Whispered Revelations

Further exploration revealed a strange sluice next to a water well – with blood smears disturbingly similar to those we’d seen outside. We doubled back to try and delve deeper, only for Rhumor to trigger a pressure plate that released a horrid giant stone and bone sphere that nearly killed everyone except Conrad, who had been bringing up the rear. Nuri and I managed to teleport off the thing, Rhumor somehow managed to avoid getting caught up in it, Virgil grabbed Crella and threw her off of it but then he got smashed up in the room below as the gory sphere ended its roll of death. Conrad was able to provide much needed healing as we began examining this new room, I do not think we would last long as a troupe without his constant healing aid. Then, a disembodied voice called out to us, bading us to show humility in the manner of Mystral. Rhumor seemed to know what this meant, and so he made the sign of humility and respect for Mystral, and Nuri and I followed suit. Conrad then started to go for the door. Without making the sign of humility. Joy. Perhaps its his exuberance at being in such an archeologist’s dream of a location, but caution clearly thrown to the wind has a price. In this case, that price was another fight. This time with 6 mummies. Apparently the former aids, or students, or worshippers of Diderus. We were far more equipped for this fight as mummies are apparently rather susceptible to fire – so both Conrad and I were doling out havoc wrecking attacks. In one brilliant maneuver of mine I managed to vanquish three of them with just four swings of Flametongue.
 
We now entered another room, a library of sorts, and were immediately accosted by a strange ghost-that of the former librarian. She did not attack us, but kept wailing on and on and on about some stolen scrolls. Conrad offered to find them for her and return them. Just as we were about to leave, the ghost appeared right in front of me, shoving a book into my hands and told me ‘this is for you’. How? Why? What? I know nothing of this place, or of this librarian… how is there a book here meant for me? As far as we’d been able to piece together this place was truly ancient. Opening the book I could make out distant whispers, which seemed to slowly get louder as we delved deeper and deeper.
 
The next room was… strange. (because everything we’d seen so far was normal, right?). A huge stone statue was sitting on an enormous throne. It spoke, instructing us to leave tribute for Diderus if we wished to proceed. If Diderus was dead, as we believed him to be, why would he still be seeking tribute? Well, given the number of traps and undead things that infested this bizarre place, I decided I had no intention of finding out. Seeing coppers and silver in front of the throne, I tossed a gold piece, and the statue seemed satisfied. Others followed suit, but then… then Nuri decided to offer *herself* as tribute. Really? The statue rose and promised her she could serve Diderus in tribute for eternity. And thus the next battle began. Nuri zapped it and then went running. The monstrous reddish-grey creature strode forward toward Nuri, but was blocked by Virgil and Rhumor, whom both took heavy blows from the huge golem. I called upon the might of the giants and began hacking away at it. Virgil joined me in the slashing at the clay like substance this golem had been made of. Then, things got really weird. Rhumor jumped up on it, and wrapped his arms around its face, effectively blinding it – until the golem caught Rhumor by the arm and slammed him down, and then smashed him with another fist. The blows seemed to weaken Rhumor beyond the visible damage, he was in bad shape… looking feeble even. Virgil and I redoubled our efforts and began hacking with abandon. Finally the thing crumpled at our feet. At this point I’d expended a considerable amount of my resources, Rhumor was looking like he could keel over at any moment, and Nuri had used quite a few of her resources as well. We decided to take a short break, during which Nuri cast a spell that refreshed us as though we’d sat down for an hour or more, though a scant ten minutes passed. What a marvelous spell. I sometimes wish I could learn how to do some of the amazing magic this woman calls upon. While we were resting briefly I cracked open the strange book the ghost has foisted upon me, and noted the whispers to getting a little louder, though still not intelligle.
 
Continuing on we discovered a number of bearded devils all dining at a table. One of them looked at us rather curiously, almost nonchalantly, and went back to the table. Even after Rhumor shot one of them, they seemed more than happy to parlay with us, and agreed to let us pass unhindered as long as we did not attack them again. Strange how these devils may be the most reasonable and sensible creatures we have ever crossed paths with. We decided we should conserve our resources, and simply walked through the room in the direction of the pool (which Conrad had spied much earlier through a familiar’s eyes, and the devils were kind enough to point us in the direction of). After we were all on the other side of the dining room, Conrad shaped the stone floor to become a huge and thick stone wall that blocked the door – to keep our backs safe, just in case.
 
We soon found ourselves in the room with the big pool thing that everything in this place seemed to be all about. The pool was empty though. As was the room save for a great many broken arrows and one cultist corpse. I opened the strange book the ghost had given me again, and the whispers, quite clear now, bade me to lay the book in the pool. Okay… we need water. Well, getting the water was a bit of an ordeal, but Conrad managed it. Somehow he managed to scramble through a great deal of debris through a blocked passage and door to return to the well and sluice room. What followed that was astonishing and amazing.
 
After laying the book into the extremely shallow waters of the pool a foggy mist began to form, swirling, and a small ziggurat began to rise from inside the pool. Coiled around the ziggurat was a positively huge quetzaquatl! An enormous serpent with iridescent green scales and mesmerizing wings that fanned out in an array of rainbow colors. It spoke, and I instantly recognized this voice as the one that had started whispering to me in the lair of the beholder. Introducing itself as Chitikas, a servant of the great Qotl – the Feathered Dragon god of creation and freedom. And it offered me just that: freedom. Freedom from my unwanted servitude to the Raven Queen. In exchange of course I would serve Qotl, though at least this new patron would be of a good meaning weal. The price asked seemed quite reasonable, particularly since it was something our little group was likely to be doing presently anyway: Clear out the yuan-ti that had taken over this tomb and perverted the use of this diving pool for evil and wicked plots.
 
Perhaps I agreed too readily, too easily. But the thought of being free of the wicked Raven Queen was so alluring that I hardly needed to think about it at all. As I professed my agreement to this pact, an aura of radiance and fire surrounded me, and began to transform me, and even my equipment. I became even more trim, my heavy and dark half-plate armor morphed into a creamy white leather reinforced by hardened studs. The enormous greatsword Flametongue trimmed down to a longsword, and took on a whole new white hot red and orange glow.
 
In my mind a flood of magical spells began to spin around my consciousness like a whirpool. Initially I saw the Cloud Giant Runes I’d been studying for the past year or so, and those began to morph and change into the runes for spells of healing and restoration, spells of fire, of radiant vengeance and justice. It was a bit disorienting at first – Qotl, through Chitikas, had just imparted upon me nearly three times as much magical knowledge as I had previously possessed. Qotl must be great indeed to so easily pass on such a vast array from the weave so easily! Strangely the transformation has left me only the memory of having possessed the might of the giants, with no recollection of how to call upon that magic anymore. In its place I find the brilliant radiance of Qotl empowering my magic and my blade.
 
As this transformation took place I could sense the anger and displeasure of Her, but She was pushed away and in the place of the anger and malevolence came a sense of peace and surety. I had a fleeting thought of how wonderful it would be to sit on the balcony of my room back at Blackstar, enjoying a cup of fine wine, free of Her. But, the thought was fleeting. Here and now I am still in this temple, or tomb, and there is more work to be done.
 
After Chitikas disappeared in a fog, Virgil sacrificed a magical item to gain a brief insight into his lost penpal using the magic of the divining pool. We then proceeded into the next room. The room had only an ornate sarcophagus in it – that of the very dead and long gone wizard Diderus. His spirit spoke to us though, and then opened up a heretofore unseen passage through the wall into a cave system, and he bade us to remove the yuan-ti from his tomb and stop their desecration of the pool.
 
We started out seeking the wearer of purple Varam, with hopes of securing the white dragon mask… but, this adventure has been quite different thus far, and a great deal more heady that any of us anticipated.