The Ingaran Adventures, Chapter 33

The Ingaran Adventures
Episode 33
“The Psi Gate”
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                  Alexander: The Gauntlet of Athena
                  Zografos: An Ingaran painter going under the name of Domnhall
                  Flower: An Elven girl caring for a human child named Hannah.
                  Issic: Half Human, Half Gold Dragon Warrior
                  India: A gypsy Bard/Shadow Dancer
                  Phaidon: A local Tamer of the Beasts
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The Time: Summer, Nemed 24
The Place: Alisander – A very large city, the largest in all of Inzeladun, Alisander has a population of 120,000 persons.

      Zografos quickly went over to the wall to check for a secret door where the muddy footprints were. For twenty minutes, as the other ran through the rest of the nursery area, putting to rest the horrible "children" of Doctor Dalby, he sought a secret door, one he believed had to be there because of the curious muddy footprints on the ceiling. Yet, he did not find one. He thought the cries and howls he heard as the golems were put to the sword distracted him, but the fact remained that he could not find a secret panel. Phaidon had remained with him, guarding the flesh golem that claimed to be an assistant of Doctor Dalby.
      Zografos asked the golem, "Where is the trigger for the secret door?"
      The golem said, "There are no secret doors here."
      Issic walked into the room, tired and haunted by what he had seen. A dozen abominations were laying in their rooms. They hadn't been evacuated because they were… useless. Issic swallowed hard. Alexander, India, and Flower came in after him, equally haunted and disturbed. India was crying.
      Zografos asked, "Issic, would you please convince the golem to help us?" He pointed towards Issic's huge sword.
      "That will not be necessary," said the assistant.
      "Then explain the foot prints on the ceiling, golem."
      The golem said, "I cannot."
      "How do we get to the psi-gate from here, golem?"
      "The psi gate is in the temple next door."
      Zografos gathered up as much stuff as he could. He grabbed up a volume called, "The Skein of Tenebrion," which seems to have been written by Vulthois. The book discussed methods of grafting magical skins permanently to the human body, as well as several specific outfits of shadow-stuff. The book also discussed the religion of Tenebrion, and mentioned several other related magic artifacts related to Tenebrion. Other books in the room included many tomes of thaumaturgical, alchemical, and theological subjects, embracing many of the cabbalists, daemonologists, and magicians known on Dalby's home world. Although he could not entirely read the books, he found the language was similar to Indorian. Soon enough, he had the titles deciphered. The Turba Philosophorum by Hermes Trismegistus, Geber's Liber Investigationis, Artephius' Key of Wisdom, a tome called Zohar, a set of books by Albertus Magnus, Raymond Lully's Ars Magna et Ultima, the Thesaurus Chemicus, Fludd's Clavis Achimiae, and a large skin-bound tome called Azanar.
      On a large mahogany working table there lay, face down, a badly worn copy of Raith's collected medical journals bearing many cryptical marginalia and interlineations in Dalby's hand. The book promised that the reader could learn the methods to bring back the dead, even if they had been incinerated, without recourse to criminal necromancy.
      Zografos also found a document where Dalby had issued an order that someone named Vulmea was to be killed on sight. The document named the person as a werewolf.
      Zografos motioned for Issic and Phaidon to guard the golem as I order him, "Lead the way to the Psi-gate." Alexander remained behind in the mansion to make sure it was clean of golems and other monsters. Zografos kept track of their route as they went back the way they came, and out the front door. The soldiers set to surround the mansion watched curiously as the golem led them all to the temple.
      India found it hard to believe that amongst the prosaic surroundings of neglect and dust and decay that this was once holy ground, holy ground that was now desecrated by the passing of someone as evil as Dr. Dalby, one of the walking dead. The vast marble dome of the ruined temple stood out against the backdrop of the sky, a dome that contrasted against the sea of hazy roofs and domes and towers and gables of the other homes surrounding the temple. The crowning statue of the temple dome was haloed fantastically by an odd light that came down through a break in the clouds overhead.
      The temple was an antiquated structure with a great unkempt yard dating from a time when the region was partly open country… several centuries ago, India reckoned. Across the street from the temple was a small graveyard. India shivered and looked again at the crumbling ruin with the mangy lawn, crusty brick walls, and neglected windows that gaped like a blind man's eyes. The weather beaten front door was bounded by a high wall of damp, mossy stone pierced by a steep flight of narrow steps which led, as though through a canyon, to that horribly old door.
      "It is somewhere in here," the flesh golem said. The false man stopped and just stood there in the ruined entry canyon.
      "Show us!" demanded Issic.
      The golem said, "I cannot show you. The Doctor never showed me."
      Flower tugged on India's tunic, "If you tell me what the psi-gate might look like, and ask me real, real nice, I might be able to find out where it is."
      India said, "It should look like a large monolith."
      Issic added, "It will be similar to the one the Githyanki used when we attacked the thrall city of the mind flayers."
      Zografos ordered the golem to open the wormy door, but the golem did not move. Issic pushed it toward the door, up the narrow, worn steps. The golem fell over.
      Zografos said, "Chop it up and let's be done with it. It is hindering our progress now." Zografos listened at both doors, hoping that someone, or something, was still trying to evacuate.
      "Domnhall," said Issic, "Look around for possible traps or ambush." Issic chopped off the golem's head, then pulled him outside for the soldiers to burn as Zografos checked out the door. He found no traps.
      On an impulse, Issic checked out the golem's pockets. He found a ring of keys and a note. The note was in some sort of code. He took it to Zografos. Zografos deciphered the code quickly. He almost laughed at the childish code Dr. Dalby used. The note said, "Do not, under any circumstances, let them read my correspondence with Lady Indicitus of Ingara, the psychic healer who helped you. Destroy it immediately."
      India said, "I think you may have mistranslated that word. I think it said, 'Devour it immediately.'"
      Issic rushed out in the street and cut open the golem's belly. He found leather bits and shredded, chewed up paper. Flower reached in and pulled out one of the more intact pieces. It was a perfect drawing of Hannah, with a written caption that said, "I have…" The rest of that caption was gone.
      Issic found that the chewed up letters were in Ingaran, and Dalby was communicating with her, trying to get her to travel to Visaria.
      Issic also find a shred of paper that said, "Sernath."
      "Sernath?" asked Flower, in a whisper. The word teased her mind, tormented it with half-memory that floated on the tip of her tongue. Flower closed her eyes and explored her memories.   In her mind she saw Alexander walking into a Nyandarian tavern. She was holding the baby and was watching Alexander, wondering what the Ingaran had in mind for the baby. A man walked past Alexander and whispered a quick word, "Sernath", before disappearing into the evening crowd. Alexander tapped Shanagra on the shoulder. "Do you know what sernath means?" Shanagra had looked at Alexander oddly. "It is Elvish for Mind Death, or something like that. It is a terrible, terrible word in the Elvish language."
      Flower trembled.
      Zografos opened the worm-eaten, weathered door and peered into an ancient, ruined worship area. Holes in the marble dome overhead cast thick beams of sunlight in slanted columns to the rubble covered floor. Two doors seemed to lead into the front towers.
      "Any idea which tower we should go to?" asked Zografos. He did note that one tower was more destroyed than the other. "So we try the better tower if no one has any objections."
      The chosen tower had a stone staircase going down into its depths. It had been swept clean of dust. It went down and down into the depths of the earth. It got dark as the light from above faded to a mere glimmer.
      Flower pulled out her candy, the Oracle of the Light, and lit the way. The staircase terminated at a long corridor. The hallway widened out extensively. Flower played with the candy as she walked, closing her hand over it and opening her hand, making it blink.
      This hall was no relic of crudity like the temple above, but a monument of the most magnificent and exotic art.
      "Do the panthers smell anything, Phaidon?" asked Zografos. Phaidon shook his head. He looked around in wonder at the designs on the walls. Rich, vivid, and daringly fantastic designs and pictures form a continuous scheme of mural painting whose lines and colors were beyond description. Along the walls were several glass cases. They looked like glass coffins that glimmered in Flower's light. The murals show reptilian creatures. The coffins displayed the mummies of those creatures, monsters outreaching in grotesqueness the most chaotic dreams of man. Most of the mummies were gorgeously robed in the costliest of fabrics, and lavishly laden with ornaments of gold, jewels, and unknown shining metals. The writings on the walls seemed to tell the history of this race. The forms of the reptile-people appeared to be gradually wasting away, emaciated priests, displayed as reptiles in ornate robes, cursed the upper air and all who breathe it. The terrible, final scene showed a primitive human, perhaps a pioneer of ancient Angust, being torn to pieces by the reptile men. Then the scenes showed the reptile men vanishing from the upper world.
      "I guess we try the other way unless anyone has any ideas?" said Zografos.
      "I am not sure I like leaving these things intact," said Issic, pointing at the mummies.
      Zografos looked around the walls, and discovered a secret panel that swiveled around, revealing another corridor. This next hallway was similar to the previous. Historical inscriptions on the walls, and glass coffins along those walls, just as before. But, at the end of this hall was a tall monolith, a large black stone.
      India walked around the monolith.
      "Should we try to activate the monolith, even though I don't know how, or cut our losses and torch the rest of Dalby's place?" asked Zografos.
      "Since it is called a Psi-Gate," said India, "I would assume it is activated psionically." She wished Alexander had gone down with them, but he seemed quite obsessed about hunting down Dr. Dalby. She hoped he remembered they were under a time constraint to stop the illithids here.
      "It is a 'psi-gate'," said Issic. "Just think where you want to go then touch it. Where is it we are trying to go?" He had used one before.
      "Good question."
      Flower said, "I know a thing about black monoliths, there is a cost." She remembered the debt still owed to the Stone Lords for the use of the stone circle that brought them from Nyandar to Ingara. "An unknown cost."
      "There are costs to everything, little one," said Issic. He also remembered the debt.
      "Visaria?" suggested India. "But if we leave, we may not make it back in time to stop the mind flayers."
      "I think we paid our costs dearly the last time," said Flower. The deaths of Shanagra and Kotz still weighed heavily on her.
      "I know we need to stop this Dalby, but isn't the Mind Flayer problem more pressing?" asked Phaidon.
      "That is what I thought we were here to do in the first place," said Issic. "I thought we were under a time schedule with them."
      "We are, but Alexander insisted on doing this first," said India.
      "What if we use the gate to put us inside the temple of Ilsensine or wherever the guy is that we are looking for?" asked Zografos.
      "What guy are we looking for?" asked Issic.
      "Absterator," said Phaidon.
      "Can we just think of a person and the gate will take us to him or must we think of a place?" asked Zografos.
      "I think that there would have to be another monolith where that person was or it might just get us to the closest monolith to that person," said Issic.
      " I believe you are correct, Issic. I suggest, now that we can find the psi-gate, that we go back to the palace."
      Phaidon asked, "Well, do we try and find a way to this Absterator? Should we dispatch Dalby's other creations before leaving?"
      "I don't know," said India. "Perhaps we should continue slaying golems in Dalby's house. Perhaps we should return to the palace."
      "Can you use your dream thing, Issic, to find out for sure?"
      "Nadam's spies should be able to help us find Absterator," said Issic.
      Zografos said, "I think we should go ahead and call in the guards and check out the rest of the place and then go after Absterator. I think I know a person that could help us find him quickly."
      "What is the plan when we find him?" asked Issic.
      "We need Alexander," said India.
      "Are you sure there aren't any golems left? Why don't we just torch the place and let them burn in the fire?"
      "Because we would burn down the entire city!" said India.
      "I am up for it!" said Issic, swinging his sword. "But there may be important information yet to be found inside."
      Zografos laughed at India. "This is the rich part of town. The houses are not close together. There is only a slight chance the other nearby houses would catch on fire."
      India argued, "We should not set it on fire. Who knows what kinds of information we would burn. It is a huge house. The loss in artwork alone would be considerable."
      Flower said, "One thing enters and leaves even the most guarded houses unfettered: Rats. And rats move all over the city, especially places of death."       Zografos gave up. "Alright, lets do it the hard way then." He motioned for them all to lead the way. Up the stairs they went, back into the sunlight.
      When they walked outside the temple, they noticed that the streets were filled with people running to and fro, screaming. The people are crying, rejoicing, praying, singing. Soldiers were talking to the warriors assigned to help Alexander. They also started rejoicing.
      Issic thought it was the illithid influence. Zografos asked one of the guards what was going on. The guard answered, "Yam ibn Saud has pulled away from Alisander! Lord Nadam has succeeded! Praise be to Lord Nadam! Perhaps he has heard that we have a holy man in the city! Praise be to Athena and her Gauntlet! The siege is lifted!"
      Flower said quietly to no one in particular, "But where are they going?"
      Zografos sent several of the guards into the house to bring out some of the more expensive paintings after he found out that Alexander had already left for the palace, called to Lord Nadam by an urgent messenger.
      As they walked toward the palace, Issic said, "I think we should use this also as a secondary base of operations. Who else are we going to entrust the psi-gate to?"
      Zografos shrugged his shoulders. "How about Nadam?"

      Back at the palace, they learned a grand reception was going to be held for them in honor of Yam ibn Saud's retreat. Issic asked for someone who would have knowledge of pre-human races on Inzeladun. He was shown to the palace Library of Antiquities.
      Flower told India that there is something she needs to do, saying, "I will be back in a few moons though."
      "Where are you going?"
      "I need to go to check on Hannah and Vulmea and my little friends in the cave, and something else I don't remember." Flower smiled, then vanished down the corridor.
    In his room at the palace, Zografos summoned the guard known as Jhillim. Jhillim arrived and told Zografos that the shadow dragons were ready if he should be able to produce the Ring and Finger of Vulthois. Zografos gave Jhillim several of the paintings taken from Dalby's residence and asked that they be given to the dragons. He then asked Jhillim for information on the Temple of Ilsensine. Jhillim said that rumors tell of a similar cult starting in the city of Sameni in Nyandar.
            After Jhillim left, Zografos killed a rat in the room, and skinned it. He then summoned the maid who had pleased him so much the previous night.

600 exp.

Dr. Dalby's Assistant, Constructed Expert 2: CR 9; large construct (9' tall); HD 9d10+45+2d6+10; hp 111; Initiative: +4 (Dex); Spd 40 ft; AC 23 (flatfooted 19, touch 13); Attack: +10/+10 (2d8+5 slam); Special Qualities: Construct, magic immunity, damage reduction 15/+1, Fast Healing 1, poison immunity; AL CE; SV: Fort +8, Ref +6, Will -1; Str 21, Dex 18, Con 20, Int 17, Wis 2, Cha 6
Skills: Heal +12
Feats: Combat Reflexes, Power Attack, Cleave, Skill Focus (Heal)

Jhillim, male human Rogue 5: CR 5; medium humanoid (5'8"); HD 5d6+5; hp 25; Initiative: +7 (+3 Dex, +4 imp. Init.); Spd 30ft; AC 16 (flatfooted 16, touch 13); Attack +5 (1d6+1 masterwork rapier) or +8 (1d6+1 mighty [str 12] masterwork composite shortbow); Special Qualities: Sneak Attack +3d6, Uncanny Dodge, Evasion; SV: Fort +11, Ref +15, Will 8; Str 12, Dex 16, Con 13, Int 14, Wis 10, Cha 10
      Skills: Hide +11, Move Silently +11, Tumble +11, Open Lock +13, Listen +8, Spot +10, Search +10, Knowledge (religion) +6, Disable Device +12, Use Magical Device +7
      Feats: Improved Initiative, Alertness, Lightning Reflexes
      Equipment: Masterwork rapier, masterwork mighty shortbow, 20 masterwork arrows, Masterwork studded leather, potion of darkvision, 6 potions of cure light wounds, 2 potions of neutralize poison, cloak of resistance +1, 50 ft. silk rope, masterwork thieves' tools
            Notes: Jhillim is a member of the Temple of Tenebrion. He also works as part of Lord Nadam's security force. He works in the underground labyrinths that honeycomb the entire city of Alisander, both as patrol and as an explorer.