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.