take for his short legs to get him to the safety of the others.   Meanwhile, Trajinous prays to her unknown benefactor-god and throws out prayers of healing to those she can reach. At the door, Ruhst has discovered that the portal is locked with a riddle written in Old Neheran, which he is able to decipher: "There is a House. One enters it blind and comes out seeing." The problem is that he can't figure out the answer.   Hearing the rogue mumble out the words, Fallenbridge realizes what the solution to the riddle is, but, annoyingly, doesn't have the word in his repertoir of mimicry.   As Kelpip continues to scramble from upthrust rock to upthrust rock, a hail of stones falling all around, Percy leaps onto one of the Living Tree's flailing roots and begins hacking at it with her sword. Chunks of wood go flying, but the tree seems to barely notice, instead smashing the barbarian into whatever solid surfaces are handy. She leaps off of the metaphorical bucking (Gentleman) bronco and lands superhero style on a great slanted slab of rock, ready to keep fighting.   But Fallenbridge comes up with a solution even as Kelpip joins the others. Pulling out his handy slate and chalk, Fallenbridge writes a single word: "School."   It takes a few tries before anyone realizes they need to say the word in Old Neheran, but eventually someone groks the idea and the door grinds open. Dust billows, obscuring the maw of the entranceway for a moment. When it clears, a set of stairs is revealed. The stone steps, slick with condensation and carpeted with blind, white roots, lead down into darkness.   At the same time, the Living Tree, deciding that if the intruders know the secret password then they must not be intruders, returns to its slumber, ignoring the barbarian who continues to hack away at its tough roots.   After everyone who needs it is medic'd by Trajinous, the party heads down the long, steep stairs, eventually finding themselves in a strangely-shaped chamber where five of six slender pillars still support the high ceiling. In the center of the cavernous space is a circular, green-granite platform raised two feet off the mosaic-tiled floor. Both platform and floor are covered with patches of spongy moss that crawls with beetles and other insects. Another set of stairs descends out of the hall across the room to the south, the adventurers having entered from the north. To the west, a hallway leads into what appears to be a series of such, while to the east, a crevasse divides the chamber from a higher, more spacious hall, where a broad set of stairs continues on, rising up toward a landing even farther east. The crevasse is bridged by an ancient and venerable stone bridge that crumbles bits and pieces off of itself at seemingly the slightest sounds.   Deducing that that to the east must be the main entrance, the Thieves move toward what they decide is the 'deeper dungeon': west, and find themselves in a maze of shelved halls that had once been the Library of Rain. Hallways and rooms branch off from the main corridor, all with 12ft ceilings from which dangle the remnants of very old chandeliers now made of rotted wood and corroded brass. Shelves line the walls, predominantly empty save for coatings of pale mosses and mushroom blooms, but they do see a handful of books here and there, rotting on the floor, being consumed by vegetation on the stone-and-wood shelves, or in the remnant rubble of tables and chairs that long ago gave way beneath the weight of dust and time.   As Ruhst and Fallenbridge decide to scout down one of the corridors (having not yet received their Amazon orders of "Never Separate the Party" t-shirts), the terrrrrrrrrrrriiiiibble cackling laugh of a child ehoes through the shadowed hall, and Ruhst sees two gleaming button eyes staring at him in the dark.   It's really creepy.   Creepier, even, then the podcast that the GM and Sharon do that's SUPPOSED to be super creepy, but is mostly just funny.   For a moment, the party is frozen, but then they spring into action assuming, correctly, that anything they encounter in a centuries-old temple ruin with that kind of laugh can't mean to just buy them some scones and move on with the day. No, it bears toward them maleficent intent.   Like the witch.   Ruhst fires a crossbow bolt at the doll thing that is soon revealed in the light of the torch that Fallenbridge is holding, and Fallenbridge himself goes, "Sqwaaaaak!" and throws a dagger, himself. Both missiles hit, but don't do as much damage as the pair had hoped, merely pricking the creepy doll's fabric and loosening some stuffing. The creature scurries along the shelf upon which is was sitting, looking for cover and focusing its own deadly will upon one of the others in the group -- the strongest: Percy.   Capturing Percy's will is, unfortunately, quite easy. Despite her fancy talk and her Brendon Fraser The Mummy sartorial style, she is, still, a barbarian, and doesn't exactly have the best saves against Charm spells.   With a growl, the normally easy going warrior turns on her companions and attacks!   At about the same time, freaked out, Ruhst steps back and jostles a shelf. What he doesn't notice is that when he does so, a slimy, leech-like creature attaches itself to his neck and starts sucking out his lifeblood.   He doesn't notice THAT, either, since there is an anasthetic involved.   So, yeah, things don't look good for our Temple Thieves out on their first mission.