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Message: <blockquote data-quote="peteyfrogboy" data-source="post: 1170384" data-attributes="member: 5677">Terror In Freeport: Part 7 (The Finale)They regrouped back down in the temple, rather than running out of the burning building into the street. "So now what?" wondered Parika. "We don't know who's backing the cult, or what they have planned for tonight."Edwin's brow furrowed in thought. "Wait, didn't you find some documents in here after you released me?"Parika shrugged. "I found a note, but it was all in that squiggly serpent language.""Give it here," said the priest. "Since our last encounter with them I've been studying some old languages that are similar. I may be able to make something of it."Some time later, Edwin set the note down and frowned. "This is very disturbing."The others returned from pacing around the room. "What did you find?" asked Rachel.The priest held up the note. "This is a draft of a speech lamenting the death of Verlaine. It also implicates my temple as a front for the Brotherhood and all of you as their agents. It begins, 'This evening, Councilor Verlaine and the clergy of the temple of St. Uller have been slain.' I daresay we have a good idea now what they are planning to do next."He folded the note and placed it inside his robe. "The speech was to be given tonight by Milton Drac.""Milton Drac, the Sea Lord?" asked Nevroth incredulously."The very same."***The three weary companions stood with Edwin in Monsignor Thuron's office as he looked over Drac's speech. The elder priest folded his hands and sighed. "I have feared something like this since I first heard of the Brotherhood's activities here in the city. Their vengeance knows no limit, and no human agency can destroy them completely." He rose from behind his desk. "We must secure the temple. They will be upon us soon, and we will make our stand here. I would ask that you stay and help us, as you have up to this point. I regret that you have become involved in the Brotherhood's schemes, but without your intervention they certainly would have grown even more powerful by now."Parika shrugged. "If we don't help you stop them here, they'll come after us next anyway. We're in."Thuron gave instructions to several of his assistants, who went to make preparations elsewhere in the temple. He then led the way to the atrium, where the two main entrances to the temple were located. "The other doors can be easily secured. This will be the hardest place to hold against any attack." Rachel, Nevroth, and Parika looked around the large vaulted room. The circular atrium faced southeast, with a single door leading back into the rest of the temple. Two large sets of double doors led out to the street, on the south and east faces of the room. A pair of staircases curved along the walls, leading up to one of two balconies filled with bookcases. At the center of the room was the statue of St. Uller receiving his epiphany, with an altar set into the southeastern wall.Even as they were making their inspection of the room, both sets of doors opened. Instead of bloodthirsty cultists, however, the people coming in were priests, all of them smeared with blood and dripping from the rain. The woman leading the group at the south door drew back the hood of her cloak. "Thank the Lord! I didn't think we'd make it.""What happened?" asked Edwin."We were attacked in the streets by men in black robes. I found as many others as I could and tried to get them back safely."Nevroth noticed a large gold ring glinting on the woman's finger. "You priests sure pay well," he muttered.Thuron raised an eyebrow. "Pay? Our Order takes a vow of poverty." This comment was enough to make the naturally suspicious Parika nock an arrow. "Stay where you are," she warned. "Identify yourselves." Nevroth moved toward the south door and Rachel went to the east, each with swords drawn and prepared to take control of the situation if need be. The bloodied priests crowded around the warriors, begging them for aid. Parika fired a warning shot, but they would not desist. Nevroth and Rachel stayed their hands, equally suspicious but unwilling to spill innocent blood by mistake.The woman wore a look of confusion as she moved toward the center of the room. "Why do you not trust us? Are we not your friends?" Her actions belied her words, however, as she stabbed a finger in Rachel's direction and began chanting. Rachel felt the grip of fear on her once more, but again she shrugged it off. The milling priests acted as one, drawing daggers from beneath their robes and attacking.The scene became a confused brawl. Thuron and Edwin were surprised by the outburst of violence, and the senior priest took a wicked dagger blow to the gut before they withdrew to relative safety underneath the stairs.Parika backed up the stairs to the balcony, firing down into the melee as she went. A few of the revealed cultists charged up the stairs after them, but she slew them as quickly as they came.Nevroth held his ground at the south door, striking cultists down left and right with Parika's support from above. Eventually he faced their leader alone, but by that time she had invoked a mystical shield that made her nearly impervious to his blows.At the east door Rachel finally had a chance to display her true skill at arms. Her whirling cutlass cut her opponents down like wheat before a scythe, and soon she stood unscathed amid her fallen enemies.Knowing a lost battle when she saw one, the cultists' leader withdrew to the temple steps. She took off into the heavy rain, managing to evade Nevroth's pursuit. Nevroth returned to the temple, victorious nonetheless.As the bodies of the slain cultists were being removed from the atrium, Thuron gathered the three companions together once more. "You have my thanks, and the gratitude of our Order. Had you not spotted their deceit, the Brotherhood might have wrought untold harm within these walls. I cannot offer you any monetary reward for your service to us, but I do feel that you deserve to know the truth." He led the way back into the temple and down into the catacombs beneath.DM Notes:* I find modules to be the hardest adventures to write. This one in particular is the most convoluted and confusing of the Freeport trilogy. The party kept missing and/or misinterpreting clues, so I kept having to shove them in the right direction. I tried to streamline things for the story hour without taking too many liberties with what actually happened.* Opportunities to use Whirlwind Attack are few and far between, but they can be quite spectacular.</blockquote>

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