The party’s light revealed part of a massive room, too huge to even see the far walls in shadow. The Heroes carefully stepped in, mindful for traps that the fleeing lizard-men might have placed. There were none to be found, but there was plenty of space for them. The entry chamber was simply immense and crafted with sharp angles.
It was also filthy. Mud, feces, and worse were everywhere, as if a midden had exploded in the room. The filth muted the party’s footsteps, which would have been considerable. The floor, walls, and probably the out-of-sight ceiling were crafted from smooth, glossy stone.
There was only one other exit, a large door opposite the main entrance, so the Heroes settled their mounts inside and examined it. The door had a single, apparently decorative, knob in the center and pushed away from the room. Beyond was a wide hall going left, right, and forward. The door was almost as wide as the hall, and when fully opened it completely blocked the hall to the left.
“Spike it,” whispered Ren. Aneirin nodded but added, “No point to whisper. The noise of the hammer will announce our location.” He was right, the noise echoed through the halls, but after a few moments the door was spiked open, blocking one possible path the lizard-men might use against them.
The hall was just as filthy as the entry chamber, and yielded no clues about which direction the foes had gone. The party headed down the right hallway first, and were soon looking at a set of double doors. After a quick look for traps, Ren took hold of a handle. Aneirin and Bessie had weapons ready as Ren tugged. To everyone’s mild surprise, the doors opened without struggle.
Ren picked up the lantern and peered inside. He saw a long room going off to the left, just as filthy as the hall, but before he could take a longer look there was a “wisshh” sound. An arrow flew right beside his head!
“We’ve been spotted,” he said, ducking back into the hall. Aneirin and Dumb Bear charged inside just in time to see a kobold scurry through a small hole in the far corner. They moved cautiously ahead. Bessie remained in the hall, her crossbow pointed toward the intersection, ready for lizard-folk to try and sneak up from behind. Ren entered a few steps into the room, keeping the light central.
“What’s there?” he called to the warriors when they reached the kobold’s escape tunnel.
Dumb Bear was crouched down by it and looked up to Aneirin, shaking his head. “Tunnel. Low,” he said. Aneirin looked back to Ren. “A tunnel we’d have to traverse on our bellies. We’ll have to find another way.”
After they left the room and shut the doors, Ren had a thought. “The doors open into the room there, but they’ve got good solid handles on this side.” He paused then began to dig through his pack. After a moment he pulled out the rope he’d bought as part of the dwarven spelunker kit. Ren pulled the doors as tightly shut as he could, then tied the two together at the handles. “That’ll kept those shut good and tight,” he said. “Or at least delay someone from getting through there.”
Returning to the nearby intersection, the party took the last option, heading straight forward. The polished stone floor was just as filthy here as where they’d already explored, so the Heroes were tense and ready for attack.
After a some fifty feet, the wide hall ended at another set of double doors. However, these were huge, fifteen, perhaps twenty feet high and proportionately wide. “We could ride through these,” Aneirin commented. They inspected the doors closely and found no indications of traps, then carefully opened them – bows ready.
The doors opened easily and revealed another huge chamber. This one featured a low, flickering glow about thirty feet from the doors, suggesting a pit with a dying fire. Even with that extra touch of light, the Heroes couldn’t see the far edges of the room. Casting the light left and right, they saw the room was squared off even with the doors, and that a pair of pillars, fifteen feet from each other, stood about twenty feet away. Beyond that, the room was shrouded in shadow.
Aneirin, then Ren and Bessie followed by Dumb Bear, slowly entered the room – Ren keeping the lantern high and away to spread light as far as possible. Their footsteps echoed in the massive chamber as the Heroes cautiously walked to the pillars. They spread to the extent of their light, hoping one would notice something the others couldn’t (the threat of a spell or trap taking them all out in one fell swoop was an unspoken worry in each or their minds).
They soon discerned the room was about sixty feet side to side, with no obvious side passages. The two pillars turned out to be part of a set of four, equally spaced in the center of the side walls. In the exact middle of the area created by those pillars was the glow – a fire pit over which hung an oversized stew pot that bubbled with a foul smelling gruel.
Standing there, the far wall finally came into view. Only it wasn’t a wall at all! Ren brought the light a few steps closer and the Heroes could see it was a red curtain. It looked thick and heavy, perhaps velvet.
“A kingly decoration,” Aneirin said.
Ren cast the light from side to side. “It doesn’t look like it’s been damaged. Worn, sure, but there’s no big holes or rips.”
“There are rings up top,” Bessie pointed out. “It slides.”
Aneirin nodded. “Hiding what’s beyond. Which is probably their nests.”
Just then there was a clatter behind them. They spun to see a kobold standing up in the stewpot, a gong in one hand and hammer in the other. Before the Heroes could move, the kobold smashed the gong, sending a loud signal throughout the room – and certainly well beyond. As the kobold scrambled out of the stewpot, the red curtain was brushed aside at either end. Two lizards, as tall as a man and walking on their hind legs, emerged. They hissed, bared their hand-long fangs, and charged.
“These can’t be the drakes they told us about,” Ren said as he put the lantern down and drew his bow.
“Too small,” Dumb Bear said.
“Talk later,” Aneirin said. “Monsters to slay.”
He ran toward one, Dumb Bear headed for the other. Ren and Bessie each shot at the fleeing kobold, who fell just feet from the stewpot with an arrow and a bolt sticking out from his back. They then turned and followed the warriors, Ren to Dumb Bear and Bessie to Aneirin.
The Maissener warrior fended off the drake’s claws and sliced the beast across its chest as Bessie sent a bolt into its thigh. Dumb Bear wailed at his drake with his great flail, smashing it hard in the shoulder before suffering a bite from the monster. Ren put an arrow into the creature’s neck and it drew back, letting the elf warrior smash it in the jaw. A shower of teeth and blood marked the drake’s death. Down the red curtain, Bessie shot at the other drake as Aneirin plunged his sword through its chest, ripping it out its right side in a violent display of strength. Only then did he notice he was bleeding.
“The claws got you deep there,” Bessie said. “But you’ll be alright in a moment.” She chanted low and a glow green grew around her palms. She pressed her hand to Aneirin’s wound and the glow shifted, covering the wound like a bandage. When it faded, Aneirin’s flesh was whole.
She smiled, then walked to Dumb Bear and pointed at his wound. He shook his head. “Scratch.”
“There’ll be more,” Aneirin said. “Stay ready.” The Heroes gathered by him as he moved aside the far end of the curtain with his sword.
He was immediately proven correct. When he moved the curtain aside, Aneirin revealed a large, scaled, snout. The Heroes stepped back as the snout pushed the curtain away. Stepping toward them was lizard much bigger than the pair they’d just fought. This monster moved on all fours, but was still taller than Aneirin when mounted on Avarshan.
The Heroes maneuvered for position as the huge drake stomped toward them. Aneirin and Dumb Bear took front rank with Bessie and Ren a few steps behind – bows loaded. The warriors struck the monster, but its scaly hide was too tough. Their blows did no good. Bessie and Ren had better luck striking the drake’s neck, but it barely noticed their missiles plunging into its flesh.
The massive head turned to Aneirin, who tensed to dodge the coming bite. Instead the drake spat. A heavy glob of acid struck Aneirin. He staggered back in pain. Bessie moved forward and performed her healing magic on him, keeping him on his feet, but he was sorely wounded. Dumb Bear’s flail drew a little bit of blood then, but neither warrior could reach the drake’s more vulnerable spots.
Inspiration struck Ren. “Be back with odds evener,” he shouted. Leaving the lantern behind he ran full speed back to the entry chamber, hoping his memory of the temple’s layout was accurate. It was a straight run, no turns and no surprises, and Ren soon saw sunlight. In the entry chamber, he hastily mounted his war-lizard Sandy and charged back to the battle. He passed the pillars just in time to see Aneirin pull his bloody sword out of the drake’s flesh, and Dumb Bear rip a chunk of flesh from its leg. The drake fell before Ren could launch the arrow he’d managed to nock en route.
“What the hell was that?!” Aneirin shouted.
“I was trying to help even the odds for us,” Ren said. “Looks like that wasn’t needed.”
He and Aneirin argued over the merits of Ren’s idea for a few moments before Bessie called a halt to it. “It’s done,” she said. “However a good idea or not it was, it’s done. We don’t need to argue this here.” That calmed them all down enough to explore passed the red curtain.
Beyond was a throne room, but not much of one. Two sad looking wooden high-backed chairs passing as thrones sat in the middle of a room with a curved back wall that gave the whole room a near oval shape. The room was as filthy as the others. It was also a dead end.
“This can’t be it,” Ren said.
Aneirin nodded. “Search around. There may be some hidden passage.”
The room was not so large to have any part of it lost in shadow, so they split up to search its walls. After only a few moments, the three Maisseners heard a surprised yowlp from Dumb Bear at the back of the room. They turned to see him vanish behind the wall. The next moment the wall shimmered and vanished. Then the room itself changed.
No longer was it a pale imitation of a throne room. This was a large, squared off room featuring two elegant, bejeweled thrones in the center. On the walls hung grand tapestries. Grand but bizarre. Strange people, half flesh and half metal work of impossibly intricate design, were depicted on these tapestries. Many of these folk were winged and battling strange and fearsome looking monsters.
“This is amazing,” Bessie said. “Look, the threads themselves are metal, silver and bronze I think.”
“This is some grand work,” Ren said, “but I like the gems on those thrones myself.”
“There’ll be time to look closer at those,” Aneirin reminded them. He pointed to the far end of the room. Two small side halls led off down there, and the rear had another wider opening leading to another chamber.
“Which way then?” Ren asked.
Aneirin pointed to the back. “Straight on,” he said.
As they made their way to the back of the throne room they heard snorts and hisses, and claws on rock from somewhere beyond the next chamber. Then a great roar came from there, echoing throughout the chambers.
The Heroes moved closer and soon the light revealed where the man crafted temple ended and natural tunnel work began. And there was the source of the roar.
It was the biggest drake of all. A scaled horror the size of a small house with horns as big as a man’s arms. And atop the huge drake a lizard-man was riding it like a war mount. Wearing an elaborate helmet and with lance in hand, the lizard-man shouted a command and they attacked!
Aneirin and Dumb Bear met the charge with their own, attacking the huge drake directly. Bessie summoned an earth elemental, bringing it into this plane on a natural shelf not far from the rider. Atop Sandy, Ren saw a band of lizard-men and kobolds running up from another part of the complex. He wheeled his war-lizard around to take a side hall around and cut them off.
Both Aneirin and Dumb Bear drew blood from the monster, but paid for it with their own. The great drake clawed and stomped them several times, repaying them almost blow for blow. Its lizard-man rider struck Aneirin with his strange, twisted bone lance, but then had to turn his attention to a new foe. Bessie’s earth elemental jumped from the shelf and to the drake. There it beat on the lizard-man, deliver punishing blows with its boulder-like fists.
Ren followed the hall around to where it met up with the chamber, and found himself behind the huge drake, but before a crowd of charging lizard-men and kobolds. He steadied himself and fired shot after shot into the crowd. First one kobold, then another fell dead.
Behind him, Aneirin and Dumb Bear continued to slice and beat the drake, and suffer its claws and teeth. Bessie fired her crossbow incessantly as her earth elemental continued to pound the rider. The elemental finally vanished, leaving the rider alive. By then though, the drake was on its last legs. It raised a huge foot, took a last, feeble, swipe at Dumb Bear, then fell to the ground dead.
Seeing this, the surviving lizard-men and kobolds that were nearly upon Ren and Sandy turned and fled. Ren continued firing, killing a lizard-man, as Aneirin strode up to the drake’s rider and plunged his sword through him.
Bessie ran up to Aneirin and Dumb Bear. She looked each of them over and shook her head. “I can’t tell how much of this blood is yours. How bad are you two hurt?”
“Hurt,” Dumb Bear said.
Anreirin replied by falling to his knees. “I need some help,” he said.
Bessie used the last of her magical healing on the two warriors as Ren kept watch for any more drakes or lizard-men.
“We win?” Dumb Bear asked after Bessie had performed her druidic healings.
“Don’t know,” Ren said. “No way to be sure that what you just killed was that ‘Drake of Legend’ the council talked about.”
“And there’s still much of this complex we haven’t investigated,” Bessie said.
“It doesn’t matter right now,” said Aneirin. “We’ve got a victory and that must serve for now. We’re in no shape to look deeper into this place. We must get some rest and some food.” He sighed. “There’s no doubt the lizard-men will bolster the defenses in our absence, but there’s nothing for it. If we press on now we’ll end up dead.”
The others agreed and they turned to head out. “Do you realize,” Ren said, “We’ve been going non-stop since this morning? It’s been nearly a full day.”
Bessie nodded. “And we got precious little sleep before starting out that day too.”
“Stars, you’re right,” Ren said. He mentally counted back the hours. “Twenty-four hours ago we were riding through the night out of the desert. It was just dawn today that we were at the desert’s edge.”
“We hadn’t even faced those blasphemous zombies yet,” Bessie said. “Was it really only hours ago we came up on the tonk?”
“We’ve had a really full day,” Ren said. “I bet we sleep through the next one.”
Next: Revelations Happy and Furious POST 151
Soon: The Temple depths
). Arbiter - Greylock's description of my handle is dead on accurate. Hope you're able to find a good group soon. 
