Back to the Beginning
The constables headed out into the jungle, following the directions from the Clergy chaplain. Before long, they came upon a temple set in the middle of a forked waterfall. Water fell to the right and left of a huge four-armed statue of a sitting Eladrin. Beneath the statue was a single-story stone building with few windows. A curving path led up from the floor of the jungle to the entrance of the building, with trees and heavy vines crowding at its edges.
In the trees, there were structures like houses, with very sturdy roofs and mere drapes for walls. An Eladrin lowered himself from a tree branch and greeted the group, introducing himself as Raja Batronga Sidhon. “Who are you and why have you come?” They told him that they were on a pilgrimage to the temple of Ingatan to find an ancient artifact. Batronga told them that his people, the “Children of Hewanharimau,” were now protectors of the temple, and none were allowed entry to the temple until they had proven themselves. When the group asked how they could prove themselves, Batronga asked them leading questions about their allegiance toward the Clergy (or lack thereof).
After discovering that the group were no friends of the Clergy, Batronga offered a plan: help the Children of Hewanharimau in their fight against the Clergy, and they would allow the group entrance into the temple. The Constables agreed. They spent the night in the strange houses in the trees, enjoying a great feast of nearly-raw meats with the Raja and his band of Eladrin weretigers. The group noticed that there were an unusually large number of women in the group. Batronga explained that the Children of Hewanharimau had much shorter lives than non-lycanthrope Eladrin, which led to faster breeding and, after 500 years, they had a normal balance of male and female members. Raja Batronga shared his plan to spread his people across Elfaivar and repopulate the Eladrin species with the help of the blessing of the beast-god Hewanharimau.
In the morning, the plan began. The Children gave the Constables some convincing-looking wounds and then the group ran back to Vigil Longis, pretending to seek protection. The Clergy were all too ready to tell the Constables that they had been stupid to go out into the jungle alone, but they offered up what hospitality they had. In the middle of the night, James and Alienor slipped some potions to the front gate guards, in the guise of alcohol, and got them to open the front gate of the stockade fort. The guards were immediately pounced upon by large tigers. The Clergy suffered heavy losses, though the Children of Hewanharimau had to retreat after Batronga was stabbed by a summoned angel. However, it was a victory for the Eladrin, as the Clergy troops began a disordered retreat from the jungle. Over the next several days, the weretigers harried the retreating troops and none of the Clergy made it out of the jungle.
The next day, the Constables went into the temple known as Ingatan’s Refuge. Batronga told them that even though they had proven themselves to his people, they would still have to pass the test presented by the temple in order to get what they wanted.
Inside, they found some simple rooms. There was a kitchen with a single, ripe banana next to a collection of tarnished eatign utensils. In the pantry was a collection of bread that was in perfect condition. The rest of the temple looked abandoned for the past 500 years or so, however. There was a main room with prayer mats on the floor and a carving of Ingatan holding four flames, one in each of his four hands. A hallway led back to the rest of the temple. Off of that hallway were four doorways. The group was not well-versed in ancient Eladrin religions, but Summer’s vague memories, coupled with her recent reading of Asrabey’s book, led the group to believe that Ingatan’s temple was devoted to various points in time, specifically the distant past, near past, near future, and distant future.
Three of the doorways were obscured by fog, but the nearest one on the left was unobstructed. Alienor led the way into that room and was engulfed in a blast of superheated air. Being a Tiefling, this did not bother her at all. James cast a spell he’d never used before to offer his allies protection against fire, then walked into the room and started burning. James made a mental note to always read the fine print on new incantations. The group inferred that this must be part of the ritual of the temple, so everyone went into the cleansing heat and then came back out into the hallway.
Most of the group then tried the room across the hall, though Alienor abstained, staying in the hall. Inside, the rest of the Constables found themselves once again on the deck of the RNS Coaltongue. IronPeak stood by King Aodhan, ready to vomit if necessary to help him save face. Cazara stood watch on the top of the command building, watching the skies for Gale. James was a deck below, having just spotted a mysterious Eladrin woman who was clearly up to no good. Assistant Chief Delft turned to Mort Stark and asked him to please go check on the Duchess and make sure she wasn’t going to embarrass the king by missing his speech.
And then the engine exploded and became two mechanical fire demons crashing through the top deck of the ship. Summer ran upstairs to see what was going on and she ran headlong into Mort. Seeing her for the Duchess’s handmaiden, Mort demanded that she tell him if the Duchess was safe. Summer had no idea what he was talking about, so the two had an interesting conversation in a stairwell while the rest of the group threw themselves at the demons. The main turret of the Coaltongue came to life and transformed itself into Colleen.
The group dispatched the engine demons fairly easily, though one of them exploded when it died, leaving behind a small flame. When the second one was destroyed, its inner flame merged with the flame of the first one and Cazara managed to grab the flame just before a second explosion came. The vision of the past ended and the Constables found themselves in a small simple chamber with a washing basin and six clean white robes perfectly fitted to the constables, even Colleen’s new massive steam-powered form.
The Constables moved on to the next doorway on the right, where they found themselves in the Bleak Gate facility just after Borne had climbed out. The whole place was collapsing and they started rushing for the only obvious exit: the door to Quital’s office. After they started in that direction, a trio of flames spawned in various places around the building. Thanks to James M. Chinast’s Remarkable Rocket Boots and Cazara and Summer and Alienor’s ridiculous amount of mobility, they were able to grab all three flames and join them together before the facility completely collapsed. When the vision cleared, they found themselves in another simple chamber, but this one had twelve dead bodies in it.
The twelve were Eladrin priestesses, composed in death with their arms crossed over their chests. The bodies were perfectly preserved, seeming not to have decayed a single day in the past 500 years. Cazara was struck with the solemnity of the situation. The group tried to figure out why the priestesses were preserved in this room in particular. Someone suggested that, to an Eladrin, 500 years ago was inside one person’s lifetime, so perhaps they were commemorating the Great Malice as a reminder of what had happened in the near past.
The next room waited, but before they took on that test, Alienor decided it was a great time to break out the tea set she had found in the Crypta Hereticarum. She poured four cups of tea and everyone took a moment to soothe their nerves. Everyone but Summer and Cazara, who found the whole idea of tea in the room of dead women to be in poor taste. Also, the teapot came from a dungeon full of cursed items, so they were wary of drinking “cursed tea.”