"So, nothing else to explore? Let's get to the eggs then. I'll carry them out and the rest of you can blast them to pieces."
Litrix sheathes his weapon and starts toward the eggs.
OOC: I'm back from vacation, I see there isn't much happening
I understood we don't have anything else to check?
Maur shrugs. He would prefer to have everything checked, but his focus remains on Eike and the demonic temple. "Let's deal with the eggs and rest. We have a temple to raze. Or not, depending on why it is worse than leaving it."
"So, nothing else to explore? Let's get to the eggs then. I'll carry them out and the rest of you can blast them to pieces."
Litrix sheathes his weapon and starts toward the eggs.
Aureus closes the door to the trapped library and works to reset the room's lock. She also tries to use her lockpicks to make the lock harder for anyone but her harder to open. She does a masterful job. The lock to the door will be very hard for anyone else to open, but she will be able to return to it and be able to open it without a problem.
She smiles at Phar. "No one else is getting in there unless they are lot more skilled than me."
Maur shrugs. He would prefer to have everything checked, but his focus remains on Eike and the demonic temple. "Let's deal with the eggs and rest. We have a temple to raze. Or not, depending on why it is worse than leaving it."
While Caerth is still curious about the rest of the old ruins, he is fine with leaving the rest of the ancient temple of Bogphin unexplored. There will be a lot of time for him to explore everything once the wicked shire and Eike are dealt with. "But first ,the eggs," he mumbles to himself.
Working together, you are able to clear away enough of the rubble leading back to the large chamber where the deadly nightshade had its lair to allow Angus to avoid having to back around the exterior of the temple. The acidic smell of the eggs has lessened due to air from outside the ruins being allowed to circulate inside.
The best idea for destroying the eggs, as discussed earlier, still seems to be transporting them out of the temple into the arid hills, or perhaps, all the way down into the desert. Once outside the temple, they can be ignited. It takes the rest of the day to safely move the eggs and dispose of them. After the deed is done, weariness finally catches up with you as the sun begins to set.
"That was awful," Aureus says. The smell of the eggs makes her even more unwell when they are moved and set afire. "Ugh. I'm going to need a bath." She finds a spot outside the ruins with lots of loose, clean sand, and rubs the sand into her fur after stripping off her clothes. She cleans her garments as best she can and hangs them up in the courtyard.
The sealed doors into Stratesus' Chamber are reopened and each of you finds a place to rest either inside the chamber or out in the courtyard. Aureus borrows some of the old clothes in the chamber to wear while sleeping. She curls up on one corner of the rug by the chamber's entrance and is soon snoring softly.
There is also The Hermit to be buried out somewhere in the surrounding lands, or perhaps, somewhere even more remote. Caerth digs a shallow grave in the earth near the other buried Boots and places The Hermit in it, for now. "I'd like to find somewhere else to bury him. Somewhere more remote and protected. A high, isolated hill in the desert, perhaps," the half-orc druid says as he gently buries his childhood hero in the temporary resting place. Caerth considers sleeping next to the The Hermit's buried form but decides to find a comfortable spot in the courtyard. He falls asleep reading Stratesus' journal.
After the sun sets, Shouzas rouses from his lair and heads out into the hills to hunt for his next meal. The nocturnal predator is gone until just before dawn. He settles back down to rest just as the first of you wake.
OOC:
I'm going to let you guys decide how you want to approach destroying the eggs. Your characters already know that caution must be used, so as long as you have them take the rest of the day and evening to move the eggs out into the hills/desert, then we can just hand wave any risk.
Note that there is only dried mud at the bottom of the old well. The small overgrown fountain outside the ruins still has water in it, but it must be purified if the characters want to drink it. There are a few dried up creeks near the ruins where the characters can dig for water, if you don't want to allocate spells to create water. The PCs can get back to the oasis where they left the horses without difficulty. It is roughly 2.6 miles back to the Horse Oasis. There is also the surrounding valley of cacti that could provide nourishment, as the ruined temple sits on a hill that is just over 1,000 feet wide.
The next scene will be just after dawn the next morning, so go ahead and write your next posts according to that idea. Also, decide what spells you want to memorize for the next day and any other activities that you want your characters to do before going to sleep and after waking up. There are no encounters during the night.
Maur follows whoever goes out to get the horses. Protection is what he does best and while he could dig out the well, there are magics and summonings that could do it faster. And if Caerth remains behind, magic will be plentiful over time.
(DC23)4th [5+1❏❏*Fire Shield ❏*Ice Storm [] [] polymorph []Summon Monster IV
5th(4+1) (DC24) [X] [X]Dismissal ; []Wall of FIre; []Break Enchantment; [X] Wall of Force
6th (2+1)[DC25] []Disintegrate; []*Wall of Force; [X]Cacophonic Burst
Phar sent Featar to do a quick reconnaissance of the remainder rooms. Nothing excessive, just a description of how many rooms and their general contents, without entering any rooms.
After which, the hawk joined Phar as he walked back to the sanctuary but he, instead, sent the familiar out to scout for whoever was getting the horses.
There wasn't much for Phar to do, as far as moving the eggs and, instead, went about the task of sorting through the books he thought would best help them on their current mission.
When the eggs were piled safely away from the compound. Phar offered to destroy them by carefully shooting them with a Scorching Ray which set off a huge blast of fire.1
On the walk to the eggs, he spoke to the group,
"In the morning, I can take a spell that will dig a proper burial grave for the Druid, unless you wish to do that by hand tonight. Also, I have sorted several books but there are many more that I wish to look at. I have a cantrip that will allow me to summarize the contents of several of the books. While it isn't much, I am hoping it will save us time.
Maur, do you still plan to grant me the ability to Comprehend Languages? If we plan to spend a day here, then I will plan to make the spell permanent. If not, then we can do that another time and it is unnecessary for you to use the your power on me. In fact, I am not even sure I have the spiritual energy to cast the spell tomorrow."a
Once back at sanctuary, Phar sat by the fireplace and curled up with the books he'd selected, sipping on the fine wine they'd found in the cask, hoping to find something about the evil altar they were to journey towards. He also looked into two books: Evia's Guid to Wands and Wand Wizardry. He cross-referenced the details of the books with the wand that had been found in the Sanctuary.2 He searched the wand, looking over every minute detail to see if there was some secret to how it may be used. 3
"I feel we may have to use the pearl to identify the wand. While the dagger is interesting, you have an intelligent sword which is likely to get used instead. This wand is powerful. I had no idea that wands could be so powerful so I wish to find out if it will be useful for our mission. If I cannot divine its use tomorrow, it may be the best course of action" In the morning, while eating his rations, he cast detect magic and took some time to analyze the magical items they'd found.b Both the dagger and the wand still eluded Phar's senses and he could not figure out what it did. Finally, he had to Admit defeat and, instead, cast identify on the wand.
1. Will cast scorching ray on the eggs from a safe distance, once they are safely moved.
2. Books that Phar wants to look at:
Evia's Guid to Wands (to see if there's a hint at what the wand is)
Wand Wizardry(to see if there's a hint at what the wand is)
Hidden Ruins of Chara Coast (To find out about Wicked Hill)
Balance of the Dragons (To find out about the dragon we are going to talk to)
Dragon Tales (To find out about the dragon we are going to talk to)
Magical Denizens of the Heartwood (To find out about the dragon we are going to talk to and what we may encounter in the woods)
"I can grant it tomorrow. Or whenever we plan to rest. You could use it non-permanent and then at some other time make it permanent. It is a neat trick. You could persist arcane sight or some other such spells? See invisibility? Can you make invisibility purge around yourself?"
Maur finds the spell Permanency intriguing, but he isn't a learned caster. The details are...boring.
Litrix prepares for moving of the eggs by removing the clothes except for small breaches. One can see that draconic scales cover him fully. The armor is resistant to acid and he carries the eggs carefully to the space indicated by the druid.
After finishing it, he tries to scrub the goop off, even trying to 'swim' through the sand. Finally, he gives up and sits still for few minutes after which he shakes off the scales. His skin is somewhat pale for someone who travels the world, but he looks healthy. The armor obviuosly protects the skin from the sun too.
When he gets dressed, the clothes are bulky on him without armor. But in the morning, the scales, pristine blue again, are back in place.
"So...we're going to the temple today? Or we do some more research? I don't like that mention that destroying the temple is worse than having it. But maybe Maur and Caerth can hallow it instead of razing it?"
