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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 3303666" data-attributes="member: 1210">The Sunken Temple of the Jerren!9/7/372 O.L.G., 11 a.m., on the deck of the Promised LandExpectantly the party patches the surface of the water.  The bubbling mass of nasty that Bacon Grease, the ship’s cook, produced for them slowly diffuses out and down into the water, into the dark well that they can see but are understandably reluctant to swim down into. A few minutes pass, then a few minutes more.“I’m bored,”  Beau announces.“Patience, buddy,” Erasmuz chuckles with a smile.  “We have to give the stuff time to work.”“Besides, our choices are to either go into the water or give up- and I don’t want to go swim into that,” Nara points out.***12:30 p.m. “I’m bored,” Queffe says.  Beau grins triumphantly.  “See?”“Patience, guys,” Nara sighs.  “Even if we aren’t having any luck with this ploy” –Bacon Grease looks crestfallen- “we still need to make sure we aren’t swimming into the middle of that stuff.”“It’s pretty spread out by now,” reasons Ari, “it’s been over an hour.”“”Patience,” Nara repeats.***2 p.m.“I am bored,” Rush drawls.  “Let us go kill something.”Jawbreaker nods.  “Yes.  It time.”“All right, you’re the chief,” answers Ari.  He and Nara begin casting water breathing, spreading their spells so that everyone has several hours of duration on them.  The last thing that they want is to run out of water breathing in the middle of being underwater, so Nara, Ari and Erasmuz all have at least one more water breathing spell in reserve.  After a few moments, our heroes jump off of the Promised Land’s deck and into the water.  The water is chilly, but not cold enough to be dangerous.  Beneath the choppy surface, our heroes find that they can swim without being buffeted by the waves, and they can see the dark area beneath them that seems to be some kind of well.  As they descend, swimming almost straight down, they pass a few dead fish floating in the water, the result of their poisonous brew.  But there is no sign of any threatening creature dead.  Alas.  The well gapes before our heroes.  It is like the dark maw of a gigantic shark waiting to devour them.  The shaft of the well sinks deep into solid rock, straight down for hundreds of feet.  The only light is left far behind them, far above them.  After a few moments, someone casts light, and those of our heroes who are not from the Underdark (and thus accustomed to abosolute blackness) breathe sighs of relief.  As they finally reach the bottom and swim down into the chamber that they find there, they eagerly spread out to take up a little more space.  “Hmm,” bubbles Erasmuz.The chamber is an irregular cave, about 40’ across.  It has four passages leading out of it.  Though irregular, they do not seem completely natural.  The walls are bare, and there is no sign of life.  The waters around the group are still and silent.“Well, what do you guys think?” asks Ari.  “Which way do we go?”   “Left,” replies Nara automatically.“But which way is left?” Erasmuz asks ominously.  Indeed, with no way to get their bearings, there is no way to be sure; and as they entered from above, they all came in with their lefts in different directions.  For a moment, our heroes are befuddled; then-“This way,” Jawbreaker snorts, and the party follows him out one of the passages.  It curves to the right as they swim down it, but Jawbreaker ignores this, despite the group’s almost superstitious preference for going left.  After about 30’, the passage opens into a long, irregular chamber about 30’ long and 20’ wide.  Two rows of colums run down the chamber, and the far end of the area holds a fish-like altar of terrifying aspect, mouth upright as if to devour.  “Hmm,” Erasmuz says darkly.  “I don’t like the looks of that.”The party swims towards it to investigate- but as they get about halfway, four of the columns suddenly animate, changing into alabaster statues of sword-wielding warrior women!  They begin to move forward, but Rush thrusts forward with his mind blade and stabs one of them!  He grunts in suprise at how little damage his blow does, and then his target- as well as a second of the strange stone women- moves in to attack him back.  The other two rush Jawbreaker.The statue creatures prove difficult to hit and difficult to damage, but Beau soon discovers that it is susceptible to magic missile.  Rush demonstrates an impressive level of skill by unleashing a whirlwind attack, but he still fails to drop even a single enemy!  Jawbreaker curses as he finally lands a blow but his weapon twists in his hands at the last moment, and he does no damage.  For their part, the statues seem unable to do much more to our heroes than our heroes are doing to them.  Rush takes a cut across the shoulder, and Jawbreaker a nick along the leg, but on the whole, each side seems to be defeating the other’s attacks with solid defense.Finally Rush breaks the stalemate, smashing down one of the column-women he is fighting.  He focuses on the other, and in a few more seconds he has finished it off.  One of Jawbreaker’s foes has landed a solid blow on the chief at last, but he too has finally lain a good one on the statue.  Nara slams her morningstar into one again and again, but to no avail- she cannot penetrate the creature’s ability to shrug off damage!Queffe manages to get a solid blow in, dealing significant damage to one of the statues, and Jawbreaker lands another blow; that one falls.  Then Rush drops his last opponent and steps in to help the others.  But it is Beau that ends the fight, blasting the last statue with a volley of magic missiles that finishes it off in a shower of breaking stone.“Wow!” gasps Nara.  “I couldn’t even hurt those things!”“No kidding,” grumbles Jawbreaker sourly.  “Jawbreaker have poor form today.”“That’s two kills,” Rush announces.  “I will kill thirty-eight more things for you.”Nara and Erasmuz, meanwhile, have both swam over to the strange fish-altar thing.  It is disturbing and foul-looking.  The thing’s maw is open and suggests both voraciousness and carnivorousness.  The two halflings exchange a glance, and it is obvious that neither of them know anything about it.  Then Federico come over.  “Oh wow,” he squeaks in terror, shivering and tucking his little kobold tail between his legs, “that’s Zaamel!” “Who?” asks Erasmuz.“Zaamel, the god of the dark depths, the god of devouring,” the kobold replies. “Sounds friendly,” Nara says ironically.  “Should we destroy it?” wonders Rush.“Probably,” Erasmuz nods.“It might be important to my people,” Naomi demurs.“Do you know anything about it?” asks Nara, but the corpulent Naomi only shrugs.“Even so, it seems unwise to go into the dark depths and start destroying altars to the god of the dark depths,” Ari points out.“Hey, you guys,” says Beau, “look at this!”  They cluster around, and he shows them a hinge in the fish’s gaping jaw.“I bet that it’s set up to receive offerings somehow!” exclaims Ari.  He swims up and drops a silver piece into the fish’s mouth.  Sure enough, the jaw closes.  A moment later it re-opens, and the silver piece is gone.Our heroes poke at the altar for a while, but they find nothing else of interest, and nobody else wants to put anything more interesting (such as their head) into the altar, so eventually they move on.  There are no other exits from this chamber, nor does a search turn up any secret ways, so they return to the first room and Jawbreaker leads them donw another passage.  It soon splits, and our heroes naturally take the left passage.  An instant later, as the front ranks of the party round the bend, a spinning coral star smashes into Nara.  The prophetess is knocked senseless, stunned.“Oh crap,” croaks Naomi.  She swims backwards and cries out a warning.  Rush immediately swims forward and around the corner to meet the threat head on.  A huge creature made out of coral, shaped like a four-legged spider, is in the chamber.  And as Rush moves to engage it, it slams him with four blows, tearing at his chest, head and legs.  He roars and slashes it back, then tumbles away.  “Watch out, it’s dangerous!” he cries.The battle is joined.Next Time: Against the coral golem!</blockquote>

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