It was a glum procession that walked back to Hommlet that day. Conlin and Jaer refused to let anyone else carry the litter that held Abdul’s body. Honestly, that was just fine with Xar, seeing the corpse made his flesh crawl. It also made him second guess himself, wondering if he would end up like that someday. Sure adventuring was dangerous, spells flying, weapons swinging, arrows shooting. There was no question that any one of them could fall in any of the encounters they faced, and it led one to wonder why they would do this. What was it that would cause an adventurer to throw himself into the danger time and again.
Money? Not hardly, any money they garner simply went to finance further adventures. Serving the forces of good? Maybe, especially where Conlin and Abdul were concerned, not that the rest of them were any demon kissing freaks or anything, just not quite as devout as those two. Thrill? Now there was a possibility, maybe they were all just thrill seekers, needing greater and greater challenges to satisfy there cravings. Although on that note, insanity seemed a more likely option. Yep, that was it, all the other factors may play a part, but the main reason adventurers do it, was pure insanity.
Xar glanced up at the litter again and sighed softly. Conlin was taking this very hard. They all were but Conlin especially. Xar knew his friend well enough to know that even without his faith to prompt him into protecting those around him, he would still be taking responsibility for anyone he could. He had hardly spoken a word since the “incident”, and Xar knew that apologizing to that cherub faced murderer just deepened his pain.
Jordan came trotting back to the group, “Hommlet is just over the next rise, everything looks clear. Whew, not a moment too soon, he isn’t smelling so terrific is he.”
Jordan wasn’t lying, carrying a corpse for days wasn’t as glamorous as one might think.
“I’ll go on ahead and make preparations for staying here for a bit. I’ll meet you at the temple when I am done.” said Xar, anxious to be away from the body.
‘Be careful Xar, maybe Jordan should go with you, I don’t want to see anything happen, enemies seem to be everywhere.” worried Conlin.
Jordan jumped on the idea immediately, “Excellent idea, I will accompany Xar and we can watch each other’s backs.”
“Be careful.” rumbled Jaer.
With that they were off, free of the body and all it represented, free of the stench, free of the doubt and gloom that had pervaded their lives since the elemental. The energy was almost palpable, and they had to stop themselves from breaking into a run to get away from the doubt, misery, and uncertainty that lay behind them. Soon they were in Hommlet and setting themselves up in the Inn of the Welcome Wench. Xar, out of pure habit, flirted with the barmaid. She wasn’t particularly attractive, and had never seemed open to his advances, but it was good to fall into routine.
“We’ll be needing a couple of drinks and three rooms. Same ones as last time darlin’.” called out Xar.
“Drinks?” queried Jordan. “Shouldn’t we be getting over to the temple?”
“Look, Jaer and Conlin seem to need this thing, taking care of Abdul is almost obsessive with them. I just need a break for a bit, and to be honest, that kind of magic is something I am really not comfortable with. Seeing Jaer dead and then returned is something that haunts my nightmares from time to time, and if I can avoid adding to them, I would really like to try.”
“ I understand, I didn’t come along to protect you, and I don’t go scouting all the time ahead just to be safe.”
The two men shared a drink together in quiet. Then another, and a few more after that. Finally they could put it off no longer and went to the temple. The canoness was perceptive enough to see their discomfort and asked them to wait outside during the ceremony. So they waited, and after a long wait, Conlin emerged from the room saying the Abdul was one again returned to them. It would take some time before he was up and ready to go again but he was alive. Xar clapped his friend in an embrace and returned to the inn to sleep the rest of the day and all of the next night away.
He awoke stiff and sore, ravenous with hunger. This time though, he allowed his old monastic disciplines to take over. Slowly, he went through his old morning rituals, stretching and meditating to bring his mind and body back into focus. Once he had achieved what harmony of spirit that he could, he went down to eat and them up to take a bath. His meditations had given him clear purpose, he would do whatever it took to keep his friends alive. Careful planning was Conlin’s specialty, but Xar’s magic could be used to prepare for the worst too.
Over the next two weeks the group prepared to once more brave the horrors of the Temple of all Consumption, buying supplies, selling off looted treasure, practicing their skills. Xar and Conlin spent all their time pouring their magical energies into various items that might be able to give them an edge. Enhancing the magics on Conlin’s gloves, making the already dextrous man even more so, a belt to increase Jaer’s formidable strength, and cloaks to provide a degree of resistance to various magics for everyone. Once they were as prepared as they could be, they ventured forth to brave once more the dangers of the temple.
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“Well if it isn’t our old friends the doors.” grumbled Jordan.
“Dammit, didn’t we destroy those?” growled Jaer.
“Yah, there are the burnt remains of the ones we took down right there.” quipped Xar helpfully.
With a collective sigh the group charged the door.
“Hmmm,” started Jordan as they surveyed the ragtag group of half a dozen pitiful creatures gathered together to try and prevent them entry, “they just don’t make goon squads they way they used too.”
It was a short job of mopping up and continuing their mission to revenge themselves on the elemental that caused such damage to the group. In keeping with what had happened at the door with the “goon squad” they met little in the way of renewed resistance along the path to the lake. Not that any of them were complaining, they had enough to worry about when they got there. All too soon they came to the cavern of infamy and entered.
Once more at the edge of the lake where the unthinkable had happened, this time, they were prepared. Abdul cast a specially prepared spell that allowed them to walk across the water, then followed it up with a magical circle of protection from evil that should keep the elemental at bay. Their journey into the depths in search of the water temple and the elemental that guarded it ran them into various challenges, a mage with a penchant for lightning, ill equipped human sentries, strange walking fishmen, but eventually the found another water filled area with an altar in the center.
Not wasting any time, Xar let fly with his newest and most powerful spell, fireball. Immediately two of the figures at the temple grabbed horns and blew. Suddenly a great wave of water rose up and began to rush towards them. A dozen or so of the strange fishmen joined with him in the assault.
Quickly the party fell back to the corridor they had entered from, the water in it was only about three feet deep and ended halfway along the corridor. The new positioning allowed them to limit the number of opponents that could be brought against them at one time. They carefully positioned themselves so that they all were either inside or behind the magic circle of protection. A deafening roar of water thundered towards them, mist spraying out in all directions as the massive water elemental burst into the corridor and charged them. WHAM! The titanic wave smashed into the magic circle and fell back in confusion. It was as if a large wave had hit a strong window, drops of water slid down the circle and the elemental pounded furiously against it. The fishmen were able to get through the circle just fine and did so with a vengeance.
Jaer and Jordan met their charge in the narrow corridor at the edge of the water and a fierce melee ensued. The fishmen squirmed around the elemental filling the corridor, half submerged in the water, and the front attackers even leaving the safety of the water to do battle. Xar, carefully positioned in the corridor behind the magic circle, let loose a second devastating fireball. Heat blasted back drying any individual water droplets left behind by the elemental. The smell of burning flesh and the hiss of water turning to steam was overwhelming. The fishmen, half submerged as they were, were still quite badly torched, some of them managing to duck down in time to avoid the worst of the blast, some ducking down only as death stole the strength from their limbs.
A shaman of some sort appeared and began casting fell magics, but he quickly fell to Conlin’s incomparable aim. The elemental, frustrated by his inability to bring them to battle, picked up a fish man corpse and flung it at them. Wham! It struck Jaer solidly, but the hefty barbarian shrugged off the blow. Xar realized the elemental was again a threat to them began to blast him with magic missiles. Each of the blue pulses of energy blasted away bits of water, and over time, the elemental began to seem smaller and less cohesive. Xar refused to let up and continued to pour magic into it.
Finally, the fighters had managed to beat the last of the fishmen, and bolstered by individual protections from evil, dodging hurled corpses all the way, they attacked. The elemental’s long reach allowed it to smash Jaer before he was capable of bringing Snowstorm to bear. Just as with the magic circle, Jaer’s protection spell prevented the elemental from striking him. His attack canceled that protection but so powerful was his blow, and so weakened was the elemental from Xar’s nonstop barrage, that his first hit destroyed the thing utterly.
A strange thing happened then, the whole of the elemental suddenly froze and Snowstorm was stuck within it. The great axe seemed to be sucking the essence of the water elemental into itself, somehow almost growing stronger in the process. Suddenly it shattered falling to the ground into quickly melting shards. After that it was a simple process of looting the bodies, picking up the elemental keys, destroying the horns that summoned the elemental, and basking in the glow of sweet retribution. Abdul seemed particularly satisfied with the water temple’s collapse.
Xar sat back and pondered that maybe it wasn’t so bad being an adventurer after all.
-Immort
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