JollyDoc's Savage Tide-Updated 10/8!
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
Aracase
Explorer
Due to his low Int. score, I gave him 9 skill points; one per level. 4 of those I put in Speak Language to speak common and the other 5 I spread around, the reason that some of the strength based skills are low is the armor check penalty.Quartz said:
As for the feats, he has 9 HD, which I translated into 4 feats--Power Attack, Cleave, Great Cleave, and Extra Rage.
I'll go back and double check to make sure that everything is carrying forward.
Playing a monster race isn't as straight forward as a normal character and I may have mis-translated/missed something.
Joe has already killed TC once, I'm sure it will happen again.JollyDoc said:
Aracase said:
Actually, the first HD (whether level or racial) grants 4 skill points. In addition, Barbarian grants 4 points per level, and your Int modifier is only a -2. Your total skill points should be:
Racial: 9 points
Barbarian: 4 points
Warhulk: 1 point
Other than that (and the Will save
), he looks pretty solid!
Joachim
First Post
If you were a 'half-empty' kind of guy, you would say that Tower Cleaver is unbalanced (not in the broken sense, but more in the 100% offense, 0% defense kind of way).
If you were a 'half-full' kind of guy, you would simply say that Tower Cleaver has a 'focus of purpose'.
You make the call.
If you were a 'half-full' kind of guy, you would simply say that Tower Cleaver has a 'focus of purpose'.
You make the call.
Last edited:
JollyDoc
Explorer
THE 3000
The meditation hall continued, seemingly without end. The next alcove the Legionnaires came to contained a statue carved of greenish-gray stone. Eight arms rose from its flanks in various postures of thought and action. The statue’s body resembled a single huge eye. The constant precipitation that fell from high above coated the statue’s leering face like a sheen of sweat.
“Agalamar the Silent, whose fingers guide us to our fate as surely as our spirits yearn for freedom,” Mandi translated the lines of text above the alcove.
“Surely there aren’t three-thousand of these statues,” Sepoto declared. “This corridor could go on forever!”
“I highly doubt it,” Mandi replied. “It seems that the obahs we’ve found here deal mostly with issues related to morality and divine providence. This path probably served as some sort of proving ground for the monks. You know how self-flagellating those aesthetic types can be.”
The next alcove was empty, as its statue appeared to have been moved into the center of the corridor. It resembled a massive eight-armed gorilla with no legs, supported by the knuckles of two of its arms. Its ferocious snarl was captured beneath a film of moisture from a steady drizzle falling from the ceiling. It blocked the hall completely. The only way past it seemed to be through the alcove.
“Well, who would like to walk first into this painfully obvious trap?” Mandi asked.
Sepoto sighed. “I will. It’s too small for Cleaver to squeeze into and still be able to defend himself should he be attacked. The rest of you wait here.”
Sure enough, no sooner had the goliath stepped into the cramped alcove, than dust began falling from above, shortly before the entire western wall collapsed inward. Sepoto jumped back at the last second, avoiding the bulk of the avalanche, but it was then that the chokers laying in wait in the shadows above, sprung their attack.
There were only four, and though they succeeded in looping their elongated arms around the crusader, they found they could not hold him. The Tooth of Ahazu granted Sepoto enormous strength, and he threw off their appendages effortlessly. His retaliatory attacks, however, where significantly more effective. Making the battle even more interesting was Tower Cleaver’s blind swipes into the alcove with his axe. Sepoto didn’t know if it was luck or skill that kept him from being sliced in two as easily as the chokers. Once they had all been dispatched, he squeezed out of the alcove to the far side of the statue, and motioned his comrades to follow.
________________________________________________________
The company rounded another turn in the twisting hall. To the east, the corridor was dry, but starting where they stood, a layer of moisture covered the floor and walls alike. A fine mist drizzled down from the gloom amidst a tangle of iconography and support structures. Twin statues of men in outlandish garb flanked the corridor in alcoves. Sepoto had no sooner stepped between them, than they both animated. Each swung great fists at him, and each caught the goliath solidly in the ribs, driving the air from his lungs.
“Not this time,” Mandi muttered angrily. Calling up her power, she wove a spell about Sepoto, Tower Cleaver and Samson, instantaneously transporting them beyond the twin horrors, leaving herself, the invisible Daelric and Marius on the near side. As she had hoped, one of the golems moved to engage her and her companions, while the other went after the warriors. When the first one rounded the corner, Marius was waiting, and he hurled a flaming orb of fire straight at the statue’s head. It impacted with a terrific explosion, the intense heat causing the clay of the golem to flow like mud, melting its features into a shapeless mass. Still, on it came, the warmage and sorceress falling back before it, leading it on, while Daelric clung, unseen to the corridor wall. When the golem rounded a second corner, Mandi was prepared. She loosed her own orb, this one comprised of force, and when it struck, the golem exploded into fragments and shards.
The second golem reached Sepoto, but the goliath was more than ready. Imbuing his blade with the divine Blood of Savras, and calling on his god to make his blow strike true, the crusader lashed out, severing one of the behemoth’s arms at the shoulder. Simultaneously, Tower Cleaver reached over his friend, dropping his axe like a guillotine. When the blade hit, it cleaved the golem along its sagital plane, the halves falling to either side and shattering on the floor.
“Now that’s what I call teamwork,” Mandi said as she and Marius reappeared. The sorceress’ smile actually seemed genuine to Sepoto, as if she were truly pleased that the companions had managed to function like a unit for once.
The next statue they encountered was inanimate, but disturbing nonetheless. It was carved of jet-black stone and filled the alcove with its menacing presence. It resembled a hideous man with a fly’s face and hunched shoulders. Lines of text, highlighted by a red wash, were inscribed in the wall above.
Mandi read, “Balim the Pretender, who endures that the lies of the world do not.”
“It’s Baalzebul, the arch-devil,” Sepoto said flatly.
“It would seem that, while evil comes it many forms, it is still universal,” Daelric noted.
Samson noted with irony, the priest’s words, since he had steadfastly supported every decision Mandi had made, many of which were of a dubious moral nature.
Once more, the group came upon twin alcoves. The southern most held a statue which resembled a large dog with a benign grin on its face. The western one bore the likeness of a peaceful six-armed man in strange, exotic armor.
“Tektek the Faithful, whose constant friendship and loyalty shame us with every breath,” read the inscription above the southern statue. The eastern one held no such description.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Sepoto said warningly.
The words had no sooner left his mouth than the six-armed golem stepped out of its alcove to confront him. One great hand connected with his jaw, rocking him back on his feet.
“I’m getting tired of this!” the goliath growled. Another orb of flame roared over his head, courtesy of Marius, and hammered into the statue, but it did not even slow. Its arms became a blur of motion as it swung them like pile-drivers, raining blow after blow down upon the crusader. With each one, bones cracked, teeth chipped, and blood flew as the goliath’s body buckled like a sparring dummy.
“Damn it, Sepoto, get out of there!” Mandi screamed. She hurled her magic at the colossus, covering it in a shimmering cloud of dust. The golem began to swing wildly, seemingly unaware that its target stood directly in front of it. The sorceress had blinded it. Sepoto stumbled backwards, only keeping his feet because Tower Cleaver was there to support him. Marius hurled a second orb at the maddened construct, this time melting it into a pile of slag. Once the danger had passed, Daelric rushed quickly to Sepoto’s side. The goliath’s injuries were horrifying. They would have killed a lesser man, and the priest knew that each one was cursed. The minutes ticked slowly by as he begged Shaundekal to grant him strength, and it cost the young priest every ounce of his daily allotment of divine power to finally mend the last of the crusader’s wounds. He was exhausted, and knew that he would be of no further use to his comrades that day. Still, Mandi wanted to push on. Their time in the temple was finite, and the clock was still running.
________________________________________________________
They found one final statue in the convoluted passage, this one blessedly unmoving. It was a coiling carving of malachite, recognizable as the same dragon-like creature that was represented on the roof of the temple. The lines of script above it identified it as “Shensi the Serpent Spirit, in whose great wisdom we are but dreams.” Beyond this small alcove was a chamber obscured by cobwebs. It was clear that no one had passed through the area in a long time. Stone benches rested against the north and east walls, and a stone table holding web-draped ewers stood between them. Shapeless lumps lay on the floor, hidden under a layer of webbing and dust. On the north wall, a balcony opened, overlooking the entry hall where the company had first entered the temple.
“We’re back where we started,” Marius said.
“Looks like this was where the battle with the barbarians started too,” Sepoto said, prodding the shapes beneath the webs, revealing two decayed girallon corpses festooned with arrows, and a desiccated displacer beast with evidence of several broken ribs and a caved-in ribcage.
“Have we searched the whole place except for the citadel further up the valley?” Marius asked.
“I don’t think so,” Mandi said absently, unfurling the map she’d been keeping as they made their way through the temple. “Look. There’s a blank spot…here.” Her finger stabbed a large space in the center of the map, south and west of their current location. “I think we can reach it by backtracking to where we met the mummy. I seem to recall seeing an archway there that we bypassed. Look here,” she indicated the space on the map which represented the candle-filled hall they had retreated from after Tower Cleaver had triggered the deadly trap hidden there. “This room is directly east of the blank spot. I’d rather not go through there again, so if the archway does not lead to a room that completely fills this area, I say we blast through the wall. Agreed?”
Everyone did, especially when Sepoto reminded them that a pair of the six-armed, armored clay statues had stood at the far end of the candle hall. None of them had the stomach for facing any more of the golems.
They found the archway, just as Mandi had predicted. It had apparently once held a door, but it was missing. The bare stone ceiling of the chamber beyond rose to a mere fifteen feet. Shadowed corridors extended to the east. To the south was an open area with the crumbled remains of a statue of greenish stone. Dung and the foul remnants left by some wild beast littered that portion of the room. Proceeding cautiously down one of the two hallways, they found that the central wall had been partitioned into burial niches, stacked three high. Each held a human corpse in a state of near-perfect preservation. Several had two or even four extra arms. The second hall held the same.
“Alright, hold up here for a minute,” Mandi said, standing at the head of the second hall. “I’m not about to travel down there as live bait for more mummies. I opt for a preemptive strike.”
Before her teammates could reply, the sorceress began weaving, sending twin orbs of fire down the two halls. They detonated with blinding light and searing heat, immolating the long-dead priests. To her surprise, none of them rose screaming from their burial slabs.
“Well,” she shrugged, “I guess they were dead after all.”
Samson glared at her, preparing a scathing retort, when all at once a low moaning filled the chamber. Suddenly, ghostly wraiths in the likenesses of the Shensites, began rising from the floor and appearing from the walls. In short order, the Legionnaires found themselves surrounded.
Instantly, the wraiths were among them, their incorporeal hands brushing against their skin, reaching through their armor as if it didn’t exist. Wherever they made contact, the victims felt their blood run cold, and their hearts hammered in their chests, as if ticking down the moments until their own deaths. Sepoto and Cleaver immediately went to work, laying about them with their deadly weapons. More often than not, however, their steel simply passed through the spectral creatures, but when they did make contact, the wraith would vanish with an inhuman howl of agony. Mandi and Marius called upon all of the force magic at their disposal, realizing that the powerful dweomers would penetrate even into the ethereal plane where the creatures partially existed. Soon, the last of the revenants were obliterated.
“As I was about to say,” Samson said, pausing to catch his breath as he faced Mandi, “is nothing sacred to you?”
“Nothing that you would understand, boy,” Mandi replied coldly. Then she turned towards the far wall of the chamber and uttered another spell, sending a thin, green beam towards it. When it struck, the brick and mortar simply vanished, revealing another, larger chamber on the opposite side.
Tiers rose along the west wall of the room in five-foot steps. Lining the tiers were rows of miniature pedestals covered with fragments of painted pottery and dust. Interspersed throughout were short, gray candles tha burned with blue flames. On the central floor were numerous reed mats and rugs. No sooner had the group entered the chamber, than Mandi heard muffled sobs and sniffles from behind her. Turning slowly, a look of complete confusion came over her as she saw that it was Tower Cleaver. The big minotaur dabbed at large tears with his platter sized hand.
“What in the Nine Hells is wrong with you?” the sorceress demanded.
“So…sad…” the minotaur snuffled. “All…gone! All…destroyed!”
“What are you babbling about?” Mandi snapped.
“Tower Cleaver not know!” the barbarian answered before dissolving into tears again.
“Imbecile!” Mandi muttered, turning her attention back to the chamber. The small pedestals numbered in the hundreds, perhaps even the thousands.
“Thousands…” Mandi whispered, leaning down to examine some of the shattered shards more closely. “Three-thousand!” she shouted after a moment, standing and facing the others.
“Now what are you babbling about?” Marius smirked.
“I’ll wager that if you counted all of the pedestals in this room they would number three-thousand. This room is the chamber of the obahs!”
“Was, you mean.” Sepoto said quietly. “Or are you seeing something I’m not?”
“Yes, you’re right, of course,” the sorceress nodded. “All of the likenesses have been destroyed. It would take…a miracle to make them all whole once more.” Her keen eyes caught Daelric’s. After a moment, the priest’s widened.
“You’re not suggesting…?” he stammered.
“Why not?” she asked.
“Can someone explain to me what’s going on here?” Samson demanded in exasperation.
Mandi turned to him, a small smile on her face. “This room once held individual likenesses of all the Kara-Tur obahs. This is exactly what we came here to find, only someone beat us to it and destroyed them all. And yet, we have something in our possession that could change that. The scroll. The one we found guarded by the air spirit. It could undo what has been done here, and then we could claim them all and our mission here would be complete. We could leave.”
“But what about the citadel?” Sepoto asked.
“What about it?” Mandi retorted. “We didn’t come here to fight barbarians or monsters. We came here for one thing and one thing only, and now it is within our grasp. Remember, Jeran promised us five-hundred gold pieces for each likeness we returned with. Obviously he never expected us to return with all of them. Imagine it! One and one-half million in gold!”
It didn’t take much for the others to imagine just that. Afterwards, it didn’t take much more convincing for all to agree to let Daelric use the scroll.
______________________________________________________________
EPILOGUE
The Legionnaires had just reached the bottom of the flooded valley when the rain abruptly stopped. The clouds parted and a single shaft of sunlight shown down upon the temple. Then, as quickly as it appeared, the Temple of Celestial Winds vanished into the river of time once again.
The Sea Wyvern had already set sail for Farshore, but the company knew this going in. Still, it proved no effort for Mandi to magically teleport all of them to the middle of the town square, arriving days ahead of the ship. The townsfolk were no longer surprised at the sudden appearances and disappearances of Lavinia’s bodyguards, but a small furor started when they saw the imposing form of Tower Cleaver standing among the Legionnaires. It didn’t take long for the disturbance to bring Lavinia, the Jade Ravens and Lord Meravanchi.
“You’ve returned so soon,” Lavinia said, both relief and confusion on her face. Then her gaze fell upon the minotaur. “And you’ve brought company.”
“This is Tower Cleaver,” Mandi said in way of introduction. “We found him trapped within the Lost Citadel and in return for our assistance, he offered his own to us. He is a valiant warrior, though a bit naïve. I think he would make a good addition to our band.”
“Surely you jest!” Lord Meravanchi interrupted. “You expect us to allow this…monster to walk the streets of our town? What about the safety of the citizens?”
“Oh, I think they’ll be safe enough,” Mandi sneered. “After all, they haven’t seemed to mind goblins and ogres walking among them.” She nodded towards Samson and Lugnut. Meravanchi’s face flushed angrily, but before he could respond, Lavinia intervened.
“If my people speak for him, that is good enough for me. The matter is closed.”
“Oh, it most certainly is not, Lady Mayor!” Meravanchi snapped, turning on his heel and disappearing into the crowd.
At that moment, Jeran Emrikad pushed his way to the front of the crowd.
“You’re back,” he said. “Were you successful?”
“You could say that,” Mandi replied, upending a small sack from which a seemingly endless number of obah statuettes poured. Jeran took one look and then fainted dead away.
The meditation hall continued, seemingly without end. The next alcove the Legionnaires came to contained a statue carved of greenish-gray stone. Eight arms rose from its flanks in various postures of thought and action. The statue’s body resembled a single huge eye. The constant precipitation that fell from high above coated the statue’s leering face like a sheen of sweat.
“Agalamar the Silent, whose fingers guide us to our fate as surely as our spirits yearn for freedom,” Mandi translated the lines of text above the alcove.
“Surely there aren’t three-thousand of these statues,” Sepoto declared. “This corridor could go on forever!”
“I highly doubt it,” Mandi replied. “It seems that the obahs we’ve found here deal mostly with issues related to morality and divine providence. This path probably served as some sort of proving ground for the monks. You know how self-flagellating those aesthetic types can be.”
The next alcove was empty, as its statue appeared to have been moved into the center of the corridor. It resembled a massive eight-armed gorilla with no legs, supported by the knuckles of two of its arms. Its ferocious snarl was captured beneath a film of moisture from a steady drizzle falling from the ceiling. It blocked the hall completely. The only way past it seemed to be through the alcove.
“Well, who would like to walk first into this painfully obvious trap?” Mandi asked.
Sepoto sighed. “I will. It’s too small for Cleaver to squeeze into and still be able to defend himself should he be attacked. The rest of you wait here.”
Sure enough, no sooner had the goliath stepped into the cramped alcove, than dust began falling from above, shortly before the entire western wall collapsed inward. Sepoto jumped back at the last second, avoiding the bulk of the avalanche, but it was then that the chokers laying in wait in the shadows above, sprung their attack.
There were only four, and though they succeeded in looping their elongated arms around the crusader, they found they could not hold him. The Tooth of Ahazu granted Sepoto enormous strength, and he threw off their appendages effortlessly. His retaliatory attacks, however, where significantly more effective. Making the battle even more interesting was Tower Cleaver’s blind swipes into the alcove with his axe. Sepoto didn’t know if it was luck or skill that kept him from being sliced in two as easily as the chokers. Once they had all been dispatched, he squeezed out of the alcove to the far side of the statue, and motioned his comrades to follow.
________________________________________________________
The company rounded another turn in the twisting hall. To the east, the corridor was dry, but starting where they stood, a layer of moisture covered the floor and walls alike. A fine mist drizzled down from the gloom amidst a tangle of iconography and support structures. Twin statues of men in outlandish garb flanked the corridor in alcoves. Sepoto had no sooner stepped between them, than they both animated. Each swung great fists at him, and each caught the goliath solidly in the ribs, driving the air from his lungs.
“Not this time,” Mandi muttered angrily. Calling up her power, she wove a spell about Sepoto, Tower Cleaver and Samson, instantaneously transporting them beyond the twin horrors, leaving herself, the invisible Daelric and Marius on the near side. As she had hoped, one of the golems moved to engage her and her companions, while the other went after the warriors. When the first one rounded the corner, Marius was waiting, and he hurled a flaming orb of fire straight at the statue’s head. It impacted with a terrific explosion, the intense heat causing the clay of the golem to flow like mud, melting its features into a shapeless mass. Still, on it came, the warmage and sorceress falling back before it, leading it on, while Daelric clung, unseen to the corridor wall. When the golem rounded a second corner, Mandi was prepared. She loosed her own orb, this one comprised of force, and when it struck, the golem exploded into fragments and shards.
The second golem reached Sepoto, but the goliath was more than ready. Imbuing his blade with the divine Blood of Savras, and calling on his god to make his blow strike true, the crusader lashed out, severing one of the behemoth’s arms at the shoulder. Simultaneously, Tower Cleaver reached over his friend, dropping his axe like a guillotine. When the blade hit, it cleaved the golem along its sagital plane, the halves falling to either side and shattering on the floor.
“Now that’s what I call teamwork,” Mandi said as she and Marius reappeared. The sorceress’ smile actually seemed genuine to Sepoto, as if she were truly pleased that the companions had managed to function like a unit for once.
The next statue they encountered was inanimate, but disturbing nonetheless. It was carved of jet-black stone and filled the alcove with its menacing presence. It resembled a hideous man with a fly’s face and hunched shoulders. Lines of text, highlighted by a red wash, were inscribed in the wall above.
Mandi read, “Balim the Pretender, who endures that the lies of the world do not.”
“It’s Baalzebul, the arch-devil,” Sepoto said flatly.
“It would seem that, while evil comes it many forms, it is still universal,” Daelric noted.
Samson noted with irony, the priest’s words, since he had steadfastly supported every decision Mandi had made, many of which were of a dubious moral nature.
Once more, the group came upon twin alcoves. The southern most held a statue which resembled a large dog with a benign grin on its face. The western one bore the likeness of a peaceful six-armed man in strange, exotic armor.
“Tektek the Faithful, whose constant friendship and loyalty shame us with every breath,” read the inscription above the southern statue. The eastern one held no such description.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Sepoto said warningly.
The words had no sooner left his mouth than the six-armed golem stepped out of its alcove to confront him. One great hand connected with his jaw, rocking him back on his feet.
“I’m getting tired of this!” the goliath growled. Another orb of flame roared over his head, courtesy of Marius, and hammered into the statue, but it did not even slow. Its arms became a blur of motion as it swung them like pile-drivers, raining blow after blow down upon the crusader. With each one, bones cracked, teeth chipped, and blood flew as the goliath’s body buckled like a sparring dummy.
“Damn it, Sepoto, get out of there!” Mandi screamed. She hurled her magic at the colossus, covering it in a shimmering cloud of dust. The golem began to swing wildly, seemingly unaware that its target stood directly in front of it. The sorceress had blinded it. Sepoto stumbled backwards, only keeping his feet because Tower Cleaver was there to support him. Marius hurled a second orb at the maddened construct, this time melting it into a pile of slag. Once the danger had passed, Daelric rushed quickly to Sepoto’s side. The goliath’s injuries were horrifying. They would have killed a lesser man, and the priest knew that each one was cursed. The minutes ticked slowly by as he begged Shaundekal to grant him strength, and it cost the young priest every ounce of his daily allotment of divine power to finally mend the last of the crusader’s wounds. He was exhausted, and knew that he would be of no further use to his comrades that day. Still, Mandi wanted to push on. Their time in the temple was finite, and the clock was still running.
________________________________________________________
They found one final statue in the convoluted passage, this one blessedly unmoving. It was a coiling carving of malachite, recognizable as the same dragon-like creature that was represented on the roof of the temple. The lines of script above it identified it as “Shensi the Serpent Spirit, in whose great wisdom we are but dreams.” Beyond this small alcove was a chamber obscured by cobwebs. It was clear that no one had passed through the area in a long time. Stone benches rested against the north and east walls, and a stone table holding web-draped ewers stood between them. Shapeless lumps lay on the floor, hidden under a layer of webbing and dust. On the north wall, a balcony opened, overlooking the entry hall where the company had first entered the temple.
“We’re back where we started,” Marius said.
“Looks like this was where the battle with the barbarians started too,” Sepoto said, prodding the shapes beneath the webs, revealing two decayed girallon corpses festooned with arrows, and a desiccated displacer beast with evidence of several broken ribs and a caved-in ribcage.
“Have we searched the whole place except for the citadel further up the valley?” Marius asked.
“I don’t think so,” Mandi said absently, unfurling the map she’d been keeping as they made their way through the temple. “Look. There’s a blank spot…here.” Her finger stabbed a large space in the center of the map, south and west of their current location. “I think we can reach it by backtracking to where we met the mummy. I seem to recall seeing an archway there that we bypassed. Look here,” she indicated the space on the map which represented the candle-filled hall they had retreated from after Tower Cleaver had triggered the deadly trap hidden there. “This room is directly east of the blank spot. I’d rather not go through there again, so if the archway does not lead to a room that completely fills this area, I say we blast through the wall. Agreed?”
Everyone did, especially when Sepoto reminded them that a pair of the six-armed, armored clay statues had stood at the far end of the candle hall. None of them had the stomach for facing any more of the golems.
They found the archway, just as Mandi had predicted. It had apparently once held a door, but it was missing. The bare stone ceiling of the chamber beyond rose to a mere fifteen feet. Shadowed corridors extended to the east. To the south was an open area with the crumbled remains of a statue of greenish stone. Dung and the foul remnants left by some wild beast littered that portion of the room. Proceeding cautiously down one of the two hallways, they found that the central wall had been partitioned into burial niches, stacked three high. Each held a human corpse in a state of near-perfect preservation. Several had two or even four extra arms. The second hall held the same.
“Alright, hold up here for a minute,” Mandi said, standing at the head of the second hall. “I’m not about to travel down there as live bait for more mummies. I opt for a preemptive strike.”
Before her teammates could reply, the sorceress began weaving, sending twin orbs of fire down the two halls. They detonated with blinding light and searing heat, immolating the long-dead priests. To her surprise, none of them rose screaming from their burial slabs.
“Well,” she shrugged, “I guess they were dead after all.”
Samson glared at her, preparing a scathing retort, when all at once a low moaning filled the chamber. Suddenly, ghostly wraiths in the likenesses of the Shensites, began rising from the floor and appearing from the walls. In short order, the Legionnaires found themselves surrounded.
Instantly, the wraiths were among them, their incorporeal hands brushing against their skin, reaching through their armor as if it didn’t exist. Wherever they made contact, the victims felt their blood run cold, and their hearts hammered in their chests, as if ticking down the moments until their own deaths. Sepoto and Cleaver immediately went to work, laying about them with their deadly weapons. More often than not, however, their steel simply passed through the spectral creatures, but when they did make contact, the wraith would vanish with an inhuman howl of agony. Mandi and Marius called upon all of the force magic at their disposal, realizing that the powerful dweomers would penetrate even into the ethereal plane where the creatures partially existed. Soon, the last of the revenants were obliterated.
“As I was about to say,” Samson said, pausing to catch his breath as he faced Mandi, “is nothing sacred to you?”
“Nothing that you would understand, boy,” Mandi replied coldly. Then she turned towards the far wall of the chamber and uttered another spell, sending a thin, green beam towards it. When it struck, the brick and mortar simply vanished, revealing another, larger chamber on the opposite side.
Tiers rose along the west wall of the room in five-foot steps. Lining the tiers were rows of miniature pedestals covered with fragments of painted pottery and dust. Interspersed throughout were short, gray candles tha burned with blue flames. On the central floor were numerous reed mats and rugs. No sooner had the group entered the chamber, than Mandi heard muffled sobs and sniffles from behind her. Turning slowly, a look of complete confusion came over her as she saw that it was Tower Cleaver. The big minotaur dabbed at large tears with his platter sized hand.
“What in the Nine Hells is wrong with you?” the sorceress demanded.
“So…sad…” the minotaur snuffled. “All…gone! All…destroyed!”
“What are you babbling about?” Mandi snapped.
“Tower Cleaver not know!” the barbarian answered before dissolving into tears again.
“Imbecile!” Mandi muttered, turning her attention back to the chamber. The small pedestals numbered in the hundreds, perhaps even the thousands.
“Thousands…” Mandi whispered, leaning down to examine some of the shattered shards more closely. “Three-thousand!” she shouted after a moment, standing and facing the others.
“Now what are you babbling about?” Marius smirked.
“I’ll wager that if you counted all of the pedestals in this room they would number three-thousand. This room is the chamber of the obahs!”
“Was, you mean.” Sepoto said quietly. “Or are you seeing something I’m not?”
“Yes, you’re right, of course,” the sorceress nodded. “All of the likenesses have been destroyed. It would take…a miracle to make them all whole once more.” Her keen eyes caught Daelric’s. After a moment, the priest’s widened.
“You’re not suggesting…?” he stammered.
“Why not?” she asked.
“Can someone explain to me what’s going on here?” Samson demanded in exasperation.
Mandi turned to him, a small smile on her face. “This room once held individual likenesses of all the Kara-Tur obahs. This is exactly what we came here to find, only someone beat us to it and destroyed them all. And yet, we have something in our possession that could change that. The scroll. The one we found guarded by the air spirit. It could undo what has been done here, and then we could claim them all and our mission here would be complete. We could leave.”
“But what about the citadel?” Sepoto asked.
“What about it?” Mandi retorted. “We didn’t come here to fight barbarians or monsters. We came here for one thing and one thing only, and now it is within our grasp. Remember, Jeran promised us five-hundred gold pieces for each likeness we returned with. Obviously he never expected us to return with all of them. Imagine it! One and one-half million in gold!”
It didn’t take much for the others to imagine just that. Afterwards, it didn’t take much more convincing for all to agree to let Daelric use the scroll.
______________________________________________________________
EPILOGUE
The Legionnaires had just reached the bottom of the flooded valley when the rain abruptly stopped. The clouds parted and a single shaft of sunlight shown down upon the temple. Then, as quickly as it appeared, the Temple of Celestial Winds vanished into the river of time once again.
The Sea Wyvern had already set sail for Farshore, but the company knew this going in. Still, it proved no effort for Mandi to magically teleport all of them to the middle of the town square, arriving days ahead of the ship. The townsfolk were no longer surprised at the sudden appearances and disappearances of Lavinia’s bodyguards, but a small furor started when they saw the imposing form of Tower Cleaver standing among the Legionnaires. It didn’t take long for the disturbance to bring Lavinia, the Jade Ravens and Lord Meravanchi.
“You’ve returned so soon,” Lavinia said, both relief and confusion on her face. Then her gaze fell upon the minotaur. “And you’ve brought company.”
“This is Tower Cleaver,” Mandi said in way of introduction. “We found him trapped within the Lost Citadel and in return for our assistance, he offered his own to us. He is a valiant warrior, though a bit naïve. I think he would make a good addition to our band.”
“Surely you jest!” Lord Meravanchi interrupted. “You expect us to allow this…monster to walk the streets of our town? What about the safety of the citizens?”
“Oh, I think they’ll be safe enough,” Mandi sneered. “After all, they haven’t seemed to mind goblins and ogres walking among them.” She nodded towards Samson and Lugnut. Meravanchi’s face flushed angrily, but before he could respond, Lavinia intervened.
“If my people speak for him, that is good enough for me. The matter is closed.”
“Oh, it most certainly is not, Lady Mayor!” Meravanchi snapped, turning on his heel and disappearing into the crowd.
At that moment, Jeran Emrikad pushed his way to the front of the crowd.
“You’re back,” he said. “Were you successful?”
“You could say that,” Mandi replied, upending a small sack from which a seemingly endless number of obah statuettes poured. Jeran took one look and then fainted dead away.
