Session Twenty-Three, Part Two: Guardians of the Temple
Dru tumbled down the corridor, the ring she wore propelling her to the surface of the water but not allowing her to gain solid footing. The faint light from the other room was almost gone, and she dragged her fingers down the slick walls, searching for something to hold onto. A gap - ahole - and her fingers snagged the edge, barely holding her against the raging current.
Dimly, from up the corridor, she could hear Di'Fier's shouting, and a crashing of iron. She pulled herself towards the hole, searching for a better grip.
Something brushed against her hand.
Dru looked up, seeing two reflected circles of green in the dim light, and then the teeth sank into her hand. She forced herself to keep a grip. Was it her imagination, or was the water slacking? It was!
Seeing that biting at the hand would do nothing, the rat lunged at Dru's face. She threw up an arm to bat it away, hoping she could hold on with her wounded hand, and reached for her blade, thrusting into the dimness and feeling it bite home.
The water had almost stopped, and around her, Dru could hear the splashes of more of the giant rats entering the water.
"I can't budge it!" Di'Fier gritted his teeth and heaved again, Benares straining at his side, but the iron portcullis refused to move.
"Something else is down there," Shesara told them. "Dru's fighting. I can hear her swearing at them."
"DRU!" Di'Fier shouted. "This way! We can't get to you!" He turned and began wading through the waist-deep water towards the back of the room.
"What are you doing?" Shesara asked.
"Preparing a little surprise for Dru's playmates."
Dru stood on the uneven surface of the water, the remnants of the current slowly drawing her along the corridor. Her blade flicked out again and again, each time leaving a furry corpse to float in the water, but more of the rats kept coming, a steady stream dropping from the holes in the walls.
Where the hell is
everybody?
"Dru!" she heard. "This way! We can't get to you!"
"It's right down the damned hallway," Dru snarled, sending another rat into watery oblivion. Seing a momentary break in their ranks, she took the opportunity and began to run. The creatures swam up the hallway behind her, clambering over each other in their haste to pursue, filling the surface of the water until it looked like a river of rats.
Too bad Di'Fier doesn't have his forcebolt, she thought, as she came within sight of the room she'd been swept out of - and the iron portcullis that now blocked the entryway.
Shesara gestured to her through the bars. "Get up here...and grab ahold!" Without questioning, Dru flung her arms through the metal grate, clinging to it like a wrestler in the ring.
And Di'Fier opened the door again.
The wave of water sent him spinning into one of the statues that lined the room. Dru's feet were again swept from beneath her as the water crashed through the iron bars, sweeping her furry pursuers away like an enormous broom. She clung there for long minutes as the water continued, hoping that it would end, and that Di'Fier wasn't letting the entire lake drain into the temple basement.
Gradually, the torrent began to slacken. The water still moved under her feet as it slowly drained away through some unknown hole, but of the rats there was no sign.
"Are you all right?" Di'Fier asked, wading back through the chest-deep water.
"Except for the hand, yes."
"Good. Now...get us out of here!"
Di'Fier inspected the metal bar, the end shiny and smooth where he had hacked at it with his sword. "Maybe we can bend this out of the way now. I'll never fit through it, but you might be able to squeeze back in here, and then we can see what's past the secret door." The knee-high water swirled around his boots as he adjusted his stance and pushed, Dru gripping from the other side. Slowly, the bar began to bend, and in a few more minutes, Dru was again on the same side of the iron gate.
"At least we know they were capable of metalwork," the mage pondered. "That's more advanced than anyone else on the island that we've seen. The more I see, though, the more I doubt that there ever were gods in this city."
"I don't care about gods, I just want a way home," Dru said, yanking open a door as eagerly as if she expected to step into the common room of Sehanoarun's.
Beyond waited a half-flooded ampitheater, rows of seats facing a central stage. Reflexively, Dru glanced towards it, and gaped. "Now
that's a giant monster I can enjoy."
Sitting on the platform, partially uncovered by the lowering water, was an enormous oyster of a strange azure hue. Flanking it, a pair of crabs the size of horses sidled into the water.
"A giant oyster might have a giant pearl..." Di'Fier breathed, unsheathing his sword and drawing out his potion of
water breathing.
"Oyster? I meant the crabs. Look at the size of those legs!" Dru licked her lips. "If only we had some butter."
Di'Fier tucked the enormous black pearl into his pouch. "Between this, and the gems from the hag and the pirates, we should at least be able to make up for all the stuff that the slavers stole from us."
"It won't mean anything if we don't find a way off of this island. There's another door back here." Dru opened it, revealing a short section of flooded corridor terminating in a second door. "We're probably somewhere back near the end of that corridor that we washed the rats down, so be careful."
The foursome proceeded into the room: Dru atop the water and the other three wading through it, thigh-deep. Shesara stumbled, and Dru heard a telltale click. "Everybody
down!" she cried, leaping backwards as a fine spray of oil misted over the water and ignited. The smoke made her eyes sting, burned her lungs - and Di'Fier and the others were trapped under the water by the flames. Her partner could breathe thanks to the potion he'd consumed earlier, but Benares and Shesara were not so lucky.
Dru took a step back, and then ran, leaping over the flames to slam her body into the door at the end of the corridor. It creaked, then gave way - and the water poured from the room, taking them with it. Dru somehow managed to keep her feet as the rush swept her down the corridor - and into another iron gate. Within moments, the water - and the flames - were gone, and the four castaways sat in the corridor, nursing their bruises.
"Whatever's down this corridor, they didn't want people getting in," Di'Fier said.
"Are you sure?" Dru stood, taking hold of the lever that projected from the wall above Di'Fier's head. She gave it a hard yank, and the ancient portcullis ground upward a couple of feet. "They put the controls on this side..."
"I guess the only way to find out is to go check."
Cautiously, they ducked under the portcullis, and made their way down the slick limestone steps beyond. The cavern beyond was dark and vast, with thin paths of rock winding their way between pools of bubbling mud.
"This doesn't look very civilized," Dru said. "If this place
is the City if the Gods...do you think this is the gateway into Hell?"
"I'm not sure." Di'Fie rpeered out across the cavern. "I guess we should give it a look, just to make sure we don't miss anything." He stepped forward, his boots slipping on the wet stone of the path.
"Maybe I'd better go first," Dru said, moving forward.
They skirted the edge of the cavern, hearing the mudpots bubble and burst. Di'Fier felt a hand on his shoulder as Shesara reached to him for balance, and he turned - just as she shoved him towards the boiling mud.
Di'Fier stumbled, falling to his knees rather than go off the path. He snatched at Shesara's leg to try to wrestle her to the ground, but the nimble bard evaded his grasp, stepping backwards.
"What is going
on here?" shouted Dru.
Benares laid a slender hand on Shesara's shoulder, holding her with surprising strength. "May the lord of knowledge grant you the clarity to see through this enchantment," he said, and the elf's eyes seemed to refocus.
"Di'Fier...what..." she said, her hands flying to her mouth. "Are you-"
A deep growl cut off her words as something rose from the mud: something huge and muscular, with wide-set eyes, a tripartate tail, and four tentacles ringing its mouth. Gill-slits rippled on the sides of its face. One claw lashed out, knocking Shesara to the ground.
Dru's blade slid into the light. "I think we just found what corrupted those cannibals..."
Loyalty, what a novel concept.
