Session 29: This Tattered Flesh
General Summary
The Temple Thieves, having defeated the owl harpies lairing in the canyon leading to the great door at the entrance to the Gearheart gnomes ancient forge-temple, can turn their attention to doing what they do best: breaking into holy places. Unable to easily get back to the ship, the gnome Gnocchi decides to join them, against his better judgement.
Kelpip is able to glean much useful information from examining the workings of the machinery filling the box canyon here on the north side of Skull Island. For one, he determines that the towers had been designed to store energy, probably drawn from the storms that sweep across this part of the Golden Ocean. What that storage is designed to power, though, isn't as easily understood.
So the team decides to power it up and find out. Trajinous draws on her connection to the primal storm and brings lightning cascading down onto the towers, filling the intact ones to the brim with energy. When they have enough (or nearly enough, as it turns out), massive gears and pistons begin to operate, raising a section of the ground fifteen feet up, creating a bridge, a walkway, from the shore to nearly the center of the great door's disk.
Approaching this, the Thieves discover that something else has been powered, too: a golden 'egg' above the mighty door disk leading into the mountain. Those in the lead are struck down by lightning lancing out from this egg, but soon enough the trap plays out and they can make another attempt.
With Percy's aid -- and hearkening back to they practice they had playing Toss Yer Buddy back up at the Last Inn -- Kelpip is able to magic himself up to the egg, where he discovers that it is designed to open, as well as to strike intruders with lightning. But he is unable to disarm it, though it does seem to be powered down.
Meanwhile, sharp-eyed Dolan spots what he believes to be a keyhole in the portal. Ruhst, who had been attempting to climb the door to aid Kelpip's examination, lowers himself and sets about picking the gargantuan lock. Kelpip rappels down to join the others and soon enough there is a loud 'clank' that indicates that Ruhst has been successful in his burglary.
But the door still cannot be opened.
Determining that the mechanisms need to be powered again, Trajinous fills the towers with even more lightning-fueled energy.
And the door ... rolls open!
Beyond is a sand-floored entrance cave, rough-hewn, at the far end of which is a raised landing accessed by three wide sets of stairs. The Thieves ascend and enter a gnome-crafted hall of pillared rooms where they also find strange suits of armor shaped like 8-ft-tall minotaurs, but designed to be worn by gnomes. In adjacent rooms, they also discover other treasures among antediluvian sarcophagi -- rare oils, mechanisms, platinum. But this treasure hunting is cut short when Percy investigates the entrance to a deeper maze of corridors. At the entryway, she discovers that something lurks: a gelatinous mass some ten feet by ten feet by ten feet. A veritable cube gelatinous! It attacks, trying to engulf her, but she springs backward out of the way. Or at least so she believes, until it extends a powerful bludgeoning psuedopod of its own essence and smashes the barbarian into a wall.
The others rush to their companion's aid, lashing at the cube with arrow and spell. Fire blooms around it, and barbed arrows dig deep, until finally the cube discorporates into a loose jelly that spreads across the ground.
Shaken, the party enters the temple-forge of the Gearheart gnomes only to find themselves in an actual maze. Percy, in the lead, scouts a corner and comes across what appears to be a pile of ... skin, bone, and skulls. As she approaches, though, this tattered mass rises into life, flaps grotesque wings, and attacks the barbarian! Its claws are bad enough, but Percy soon discovers something even worse: the creature exudes some sort of aura that threatens to suck her very life-force from her body! And not only hers, for the others are affected as well.
Dolan quickly sends Fenris fleeing to a safer distance. Gnocchi, too, falls back. But the others push forward in the hopes of bringing the thing down before it can drain them of the desire to live. Dolan fires arrows while Ruhst darts in and out with flashing daggers. Percy's vorpal sword goes snicker-snack, and Kelpip, discovering that the upper edge of the maze's walls end not at the ceiling, but only 15 ft above (with said ceiling some 60 or more feet further on), climbs atop one and launches bolts of fire at the creature. But it is Trajinous who shines in combat against this undead thing. Her lancets of holy energy lash against the beast and rip it to shreds. Though not before it has done more than its fair share of damage to the party, still it falls.
Panting, the Thieves hear more flapping in the darkness outside the feeble light of their torches. The fight against the thing of tattered flesh was hard won. And now ... now there seem to be more out there in the dark.
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