Journal Entry 19:00 The Fire Temple
Party explores the Fire Temple. Party meets Klaus, a forest giant, and his cohorts, followers of a Lord Azurellicus.
With Mid-Revel over and a much needed rest enjoyed, the party gears up and teleports back to the spot marked by Tars in the jungle just outside the caldera containing the lost city.
As soon as they arrive, one of the first things they notice is that the normally visible beam of light searing into the skies from the Light Thief’s tower is gone. Immediately Aja closes her eyes can can’t feel the presence of the disturbance which kept her from safely teleporting directly into the Sarlok city.
Now cautious, they set out and soon top the edge of the Caldera where they see the light dome over the city is also gone. They can also see that the top of the Light Thief’s tower is shattered, its internal light gone. Whereas before the crystalline structure always had a luminescent quality, the crystal walls now have appearance of smoke stained glass like the inside of a lantern globe.
Going up to the tower, they still can’t find a way in despite the damage. The pit by which they had entered before is gone with no signs it had ever existed. Surrounding the tower are several sharp shards of what used to be the tower top. As they search the surroundings, they see several footprints of giant-sized humanoids and along with several footprints of something alien.
Aja and Morvion confer and tell the party they believe the second set of footprints might belong to something called a Xill. At least Morvion is pretty sure the footprints match a picture he had seen back in Chrailis now that they are thinking along those lines. “It’s a creature that doesn’t exist on our plane. Completely different. And if so, these creatures are dedicated death and destruction,” Morvion says.
As they walk around, they notice that giant tracks head off toward the city. The xill tracks just disappear in mid-stride. Looking for further indication, some of the xill tracks just appear in the dirt with no indication where the xill came from and then disappear yards later with no sign of where they went.
With that information, Aja is able to add to the conversation, “If it is a xill, that means it is half reptile, half insect. They have four arms and attack viciously.” Morvion nods in agreement. Then Aja adds, “Oh yeah, they are also all female.”
At that, both Urik and Tars start saying how improbable it is for a race to not have any males, surely Aja must be mistaken. As they walk away from the tower, Aja slowly explains how several races can exist without males. She doesn’t hold back with innuendos of how males can be unneeded, to the irritation of both Urik and Tars.
Arriving at where the barrier used to be, they find hundreds of dead Sarloks. It does appear that the giants battled the sarloks and killed dozens of them with the help of the xill’s appearing again in their midst. As the party continues to search their surroundings, they see the tracks belonging to the giants once again heading toward the city center.
Aja is worried, “The giants might be following the giants in the etheric plane and coming out to ambush as needed.”
Deciding to avoid ambush, the party takes a different route to the city center. Coming in from the north toward the city center. Each of the party members remembers Dame Imokan’s warning before they left about troops marching toward the sarlok city.
As they approach the temple center, they can make out figures moving around the temple plaza. Moving closer, they see several giants. Until now, none of them have seen any giants except for the stone, hill and forest types. Two of the giants they can see are definitely stone. Two others are taller than any giant they have previously encountered. One, by best guess, is a cloud giant. The other is even taller. However, he has green skin making his identification the more uncertain. According to Morvion, the only giants taller than a cloud giant would be a storm giant. “And they are not green,” he insists.
A final giant is clad in a full suit of iron metal armor. He is so heavy that as he moves he sinks deep into the earth several inches with each step.
Morvion says, “He’s about the size of that hill giant we fought outside the necromancer’s temple. That is if a hill giant were completely encased in armor.”
Aja agrees, adding, “Assuming it’s not a construct. He sinks like he is made of solid metal.”
The green giant is at the top of the east stairs looking out the canal in the direction of where the Light Thief’s tower would have been. Beside the giant are two large draconian looking creatures with blue scales. While more than a few of the party recognize these as wyverns, it is Urik who says it first. “Wyverns. And they are acting tame – never heard of that before.”
Morvion is impressed at Urik’s knowledge and says so.
Tars is the one who responds, “Lots of them out in the eastern edges of First Dawn Lake. It’s common knowledge that Si’Nassa will fly out there from time to time to hunt them. And yeah, I know of a few orcs who have tamed them somewhat, but never that obedient. Like taming a crocodile, always vicious.”
And true enough, both wyverns intently stare out over the canal. When the giant turns to walk back to the other giants, both turn and follow him at an equal distance. Graykar even says, “They’re like two trained guard dogs.”
Entering the temple plaza from the north, the party sneaks around one of the temples to better view the giants. With the decision not to attack, the next choice is to parlay.
Graykar steps out from around the temple followed quickly by the others. They stand their ground as the tallest of the giants warily approaches and offers greeting. He is speaking in a language none of the party understands, though a few can identify as Kran, the language of the giants. Using Comprehend Languages the party begins to converse.
The tall green giant is named Klaus. He announces that they are here representing the interests of the Lord Azure. The party doesn’t react and goes along with this as if they are here also, possibly as allies or also here in service of Lord Azure. “We too are here to help. Our leader is an ally of your Lord Azure,” Graykar confidently states.
Klaus smiles at this, “That is good. Allies will help. And what is your purpose here? Is it to unlock more of the temples?”
Agreeing that this is their purpose, Klaus nods. Then he says, “That is good. Please, do not let us hinder your progress. No one prevails until the main obelisk is unlocked.”
Both sides seem aware that the other side is lying with regards to intentions, but for now, their goals of getting the temples unlocked actually seems to actually align.
About this time, everyone turns as they see a dwarf running toward the party from the Wood Temple. The giants start to raise their weapons, however, Klaus motions them to desist. He also motions to the two wyverns which are now perched on top of the temples to stand down and keep their position.
The dwarf rushes up, out of breath, and states, “Greetings, I am Dunger. I ask for sanctuary in your group.” He then points to Aja, “She spoke to me in the temple, when I was a tree, I think she may have woke me up.”
The party quickly determines that Dunger was indeed one of the wood statues from the Wood Temple. “Sanctuary, we grant,” Tars says.
Inquiring of Dunger, the party finds that the giants have been here for a few days trying to break into the temples. Dunger said after he was changed back, he seemed to be one of the few who wasn’t insane from the experience. Actually the only one. Possibly due to his close connection with nature is his guess. He reveals that he is not only a druid but a follower of Burall, the goddess of nature.
“I have never heard of such a goddess. Torya is the only nature goddess I am aware of,” Urik states.
Dunger ponders this and looks inward. “I believe you might be right, I feel a presence, not of my goddess but similar. Someone is filling her void.”
The party continues their parley with Kraus and he indicates they are free to enter any of the temples. “I and the rest of us will remain outside, guarding you from any attack while you are inside.”
Understanding Klaus’s meaning, the party enters the temple they have designated as the fire temple. As soon as they are in the dark hallway just past the entry arch, they take a moment to speak with their newest member about his recent experiences.
Dunger says he could see out of the entrance to the Wood Temple as the giants tried to break through what was to him an invisible barrier. The giants were unable to see him in return. He also says that the others as they were reanimated either sat in one position catatonic or went running out of the temple screaming and raving. After the giants appeared, he saw more than a few run out only to be captured and interrogated by the giants. Once those captured had proved useless, the giants killed them and fed them to the wyverns.
He also surprised the party by saying he could feel the power of the temples being unlocked by the flooding of power. Even while he was still a tree. Dunger suggests this may have been some of what drove the others mad. He says that as the party unlocked the temples, he could see their actions like a half-remembered hazy dream. It was those visions which gave him the courage to run out to the party, sensing that with him he could find some semblance of safety.
When the party questions this claim, Dunger is able to answer some of the questions about their experience in the metal and water temple. Enough so that they believe him.
Most disturbingly, he claims that some of the others who had ran out of the wood temple were similarly enhanced with that power. And he could feel it die as they were killed by the giants. He even saw Klaus snap one elf in half and when he did, Dunger could see, or at least he thought he could see, an evanescence of the elf’s spirit flit out of her body only to be absorbed by the green giant.
He relays his past and the party learns he has another one of the artifacts and that he was also attempting to unlock the temples with his party. Morvion points out, “You mean there are more artifacts that those statues have?”
Dunger nods yes, “I guess you don’t know the full story of the items. Yes, however upon death the items tend to move on. I guarantee with everyone animated, anyone killed did not leave an item behind for the giants. The items will move on to their next bearer. When you die, so it will be with your items. And some of your essence will now charge the items also and belong to the next one to hold that item.”
Thinking on this, Dunger then adds, “You know, I really don’t recall those I used to call comrades having their items. Not now that I think about it. Their items must have moved on. Odd that I retained mine when the didn’t.”
In fact, as he looks around, he points to Morvion’s spear. “In fact, if that spear were about a foot longer, I would say it was Gorail’s spear. Does it absorb energy?”
“Yes,” Morvion replies.
“Hmmm, then that ax the orc is carrying must be the one that Braxis used to carry. Only his was made of jade, not black stone.” As he looks around, “None of the others really look at that familiar.”
“As I was on a similar quest, to unlock the temples, it seems only natural I continue that quest,” states Dunger.
Aja asks, “What was your quest, why were you trying to unlock the temples?”
“Because if we didn’t, our world would have be destroyed. This obelisk was built to save a world, instead it destroys worlds and as it moves to the next world, it destroys that world also,” Dunger says. And as soon as he says it, it occurs to him what the obelisk being here represents. He goes silent.
The rest of the party, realizing what Dunger just did, also remain silent and give him a moment.
Morvion breaks the moment, “Yes, come with us. It may be too late for your world, but our world will appreciate your help.”
The entrance hallway, tiled with large black marble squares, extends down a several yards and ends at a single door. Moving cautiously down the hallway with Graykar in the lead, the party begins advancing. As Graykar steps on one of the large sections of hallway, the floor sinks six inches. He jumps back. The section of the flooring doesn’t rise back up. Using various methods, the rest of the party crosses the twenty-foot expanse of floor that had began to lower. Looking at it closely, Graykar is unable to determine a mechanism controlling the floor.
Leaving the potential trap behind, they see a door at the end of the hallway.
Just before the door is a flight of stairs headed down from the hallway to the right and turning right again after several steps. To the left, across from the first flight of stairs, is another flight of stairs heading up turning left and left again after landing, continuing upwards.
Before trying the stairs, the party examines the door. It has a key lock yet no mechanism inside the lock. As Graykar continues to look at the immense steel door, he cannot see any hinges either. He has the feeling he is looking more at a large slab of metal more so than an actual door. Even the keyhole is blocked on the other side, like it just opens up into a wall.
“I am not sure this is even a door,” Graykar says.
The party next tries the stairs, with Graykar going first. As he gets past the first turn, he sees the stairs continue up, turning again. At this time, the stairs light up in flame. Most of the rest of the party on the stairs jumps off avoiding any serious injury. Graykar chooses to try and run up out of the stairwell, using his unnatural speed. Running up the stairs, they turn and turn again. Eventually they let out on a new landing, leading right back to the hallway where the party is standing. The party tries the stairs the other direction, this time going down the left-handed stairs and sure enough, Graykar comes running out of the right side a few moments later, slightly singed.
“Annoying,” is all Graykar can say.
At this time, the can see one of the giants has entered the temple, watching them. He is just at the entrance in the hallway. It is the shortest of the giants, the one fully clad in metal. Ignoring the giant, the party continues on.
At this time, Urik plays a hunch. He steps back to where the floor is lowered by few inches. When he steps on it, the floor lowers another foot. Taking this a positive sign, Urik enlarges himself to his full size, easily equaling the weight of the entire party. As Urik starts growing to gargantuan proportions, he is satisfied to see the metal clad giant step back in caution. The floor sinks down twenty feet and reveals a new passage.
Entering a new level, they see another door at the end of the tunnel. Graykar attempts to pick the lock and once again determines that there isn’t any mechanism to pick.
“Unlike the last ‘door’, I believe this is a real door. We will have to find the key likely to interact with the mechanism. I can’t pick what isn’t there,” Graykar mutters.
The party then begins looking around the room for some type of key.
Lining and lighting this new hall are six light sconces.
In the hall four pictures are hanging, two per wall. One picture depicts a blacksmith’s forge, the second a large naval battle between two ships, the third a forest in winter, and the fourth a mountain top surrounded by clouds. It doesn’t take long for the party to realize that the images represent metal, water, wood, and air, relating to the other four temples.
With everyone searching around the room, including trying to interact with the paintings, the party is unable to find any clue until Aja flies up to the ceiling. As she does so, she looks down and sees something sticking out of each picture. As she floats down, the items disappear. However, if she flies straight at them and keeps the same angle of sight, she is able to reach out and grab the item from each picture. Each item is a piece of metal which she tosses down toward a party member before going after the next item.
On the ground, the party is able to assemble a key from the four pieces. Once done, Graykar tries to unlock the door. Nothing happens, then they have Tars try as they believe that Tars’s artifact is the likely representation of fire.
The door unlocks.
Opening the door, a wave of intense heat blows past the party from the large cavern beyond. Looking in and before them, the party sees a stone path spiraling down suspended over a large pool of lava. Cautiously stepping out onto the stone to verify its safety, they being walking down the spiral a level to where the walkway stops at a black stone wall on the otherside of the cavern. The exit is blocked by a large stone door.
Grunting as he pulls on the door, Tars is able to open it. Inside they see the darkness of chambers beyond. Upon entering, Tars releases the door and it slams shut. Graykar had examined the door while it was held open and determined that the door probably had a large counterweight pulling it close and as such, they could try and brace it open however any bracing might be difficult to hold. And Gryakar didn’t like the idea of trying to wedge something into the stone path as it seemed precarious enough hanging with no support over the magma pool.
Upon entering, they find themselves soon under attack from the guardians within, some type of reddish extra-planar creatures. As they engage, Aja yells out, “Don’t let them touch you in the chest, if these are slaads as I suspect, they will implant eggs into you.”
The creatures attack, some with claw and fang, some by breathing fire attacks. Backing them up are strange gaunt creatures in black tunics. The tanned flesh of these horrid adversaries tightly stretches across the bones like a desiccated corpses.
Tars is the first into battle and as he nears, he can see the gaunt creatures are covered in an oily substance. Once engaged, the things burst into flame. Upon striking Tars, the flaming oil flings off of the creature and sticks to Tars. Tars is now on fire. Additionally, as each one touches Tars, he feels his strength sapped out of him from the dark cold of the creature.
Another one of the gaunt creatures, holding back, mutters an indecipherable spell in a guttural language devoid of any sounds which might be provided by a healthy throat. Several white darts fly out of his outstretched fingers toward Morvion, each bolt humming. As they strike Morvion’s shield spell, they lose some their potency passing through with a small remnant making its way through to strike Morvion.
As the battle lingers, more slaads join the battle and a few more of the gaunt creatures also join. Bringing up the rear are two grey slaads. As they attack, their touch causes immediate necrosis of the skin underneath the armored protection of the party. Morvion ascertains that it is probably negative energy until the same effect affects him.
One of the grey slaads then screams and a wave of dark energy strikes several of the party members, causing rapid aging. Aja decides that this is not the normal grey slaad she has read about, but something different. Something able to affect the aging process in its victim, be it organic or inorganic.
Winning the battle, the party searches the corpses and discuss what they have seen.
Looking at the red slaads, Aja makes notes in her book and believes them to be normal red slaads. Of the grey slaads, she is uncertain. However, she makes several notes to compare research once she is back in Chrailis.
The gaunts prove the greatest challenge, none of the party has ever seen or heard of anything like them. Morvion dissects one enough to see that they have no blood, but he is able to find glands which release the oil onto the skin.
Further experimenting, Morvion says, “The oil burns like normal oil, it is not a magical oil. Oddly, my defenses don’t always work against the non-magical.”
Everyone is certain they are a new type of undead and uncertain of how intelligent they might be. “The did spellcast, that’s for certain. However, creatures like constructs and undead can be created where they can spell cast,” Aja says.
Besides robes, the only thing the gaunts were wearing were a single gold ring each. Graykar examines the rings then he asks Morvion if he can identify them better. After a brief study, Morvion hands two of the rings back, keeping one for himself. “They seem designed to resist fire, though weakly. They won’t resist a magical fire, but enough of a regular fire to protect each of these things from their own flaming oil. Without the ring, I bet these things would burn up quickly.” Just to test this, he lights one of the corpses and sure enough, it quickly bursts into flames. Within less than a minute, only a burned skeleton remains.
Morvion then starts considering the white magic bolts which hit him and how they hummed. Figuring it an oddity, just some type of altered magic missile, he doesn’t give it much more thought.
Gigi makes an odd comment to Aja that she doesn’t register as meaning much at the time, “The dour elf sounds weird.”
As they continue to search the environment, they find two shelves out in the hallway near two corners.
One contains a carving knife. Looking at it closely, the party determines it has some potent magics, possibly necromantic in nature. It will be later that day as they are resting in Aja’s summoned shelter that Morvion deduces that its properties are ritualistic in nature and aid in the creation of undead. He guesses that it probably was used in the creation of the gaunt things.
On the other ledge, they find a fragile glass globe. Examining it carefully, Aja accidentally break it and it explodes, sending tiny glass shards into Urik and Aja. Urik gives an annoyed look at Aja and she shrugs, “Seriously. I barely touched it.”
Nearby are two rooms. In each room, two sarcophagi. With Graykar examining each of the lids first, they proceed to open one after the other. The first one is empty. The second one holds a gas which slowly bellows out of the coffin, beginning to petrify the dead slaad on the floor. Graykar backed out of the room quickly and is unaffected.
After the gas dissipates, or is possibly absorbed by the additional bodies Graykar tosses into the room, he continues to examine the second coffin. In it, he finds a stone skeleton (probably from the gas) wearing a highly prized set of magical leather armor and a rapier. Not even questioning his luck, Graykar claims the items for himself.
The third sarcophagus contained what looks to be a personal library containing several books and scrolls.
Overall, Aja is overjoyed as she considers this at least a few months worth of reading and research material. Maybe with all this, she can finally start to master the language of these temples. Aja mutters, “Why a language needs over 90 verb tenses is beyond me. And 20 verb cases, 18 definite articles, mostly for temporally coded genders, and who knows how many verb conjugates for the word ‘cause’. It is completely beyond me.” At least her grasp of the language should now a lot less frustrating than the garbled mess comprehend languages ever gave her. Truthfully, she is already starting to suspect why such a language might be needed. And the implications bother her a little. It’s the kind of language that might be necessary in a land described in the Fossil and Amber stories where timelines are mutable. Is this sarlok city from there? The Pryson, isn’t that what Torim called it? she thinks.
Done regrouping and searching the area, the party heads on down the dark passages. After several winding turns, they find more of the slaads and another one of the gaunt creatures. Pushing them back during the battle, they encounter a hallway with a burning brazier at the end holding a brilliant green flame. As they continue the fight and watch, they see another red slaad crawl out of the fire. Realizing that it is a summoning portal, Graykar makes his tumbles his way over to the flame and with a flip lands on the far side of it. He quickly douses it with holy water retrieved from his pouch. The fire sputters out and doesn’t reignite.
After taking care of the latest round, the party decides they need to rest. Heading back up the tunnels nearer the entrance, the party secures themselves in the rooms with the sarcophagi. With only about thirty minutes passing, the final wave of slaads and gaunts attack. This time, they encounter the leader of the gaunts.
He has a black mirror similar to Aja’s mirror. This one doesn’t create a replica of himself like Aja’s, but a replica of a nearby party member. When Morvion makes his attack, that replica takes the form of Graykar and intercedes, absorbing the attack and transferring it to Graykar, who has choice comments for Morvion.
Upon defeating this final round of the temple’s defenders, they find a find a headband on the lead gaunt which was likely used to control the slaads. Dunger decides he needs a headband and it is given to him. “If we encounter more, they will be my followers, not one those nasty dried up bozos.”
Trying to rest again, the party succeeds this time uninterrupted.
Once done, they continue down the dark hallways to where halls turn into caves containing pools of magma. Flying around the magma pools are dozens of little mephitis. At first they look aggressive, then as a whole they seem to think better of attacking the party and cower in one of the side rooms of the caves.
Aja attempts to make conversation with them. She doesn’t get very far. The mephits are obviously distrustful of Aja and make snide comments about her being an air creature, yet they don’t seem like they are going to be hostile toward her. Keeping as far away as they can, she learns they know little of where they are at. They mention that a new mephit will get trapped here from time to time and just phase in. Eventually, every mephit figures out how to escape, or it just fades. It is clear that they believe that upon fading, that mephit has found an escape. Aja isn’t so sure, but she keeps her thoughts to herself. She suspicions that this temple might be fueled by the essence of the mephitis drawn from the plane of fire. And if so, their fading escape is actually them being consumed to power this temple.
While she would like to relieve the mephitis of this curse, now is not the time. The magics used to create the temples is far beyond her understanding still.
After a short distance, the caves open up into a room filled with glowing yellow magma. A single bridge leads across the pool. As they enter to cross the bridge, they all start taking damage from the heat. Even with the rings, the heat is almost unbearable.
Crossing the bridge quickly, they come to another cavern filled again with magma. The cavern has several large rocks in it. Using the rocks as stepping stones, the party crosses to the other side.
This time, the cavern leads to another magma filled hallway with no visible way to cross. As such, Morvion casts fly on all party members not already able to fly. At the end of the hallway is another large metal door. Checking out the door, Graykar is able to unlock it. His comments make clear that someone of any less skill would have no chance of opening this door, especially while take heat damage from the door like he was.
The heat is getting serious and beginning to pose a danger.
In the square chamber beyond, they see a circular landing in the center surround with magma. At the far end of the chamber is a small metal frame surrounded by strings of flames slowly circling the three-foot tall framework. Inside of it is a 7 pointed star about a foot in diameter made of what appears gray metal webwork. It looks quite fragile.
As they enter, they are attacked by a large magma monster. Quickly taking positions, the party gears up for another fight. In no time, they learn that the creature is absorbing all the magic they throw at it. Aja’s flies up out of the way to safety since she can’t do much and her mind begins to stray to the magical void back in the sarcophagus, wondering how these are connected. This isn’t the first time they have encountered a magical null zone or creature within these temples. If she could figure out a way to harness this, or possibly bypass it, it would definitely be helpful.
Morvion moves in to strike, followed by Urik. Both attack and find that their attacks miss wide. Again they are baffled by an effect they have encountered before, last time seen in the metal temple. The magma creature seems to be in two places at once, one place when the attack is made and where ever that strike goes, it is now in the other place. Tars is the only one that seems able to combat this as he can do the same thing with his artifact dice Fate’s Carren, appearing to be attacking in one place and suddenly shifting to have attacked in the other place. Using this ability, his mighty sword sinks into the side of the beast, doing great damage.
Not to be outdone, Morvion casts some of his most potent attack enhancing magic and attempts an attack which hits, though barely. He has planned his attack to hit both locations of the magma beast, regardless of which location it ends up.
Rearing back, Tars swings his sword and finishes the creature off.
Now searching at the room, hoping to get out of the room quickly as possible since they are still burning, the only item is the burning framework. Tars tries pissing on the fire to put it out and this only succeeds in releasing a foul smell. Not wasting any time, Tars just reaches in and grabs the star. “It’s for me anyway, right. My temple?”
As he grabs it, the star turns to dust and falls out of his hand. Without any time to even feel worried, Tars sees everyone looking at him weirdly. Not understanding, he belts out, “What. How was I supposed to know it would do that?”
Urik answers, “There were at least six of you standing here for a second, all looking at the dust falling through your fingers.”
Tars says, “There was, I didn’t see any extra of me.”
Graykar adds, “There definitely was. I would say whatever we needed from this temple is found. And did all of you feel that, another surge of energy again, like when we finished the other three temples?”
The party agrees and as a group they believe the temple to be finished. As such, they head back out. As they arrive at the entrance hallway, they see the large metal covered giant at the entrance. He nods at them and heads out.
Not wishing to leave just yet, the party rests up fully. Once done, they then will head out to see what the giants are up to.
As soon as they arrive, one of the first things they notice is that the normally visible beam of light searing into the skies from the Light Thief’s tower is gone. Immediately Aja closes her eyes can can’t feel the presence of the disturbance which kept her from safely teleporting directly into the Sarlok city.
Now cautious, they set out and soon top the edge of the Caldera where they see the light dome over the city is also gone. They can also see that the top of the Light Thief’s tower is shattered, its internal light gone. Whereas before the crystalline structure always had a luminescent quality, the crystal walls now have appearance of smoke stained glass like the inside of a lantern globe.
Going up to the tower, they still can’t find a way in despite the damage. The pit by which they had entered before is gone with no signs it had ever existed. Surrounding the tower are several sharp shards of what used to be the tower top. As they search the surroundings, they see several footprints of giant-sized humanoids and along with several footprints of something alien.
Aja and Morvion confer and tell the party they believe the second set of footprints might belong to something called a Xill. At least Morvion is pretty sure the footprints match a picture he had seen back in Chrailis now that they are thinking along those lines. “It’s a creature that doesn’t exist on our plane. Completely different. And if so, these creatures are dedicated death and destruction,” Morvion says.
As they walk around, they notice that giant tracks head off toward the city. The xill tracks just disappear in mid-stride. Looking for further indication, some of the xill tracks just appear in the dirt with no indication where the xill came from and then disappear yards later with no sign of where they went.
With that information, Aja is able to add to the conversation, “If it is a xill, that means it is half reptile, half insect. They have four arms and attack viciously.” Morvion nods in agreement. Then Aja adds, “Oh yeah, they are also all female.”
At that, both Urik and Tars start saying how improbable it is for a race to not have any males, surely Aja must be mistaken. As they walk away from the tower, Aja slowly explains how several races can exist without males. She doesn’t hold back with innuendos of how males can be unneeded, to the irritation of both Urik and Tars.
Arriving at where the barrier used to be, they find hundreds of dead Sarloks. It does appear that the giants battled the sarloks and killed dozens of them with the help of the xill’s appearing again in their midst. As the party continues to search their surroundings, they see the tracks belonging to the giants once again heading toward the city center.
Aja is worried, “The giants might be following the giants in the etheric plane and coming out to ambush as needed.”
Deciding to avoid ambush, the party takes a different route to the city center. Coming in from the north toward the city center. Each of the party members remembers Dame Imokan’s warning before they left about troops marching toward the sarlok city.
As they approach the temple center, they can make out figures moving around the temple plaza. Moving closer, they see several giants. Until now, none of them have seen any giants except for the stone, hill and forest types. Two of the giants they can see are definitely stone. Two others are taller than any giant they have previously encountered. One, by best guess, is a cloud giant. The other is even taller. However, he has green skin making his identification the more uncertain. According to Morvion, the only giants taller than a cloud giant would be a storm giant. “And they are not green,” he insists.
A final giant is clad in a full suit of iron metal armor. He is so heavy that as he moves he sinks deep into the earth several inches with each step.
Morvion says, “He’s about the size of that hill giant we fought outside the necromancer’s temple. That is if a hill giant were completely encased in armor.”
Aja agrees, adding, “Assuming it’s not a construct. He sinks like he is made of solid metal.”
The green giant is at the top of the east stairs looking out the canal in the direction of where the Light Thief’s tower would have been. Beside the giant are two large draconian looking creatures with blue scales. While more than a few of the party recognize these as wyverns, it is Urik who says it first. “Wyverns. And they are acting tame – never heard of that before.”
Morvion is impressed at Urik’s knowledge and says so.
Tars is the one who responds, “Lots of them out in the eastern edges of First Dawn Lake. It’s common knowledge that Si’Nassa will fly out there from time to time to hunt them. And yeah, I know of a few orcs who have tamed them somewhat, but never that obedient. Like taming a crocodile, always vicious.”
And true enough, both wyverns intently stare out over the canal. When the giant turns to walk back to the other giants, both turn and follow him at an equal distance. Graykar even says, “They’re like two trained guard dogs.”
Entering the temple plaza from the north, the party sneaks around one of the temples to better view the giants. With the decision not to attack, the next choice is to parlay.
Graykar steps out from around the temple followed quickly by the others. They stand their ground as the tallest of the giants warily approaches and offers greeting. He is speaking in a language none of the party understands, though a few can identify as Kran, the language of the giants. Using Comprehend Languages the party begins to converse.
The tall green giant is named Klaus. He announces that they are here representing the interests of the Lord Azure. The party doesn’t react and goes along with this as if they are here also, possibly as allies or also here in service of Lord Azure. “We too are here to help. Our leader is an ally of your Lord Azure,” Graykar confidently states.
Klaus smiles at this, “That is good. Allies will help. And what is your purpose here? Is it to unlock more of the temples?”
Agreeing that this is their purpose, Klaus nods. Then he says, “That is good. Please, do not let us hinder your progress. No one prevails until the main obelisk is unlocked.”
Both sides seem aware that the other side is lying with regards to intentions, but for now, their goals of getting the temples unlocked actually seems to actually align.
About this time, everyone turns as they see a dwarf running toward the party from the Wood Temple. The giants start to raise their weapons, however, Klaus motions them to desist. He also motions to the two wyverns which are now perched on top of the temples to stand down and keep their position.
The dwarf rushes up, out of breath, and states, “Greetings, I am Dunger. I ask for sanctuary in your group.” He then points to Aja, “She spoke to me in the temple, when I was a tree, I think she may have woke me up.”
The party quickly determines that Dunger was indeed one of the wood statues from the Wood Temple. “Sanctuary, we grant,” Tars says.
Inquiring of Dunger, the party finds that the giants have been here for a few days trying to break into the temples. Dunger said after he was changed back, he seemed to be one of the few who wasn’t insane from the experience. Actually the only one. Possibly due to his close connection with nature is his guess. He reveals that he is not only a druid but a follower of Burall, the goddess of nature.
“I have never heard of such a goddess. Torya is the only nature goddess I am aware of,” Urik states.
Dunger ponders this and looks inward. “I believe you might be right, I feel a presence, not of my goddess but similar. Someone is filling her void.”
The party continues their parley with Kraus and he indicates they are free to enter any of the temples. “I and the rest of us will remain outside, guarding you from any attack while you are inside.”
Understanding Klaus’s meaning, the party enters the temple they have designated as the fire temple. As soon as they are in the dark hallway just past the entry arch, they take a moment to speak with their newest member about his recent experiences.
Dunger says he could see out of the entrance to the Wood Temple as the giants tried to break through what was to him an invisible barrier. The giants were unable to see him in return. He also says that the others as they were reanimated either sat in one position catatonic or went running out of the temple screaming and raving. After the giants appeared, he saw more than a few run out only to be captured and interrogated by the giants. Once those captured had proved useless, the giants killed them and fed them to the wyverns.
He also surprised the party by saying he could feel the power of the temples being unlocked by the flooding of power. Even while he was still a tree. Dunger suggests this may have been some of what drove the others mad. He says that as the party unlocked the temples, he could see their actions like a half-remembered hazy dream. It was those visions which gave him the courage to run out to the party, sensing that with him he could find some semblance of safety.
When the party questions this claim, Dunger is able to answer some of the questions about their experience in the metal and water temple. Enough so that they believe him.
Most disturbingly, he claims that some of the others who had ran out of the wood temple were similarly enhanced with that power. And he could feel it die as they were killed by the giants. He even saw Klaus snap one elf in half and when he did, Dunger could see, or at least he thought he could see, an evanescence of the elf’s spirit flit out of her body only to be absorbed by the green giant.
He relays his past and the party learns he has another one of the artifacts and that he was also attempting to unlock the temples with his party. Morvion points out, “You mean there are more artifacts that those statues have?”
Dunger nods yes, “I guess you don’t know the full story of the items. Yes, however upon death the items tend to move on. I guarantee with everyone animated, anyone killed did not leave an item behind for the giants. The items will move on to their next bearer. When you die, so it will be with your items. And some of your essence will now charge the items also and belong to the next one to hold that item.”
Thinking on this, Dunger then adds, “You know, I really don’t recall those I used to call comrades having their items. Not now that I think about it. Their items must have moved on. Odd that I retained mine when the didn’t.”
In fact, as he looks around, he points to Morvion’s spear. “In fact, if that spear were about a foot longer, I would say it was Gorail’s spear. Does it absorb energy?”
“Yes,” Morvion replies.
“Hmmm, then that ax the orc is carrying must be the one that Braxis used to carry. Only his was made of jade, not black stone.” As he looks around, “None of the others really look at that familiar.”
“As I was on a similar quest, to unlock the temples, it seems only natural I continue that quest,” states Dunger.
Aja asks, “What was your quest, why were you trying to unlock the temples?”
“Because if we didn’t, our world would have be destroyed. This obelisk was built to save a world, instead it destroys worlds and as it moves to the next world, it destroys that world also,” Dunger says. And as soon as he says it, it occurs to him what the obelisk being here represents. He goes silent.
The rest of the party, realizing what Dunger just did, also remain silent and give him a moment.
Morvion breaks the moment, “Yes, come with us. It may be too late for your world, but our world will appreciate your help.”
The entrance hallway, tiled with large black marble squares, extends down a several yards and ends at a single door. Moving cautiously down the hallway with Graykar in the lead, the party begins advancing. As Graykar steps on one of the large sections of hallway, the floor sinks six inches. He jumps back. The section of the flooring doesn’t rise back up. Using various methods, the rest of the party crosses the twenty-foot expanse of floor that had began to lower. Looking at it closely, Graykar is unable to determine a mechanism controlling the floor.
Leaving the potential trap behind, they see a door at the end of the hallway.
Just before the door is a flight of stairs headed down from the hallway to the right and turning right again after several steps. To the left, across from the first flight of stairs, is another flight of stairs heading up turning left and left again after landing, continuing upwards.
Before trying the stairs, the party examines the door. It has a key lock yet no mechanism inside the lock. As Graykar continues to look at the immense steel door, he cannot see any hinges either. He has the feeling he is looking more at a large slab of metal more so than an actual door. Even the keyhole is blocked on the other side, like it just opens up into a wall.
“I am not sure this is even a door,” Graykar says.
The party next tries the stairs, with Graykar going first. As he gets past the first turn, he sees the stairs continue up, turning again. At this time, the stairs light up in flame. Most of the rest of the party on the stairs jumps off avoiding any serious injury. Graykar chooses to try and run up out of the stairwell, using his unnatural speed. Running up the stairs, they turn and turn again. Eventually they let out on a new landing, leading right back to the hallway where the party is standing. The party tries the stairs the other direction, this time going down the left-handed stairs and sure enough, Graykar comes running out of the right side a few moments later, slightly singed.
“Annoying,” is all Graykar can say.
At this time, the can see one of the giants has entered the temple, watching them. He is just at the entrance in the hallway. It is the shortest of the giants, the one fully clad in metal. Ignoring the giant, the party continues on.
At this time, Urik plays a hunch. He steps back to where the floor is lowered by few inches. When he steps on it, the floor lowers another foot. Taking this a positive sign, Urik enlarges himself to his full size, easily equaling the weight of the entire party. As Urik starts growing to gargantuan proportions, he is satisfied to see the metal clad giant step back in caution. The floor sinks down twenty feet and reveals a new passage.
Entering a new level, they see another door at the end of the tunnel. Graykar attempts to pick the lock and once again determines that there isn’t any mechanism to pick.
“Unlike the last ‘door’, I believe this is a real door. We will have to find the key likely to interact with the mechanism. I can’t pick what isn’t there,” Graykar mutters.
The party then begins looking around the room for some type of key.
Lining and lighting this new hall are six light sconces.
In the hall four pictures are hanging, two per wall. One picture depicts a blacksmith’s forge, the second a large naval battle between two ships, the third a forest in winter, and the fourth a mountain top surrounded by clouds. It doesn’t take long for the party to realize that the images represent metal, water, wood, and air, relating to the other four temples.
With everyone searching around the room, including trying to interact with the paintings, the party is unable to find any clue until Aja flies up to the ceiling. As she does so, she looks down and sees something sticking out of each picture. As she floats down, the items disappear. However, if she flies straight at them and keeps the same angle of sight, she is able to reach out and grab the item from each picture. Each item is a piece of metal which she tosses down toward a party member before going after the next item.
On the ground, the party is able to assemble a key from the four pieces. Once done, Graykar tries to unlock the door. Nothing happens, then they have Tars try as they believe that Tars’s artifact is the likely representation of fire.
The door unlocks.
Opening the door, a wave of intense heat blows past the party from the large cavern beyond. Looking in and before them, the party sees a stone path spiraling down suspended over a large pool of lava. Cautiously stepping out onto the stone to verify its safety, they being walking down the spiral a level to where the walkway stops at a black stone wall on the otherside of the cavern. The exit is blocked by a large stone door.
Grunting as he pulls on the door, Tars is able to open it. Inside they see the darkness of chambers beyond. Upon entering, Tars releases the door and it slams shut. Graykar had examined the door while it was held open and determined that the door probably had a large counterweight pulling it close and as such, they could try and brace it open however any bracing might be difficult to hold. And Gryakar didn’t like the idea of trying to wedge something into the stone path as it seemed precarious enough hanging with no support over the magma pool.
Upon entering, they find themselves soon under attack from the guardians within, some type of reddish extra-planar creatures. As they engage, Aja yells out, “Don’t let them touch you in the chest, if these are slaads as I suspect, they will implant eggs into you.”
The creatures attack, some with claw and fang, some by breathing fire attacks. Backing them up are strange gaunt creatures in black tunics. The tanned flesh of these horrid adversaries tightly stretches across the bones like a desiccated corpses.
Tars is the first into battle and as he nears, he can see the gaunt creatures are covered in an oily substance. Once engaged, the things burst into flame. Upon striking Tars, the flaming oil flings off of the creature and sticks to Tars. Tars is now on fire. Additionally, as each one touches Tars, he feels his strength sapped out of him from the dark cold of the creature.
Another one of the gaunt creatures, holding back, mutters an indecipherable spell in a guttural language devoid of any sounds which might be provided by a healthy throat. Several white darts fly out of his outstretched fingers toward Morvion, each bolt humming. As they strike Morvion’s shield spell, they lose some their potency passing through with a small remnant making its way through to strike Morvion.
As the battle lingers, more slaads join the battle and a few more of the gaunt creatures also join. Bringing up the rear are two grey slaads. As they attack, their touch causes immediate necrosis of the skin underneath the armored protection of the party. Morvion ascertains that it is probably negative energy until the same effect affects him.
One of the grey slaads then screams and a wave of dark energy strikes several of the party members, causing rapid aging. Aja decides that this is not the normal grey slaad she has read about, but something different. Something able to affect the aging process in its victim, be it organic or inorganic.
Winning the battle, the party searches the corpses and discuss what they have seen.
Looking at the red slaads, Aja makes notes in her book and believes them to be normal red slaads. Of the grey slaads, she is uncertain. However, she makes several notes to compare research once she is back in Chrailis.
The gaunts prove the greatest challenge, none of the party has ever seen or heard of anything like them. Morvion dissects one enough to see that they have no blood, but he is able to find glands which release the oil onto the skin.
Further experimenting, Morvion says, “The oil burns like normal oil, it is not a magical oil. Oddly, my defenses don’t always work against the non-magical.”
Everyone is certain they are a new type of undead and uncertain of how intelligent they might be. “The did spellcast, that’s for certain. However, creatures like constructs and undead can be created where they can spell cast,” Aja says.
Besides robes, the only thing the gaunts were wearing were a single gold ring each. Graykar examines the rings then he asks Morvion if he can identify them better. After a brief study, Morvion hands two of the rings back, keeping one for himself. “They seem designed to resist fire, though weakly. They won’t resist a magical fire, but enough of a regular fire to protect each of these things from their own flaming oil. Without the ring, I bet these things would burn up quickly.” Just to test this, he lights one of the corpses and sure enough, it quickly bursts into flames. Within less than a minute, only a burned skeleton remains.
Morvion then starts considering the white magic bolts which hit him and how they hummed. Figuring it an oddity, just some type of altered magic missile, he doesn’t give it much more thought.
Gigi makes an odd comment to Aja that she doesn’t register as meaning much at the time, “The dour elf sounds weird.”
As they continue to search the environment, they find two shelves out in the hallway near two corners.
One contains a carving knife. Looking at it closely, the party determines it has some potent magics, possibly necromantic in nature. It will be later that day as they are resting in Aja’s summoned shelter that Morvion deduces that its properties are ritualistic in nature and aid in the creation of undead. He guesses that it probably was used in the creation of the gaunt things.
On the other ledge, they find a fragile glass globe. Examining it carefully, Aja accidentally break it and it explodes, sending tiny glass shards into Urik and Aja. Urik gives an annoyed look at Aja and she shrugs, “Seriously. I barely touched it.”
Nearby are two rooms. In each room, two sarcophagi. With Graykar examining each of the lids first, they proceed to open one after the other. The first one is empty. The second one holds a gas which slowly bellows out of the coffin, beginning to petrify the dead slaad on the floor. Graykar backed out of the room quickly and is unaffected.
After the gas dissipates, or is possibly absorbed by the additional bodies Graykar tosses into the room, he continues to examine the second coffin. In it, he finds a stone skeleton (probably from the gas) wearing a highly prized set of magical leather armor and a rapier. Not even questioning his luck, Graykar claims the items for himself.
The third sarcophagus contained what looks to be a personal library containing several books and scrolls.
Overall, Aja is overjoyed as she considers this at least a few months worth of reading and research material. Maybe with all this, she can finally start to master the language of these temples. Aja mutters, “Why a language needs over 90 verb tenses is beyond me. And 20 verb cases, 18 definite articles, mostly for temporally coded genders, and who knows how many verb conjugates for the word ‘cause’. It is completely beyond me.” At least her grasp of the language should now a lot less frustrating than the garbled mess comprehend languages ever gave her. Truthfully, she is already starting to suspect why such a language might be needed. And the implications bother her a little. It’s the kind of language that might be necessary in a land described in the Fossil and Amber stories where timelines are mutable. Is this sarlok city from there? The Pryson, isn’t that what Torim called it? she thinks.
Done regrouping and searching the area, the party heads on down the dark passages. After several winding turns, they find more of the slaads and another one of the gaunt creatures. Pushing them back during the battle, they encounter a hallway with a burning brazier at the end holding a brilliant green flame. As they continue the fight and watch, they see another red slaad crawl out of the fire. Realizing that it is a summoning portal, Graykar makes his tumbles his way over to the flame and with a flip lands on the far side of it. He quickly douses it with holy water retrieved from his pouch. The fire sputters out and doesn’t reignite.
After taking care of the latest round, the party decides they need to rest. Heading back up the tunnels nearer the entrance, the party secures themselves in the rooms with the sarcophagi. With only about thirty minutes passing, the final wave of slaads and gaunts attack. This time, they encounter the leader of the gaunts.
He has a black mirror similar to Aja’s mirror. This one doesn’t create a replica of himself like Aja’s, but a replica of a nearby party member. When Morvion makes his attack, that replica takes the form of Graykar and intercedes, absorbing the attack and transferring it to Graykar, who has choice comments for Morvion.
Upon defeating this final round of the temple’s defenders, they find a find a headband on the lead gaunt which was likely used to control the slaads. Dunger decides he needs a headband and it is given to him. “If we encounter more, they will be my followers, not one those nasty dried up bozos.”
Trying to rest again, the party succeeds this time uninterrupted.
Once done, they continue down the dark hallways to where halls turn into caves containing pools of magma. Flying around the magma pools are dozens of little mephitis. At first they look aggressive, then as a whole they seem to think better of attacking the party and cower in one of the side rooms of the caves.
Aja attempts to make conversation with them. She doesn’t get very far. The mephits are obviously distrustful of Aja and make snide comments about her being an air creature, yet they don’t seem like they are going to be hostile toward her. Keeping as far away as they can, she learns they know little of where they are at. They mention that a new mephit will get trapped here from time to time and just phase in. Eventually, every mephit figures out how to escape, or it just fades. It is clear that they believe that upon fading, that mephit has found an escape. Aja isn’t so sure, but she keeps her thoughts to herself. She suspicions that this temple might be fueled by the essence of the mephitis drawn from the plane of fire. And if so, their fading escape is actually them being consumed to power this temple.
While she would like to relieve the mephitis of this curse, now is not the time. The magics used to create the temples is far beyond her understanding still.
After a short distance, the caves open up into a room filled with glowing yellow magma. A single bridge leads across the pool. As they enter to cross the bridge, they all start taking damage from the heat. Even with the rings, the heat is almost unbearable.
Crossing the bridge quickly, they come to another cavern filled again with magma. The cavern has several large rocks in it. Using the rocks as stepping stones, the party crosses to the other side.
This time, the cavern leads to another magma filled hallway with no visible way to cross. As such, Morvion casts fly on all party members not already able to fly. At the end of the hallway is another large metal door. Checking out the door, Graykar is able to unlock it. His comments make clear that someone of any less skill would have no chance of opening this door, especially while take heat damage from the door like he was.
The heat is getting serious and beginning to pose a danger.
In the square chamber beyond, they see a circular landing in the center surround with magma. At the far end of the chamber is a small metal frame surrounded by strings of flames slowly circling the three-foot tall framework. Inside of it is a 7 pointed star about a foot in diameter made of what appears gray metal webwork. It looks quite fragile.
As they enter, they are attacked by a large magma monster. Quickly taking positions, the party gears up for another fight. In no time, they learn that the creature is absorbing all the magic they throw at it. Aja’s flies up out of the way to safety since she can’t do much and her mind begins to stray to the magical void back in the sarcophagus, wondering how these are connected. This isn’t the first time they have encountered a magical null zone or creature within these temples. If she could figure out a way to harness this, or possibly bypass it, it would definitely be helpful.
Morvion moves in to strike, followed by Urik. Both attack and find that their attacks miss wide. Again they are baffled by an effect they have encountered before, last time seen in the metal temple. The magma creature seems to be in two places at once, one place when the attack is made and where ever that strike goes, it is now in the other place. Tars is the only one that seems able to combat this as he can do the same thing with his artifact dice Fate’s Carren, appearing to be attacking in one place and suddenly shifting to have attacked in the other place. Using this ability, his mighty sword sinks into the side of the beast, doing great damage.
Not to be outdone, Morvion casts some of his most potent attack enhancing magic and attempts an attack which hits, though barely. He has planned his attack to hit both locations of the magma beast, regardless of which location it ends up.
Rearing back, Tars swings his sword and finishes the creature off.
Now searching at the room, hoping to get out of the room quickly as possible since they are still burning, the only item is the burning framework. Tars tries pissing on the fire to put it out and this only succeeds in releasing a foul smell. Not wasting any time, Tars just reaches in and grabs the star. “It’s for me anyway, right. My temple?”
As he grabs it, the star turns to dust and falls out of his hand. Without any time to even feel worried, Tars sees everyone looking at him weirdly. Not understanding, he belts out, “What. How was I supposed to know it would do that?”
Urik answers, “There were at least six of you standing here for a second, all looking at the dust falling through your fingers.”
Tars says, “There was, I didn’t see any extra of me.”
Graykar adds, “There definitely was. I would say whatever we needed from this temple is found. And did all of you feel that, another surge of energy again, like when we finished the other three temples?”
The party agrees and as a group they believe the temple to be finished. As such, they head back out. As they arrive at the entrance hallway, they see the large metal covered giant at the entrance. He nods at them and heads out.
Not wishing to leave just yet, the party rests up fully. Once done, they then will head out to see what the giants are up to.
Contents of the library in the sarcophagus
Books: 18 total.
- Books 1-6: Detailed journals of Peralochio coming to Kenibrass, integrating into their culture, and eventually over the course of fifty years becoming their new god king.
- Book 7: Advanced metallurgy. A few small references to use in the building of constructs. Interestingly, Peralochio seems to believe that final alloys should be mixed only as the final portion of the construct animation and not before.
- Book 8: A reference book for 216 different types of poisons. Only 18 list associated antedotes.
- Books 9-10: Detailed maps of the city center and temple plaza. Describes the initial building of the 5 temples. What is obvious is that while the Kenyons built the temples, they were left unfinished. What is in the temples now has no resemblance to the maps.
- Book 11: A treatise on converting divine magical energies to arcane magical energies. Very interesting.
- Book 12: A treatise on using phasic theory to possibly travel to other planes of existence. Some of the ideas seem contrary to those presented by Caseulli’s book.
- Book 13: A treatise on how to build a permanent summoning portal. This carries a strong resemblance to the fire urn which was summoning the slaads.
- Book 14: A treatise on how to build an annihilation zone and then converting it into a magic sink. This is possibly how the temples are creating constructs capable of absorbing all magic.
- Book 15: A treatise on the magic of time control. Not on time travel as it stresses that time cannot be altered in any fashion which Peralochio can determine. He mentions alternate realities where this might not be true and then mentions the Pryson as an example. The main focus of the book is tat the flow of time can be affected within a localized field.
- Book 16: A book detailing a great city known as Gashmyr. It reads like a tourist handbook. According to it, Gashmyr is a city without history which exists at the center of all reality.
- Book 17: A dictionary of a language known as Pachidon. Not much can be made about the culture or peoples who speak the language.
- Book 18: A hypothetical conjecture on whether a pocket dimension could contain an entire world. Some references make the party think of Graykar’s backpack.
- Spell Book 1: Lesser Restoration (Wizard/Sorcerer 4th), Restoration (Wizard/Sorcerer 5th), Greater Restoration (wizard/sorcerer 8th) Cure/Inflict Light Wounds (Wizard/Sorcerer 2nd), Cure/Inflict Moderate Wounds (Wizard/Sorcerer 3rd), Cure/Inflict Serious Wounds (Wizard/Sorcerer 5th), Cure/Inflict Critical Wounds (Wizard/Sorcerer 6th), Heal (Wizard/Sorcerer 8th), Regenerate (Wizard/Sorcerer 9th).
- Spell Book 2: Sonic Missile, Ray of Sickening, Pernicious Poison, Animate Dead, Bestow Curse, Enervation, Undeath to Death.
- Scroll 1. Describes the creation process of glass bombs. They can hold enough energy for 8d8. Process imperfect and a stable orb never discovered. The scroll appears unfinished.
- Scrolls 2 through 18. Describes the nature of the lost city and the original inhabitants (now the Sarloks). They were called Kenyons and the city was Kenibrass, a city-state, possibly a capital to a nation.
- Scroll 19. Detailing the 7 gods worshipped by the Kenyons.
- Scroll 20 to 24. Notes on their language.
- Scroll 25-41. Journal entries of Peralochio, random thoughts, and scribbles.
- Scroll 42-44. A continuation of the Amber and Fossil stories. The next 3 chapters.
- Scroll 45-49. Personal letters of a political nature. Indicates that Peralochio was involved in the politics of Kenibrass.
- Scroll 50. Instructions on how to make the embalming fluid used to make the creatures the writer refers to as the ‘flaming zombies’. All the ingredients are translatable except the ‘musk glands of the trioskis’. No reference to what a trioskis is or even might be.
- Scroll 51. Indecipherable coded scroll.
- Scroll 52. Appears to be a happy birthday scroll.
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Author's Notes
Events occur in the month of Tanlo, 920th Year of Her Prominence. (1228 AC) Tanlo 4th and the 5th.