Temple of Elemental Evil

SO:

The wizard prisoner has been allowed to escape, bearing tales of a mighty weapon the Romans plan to use on the Temple, once it is properly blessed and dedicated.

The side of a riverbank has been dug out, and covered with tents, so that when the Temple's army arrives, it can be easily flooded;

Archers and slingers have been posted around the trap to shoot the Temple's army when the trap is sprung;

And the mounted element, which is the Valerians and three squads of Dianic Rangers, have hastened to the Temple itself to attack them whilst the majority of their might is elsewhere!

POUNCEQUICK, CONNEL, and the RANGERS scout the castle. There appear to be no secret ways in or out.

DECINQUE begins chipping at one wall, making sounds similar to an attempt to undermine the wall. He attracts the attention of the Earth Warriors, who are sensitive to mining attempts. They bust through the wall and search for him, but do not find him. When they go away, he uses the hole they broke to sneak inside.

JUNIUS and his staff make a lot of noise pretending to be a legion. They attract fire from the Fire Warriors and the Air Warriors. This allows POUNCEQUICK and SYLVIA to shoot the remaining Air Warriors, and Pouncequick to climb up into the Air Tower. He does get shot in the foot, but is otherwise unharmed.

BROTHER AQUILA and the Rebukers rebuke the evil of the Water Tower. The entire tower returns to the mud from which it was enchanted, sags, and slumps. The men upon it are no longer a threat. Now there's a big hole in the castle.

GNORFANK enters the hole and finds himself in battle with Water Warriors. Dispatching them with BROTHER JUNIUS' aid, he finds himself in battle with Earth Warriors. They're harder to crack, especially since their drill is to replace a wounded man with a healthy man. DECINQUE comes up behind them with one of the Water Warriors' razor-sharp swords and cuts a couple of them down, and GNORFANK finishes the job.

GNORFANK and RETARIUS tug open the Brass Gates of the Temple. JUNIUS' mob runs through. RETARIUS captures a Water Warrior in his net, and gets him to tell them where the Golden Skull is. (The Skull, according to captives, is required to access the third basement level where the loot and the Soul Jars are kept.) The Romans rush off to the Earth Tower.

The Rangers creep into the courtyard. In an archery duel with the Fire and Air Warriors, they win.

ROSA goes into a side door of the castle. She finds a set of ladders leading upstairs and removes them. Minutes later, retreating Air Warriors miss the ladder and fall, injuring themselves.

ROSA finds the Fire Tower and goes inside. It's stocked with combustibles. The lower level, however, is an elegantly furnished bedchamber/study. A hallway of bones outside is enchanted, so she doesn't go that way. She does, however, meet up with JUNIUS' people.

Those people have entered the Earth Tower, full of heaps and heaps of jewels.

"Fall out for Looting!" barks the Centurion. Loot is gathered. However, it turns out to be glass.

RETARIUS, unswayed by loot, presses on alone. He encounters several undead ghouls whose touch can paralyze living flesh. It doesn't do too much against swords, though. Retarius kills all the ghouls all by himself, suffering only paralysis of both hands. Fortunately, Rosa's coughHERBALcough remedies repair the paralysis.

The Centurion barks, "SIR IS LOOTING DRILL STILL IN EFFECT"

Junius says, "No ... no, we're done looting for now."

"THANK YOU SIR. PUT YOUR EYES BACK IN YOUR HEAD, SOLDIER! WE AIN'T LOOTING NO MORE TODAY!"

So the Messenger turns right around away from the golden skull lying on the floor among the dead ghouls.

The golden skull? Indeed, the Golden Skull. It has four small slots (eyes, nose, mouth) for four small jewels, which must be inserted for the skull to work.

Guarding the center of the basement is a brass panel, similar to the brass gates of the Temple. In rubies the words "CONFINE CONTAIN CONFOUND" are inlaid above the doors. There is a spell on the door that makes people not want to come near it. Pouncequick and Retarius can't overcome the spell, but Junius can, because he's just that stubborn.

Meanwhile, the Three Rebukers and Brother Aquila have found the basement of the Air Temple, which contains engineering supplies and engineers. Aquila kicks over a gallon of oil; many people slip and fall, including one holding a torch. Fire!

Much fire. Aquila climbs back up, his arms and cloak ablaze. Raius invokes Our Lady of Extinguishment, which doesn't help because not all fire is evil. This here fire wasn't invoked by Satanic forces, just oil and a match. But eventually they beat the fire out of Aquila.

Then they go back down, after dousing the fire with plentiful water from the Water Tower. Two ogres are waiting for them:

"Oi, that looks loik the bright white light of the Lord God, Derek."

"We don't loik the bright white light o'God, do we, Bub?"

"No we don't, Derek. Let's frow somefin big at them."

Brother Junius hurls his glowing spear down a side hallway. The ogres chase it! Then they break down a door, thinking he's gone ahead.

"Ang on ..." says one.

And then the other door opens and the Romans come in! Seeing that they've opened the Unopenable Door, the ogres take fright and run away. We were going to have a big fight scene and everything ... ah well. Ogres gonna oge.

(Derek runs out in the courtyard and is shot by All The Rangers. He staggers back, pincushioned to the point of death, and gasps out, "It's arrows" and then falls. Bub, after a very unwise glance outside, stays in the tower.)

Pouncequick finds a trap door, which leads to a moldy room in the sub-basement. He drops in, as one does. There are two doors. He listens at one, hearing a creaking noise. He scratches at the door. The creaking stops, and a scraping noise begins.

Pouncequick backs up hurriedly. Junius and Retarius jump in to confront the scraping-door monster. Gnorfank would jump in, too, but the room's full.

And the massive hunchbacked insectoid man-monster smashes through the door, hungry for blood!

Rosa speaks to it, but the insect monster has a rather rudimentary understanding of the world, and can tell Rosa's made of meat. So the conversation wasn't progressing satisfactorily even before Junius stabbed in.

And now its ON ....


All present earn 1 xp for taking the Temple.