Junius' servant conducts his general to safety. On the way, he finds a sapphire which fits into one of the eyes of the Golden Skull. One of the four elements is taken care of!
Next the Valerians try the Fire tower. It's got a fire elemental living in a fireplace, who mocks the power of Holy Water. This is an error, because BROTHER AQUILA douses its fire, sending it into a rage.
POUNCEQUICK slams the door, and a terrible blaze erupts inside, using up literally all the oxygen. Then, of course, it dies. The Fire Jewel is in the ashes of its fuel, and is very very hot, but soon cools when snapped into the Golden Skull. Little clockwork teeth clamp it in place.
Next Pouncequick tries to sneak up on the Air Tower. He releases a living tornado, which proceeds to suck in the Centurion, who is spun about and cut with flying gravel. Pouncequick dives through the tornado, a trick he learned in the Temple of the Four Winds episode.
Brother Junius spears the tornado, and his spear gathers so much windblown grit that the tornado retreats! Also, his Rebuke Evil spell probably helped. Six of one.
The much weakened air elemental hides in its tower, pursued by Pouncequick! It tries to duck into a iron duct, but Pouncequick covers it with his cloak. So it ducks into another duct. There are six of them,each roaring in a different voice, as though there were now SIX angry tornadoes.
Pouncequick exits and locks the door.
Moving right along, the Earth Tower sounds like a bunch of beetles chittering over some bones. In fact, that's what it is; it's covered with hundreds of Umber Hulk grubs. Using his borrowed hammer, Retarius smashes them.
The tower beyond has four crude statues posed as though fighting over a black diamond hovering in the air. It's actually held by a silken thread. ROSA's owl bites through the thread and brings her the jewel, which fits into the mouth of the Golden Skull. All that remains is the Air Jewel.
The four statues come to life and bust down the door! Pouncequick runs away and pretends to throw the Earth Jewel into the Air Tower. The statues rush into the Air Tower, where many angry tornadoes proceed to batter them into gravel.
This still leaves the angry air elemental. Which sounds invincible. But the Three Rebukers show up in the nick of time! Egonius is dry and detached, Raius is excited and goofy, and Petrus obviously isn't taking the whole threat very seriously. Together they Rebuke the literal Hell out of the tornado. Then they collapse, exhausted.
So with all four jewels in the Skull (say, that would make a good title) it's time to attempt the Third Brass Door. Like the other two, it has rubies picking out the words CONTAIN, CONFINE, CONFOUND over it. No one can muster the will to overcome its aura of revulsion, except for Brother Aquila, who can. He opens the door with ease; beyond is a throne of stone.
He wasn't holding the Skull at the time, which makes some wonder whether it was necessary at all. We only have Gnorfank and Peter the Earth Warrior's word on it. So DECINQUE decides to test it by sitting on the throne with the Skull in his hand.
Whoosh! The throne falls through the floor. Decinque falls twenty feet but the mechanism which lowered the throne does not allow him to strike hard. He is swallowed in darkness.
A torch dropped to him does not light the darkness. It is as though the darkness is EATING the light. Pouncequick decides to slide down, and on the way, something cuts his rope! Also, when he lands, he hasn't told Decinque who he is, so it's only to the Little German thief's pacific nature that Pouncequick owes his continued existence.
In the dark, clicking sounds approach. No attempt at illumination helps. Eventually, holding up the Cross and chanting the Lord's Prayer drive back the darkness, revealing animated skeletons attacking the thieves! Yes, we put all our thieves in the same pit. We didn't hold out a spare for emergencies.
The skeletons don't like the Cross. They REALLY don't like the Rebuke Evil spell which Brother Junius uses! They flee in bony terror and perhaps collapse just outside the dark room. Can't tell. It's dark.
Other people slide down the rope, in an illustration of the futility of example.
The third level below ground of the Temple is a wandering maze of rooms and hallways. The Valerian expedition meets zombies, ghouls, and finally freshly-dead Germanii tribesmen, who decide to endure the pain of the Cross if it means they can get their hands around some Roman necks! As possessors of Roman necks, the leaders of our expedition are dismayed.
(Rosa has a Celtic neck. Connel's neck is furry. Gnorfank has an ogrish neck, and the owl doesn't have a neck at all. So they're fine.)
But the pain is too painful, and they run away screaming. Pouncequick chases them, which means Connel does too. It's chasing time! He doesn't know he's following the lead of a man named for a cat. That would be incompatible with wolfish self-respect.
Pouncequick sees a man in an elegant gold-laced coat tear out the heart of one of the zombie barbarians and rip the heart in half in front of him. From this, Pouncequick learns that the heart is a vulnerable spot on this kind of zombie. He stabs one of the retreating Germanii in the heart. The other two engage, and lose, a fight with Retarius. They'd rather endure the pain of the Cross then face the Man In The Elegant Coat!
Following up, Brother Junius and his hearty band of six survivors present the Cross and recite the Lord's Prayer right at the Man In the Elegant Coat, who nimbly jumps around an angle of masonry. Rosa's owl follows him, then flies back out again. ROSA reports that the man gathered the darkness on the other side around himself like a voluminous cloak, and then he shut the door. As you do, when unpleasant company arrives.
So who will bash down the door and face the Horror Which Wears Gold Lace?
Gnorfank?
Pouncequick?
Brother Junius?
uh ... that exhausts the realistic possibilities.
Everyone earns 1 xp for the battle with the four elementals, and the aggressive dead men.
No comments:
Post a Comment