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Message: <blockquote data-quote="LordVyreth" data-source="post: 1669177" data-attributes="member: 9626">Temple RaidFinally, later that day, the party reached the temple.  However, the door was guarded both by yellow-robed clerics, and by strange black orbs.  Though he lacked the experience in arcane matters that Tsine had, Tal had heard of floating black orbs that meant instant death if touched, and while it was doubtful these were the same things, he wasn’t going to take that chance!  Instead, he suggested that a few of the party members try to sneak in while posed as fellow cultists.  Robin and Tebryn were “volunteered” into the position, since few other party members looked as, well, normal at the moment, and Galeron wasn’t really built for stealth or deception.  The two donned some of the yellow robes that the players have been accumulating, and then walked up to the guards.  Following Tal’s instructions, they carefully emulated the painful self-mutilation ritual that Tal was taught back at the first temple they had raided, well over a year ago.  It seemed like it worked, at least at first, but they were led into a small sleeping chamber, and instructed to wait here until their superiors are ready to speak to them.  When the guards left them, Robin tried the door, and wasn’t too surprised to learn that it was locked.    Meanwhile, Fnipper was watching the doorway for any activity, while the rest of the party waited a distance away.  After waiting over an hour, there was no response from Robin or Tebryn, but at the same time, there weren’t any sounds of battle.  However, Fnipper soon returned and quickly had everyone get even farther back into the swamp.  “More cultists are coming to the door!” he urgently whispered!    The rest of the party fled deeper into the swamp, except for Tal, who wanted to see the new arrivals’ exchange with the guards.  The two carefully crept up to watch the exchange, with Violet scanning the emotions of the guards as they watched.  The new arrivals did the same forearm cut that Robin and Tebryn did, but they then cut their faces as well!  Even worse, they also gave the guards passwords, even though the guards didn’t explicitly ask for them!  It was clear that Tebryn and Robin have walked into a trap.    Meanwhile, this same fact was dawning on Robin and Tebryn.  Finally, Robin asked, “Can you pick this lock?  I didn’t want to raise suspicion before, but this is taking too long for everything to be normal.”      Tebryn looked at the look, but frowned.  “I might be able to pick it with time, but it will be difficult, and I can’t make any guarantees.  I never said this before, but I wish Fnipper was here.”    Robin pondered this for a while, and then said, “Maybe we should wait a bit longer, then.”  This plan ended, however, about the time they started hearing the screams and smelled the fire.  It was clear to them that the rest of the party was tired of waiting, and tried to take the temple by force.    Meanwhile, Tal and Fnipper were waiting by the temple, when they saw flames rising out of it and sounds of battle.  It was clear to them that Tebryn and Robin were tired of waiting and tried to escape, or they were attacked.  Obviously, they were all wrong, but that’s an issue to be dealt with later.    Fnipper quickly withdrew to get the rest of the party to help, and soon Grockith was leading a charge at the front gate, with Tal, Fnipper, and Galeron close behind.  Thorrun was coming as well, but a dwarf in heavy armor with no mount can’t exactly keep up with such a fast attack [remember, it was still 3.0 at this point.]  In addition, Robin’s animal companions suddenly froze as they neared the entrance, and refused to go further.  The party decided to leave them, and have them attack any fleeing cultists.    The group easily overpowered the guards, and even destroyed a pair of the strange dark creatures, which to Tal’s relief only fired beams of black light and tried to attack with claws and teeth that were hidden within their dark bodies until they actually used them.  The party soon made it into the temple, only to find that most of the cultists were eager to ignore the party completely and run away in stark terror.    Meanwhile again, after repeated failed attempts by Tebryn to unlock the door, Robin simple riddled it with arrows, and then kicked out the remaining frame.  They found themselves near the entrance, and witnessing the same chaos that the rest of the party just stepped into.  They were about to join in when they saw a strange, dog-like humanoid preparing to attack them from the other direction.  In an attempt to control the chaos and try and capture a few cultists alive, Tebryn webbed the hallway connecting them and the entrance, and the two of them attacked the dog.  However, as they got close, a number of the dark orbs flew around a corner to attack them as well, but they were able to handle both groups with relative ease.    The rest of the party continued their own rampage down the corridor.  They killed a few cultists as they went, since they were looking specifically for black-robed cultists, and the rest were expendable.  However, they mostly focused on maintaining a forward momentum, and let Robin’s animals and Thorrun finish the rest.  They were soon confronted by the rest of the temple’s guardians, including a few more black orbs, another dog humanoid, and a strange bird-like humanoid with ugly, fleshy wing-arms that looked like they were plucked of their feathers.  The latter was able to get a few good hits in using lightning bolts, but it too soon fell, as did the rest of the attackers.    Both sides of the party’s attack force quickly investigated the temple, looking for either black-robed cultists or evidence of Bas’ existence.  However, it was soon obvious that they were almost completely too late.  Most of the cultists were killed already, and while asleep by the looks of it.  In addition, most of their belongings were gathered in piles and set on fire.  Tal looked on the fires with regret.  A few pages might be salvaged, he thought, but there was just no time.  They had to find the black-robed cultists, if any of them have survived, and fast!    Finally, when both groups were about to connect in the rear hall of the temple, a door burst open, and a few cultists (including two black-robed ones,) fled through the hidden back exit of the temple.  The party quickly regrouped, and pursued.    However, when they left the temple, they realized that the difficult part was only beginning.  The undead had apparently sent a combat unit out to find and destroy whoever eliminated their swamp guardians earlier that day, and then were attracted to the temple after seeing the smoke from the fire.  At least that was the best explanation the party could come up with after seeing the massive army of undead that greeted them at the exit, including a strange, smoky monster, an armored and mounted skeleton, and a giant bat that seemed to be made of pure darkness!</blockquote>

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