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JollyDoc's Serpent's Skull-updated 11/6/2011
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<blockquote data-quote="JollyDoc" data-source="post: 5661216" data-attributes="member: 9546"><p><strong>The Azlanti Temple</strong></p><p></p><p>The two stone doors stood open at the base of the cliff above a curling spur of rock. Seaweed covered the doors, hanging down in thick green and black sheets, just obscuring some sort of carvings on their surface. On closer inspection, the carvings were revealed to be disturbing scenes of vampiric demons feasting on human maidens. Slowly, deliberately, the castaways made their way inside. The doors gave onto a wide stone stairway that ascended up into darkness. The steepness of the incline made it obvious that, even if the waters from the lagoon made it inside, they would not be in any danger of flooding whatever lay beyond. At the top of the stairs, over a dozen stone pillars supported the vaulted ceiling of a cavernous chamber. Near the entrance, four empty alcoves, two on each side, sat in the walls, their edges carved to resemble yawning, fanged mouths. At the far side, a pair of bronze doors that seemed to drip with blood sat under a stone bridge that passed through the upper portion of the room some forty feet above. The walls were decorated with unsettling carvings of bats, human sacrifice, and the walking dead. The dismembered, skeletal bodies of three humans lay scattered on the floor. As the company moved cautiously into the chamber, a sudden sharp whistling pierced the air as a pair of javelins embedded themselves in the floor directly in front of them. As one, everyone looked up and saw two figures standing atop the bridge above. Green eyes glowed from the serpentine skulls of the skeletal creatures. </p><p>“Undead snake-men,” Agnar mused. “Fascinating!”</p><p>“Don’t stand there gawking, you idiot!” Zavasta snarled as he shoved his friend forward. “Run!”</p><p></p><p>The group began running for cover beneath the bridge, but Jask was a step too slow. A javelin hit him solidly in the belly, and he stumbled, staggering into a wall, gasping for breath. Agnar saw it happen, but didn’t slow. He just smiled to himself and ducked beneath the bridge. Gorak did pause, however. The big barbarian unslung his bow and launched an arrow at one of the skeletal snipers, only to see it bounce harmlessly off the creature’s ribcage. It still gave Jask the moment he needed. The priest clutched his holy symbol and breathed a prayer to Nethys. Holy energy filled him, staunching the blood from his wound as he pulled the javelin free, and closed the hole behind it. Nodding his thanks to Gorak, he darted beneath the bridge. The skeletons were not to be denied their quarry. Heedless of the fall, they both simply stepped off the bridge and crashed to the floor below. Despite several cracked bones, they climbed deliberately to their feet and began shambling towards the group. Gorak drew his greatsword and stepped forward to meet them. The nearest one hissed and ran at him, its boney claws tearing at his flesh, but the barbarian quickly leveled the playing field with a massive swing of his blade that completely smashed the degenerate skeleton to slivers. He turned, expecting the second one to be right on top of him. Instead, it stood placidly in front of Agnar, and at the priest’s command, it knelt before him. Agnar turned to smirk at Jask, whose face burned with anger.</p><p>____________________________________________________________</p><p></p><p>After Jack tossed a rope with an attached grapnel up to the bridge, the group ascended one-by-one. Jack had reasoned, and none of the others disagreed, that if the skeletons had been deliberately set upon the span, then perhaps that was what they were guarding, and not the more obvious choice of the great iron doors below. Once atop the bridge, they saw smaller, single doors standing at each end. Arbitrarily, they chose to go left. The door was not locked, and it opened onto a long, darkened hallway. Agnar sent his new skeletal minion ahead as a scout, and as it turned out, that was a fortuitous decision. Halfway down the corridor, an audible click sounded from beneath the skeleton’s feet. The floor in front of it suddenly split in half and fell away to both sides, revealing a deep pit beneath. For a breathless moment the skeleton teetered right on the edge, but at the last second, it took a step back and avoided crashing to oblivion. </p><p>“That’s a fine dog you’ve got yourself,” Jask sneered at the necromancer.</p><p></p><p>Jack was ultimately able to reset the trap and then jam the mechanism, allowing his companions to safely bypass it. Further down the hall, however, they encountered another…then another. If the number of hazards they were encountering was any indication, then they were definitely on the right track to find someone or something that didn’t want to be found. Ultimately, the series of passages ended at a large, bronze door. It bore eerie runners of red, almost as if the metal were bleeding. Gorak pushed against the portal, and it opened easily enough. On the other side lay an octagonal room with an oval pool of what looked like softly rippling blood in its center, filling the air with a metallic tang. Four round pillars supported a ceiling decorated with crisscrossed supports and grooves, while ten small circular holes decorated the walls at chest level. As Gorak started to enter the room, Arioch stopped him. </p><p>“Wait,” the summoner said. “Blood-filled pools in ancient temples make me just a touch nervous. Let’s have a closer look first.”</p><p>The barbarian grunted as Arioch cast a simple cantrip.</p><p>“Just as I thought,” he said. “There’s magic all over the place. Minion! I summon you!”</p><p>The diminutive eidolon appeared in a puff of acrid smoke. </p><p>“I hear and obey,” he sighed.</p><p>Arioch nodded to the chamber. “Have a look around, would you?”</p><p>Minion shrugged. “I have a choice?”</p><p>He turned and peered cautiously into the room, then took a few tentative steps inside. Suddenly, a loud clang sounded from behind him. Minion whirled as a sheet of bronze began to descend over the doorway. At the same time, one of the grooves in the ceiling slid open, revealing a very large, razor-edged pendulum. The eidolon looked around frantically, and then he saw the tiny stud on the side of one of the pillars. He dove desperately towards it and pushed it. With a sigh of relief, he watched the groove reseal itself and the bronze plate retract.</p><p>“I think it’s safe now,” he announced.</p><p>“You had me worried there for a minute,” Arioch smiled.</p><p>“Have I ever let you down?” the eidolon asked.</p><p>He didn’t see what was emerging from one of the small holes behind him. He never saw the gelatinous glob ooze out of it and flop to the floor, looking like some giant amoeba sporting hundreds of toothed mouths. He never saw it because as soon as Arioch did, he dismissed his servant back to his pocket dimension.</p><p></p><p>Arioch cleared the doorway as sure as he was certain that Minion was safely away. Gorak stepped up, Agnar’s skeletal henchman right behind him. Abruptly, the creature began gibbering in an ear-splitting cacophony that set listeners’ teeth on edge. Gorak paused, his eyes glazed over. Lyrissa and Jack, who were preparing to follow after him, halted as well, their jaws going slack. Only the degenerate serpent skeleton kept going, but as it drew near to the gibbering mouther, a large pseudopod exuded from its main mass and delivered a crushing blow to the undead, smashing it to pieces. A moment later, one of the abomination’s mouths spat a large glob of mucous at Gorak, hitting the barbarian directly in the eyes. That broke his stupor, and he roared in pain, rushing forward with his sword swinging wildly before him. Meanwhile, Lyrissa began to sob uncontrollably, sinking to her knees, her head in her hands as the maddening noise filled her brain. Beside her, Jack calmly drew his saber and sliced it across his own arm.</p><p>“Has everyone gone insane?” Jask gasped as he knocked the rogue’s blade aside and used his healing powers to staunch the flow of blood.</p><p>Gorak landed a lucky blow against the amorphous blob, but as he did so, six of the creature’s mouths extended towards him, and latched onto him at various points, holding him immobile. Then, to the horror of those looking on, the gibbering horror flowed completely over the barbarian, engulfing him within its mass.</p><p>“Stand aside!” Nessalin shouted as he shoved past Jask.</p><p>The magus drew a javelin from his pack, which sizzled with crackling electricity. Cocking his arm back, he hurled it, and as the weapon left his hand, it formed a bolt of lightning that arced into the monstrous ooze. The thing shivered like jelly as the electricity coursed over its surface, and a moment later, it exploded completely when Gorak tore his way free using only his teeth and a pair of short horns that had sprouted from his sloped brow.</p><p>___________________________________________________________</p><p></p><p>Jack’s and Lyrissa’s confusion gradually wore off with the destruction of the gibbering mouther, though Agnar’s disappointment at the loss of yet another undead minion took longer to pass. Once everyone had regained their composure, Gorak snorted through his flared nostrils and pulled open the door on the far side of the chamber. Judging from the décor of the cathedral-like chamber on the other side, the area must have once been a significant temple dedicated to some vile god. On one side, a few steps led up to a shrine presided over by a large statue of a beautiful, fanged woman, save that instead of arms, it possessed two upraised bat-like wings, and instead of feet its legs ended in talons. It loomed over a glistening altar of blood-red stone that seemed to weep blood into a trough below; this trough of blood ran the length of the room before disappearing on the opposite side of the chamber through a set of bronze bars in front of a wide opening in the wall that dropped away into darkness. Stone pillars supported the roof high above, and two dry fountains sat opposite each other against the wall in the middle of the room. Three large alcoves, one on the far wall and two on the near, contained wall carvings. The entire chamber felt unnaturally cold, and every so often strange, disembodied whispers slithered through the air. Standing before the altar was a serpent-headed creature clad in Varisian garb…Ieana’s clothes. On the floor below were arrayed four humanoid skeletons, each clutching a rusting sword. </p><p></p><p>“So you are here,” the creature stated matter-of-factly. “I suppose it was too much to hope that you would simply leave me in peace once you had discovered the light house.”</p><p>“Who, or what are you?” Arioch asked. “Where is Ieana?”</p><p>“Simpletons,” the creature shook its head. “I thought you would have at least puzzled out that one mystery. I am the one you knew as Ieana, though the real Varisian ‘scholar,’ and I use that term loosely, who bore that name died by my hand months ago. My true name is Yarzoth, and it was I who engineered the shipwreck that brought you here, although you must believe it was never my intent to leave you stranded. I had actually hoped that all of you would die at sea.”</p><p>“I don’t understand,” Jack said in confusion. “What was the point of all this? Why did you come here?”</p><p>“I hardly expect your primitive minds to understand,” Yarzoth hissed. “I am on the cusp of making a great discovery, one that your fragile race has not been able to solve since the sky fell so long ago. Now, I will grant you one mercy: leave me to my work, and you may go your own way in peace.”</p><p>“The only thing I need to understand, snake lady,” Zavasta growled, “is whether or not you’re flammable!”</p><p></p><p>Arioch saw the direction the situation was headed, and quickly began a summoning. Two short, squat stone-like creatures flowed up out of the floor in the midst of the skeletons. One of them swung a clubbed fist into the ribs of the nearest corpse, and it shattered like a pane of glass. Jack saw an opening and ran headlong towards the melee. He leaped across the trough of blood, tumbled through the scuffling skeletons and elementals, and rolled to his feet right next to Yarzoth…only to find her striking as quickly as the serpent she resembled. He felt her fangs sink into his neck, and immediately a profound weakness flowed through his body. He stumbled backwards, lost his footing on the slick stones, and fell prone at the serpent woman’s feet. She loomed over him, preparing to strike again, but at that moment the twin elementals broke free of the skeletons as Lyrissa attacked the undead from behind, and at Arioch’s command, they charged the altar. Yarzoth saw them coming at the last instant, and hastily cast a spell. Instantly, several identical copies of her appeared out of thin air and began to revolve around her, making it impossible to tell where she really was. The elementals swung blindly, and as their fists connected with the illusory images, they began to wink out. Yarzoth called her remaining skeletons to her, but one of the elementals spun and obliterated another one as it closed. Behind the skeletons came Gorak, Nessalin and Lyrissa. Yarzoth raised her hands above her, and suddenly a shockwave of sound burst from her, rolling over the elementals and the oncoming castaways. Nessalin was hurled from his feet and sent tumbling to the floor. Gorak and Lyrissa, however, kept coming. The bardess smashed aside another skeleton as one of the elementals destroyed the final one. At the same time, the last of Yarzoth’s mirror images vanished, leaving her vulnerable. Lyrissa lunged at her, slashing at the priestess with her blade as the elementals struck from both sides. Yarzoth fell back, obviously in pain. Her hand went to an amulet of a headless figure that hung around her neck, and as she touched it, black energy washed over her attackers, sending the cold of the grave coursing through their bodies. Suddenly, still laying weak on the ground, Jack stabbed up with his rapier, driving fully half of its length into Yarzoth’s belly. Stumbling, she plunged her hand into the blood on the altar, and then touched the demonic statue. In a flash, her body turned to mist and began flowing up towards a hole in the ceiling. Gorak, his eyes bloodshot with rage, hacked at her with all of his strength, and as his sword passed through her, her body simply dissipated, and her hollow scream slowly faded away to nothing.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="JollyDoc, post: 5661216, member: 9546"] [b]The Azlanti Temple[/b] The two stone doors stood open at the base of the cliff above a curling spur of rock. Seaweed covered the doors, hanging down in thick green and black sheets, just obscuring some sort of carvings on their surface. On closer inspection, the carvings were revealed to be disturbing scenes of vampiric demons feasting on human maidens. Slowly, deliberately, the castaways made their way inside. The doors gave onto a wide stone stairway that ascended up into darkness. The steepness of the incline made it obvious that, even if the waters from the lagoon made it inside, they would not be in any danger of flooding whatever lay beyond. At the top of the stairs, over a dozen stone pillars supported the vaulted ceiling of a cavernous chamber. Near the entrance, four empty alcoves, two on each side, sat in the walls, their edges carved to resemble yawning, fanged mouths. At the far side, a pair of bronze doors that seemed to drip with blood sat under a stone bridge that passed through the upper portion of the room some forty feet above. The walls were decorated with unsettling carvings of bats, human sacrifice, and the walking dead. The dismembered, skeletal bodies of three humans lay scattered on the floor. As the company moved cautiously into the chamber, a sudden sharp whistling pierced the air as a pair of javelins embedded themselves in the floor directly in front of them. As one, everyone looked up and saw two figures standing atop the bridge above. Green eyes glowed from the serpentine skulls of the skeletal creatures. “Undead snake-men,” Agnar mused. “Fascinating!” “Don’t stand there gawking, you idiot!” Zavasta snarled as he shoved his friend forward. “Run!” The group began running for cover beneath the bridge, but Jask was a step too slow. A javelin hit him solidly in the belly, and he stumbled, staggering into a wall, gasping for breath. Agnar saw it happen, but didn’t slow. He just smiled to himself and ducked beneath the bridge. Gorak did pause, however. The big barbarian unslung his bow and launched an arrow at one of the skeletal snipers, only to see it bounce harmlessly off the creature’s ribcage. It still gave Jask the moment he needed. The priest clutched his holy symbol and breathed a prayer to Nethys. Holy energy filled him, staunching the blood from his wound as he pulled the javelin free, and closed the hole behind it. Nodding his thanks to Gorak, he darted beneath the bridge. The skeletons were not to be denied their quarry. Heedless of the fall, they both simply stepped off the bridge and crashed to the floor below. Despite several cracked bones, they climbed deliberately to their feet and began shambling towards the group. Gorak drew his greatsword and stepped forward to meet them. The nearest one hissed and ran at him, its boney claws tearing at his flesh, but the barbarian quickly leveled the playing field with a massive swing of his blade that completely smashed the degenerate skeleton to slivers. He turned, expecting the second one to be right on top of him. Instead, it stood placidly in front of Agnar, and at the priest’s command, it knelt before him. Agnar turned to smirk at Jask, whose face burned with anger. ____________________________________________________________ After Jack tossed a rope with an attached grapnel up to the bridge, the group ascended one-by-one. Jack had reasoned, and none of the others disagreed, that if the skeletons had been deliberately set upon the span, then perhaps that was what they were guarding, and not the more obvious choice of the great iron doors below. Once atop the bridge, they saw smaller, single doors standing at each end. Arbitrarily, they chose to go left. The door was not locked, and it opened onto a long, darkened hallway. Agnar sent his new skeletal minion ahead as a scout, and as it turned out, that was a fortuitous decision. Halfway down the corridor, an audible click sounded from beneath the skeleton’s feet. The floor in front of it suddenly split in half and fell away to both sides, revealing a deep pit beneath. For a breathless moment the skeleton teetered right on the edge, but at the last second, it took a step back and avoided crashing to oblivion. “That’s a fine dog you’ve got yourself,” Jask sneered at the necromancer. Jack was ultimately able to reset the trap and then jam the mechanism, allowing his companions to safely bypass it. Further down the hall, however, they encountered another…then another. If the number of hazards they were encountering was any indication, then they were definitely on the right track to find someone or something that didn’t want to be found. Ultimately, the series of passages ended at a large, bronze door. It bore eerie runners of red, almost as if the metal were bleeding. Gorak pushed against the portal, and it opened easily enough. On the other side lay an octagonal room with an oval pool of what looked like softly rippling blood in its center, filling the air with a metallic tang. Four round pillars supported a ceiling decorated with crisscrossed supports and grooves, while ten small circular holes decorated the walls at chest level. As Gorak started to enter the room, Arioch stopped him. “Wait,” the summoner said. “Blood-filled pools in ancient temples make me just a touch nervous. Let’s have a closer look first.” The barbarian grunted as Arioch cast a simple cantrip. “Just as I thought,” he said. “There’s magic all over the place. Minion! I summon you!” The diminutive eidolon appeared in a puff of acrid smoke. “I hear and obey,” he sighed. Arioch nodded to the chamber. “Have a look around, would you?” Minion shrugged. “I have a choice?” He turned and peered cautiously into the room, then took a few tentative steps inside. Suddenly, a loud clang sounded from behind him. Minion whirled as a sheet of bronze began to descend over the doorway. At the same time, one of the grooves in the ceiling slid open, revealing a very large, razor-edged pendulum. The eidolon looked around frantically, and then he saw the tiny stud on the side of one of the pillars. He dove desperately towards it and pushed it. With a sigh of relief, he watched the groove reseal itself and the bronze plate retract. “I think it’s safe now,” he announced. “You had me worried there for a minute,” Arioch smiled. “Have I ever let you down?” the eidolon asked. He didn’t see what was emerging from one of the small holes behind him. He never saw the gelatinous glob ooze out of it and flop to the floor, looking like some giant amoeba sporting hundreds of toothed mouths. He never saw it because as soon as Arioch did, he dismissed his servant back to his pocket dimension. Arioch cleared the doorway as sure as he was certain that Minion was safely away. Gorak stepped up, Agnar’s skeletal henchman right behind him. Abruptly, the creature began gibbering in an ear-splitting cacophony that set listeners’ teeth on edge. Gorak paused, his eyes glazed over. Lyrissa and Jack, who were preparing to follow after him, halted as well, their jaws going slack. Only the degenerate serpent skeleton kept going, but as it drew near to the gibbering mouther, a large pseudopod exuded from its main mass and delivered a crushing blow to the undead, smashing it to pieces. A moment later, one of the abomination’s mouths spat a large glob of mucous at Gorak, hitting the barbarian directly in the eyes. That broke his stupor, and he roared in pain, rushing forward with his sword swinging wildly before him. Meanwhile, Lyrissa began to sob uncontrollably, sinking to her knees, her head in her hands as the maddening noise filled her brain. Beside her, Jack calmly drew his saber and sliced it across his own arm. “Has everyone gone insane?” Jask gasped as he knocked the rogue’s blade aside and used his healing powers to staunch the flow of blood. Gorak landed a lucky blow against the amorphous blob, but as he did so, six of the creature’s mouths extended towards him, and latched onto him at various points, holding him immobile. Then, to the horror of those looking on, the gibbering horror flowed completely over the barbarian, engulfing him within its mass. “Stand aside!” Nessalin shouted as he shoved past Jask. The magus drew a javelin from his pack, which sizzled with crackling electricity. Cocking his arm back, he hurled it, and as the weapon left his hand, it formed a bolt of lightning that arced into the monstrous ooze. The thing shivered like jelly as the electricity coursed over its surface, and a moment later, it exploded completely when Gorak tore his way free using only his teeth and a pair of short horns that had sprouted from his sloped brow. ___________________________________________________________ Jack’s and Lyrissa’s confusion gradually wore off with the destruction of the gibbering mouther, though Agnar’s disappointment at the loss of yet another undead minion took longer to pass. Once everyone had regained their composure, Gorak snorted through his flared nostrils and pulled open the door on the far side of the chamber. Judging from the décor of the cathedral-like chamber on the other side, the area must have once been a significant temple dedicated to some vile god. On one side, a few steps led up to a shrine presided over by a large statue of a beautiful, fanged woman, save that instead of arms, it possessed two upraised bat-like wings, and instead of feet its legs ended in talons. It loomed over a glistening altar of blood-red stone that seemed to weep blood into a trough below; this trough of blood ran the length of the room before disappearing on the opposite side of the chamber through a set of bronze bars in front of a wide opening in the wall that dropped away into darkness. Stone pillars supported the roof high above, and two dry fountains sat opposite each other against the wall in the middle of the room. Three large alcoves, one on the far wall and two on the near, contained wall carvings. The entire chamber felt unnaturally cold, and every so often strange, disembodied whispers slithered through the air. Standing before the altar was a serpent-headed creature clad in Varisian garb…Ieana’s clothes. On the floor below were arrayed four humanoid skeletons, each clutching a rusting sword. “So you are here,” the creature stated matter-of-factly. “I suppose it was too much to hope that you would simply leave me in peace once you had discovered the light house.” “Who, or what are you?” Arioch asked. “Where is Ieana?” “Simpletons,” the creature shook its head. “I thought you would have at least puzzled out that one mystery. I am the one you knew as Ieana, though the real Varisian ‘scholar,’ and I use that term loosely, who bore that name died by my hand months ago. My true name is Yarzoth, and it was I who engineered the shipwreck that brought you here, although you must believe it was never my intent to leave you stranded. I had actually hoped that all of you would die at sea.” “I don’t understand,” Jack said in confusion. “What was the point of all this? Why did you come here?” “I hardly expect your primitive minds to understand,” Yarzoth hissed. “I am on the cusp of making a great discovery, one that your fragile race has not been able to solve since the sky fell so long ago. Now, I will grant you one mercy: leave me to my work, and you may go your own way in peace.” “The only thing I need to understand, snake lady,” Zavasta growled, “is whether or not you’re flammable!” Arioch saw the direction the situation was headed, and quickly began a summoning. Two short, squat stone-like creatures flowed up out of the floor in the midst of the skeletons. One of them swung a clubbed fist into the ribs of the nearest corpse, and it shattered like a pane of glass. Jack saw an opening and ran headlong towards the melee. He leaped across the trough of blood, tumbled through the scuffling skeletons and elementals, and rolled to his feet right next to Yarzoth…only to find her striking as quickly as the serpent she resembled. He felt her fangs sink into his neck, and immediately a profound weakness flowed through his body. He stumbled backwards, lost his footing on the slick stones, and fell prone at the serpent woman’s feet. She loomed over him, preparing to strike again, but at that moment the twin elementals broke free of the skeletons as Lyrissa attacked the undead from behind, and at Arioch’s command, they charged the altar. Yarzoth saw them coming at the last instant, and hastily cast a spell. Instantly, several identical copies of her appeared out of thin air and began to revolve around her, making it impossible to tell where she really was. The elementals swung blindly, and as their fists connected with the illusory images, they began to wink out. Yarzoth called her remaining skeletons to her, but one of the elementals spun and obliterated another one as it closed. Behind the skeletons came Gorak, Nessalin and Lyrissa. Yarzoth raised her hands above her, and suddenly a shockwave of sound burst from her, rolling over the elementals and the oncoming castaways. Nessalin was hurled from his feet and sent tumbling to the floor. Gorak and Lyrissa, however, kept coming. The bardess smashed aside another skeleton as one of the elementals destroyed the final one. At the same time, the last of Yarzoth’s mirror images vanished, leaving her vulnerable. Lyrissa lunged at her, slashing at the priestess with her blade as the elementals struck from both sides. Yarzoth fell back, obviously in pain. Her hand went to an amulet of a headless figure that hung around her neck, and as she touched it, black energy washed over her attackers, sending the cold of the grave coursing through their bodies. Suddenly, still laying weak on the ground, Jack stabbed up with his rapier, driving fully half of its length into Yarzoth’s belly. Stumbling, she plunged her hand into the blood on the altar, and then touched the demonic statue. In a flash, her body turned to mist and began flowing up towards a hole in the ceiling. Gorak, his eyes bloodshot with rage, hacked at her with all of his strength, and as his sword passed through her, her body simply dissipated, and her hollow scream slowly faded away to nothing. [/QUOTE]
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