The Country Villa of Mad Calamus

So the Valerii head out to Calamus' country place, believing the Crassi to already be there. And indeed, there is a tethered ox cart in front, not yet loaded with plunder.

Pouncequick peers in carefully, but then makes a habit of rushing ahead into dark rooms. He doesn't get killed, although he is knocked over and mauled by a hidden lion.

Rosa sends Luna, her owl, ahead to investigate. Luna finds another owl, owned by Blackbriar Thorn, the druid on Crassus' team. She also, once she gets done twittering about the other owl and how wise and gentle he is, describes the layout of the mansion. So now, we have a map!

Plunder thus far:
A sixteen-person silver dining service
Gallons of spirits of wine (near-pure alcohol)
Some mattresses
A crate for shipping unconscious lions
Some children's toy bows and padded arrows
Floral-smelling painkiller gas

Additional Update

Sylvia, for catching an arrow out of the air in front of the quality, gets +1 SL.

Winter 533 Update

In the winter of 533 AD, our heroes return to House Valerius in Rome.

BROTHER AQUILA writes up his experiences fighting the werewolves and is commended for Fresh Insights.

POUNCEQUICK joins the Legitimate Businessman's Social Club and is welcomed by Gordus Antonius, the club's president. He mingles his blood with Antonius' and hosts a memorable, nay, an exceptional, dinner for the club! Over the next few days, nervous men come and buy all the most expensive rugs in Pouncequick's shop.

ROSA acquires the superpower of perceiving the thoughts of the dead, otherwise known as literacy.
She also discovers, while checking on a fellow druid who's in trouble with the law, that CRASSUS, the richest man in Rome, has sponsored a team of dungeoneers to bust into tombs and temples and steal gold and jewels. They have a barbarian, a gladiator, a wizard, an archer, a thief and a druid, just like we do! Plus a mysterious seventh member, but no cleric, as we have. So we've got that going for us, which is nice.

The Crassus Team is:
BLACKBRIAR THORN, crotchety old druid
BOWENN IVORYBOW, wizard, elf, and hunted criminal
ARTEMISIA, archer and Bowenn's beloved
TITANICUS, the mighty gladiator
RINGORIX, King of the Belgae
THE BLACK MOUSER, a famous thief
and a mysterious Seventh Member!

RETARIUS teaches Thalga about gladiating and supervises her first bout in the arena, against a girl dressed as Roma Mater. Thalga wins, and somewhat theatrically.

Also, Retaria finds out where the Crassus team is raiding: Calamus' country villa, located in the foothills of the Alps. Rosa interprets a map left behind by Blackbriar Thorn as part of Calamus' villa.

SYLVIA goes hunting, sees another hunter cheating, and fights a duel. As the challenged party, she chooses the bow. Andronicus, her opponent, is an overdressed fop who comes dressed in plate armor with gilded inlays. She shoots him in the thigh, causing him great, even theatrical, distress, and he forgives her. She, on the other hand, catches his arrow out of the air, which is awesome.

BJERN fights in the arena vs. Ringorix, King of the Belgae, and TITANICUS, the Man Mountain. It's a very violent fight, not least because Bjern goes berserk and forgets all about making this a good show. DECINQUE bets on him and wins a bundle.

DECINQUE then buys up chapels around the city to start a thieves' guild. BJERN buys an elephant.

JUNIUS is released from his obligation to marry ARTEMISIA, and is free to marry SIGRID. This will bring another province into the Empire, which will please the Emperor, who will in turn favor House Valerius with unspecified favors. Messages of marriage are sent! No word if she accepts yet.

Also, Junius is elected Tribune of the People, another step along the Path of Honor. Next, he'll have to be appointed a Praetor, then a Pontifex, then he can run for Senator, and then, perhaps, a Consul of Rome!  Unless Retaria thinks HER husband should get those honors FIRST. Then, Junius better hire a taster.

Werewolf Families

BJERN fights a big ol' werewolf, whose wounds close as fast as they are inflicted! SIGRID shoots it with a pair of silver arrows, driving it off.

Meanwhile many wolves of the regular type are darting in and biting. CONNEL gets bitten badly, but the wolves are driven off by GNORFANK before they can finish Connel.

The Stag impales a wolf and hurls it with a heave of its heavy head, glaring at all the other wolves. With their werewolf leader fled, they slink away, shamefaced. The elk nods, as if all is as he wishes it, and trots away.

Meanwhile, back at Wulfsgaard, some noises in the basement have prompted POUNCEQUICK, DECINQUE, and BROTHER AQUILA to investigate. The hall sits over an abandoned salt mine, in which is a big snake, a big spider, and several cells in which werewolf women are chained! These, according to Sigrid, are the former brides of Wulf, her grandfather, who never seemed to quite be able to get married, but was always trying.

Brother Aquila discovers that Rebuke Evil can harm the werewolves, and sometimes, but not always, drive the wolf spirit out of the person it possesses. With trial and error, he cures two of the three werewolf brides, but not the third one, Ivanna of Novgorod.

The last door is bigger and thicker, bearing no name. Apparently Wulf himself was locked away by his sons when he got too crazy. And behind the door, thrashing and snarling can be heard over the rattling of chains...

... so OF COURSE, when Bjern and them get back, we open the door!

A VERY LARGE werewolf snarls and twists beyond! So protean is his flesh that new bones form and disappear in seconds, jabbing through his skin in a dozen places. Silver weapons and sharpened holly stakes hurt him, but he's bigger than an ogre and the wounds we're inflicting don't slow him down from ripping Retarius' arm just about all the way off, and biting into Bjern's entire torso in one bite!

Retarius had woven a wicker shield out of holly branches too thin to make good spears. He dropped it when he lost (almost) his arm. Now Rosa uses an invocation of plant growth to make the cut holly flower anew, putting forth new vines which thicken and entangle Wulf, until he cannot move at all!

Then it's just a matter of rebuking and stabbing and stabbing again. And stabbing.

As the world's first human wound, Bjern needs major magic to survive, which is forthcoming courtesy of Rosa and Brother Aquila. Pouncequick's first aid skills don't kill anyone, either.

The redheaded Iceni princess who was to have been Bjern's wife declares she is glad to see a warrior of the Iceni (Bjern), and that she isn't planning to stay another night in this madhouse. She swirls out the door in a flurry of poise, and is shot down by an arrow from the woods!

Bjern charges the shooter -- clearly, he cannot die, so what's a few arrows? Rosa sneaks up on the shooters and determines that they are Jorn and Thalga, children of Hengist, the rival of Rothgar. Hengist's holy man has given them the secret of skinwalking, and as werewolves, they fear no man. But it isnt' nighttime yet, and Thalga's been pierced by one of Sylvia's silver arrows, so they withdraw.

Bjern, meanwhile, has angled his charge toward a new threat, Hengist himself! The bald Dane with long tattooed fangs on his forehead explains that he wants Sigrid. They can smell, he and his pack, that she is bitten, and tonight, when the full moon comes, the Valerians won't want her any more. Let the family be healed, and she shall be princess over his own daugher Thalga, offers Hengist.

Bjern offers that he's going to kill Hengist, by way of counterproposal.

Gnorfank rushes another enemy in the woods, making a distraction. Bjern fights Hengist, who has the biggest axe Bjern has ever seen, but Bjern drops, wounded in the leg, and Hengist flees. Gnorfank's opponent THROWS him through a tree, sees his boss has departed, and flees as well.

So. How was YOUR day?

Into the Snow

Junius, after being elected tribune, takes 300 men from the XX Legion as his personal bodyguard and heads into the wilds, intending to restore ROTHGAR, Sigrid Wulfsdottir's uncle, to the throne usurped by HENGIST, her wicked uncle. Should that occur, Sigrid swears Rothgar will donate his treasure to House Valerius, which could use it.

A sea voyage is intercepted by Rothgar's longship, but when 300 Romans crowd the decks, the longship turns right around and retreats.

A landfall in the land of the Belgae turns ugly when POUNCEQUICK sells a local chieftain some copper for an emerald. The chief immediately regrets his decision, demands his emerald back, and calls out half the townsfolk to pummel Pouncequick.

BJERN knocks down the biggest Belgae, and the rest think better of their rashness. Also the Roman army lines up on the dock with shields locked, ready to practice Basic Riot Drill. There is no riot.

With plenty of supplies, the Romans take to deeper water, avoiding the kobold-haunted woods under Sigrid's navigation and making landfall quite close to Tor's Hammer, a massive rock sticking into the sea atop which Rothgar's hall, Theorat, is built.

But nothing is visible from the sea. A landing party goes up the back path around the mountain to the site of Theorat, which has been burned down. Odd, small paw-prints litter the ground.

BJERN and POUNCEQUICK, who are evidently linked by fate, go into the snowy woods to investigate. SIGRID and RETARIUS go up over the hill to the vale where the farms are; Retarius think that if the women and children had escaped Theorat's fall, they would have gone there.

A blinded elk rushes past Bjern and Pouncequick. Pouncequick follows to warn the others. Rosa talks to the elk and calms it down, but it's not very coherent just yet.

Shaggy gray wolves follow the elk! They try to detour around Bjern, but he hacks one. The other two come around, one in front of Bjern, one behind.

Meanwhile, Sigrid and Retarius crest the hill, seeing the vale beyond full of hurrying gray forms. And the howl goes up ...

A Busy Year

The year 351 AD ends with the XX Legion not yet assigned. Grandmamma has discovered that Calamus gifted the Magister Militum, Melchettus, with a million sesterces to cancel the assignment to Brittania. Since Melchettus is a moral politician (one who, when bought, STAYS bought), we'll need to come up with 1.1 million to get him to send the XX where we want.

That is, for the mathematically optimistic among us, 11,000 Librum. Which, needless to say, we don't have.

But! All is not lost. For in the distant Isles du Loup, the King, an ally of Rome, has been deposed by his ambitious brother. The King's niece, Sigrid, has appealed to the Emperor to restore her uncle's throne. Among other things, the treasure of the Isles, amassed over centuries of sea-raiding (they call it "brooking", because you sail up brooks), is currently in the usurper's hands. If her uncle could but be restored, surely the treasure would belong by rights to those who helped him.

The Emperor may indeed choose to grant Sigrid's request. Or not. But he is away on an extended dove hunt, and before he returns, Retaria, wife and career counselor of our own gladiator Retarius, has found out about the appeal, and made it clear that if the Valerians get there first, they get the treasure. And all you have to do is kill some barbarians! That's what you do all day anyway, she says. Retaria knows the ins and outs of palace intrigue and plots within schemes, but she doesn't think fighting is terribly interesting or complicated. So she's serenely sure that you'll win.

Can we take the XX Legion? No. But some of the men can be given extended leave from the Army, and why not? They're sitting around Rome not doing anything. So Grandmamma and Retaria agree that the Valerians should send their best agents to the Isles to help King Rothmar against his wicked brother Varian.

And if you need to ask who House Valerius' best agents are, you haven't really been paying attention ...

The Hall of the Water Wizard

Having decided that FABULUS CALAMUS is a likely suspect, the Valerians infiltrate in two ways:

BROTHER AQUILA, POUNCEQUICK, DECINQUE and BJERN OF BRITAIN enter disguised as monks performing a routine blessing.

JUNIUS, RETARIUS, ROSA, and SYLVIA enter through the storm sewers. This means leaving Connel and Gnorfank behind.

The sewer team comes up in a storeroom full of bottles of strange potions. JUNIUS grabs one for later use.

The monk team is led by servants through several rooms, which they pretend to ritually purify.

Then they enter a room from which they can see the owner, Calamus himself. Calamus, after giving orders to a servant, turns and hurries from the room.

Then gladiators emerge from many doorways, moving to block the exit! BJERN fights his way to the door, sees about twenty gladiators pursuing him, gets cut by a spearpoint, and goes berserk. Between that group and the next, he kills sixteen gladiators and sets the survivors to panicked flight.

Meanwhile, JUNIUS is also attacked by gladiators. He hurls his potion bottle at them. It is full of liquid screams, and a quart of screams is enough to deafen everyone in the building.

SYLVIA sees Calamus escaping and shoots him in the leg. But her arrow passes through his flesh, which seals the hole like water.

Calamus summons water elementals to crush Junius' group.

SYLVIA uses the lightning arrow she took from Karinthia the Arrow Mage back in the Temple of the Four Winds. That hurts the elemental pretty badly! It halts, hesitating. RETARIUS ducks his head and plows through it, like bulling through a wave in the sea.

Retarius reaches Calamus' room, which has a hot bath built into the floor. Retarius demands answers from Calamus, who seems oddly willing to discuss his plans. He, Calamus, has kidnapped the Elvish ambassador in order to win favor with MARCUS LICINIUS CRASSUS, who does not approve of his daughter's love for the Elf. Calamus used Crassus' favor to have the XX Legion reassigned; he doesn't want any Roman legions in Brittania, because he has plans in that province that the Army might interrupt.

At this point Junius arrives and attacks Calamus. Calamus stops telling Retarius his plan (you crafty devil! You got me MONOLOGUING!) and steps into the bath. His body turns into water and starts going down the drain, but Junius grabs the wooden drain plug and stops up Calamus' escape route. Calamus swirls around (he's water, what else is he going to do?) and then summons an enormous purple worm out of the drains, which busts up the bath and attempts to do the same to Junius and Retarius. But Retarius shovels a shieldfull of hot coals into the worm's mouth, and that takes care of it for a while.

When the worm recovers its wits and lurches out into the hallway after the retreating Romans, it runs into several angry water elementals. With Calamus controlling them all would be harmony, but without him, the very different, very upset monsters fall upon each other. Which actually seems to happen rather often when the Elemental Evil guys go up against the House of Valerius.

ROSA and PETER follow the advice of some rats (rats know everything) and locate BOWENN IVORYBOW in the frigidarium. He's chained down in icy water, dying of hypothermia. Rosa invokes an ancient rune and fills the room with roaring flames, which warm Bowenn right up. After apologizing in verse for not using verse during this crisis, Bowenn illusionizes the wall of the villa and walks right through it as though it did not exist. Peter and Rosa follow.

Bowenn has also taken up his bow, made from a pair of huge tusks, and his cloak, which makes him look like a piece of a dirty Roman alley. So he's pretty hard to see, since they're in a dirty Roman alley which looks exactly like a dirty Roman alley. He leaves Rosa with a teardrop-shaped red stone and hurries off into the night, perhaps to seek his beloved.

BJERN eventually calms down, mostly by passing out from his injuries. But he doesn't die, although if he did, he'd have a dozen escorts to the Underworld.

Moments after he collapses, the Cardinal and the Rebukers, along with four Knights of St. Michael, break down the door and dispell all the evil within, one monster at a time. The Cardinal even invokes a Sunspear, a shaft of pure golden light that banishes the water elementals back to the nonsense from which they were formed.

Participants earn 3 xp for the defeat of Calamus, as well as earning the Cardinal's trust. Perhaps one of us will be appointed Witchsmeller Pursuivant ...

One Night in Rome

January 351 AD:

RETARIUS and JUNIUS consult the Cardinal about the mysterious footprints at the scene of the XX Legion camp fire. Ravens who saw the scene describe a "window man," as deceptively transparent as a window, who appeared, fought another window man, and burst into flames. All this happened in full view of the Wall Streets, the expensive northern neighborhood.

The Cardinal dispatches all his best ghost-hunters and exorcists to the scene.

SYLVIA, BROTHER AQUILA, ROSA, and DECINQUE go back to House Valerius to take up the search for CLERICUS. Using CONNEL's excellent sense of smell, and an address written in the margins of an incomplete criticism of Summa Elvetica, they trail Clericus to an apartment in the Capitoline district. Clericus is hiding out, planning to leave Rome and apply for holy orders somewhere far away, such as Gaul.

When told Clericus is evading the marriage because he wishes to become a priest, Brother Aquila agrees to help him attain his calling. Clericus prepares to move to another hideout, while Aquila pleads his case with the Cardinal.

POUNCEQUICK, meanwhile, takes GNORFANK and goes to the Court of Miracles, where dead men walk and purses fly away. There, in the moneychanging bourse of Dareosh the Knife, he interviews Garikus, a simple tailor who meets a great many interesting people in the course of his day. Garikus explains that Marcus Licinius Crassus, the Richest Man in Rome, wanted the XX Legion out of the way, and Britain is the end of the earth. But someone else changed those orders. Crassus was furious -- he'd paid good money for the XX Legion to be banished! But that someone else met Crassus and traded him a secret -- his daughter, Licinia Artemesia, was secretly in love with someone else, and did not plan to go through with her marriage to Clericus! Crassus, in gratitude (and to avoid a public scandal) allowed the change in the XX Legion's orders to go through.

But who was the mystery patron who wanted the transfer halted? Why, Fabulus Calamus, the tinkerer who invented the new firefighting standpipes installed throughout Rome. Why would an inventor care where the XX Legion goes? That, Garikus does not know.

Sylvia's group goes to the Cathedral to see the Cardinal. Alas, he's away investigating a demon sighting. But they're free to wait and rest, which they do for about an hour until Matins begins. Fortunately, the Cardinal sends for his morning clothes, and Brother Aquila is invited to accompany the messenger to the Cardinal's side.

Brother Aquila puts Clericus' case. The Cardinal promises to take the young man in, irrespective of his father's wishes, if Clericus is worthy. Junius smiles, for he and the Cardinal have already arranged for Clericus to be released from his engagement, and for Junius to marry Artemisia instead.

Pater, also, is delighted with the arrangement, and says so loudly. He's puzzled by Pouncequick's report -- who is this upstart Calamus, to interfere with a family as proud as the Valerians? Pater will have to have him crushed, financially or socially, as soon as the wedding is safely completed.

Meanwhile, Rosa and Peter encounter a pair of invisible men on the Wall Streets, who fight and cause a small fire. Peter thinks one looked elflike, but he did not believe elves could project themselves from their bodies as mortal sorcerors can. This seems similar to what the ravens reported earlier this same night, in about the same place, and may therefore be a clue.

As dawn arrives, Retarius congratulates Junius, saying,

"Of course, you know Artemisia is in love with someone else."

Junius is speechless. His clever knot is slipping already! And never mind Clericus ... he's promised his father AND the Cardinal that this is going to happen!

Suddenly kicking in a door in a dungeon doesn't seem so bad anymore ...

Safe In Rome

Over the winter, various of the Valerians try various pastimes.

JUNIUS finds out his legion, the XX, isn't going to Britannia after all. New orders have sent the V Aludae in his place, while the XX hangs around Rome until someone decides what to do with them! He recruits new men, but Marcus Licinius Crassus, the richest man in Rome, is also raising a legion, and paying extra. So Junius doesn't get very good men. Boys and drunks, mostly.

BROTHER AQUILA hands over the Soul Jar with the demon-smoke in it to the Cardinal, who accepts with thanks. He will get Top Men working on it right away. Brother Aquila writes a treatise on the events of the summer, and is acclaimed as having fresh insights.

POUNCEQUICK starts a business which fails. He loses his investment, but has a feeling, and buys up stocks of pearls in anticipation of a rise in price.

SYLVIA starts a bowmaking shop which prospers, thanks to the public patronage of Severa Artemisia, youngest and most outdoorsy of the Severan clan.

DECINQUE cuts quite the smart figure in his new upper-class clothes, bought with Temple money. He also gambles at knucklebones with Pater, putting up five perfect rubies, and wins.

Severa Iverria, now Severa Iverria Retaria

RETARIUS rescues a lady who was kidnapped by thieves, and she impetuously agrees to marry him. She turns out to be SEVERA IVERRIA, the finest lady of the land and trend-setter in fashion and art. Iverria immediately plots to win Retarius' freedom, get him a previously undiscovered noble lineage, and run him for office. She suggests running for Quaestor of the Tombs neighborhood, as there are few voters but much crime.

ROSA essays musical composition, but LICINIA MAJORA declares her tunes to have "too many notes." Licinia. apparently, cherished musical hopes but wasn't any good, and is now jealous of successful performers.

PATER, head of the household, agrees to wager Retarius' freedom on his next gladiator match. Retarius arranges to fight Loricus, the most famous of the house's gladiators. They put on a thrilling show, Retarius wins, and he is to be freed! But not until a huge celebration, to be held Friday.

Iverria schemes to get Retarius the free man adopted by a noble house. Not hers, of course; that would make this a cousin-marriage, which is impious. Perhaps the Valerians will make him one of their own? That could come in handy.

PATER bellows at breakfast that he is now immune from the caprice of Fate, because he has three sons! One of them is surely a spare.

Clericus

When CLERICUS asks to be allowed not to marry Severa Artemisia as Pater had arranged, Pater is furious. The family needs to ally with the Severans, since there is no way they will ever be able to ally with the Licinians. So Clericus must do his duty.

Of course, he can't exactly become a priest if he's married, not with the Bishop of Rome's attitude on the subject. But Clericus doesn't push it.

Not publically, anyway. Pouncequick follows Clericus the next day and finds he's contracted a marriage-breaker to sabotage the nuptials! But Clericus doesn't want to make himself an impossible matrimonial prospect by doing something ignoble, and he doesn't want Artemesia's reputation ruined, either. The marriage-breaker is disgusted, but promises to work out something.

Pouncequick tells Pater about the marriage-breaker. Pater erupts in a rage and demands Clericus to be brought before him. Fortunately, the boy's out.

A fire erupts in the XX Legion's camp! Everyone rushes to fight the blaze. Retarius discovers small bare footprints near the place it started. Was it a woman, or perhaps an elf?

Also, BRITA secretly shoots a message into SYLVIA's window. But Sylvia cannot read, so she enlists Brother Aquila's help. They meet Brita under the aqueduct. Brita is a nom de guerre; her real name is Severa Artemisia. She is betrothed to Clericus, but her heart belongs to Bowenn Ivorybow, the Elvish ambassador, who has suddenly gone missing! Artemisia cannot search for him without being seen and recognized, but Sylvia can. The fire prevents Sylvia from following up immediately.

So as the year 851 AUC (351 AD) opens, there are three outstanding mysteries:

1. Where is Bowenn Ivorybow, and did anyone make him disappear?
2. Who set the fire at the XX Legion camp?
3. Why was the XX Legion suddenly recalled from Britain, and who caused it?

Stay tuned!

Temple of Elemental Evil, Week Three

Our heroes corner the dark-cloaked man in the fine jacket. His name is Radu Molasar, and he claims to very old, from the time of Hyperborea, and Atlantis.

When Brother Aquila demands the gold, and specifies the gold from the caravan, Molasar's tone changes. He doesn't want that gold! That gold was stolen by the Temple. He didn't ask the Temple to build its central cathedral right on top of his tomb! In exchange for us leaving, and not saying the name of the Lord in the meantime, he offers to lead us to the gold.

So in the absolute unrelenting darkness, Molasar takes the end of Brother Aquila's staff and leads him to a set of big brass doors. Like the others, they say CONFOUND, CONTAIN, CONFINE in ruby script. Molasar does not approach the doors.

The doors have a spell on them which creates dread, but stronger than any of the others. Pouncequick still manages to overcome the dread, and opens the doors.

A rush of dry, musty grave-wind blasts out of the doors, knocking everyone down. Molasar laughs victoriously and departs.

Inside the doors is a single room, with a purple cloud roiling in it. It's the same as the one in the Temple of the Four Winds, complete with three sets of red eyes.

The being in the cloud tells Pouncequick to open the chest in the corner and take what is inside. When he asks why he should do it, the cloud says, "Because I wish you harm," which is at least refreshingly honest.

There is also a large black stone sarcophagus. Brother Aquila finds a sword blade inside, very large and fine, with no hilt but a slot where a hilt could be inserted.

A hallway nearby contains the gold from the caravan, and four HUNDRED soul-jars. Junius and Rosa start opening them as fast as they can. They don't smash them, for Peter has indicated that would be very unpleasant for the inmates.

"The Temple of Elemental Evil was always a chancy effort," the voice explained. "But I have so much time to waste ... I will start over again, somewhere else. And I will learn from my mistakes."

Then someone annoys the Cloud Voice, so it asks,

"Do you know how to make the clay sit up and talk? I DO ..."

And the stones of floor, wall and ceiling become living flesh!

Everyone runs out, breaking the hold of sudden tentacles and newborn fingers. But it's close. Brother Junius passes his empty Soul Jar throught the cloud, trapping some of the demon's essence, and runs away.

On the way up. they find that Molasar has torn through everyone in his way, biting them and drinking their blood before bursting up into the night and gliding away over the mountains. Vesuvius almost stopped him with a fire bear, which is apparently some new spell he invented in extremis.

The survivors load up Junius' carts with gold and haul out before the Army of Elemental Evil returns. On the way, they meet Scottius the engineer, who sprang the trap as Junius told him to. They shot quite a few of the troops with arrows, but all at once most of the rest shouted in joy and ran away. All the Temple has left is the hard-core fanatics, and they got away.

On the way to Civula, Molasar comes and whispers to Pouncequick. Pouncequick recites the Lord's Prayer, and Molasar reacts as though slapped, overtuning a wagon with two tons of gold in the bed. Then he flees.

Junius' brother CLERICUS shows up with the archers, and the team makes it safely back to Rome, presenting the money to Grandmama in time for her to redeem her jewels. Pater will never know! And all ends happily.

2 experience are awarded for destroying the Temple and rescuing the Valerian family.

Temple of Elemental Evil, Week Two

JUNIUS and RETARIUS, together with Junius' staff, jump into combat with an Umber Hulk, a huge flea-like humanoid. It claws Junius badly, but GNORFANK the Ogre slams into it and fights it, giving Retarius a chance to stab it between its armor plates. As Gnorfank continues to slam the Umber Hulk around, getting cut and dinged in the process, Retarius borrows a hammer and hits the spear which is already sticking out. BRITA shoots it with an arrow, and Retarius hammers that in too. Eventually the monster gives out, and Gnorfank collapses, dazed from a blow to the head.

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.

A Note on Timing

Just a mention for the magical types among us: although a week elapses in real time between episodes, we pick up this Wednesday mere seconds after we left off. So no one regains any Fatigue, or the clerical equivalent.

(Also, so that you won't be surprised, Isaac: some clerical spells count more than once against your 19-spells-a-day limit. For example, when you Rebuked the seven Earth Warriors two weeks ago, it counted as seven spells. I was keeping tick marks in secret, but then I lost track, so how about the next time it happens, I tell you how many spells it counts as. When the Three Rebukers dropped the tower, for example, it counted as five spells each -- fifteen in all, plus your one. But if I don't mention it, assume all spells 'cost' one spell each.)

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.

The Inside Scoop

Also, Peter the Earth Warrior has told you how the Temple is laid out. There's a castle with four towers, each the property of one of the Four Lords of Nature: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. They have a basement level beneath the towers, then a second basement beneath that which is full of fantastic beasts they are breeding for their conquest of the East. And below THAT is a third dungeon level where the Lords of Nature keep their precious belongings, but no one knows how to get down there except them.

Peter thinks if the Four Lords think Civula's a threat, they'll bring out all their powers to smash it. The Temple is some years away from being ready to take on the Roman Empire openly, so they have to kill all the witnesses.

Each of the Four Lords has a jewel which gives them unlimited access to the forces of Nature. With it, Binyamin the Earth Lord is harder than iron. Procellus the Fire Lord can burn down whole forests, and so on.

But the jewels are a strain to operate, so they usually keep them in their towers.

Probably, he says, three of the Four Lords will come to Civula with most of their troops, leaving one to guard the Temple.

Vathek niVthanid, the captured wizard, confirms Peter's statements, and adds that there is something extremely valuable on the third level below ground. The Four Lords have killed valuable minions who went down there without permission!

Have Fun Storming the Castle

So it might be a good idea before next week to decide: DO you want to attack the Temple of Elemental Evil? If you do, I'll get a map ready. If not, I can do other stuff.

Mike's archers have arrived, along with the aid from the Bishop requested by Isaac. He has sent three Rebukers, monks whose specialty is rebuking evil, named Raius, Egonos and Petrus, and two squads of Michaelines, knights of the Order of St. Michael whose motto is "Suffer not a witch to live!" Also, a company of Rangers has arrived; this is the all-female woodsrunning unit that Heather was a part of.

So you have a pretty solid force. About 50 men. And if the Temple sends out a huge expedition, as your prisoners say they will, you could meet them in the open, or could even go around them and hit the Temple when it's relatively undefended!

Your assets:

50 archers

12 rangers

3 Rebukers

6 Michaelines
1 ogre

Their assets:

70 humans

70 goblins

10 orcs

3 ogres

11 magicians

Do you want to go for it? You could always call for additional forces; Mike's got a legion, after all.

Counterattack!

The Temple of Elemental Evil isn't taking the loss of their temple in Civula lying down, and sends raiders to take it back. The raiders were told not to engage if there was a big huge Roman army there, but there isn't, so they attack.

First a dozen goblins come running out of the woods. SYLVIA the ranger shoots all of them down with arrows. Miraculous, you say? Well, yes, at least in part: Brother Aquila has Blessed the defenders of the chapel tower with accuracy, and his blessing seems to work particularly well since St. Cuthbert was, in fact, martyred by arrows. So she seemingly can't miss!

One, out of 12, goblins makes it to the door of the chapel. VESUVIUS drops a stone on him from above. RETARIUS, holding the gap, feels like he's not working very hard today.

Then someone suggests everyone clear out of the tower, because it has been identified as the strong point of the defense. And lo, four wizards in the woods start shooting fire and lightning and ghost warriors at the tower! Vesuvius returns one of the fireballs, which another mage extinguishes in mid-flight. But he also returns a lightning bolt, which makes one of the wizards yelp with pain.

Then Vesuvius fumbles a fireball and slightly injures everybody near him.

A ghost wolf made of purple lightning attacks the North wall. RETARIUS slams it with his wooden shield, which does it some harm, and survives its frenzied claws and teeth. Then ROSA sends the village's cattle herd to stomp the wolf, which they do! Brother Aquila is knocked down and Sir Gerald, the squire, is run down and killed. But the wolf is shredded, and the cattle not seriously injured.

The second rush comes against the west side of the village, consisting of Air archers and Mermen. The Air Archers have crossbows firing puffs of wind at lethal velocities! Fortunately, GNORFANK the Ogre takes all the arrows. Fortunately, did I say? Indeed, for Gnorfank has tough skin, wears armor, and has a Barkskin enchantment on him, so the arrows bounce off.

While the Air Archers reload, the Mermen wade in and confront JUNIUS' reserve squad.

When the third attack comes, in the south, there's no reserve left. Junius points at the clerics and bellows, "FILL THAT HOLE!" so Brother Aquila and Rosa find themselves facing a dozen Fire and Earth warriors!

Brother Aquila Rebukes Evil and the fire warrior's Everburning Spears go out. They step carefully away from the wall, unwilling to face two clerics without their elemental magic.

The Earth Warriors, wearing armor of baked brick, shatter the wall with their iron clubs! They run right into a wave of angry cattle directed by Rosa, and all but one are carried away or flee on their own.

Rosa and Brother Aquila clobber the surviving Earth Warrior until he surrenders. His name is Peter, and he cannot join our cause,he says, because his soul has been stolen. All the souls of the elemental warriors are held in Ghost Jars in the Mother Temple. Without their souls, they can hold mighty enchantments without harm, but they also cannot disobey their masters, the Four Lords of the Elements.

The wizards are dispersed by archery and spellcraft. One runs off alive, one is burned by a Fireball, one has a tiny hole poked in his Fire Armor and is consumed by a Fire Elemental, and the last one is hit in the throat by a deadly arrow but is captured and saved from dying by Brother Aquila.

This captive, Vathek hiVthanid, Keeper of the Keys of the Hidden Library of Kaza-Korum, has lots of information about the Temple of Elemental Evil. It has four towers, as you might expect, and three levels below ground.

Everyone earns 1 experience for the Battle of Civula (or will it be later known as the First Battle of Civula?)

Fall of the Four Winds

The central room of the Temple of Four Winds is guarded by a dozen goblins. In the center of the room is a work table covered with chemical equipment.

As soon as people enter the room, a cloud of purple smoke arises on the worktable. It hangs over the tabletop, roiling and sparking like a miniature thunderstorm.

The goblins attack!

BROTHER AQUILA and RETARIUS brace against their charge. SYLVIA shoots an arrow right past Brother Aquila’s head, then another, which helps. RETARIUS chops ‘em down. One of the goblins is enraged by this, and climbs over Retarius’ shield onto his head, hammering him with his knife. But Retarius has an excellent, distinctive helmet, and is unharmed, until POUNCEQUICK stabs the goblin out.

The remaining goblins flee. CONNEL, with the Barkskin spell on him, brings Rosa a fresh goblin heart, then runs after the survivors out the North exit.

Retarius and Sylvia check out the West exit while DECINQUE sneaks to the East.

Brother Aquila approaches the stormcloud. Three pairs of slanted red eyes appear within it.

“What have you to report?” says a languid, somewhat feminine voice.

“Nothing, save the destruction of your demonic reign!” Brother Aquila replies.

“Are you from the past?” asks the cloud. “The destruction of that Temple happened years ago.”

Brother Aquila prays to detect evil. There’s a lot of it. The six eyes are linked to a mighty evil, stronger than Rome itself, which is pretty darned evil if you think about it. But that evil is many miles away to the northeast.

“We face a mighty evil,” he informs his friends.

“Well … yes,” says the thundercloud. “Step forward that I may see your face.”

“You will see nothing but your doom!” he says, and opens a vial of holy water.

“No, don’t do that!” says the cloud, but too late. In a snap of blinding purple lightning and a boom of thunder, the cloud is dispelled.

ROSA looks over the materials on the table and identifies several plant extracts, some very valuable. But most are fungi, and most of them unknown to Roman science.

Then she goes to see how Connel is doing.

Battle In The East

DECINQUE sneaks up to a room with a sand table showing a terrain model of the surrounding countryside, an obelisk of creamy gray stone, and an inlaid rune circle in clear glass. Also there are some goblins and a huge goblin-like ogre, armed with ogre-sized weapons.

Decinque snares the goblins in his fishing net and runs back, shouting, “It’s HUGE!”

Brother Aquila knocks over a table to bar the way. Vesuvius, Retarius, and Junius hasten to hold the barricade.

Vesuvius summons a bear to fight the ogre. The ogre screams and cries in pain, but gets the better of the bear once he can bring his massive sword into play.

As the bear dies, Retarius hurdles the barricade and starts stabbing the ogre, commenting on each thrust as he does so. “Let’s see, first you stabbed the bear HERE,” he says, “and then a cut right THERE, and then, I believe, you hit him HERE,” and each emphasized word is a hammerblow to the armor or a deep cut.

“Please stop stabbing me!” says the ogre. Then he manages to knock Retarius’ sword away and puts his sword edge at Retarius’ neck.

“Look. You ‘ates the goblins, yeah? Ow bout I give you them gobbers be’ind me, and you lemme go? Eh? Ow-ood-at-be?”

Brother Aquila does not detect inherent evil in the ogre, whose name is Gnorfank, so he agrees. Retarius finishes the goblins.

Battle In the West

Several goblin mages hit Pouncequick in the head with an invisible fist. He plays dead. They drag his body back into the western room. But Sylvia shoots one, and the other drops Pouncequick to launch a spell. Sylvia ducks around a corner, but apparently the Magic Fist spell doesn't require line of sight. However, she thought to buy a pot helm, so she's not badly injured. She does, however, call Vesuvius for help.

Pouncequick, nursing his second major head injury this week, stabs the goblin shaman all to pieces. Vesuvius uses Magesight to locate the last shaman, but that shaman summons a bear of his own! Pouncequick stabs him, too.

But it turns out he wasn't the last shaman, merely the last but one! The last one summons TWO wolves, using them as a distraction to run out past Pouncequick. But he gets stabbed, too. Pouncequick's stabbing arm is getting stronger from all this exercise!

Battle in the North

Rosa enters a room with a huge pool of clear water. Connel is fighting an Arrow Mage, who can't get a good shot at him because he's running around the pool's edge, rolling and flopping and reversing direction a lot. Actually, she has hit him with several arrows, but so far his Barkskin has kept him healthy.

Rosa enchants her shillelagh so that fresh leaves sprout from it and its core hardens like the heart of a mighty oak tree. Sylvia enters and shoots at the Arrow Mage, who devotes her attention to the archer and not the herbalist. Fatal mistake, because Rosa wallops her in the head and puts her fire out for good!

The Loot

Pouncequick finds a treasure chest marked III IV I II. He says, "one two three four?" and Sylvia replies, "No, three four one two!" When she says that, the lock clicks open. Inside are 5000 silver sesterces and two scrolls. One is the Book of Eibon, the spell-crowded testimony of a wizard from the Age of Atlantis, and the other is St. Andrew's letter to the Caledonians, which contains useful clerical spells as well as priceless Apostolic history.

Rosa finds four glass beakers in the pool, invisible from the surface. Vesuvuius identifies them as alchemical potions: Oil of Slipperiness, Potion of Haste, and Elixr of Ethereality. He cannot identify the last bottle, which has a teaspoonful of mercury on the bottom and silver wires up the side, but Brother Aquila can recognize a Spirit Jar. Shake it up so the mercury coats the wires, and you can trap a spirit inside it. Indeed, there may be a spirit trapped inside right now ... no, wait, if there were, the inside would be coated with mercury, and it isn't. The Jar is currently empty.

Brother Aquila also finds a map showing the Temple's understanding of the surrounding country; it has marks on it corresponding to the location of the other temples. There are apparently three other small temples, one each of Fire, Earth and Water, plus the "Mother Temple" beyond the Black River.

He also discovers a Listening Stone, which when a piece of stone is touched to it, allows one to hear what is going on at the place that piece came from. A handy spy item, but at 1200 pounds not perhaps the thing for stealthy infiltration.

Pouncequick grabs a pot of belladonna lotion (very toxic).

Sylvia takes the golden arrow with lightning-shaped fletches which the Arrow Mage was unable to shoot at Rosa due to her (the Arrow Mage's) death.

Decinque and Retarius don't get anything. Even Charlie Brown got a rock!

The Scoop

Gnorfank knows that:

1. The Temple of Elemental Evil has the treasure from the caravan, and has taken it to their "Muvver Temple" across the river.

2. The Temple is not run by goblins at all, but men. Scary men devoted to opposing God with Nature's elements.

3. The Arrow Mage was named Karethia ("Gorrefia" in his ogre dialect) and had quite a number of deadly spells at her disposal. Good thing she was distracted by the wolf!

4. If you try to open the treasure chest without saying "three four one two" it explodes in magical flame. Pouncequick adds an extra lock.

5. The Mother Temple has about a hundred men defending it. Well, men, orcs, goblins ... it's a bit of a mixed grill.

All participants gain 2 xp

Temple of the Four Winds, entrance hall

So here is where things stood last week:

Pouncequick has figured out how to ride the whirlwind, and everyone else is trying to convince themselves it would be a good idea.

Beyond, a large room with many exits can dimly be discerned:

Temple of the Four Winds

The temple is a collection of roofless stone buildings, many having burned at one time in the past.

Junius looks into one building and is knocked back out by three goblins wielding a siege-spear as a team. Sylvia, Retarius, Pouncequick, and Brother Aquila knock them down, but one flees into a nearby room and drops through a hole in the floor!

Retarius follows, into a basement which leads by a tunnel into an underground stone room. Unlike the buildings above, this has not been wrecked by war - the Romans apparently never found the underground portion of the Temple!

Pouncequick spots a trap - a floor-stone balanced on a stick to fall over when stepped on. The stick has a bell hanging from it, so whoever stepped on it would raise an alarm.

At the end of the hall is a dim room. The torches cannot illuminate it, because as soon as they are brought near the doorway, the torches flutter and go out. Verity determines that some magic has chained a windstorm across the doorway, so that all of the sounds beyond are blown aside.

Pouncequick throws a rope into the whirling storm. He drags it back, hooked into a very dizzy wounded Roman officer. The injured man is healed and taken outside.

Pouncequick leaps into the storm! He tucks and rolls so that he comes out on the far side in a root cellar full of moldy barrels of rations. Apparently the people of the Temple have not needed to break into their food reserves.

He also finds a hallway leading to an intersection of three other halls. Brother Aquila recalls that this is called the Temple of Four Winds -- likely there are three other winds down those three hallways!

If so, says Junius, we'll soon have their match, for we've already solved the problem of navigating around the winds.

Retarius suggests we pace off the distance to the roof of the wind-room, dig down ten feet, and let the wind dissipate upwards. It's earthwork and engineering, a very Roman solution indeed. But he says it quietly, and no one acts on it.

City of Civula

Pouncequick follows the glowing goblin to the city of Civula, then north of town, but loses him.

The city of Civula is small. Its chapel has been abandoned since the death of Brother Parvus, its monastic resident. The altar has been defaced with hammer blows, but the relic (a finger bone) inside it is unbothered. Brother Aquila takes the relic for safekeeping.

Pouncequick steals 100 sesterces hidden under the ashes in the blacksmiths's firepit. (He is not caught.)

Cingulus, the medicus, accepts Rosa's help in tending a family with a throat fever.

Sir Gerald, the squire, says goblins were completely routed a few years ago by the army and Fabulus Calamus, the wisest man in all of Rome. But lately people have seen goblins lurking about, though no one's been attacked yet. Some chickens have been taken, and hunting's been remarkably poor.

When told that the goblins are back, Sir Gerald declares his willingness to raise the militia and put them down! His militia is three men and a woman.

Junius leads his patrol to the site of the Temple of the Four Winds, which was the center of goblin civilization in the Thirties until it was smashed by Rome.

Ambush on the Road!

1 May 850 AUC: The Valerian expedition meets a traveler, one Cupricus of Epirius, who is going to Rome to buy a copper-pipe-making machine.  Cupricus says that goblins and orcs used to raid caravans and even towns in this region in the bad old days of the Thirties, but the Army fixed their wagon and burned down their breeding places. Since then it's been safe, until last summer, when travelers began to go missing again. But no one's survived to tell the tale, so who knows if it's goblins, orcs, or just plain old criminals?

The next day, Donnel, Rosa's wolf, alerts as they approach a hill. He doesn't like it. Vesuvius detects magic on the hill in two spots, to the left and right of the road.

Junius calls his troops into a wedge. Rosa causes faerie fire to flicker insubstantially around the goblins waiting in ambush, completely spoiling their concealment. Donnel and Rosa go in after them, with Sylvia shooting a well-timed arrow to protect Rosa from being stabbed.

Junius' wedge charges! They chop through the goblins into the woods.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the road, a green flame swells into a catapult of green fire, which hurls a fireball. Vesuvius reverses the fireball and blows up the goblin shaman, who flees with his head on fire.

Pouncequick sneaks up and finds a series of little silver figurines at the site where the shaman was hiding. Then an orc, who snuck up on him, bashes Pouncequick over the head. Pounce plays dead and rolls down the hill and the orc, deceived, sneaks past him to put an arrow into Vesuvius, the wizard. Pouncequick pounces. No more orc.

Thirty goblins attack from the woods! Vesuvius stops one mob with a wall of fire. Retarius steps into the crowd, asking, "Who dies first?" One of the goblins, hearing this, hangs back and lets his buddies go first. They lose. "Who dies second?" But there are many volunteers.

A dying goblin hangs on Retarius' shield, dragging it from his grasp. So he hurls his weighted net, trapping five or six of the beasties, and fights the rest all at once. Some blows clang on his distinctive helmet and gladiator shoulder plates, but only one scratches his tough hide. Goblins continue to die until the goblin supply is expended.

One group, however, has gone around the wall of fire! Brother Junius sets his spear to receive the charge. One goblin bounds over his spear point, but Sylvia shoots him. Then she shoots the others.

Vesuvius discourages the last group of goblins with an erupting ball of fire, which kills them and sets the wagon containing everyone's possessions on fire. Sylvia puts it out before things are too badly ruined.

An air elemental comes down the road, arms of wind wailing! Junius and Rosa see several goblins whose shapes are blurred, making it hard to attack. Connel the wolf doesn't like this at all. It's unnatural. Rosa peers into the gloom, illuminated helpfully by the fires Vesuvius started, and spies the other goblin mage hiding behind a tree. Rosa points him out, and Centurion Aponus hurls a pilum (spear) with all his might, transfixing the shaman through the branches of the tree.

The air elemental and blurring effect vanish with the shaman's death. The remaining goblins run away.

Junius catches one for interrogation. He knows that the orc, Wulga, was in charge of the ambush, whose mission was to keep people away from the village of Civula. He doesn't know a lot else.

Update: the dead orc had a brand-new gold coin on his person, bearing the face of the current Emperor and the current year. It likely was struck in Constantinople, and therefore was probably part of the missing tribute.

Everyone earns 1 xp for this encounter.

Miniatures

Although a role-playing game isn't ONLY an excuse to paint custom miniatures, it certainly is that among other things!

Brother Aquila, the Ghosthunter

Junius, the General

Pouncequick, the Cat Burglar

Retarius, the Gladiator

Rosa, the Herbalist

Sylvia, the Ranger

Vesuvius, the Wizard for Hire

Summer 850

The tribute caravan from Constantinople to Rome, twice delayed because of piracy, has been robbed on the way! Somewhere between Dalmatia and Thrace, the untold millions of sesterces, jewels, scrolls, ornamental armor, statuary, oil and wine have vanished, along with the 500-man escort.

Grandmamma

This is a problem for the whole Roman Empire, of course, but also in particular for House Valerius. Pater has been open-handed in resolving a whole mare's nest of problems for his many clients, and the cashbox is rather bare. What is worse is that Grandmamma has pawned her jewels to keep the House running smoothly, and now cannot redeem them. If she cannot acquire 1000 Librum by September, anyone can come in and buy the jewels, and if anyone sees them around some other woman's neck, well, if Grandmamma's in trouble, we're ALL in trouble!

So the first son, Gaius Valerius Junius, is headed out to the bush with as many family clients as can be explained away. For Pater must never know what has transpired beneath the veil of family business!

Among the worthies assigned this vital secret mission:

ROSA the herbal healer
SYLVIA the ranger
POUNCEQUICK the cat burglar
VESUVIUS the wizard for hire
RETARIUS the gladiator

and whoever else can be spared.

The number on the card indicates social level, which roughly tracks income.