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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Selm" data-source="post: 156606" data-attributes="member: 1592">Episode 10-4Episode TEN - Back to the Temple of Elemental Evil - Part 4(Alahija is captured ... fight for the half-elf, and the treasure behind!)-as they just fall into a time warp, it seems to be      Earthday, 27th Planting forever-The young half-elf approached the blood red curtain; she advancescautiously, trying to listen for signs of activity and passes her headthrough the curtain. Suddenly, a big leather-gloved hand grasps her bythe neck, another hand shutting her mouth. Alahija tries to cry andstruggle like one possessed to escape. Lywen, seeing his friend introuble flies up the curtain. A sap then knocks out Alahija, and avolley of arrows is shot on Lywen.And you will ask me, what are doing the other members of the party?They were not even able to see anything as the half-elf was quicklydragged behind the curtain. But ... Lywen, our flying wizard, is stillhanging in mid-air, quaffing a potion with several arrowsprotuberating from him.  Needless to say, they all rush towards thered hanging curtain; all but Diane and Ezekiel, who are currentlyengaged in a fight against a bunch of goblins hidden in the east aislebehind a big pile of wooden debris.So we have now Lywen, Killasha and Rousing Fox, engaged in anoperation to rescue their half-elf maiden, our well-known friendAlahija.They rush through the curtain (Lywen a bit after the others, to getsome cover from the archers), and discover the temple vestry. An oldaltar, used as a fireplace, occupies the middle of the room; behind itis the vestry itself and an imposing stone throne, standing on severalstone steps of different colors, and covered with carvings of wingeddemons and human skulls (the well known throne of the Temple ofElemental Evil, which was a direct access to the lower levels tenyears ago)."A large room in its own right, this old vestry is filled withnumerous couches, tables and padded chairs, although most of thefurniture has seen better days. In the middle of the room, two coucheshave been pushed together to make a sort of a grand bed. Beyond thebed is a pile of bags, boxes, and other items."But for the moment, this is not their main concern. Several hobgoblinsand goblins still inhabit the area, and they are ready to fight. Oneof them is even throwing the unconscious Alahija on the grand bed atthis very moment, before taking a big two-bladed sword and preparingfor the fight. Four other hobgoblins, wearing splint mail armors,start to shoot volleys of arrows towards them, Killasha and RousingFox being the main targets.The sound of the fight is hopefully enough to warn Diane and Ezekiel,who, after a short fight against their goblins (during which Ezekieltried his famous goblin-throwing trick), run to help theirfriends. With so many fighters, the hobgoblins are quickly surroundedand soon, only the chief remains, fighting Killasha. Or should I say,enraged against Killasha - because se tries to destroy the templestone by stone ... (our "Paladinette" scored three misses in threerounds against the hobgoblin boss, and she started to really "wound"the stone floor with her two- handed sword).It is the moment Alahija chooses to regain consciousness. And, as youcould imagine, she doesn't want to let pass an occasion to dosomething really ... stupid.The half-elf tumbles past her goblins guards and jumps on the head ofthe boss, where she manages to cast a magic missile spell, stunningthe massive hobgoblin and allowing her friends to finish it. "No pityfor the scum ..."All is now quiet, only the sounds of the numerous fires still inhabitthe temple. It is the time to search for ... treasures? ... hum no,clues about the whereabouts of this hobgoblin tribe.  The numerousobjects behind the grand bed do not offer any help. They are theevidence of a band of brigands, what the hobgoblins were forsure. There is several bags of coins, several hundreds of gold, silverand copper pieces. A bronze statue of a mounted elven warrior,weighting more than two hundred pounds. A small iron box, opened byAlahija, and containing dozen of small precious red stones (they aremore precisely blood stones). Several bolts of precious cloth, one ofthem with gold embroidery. A complete suit of plate armor. And a largebox wrapped in iron chains, that Lywen opened with a bit of magic,containing several useless but precious things like a green dragonpainting.They also approach the old stone throne."a great throne of purplish basalt, covered in leering demon faces andcarved skulls with evil grins. Above the throne, the following wordsare chiseled into the curved wall:    The power of elemental death    Brings mortal low    But raises the Nameless One High"After a close inquiry, it seems that the throne mechanism, whichallowed it to descend into the earth to the temple lowermost level, isnow completely broken. If this throne still stands as a sign of thewickedness of the place, it is probably no more used in any way.---But their goal, when coming to the old Temple of Elemental Evil, wasnot to slaughter the bandits raiding the region, but to inquire aboutpossible activities of the Dark god priests around.  They decide tospend one more hour in the temple, searching for passages andstairways going down, into the lower levels. Diane, as the historianshe is, has a good knowledge of nearly everything that was writtenabout the temple; and she knows that several underground levels weresealed and protected by magical scriptures like the one on the brokendoorway, and that deeply underground, on the lowest level, thedemoness Zuggtmoy was held prisoner.But the two side stairways are completely crumbled and ruined. Even ifyou removed the stone debris, it is not sure it would be safe. Theonly way down is the main stairway, just behind the central altar ofthe temple."The pillars here are white marble, veined with ugly red. The altarblock of pinkish white marble is roughly oval(...). Its top has ahollowed-out portion resembling a humanoid form, with legs apart andarms away from the body.(...)Just north of the altar is a circular,marble-lined pit a well of sorts 20 feet in diameter.""A flight of steps 20 feet wide, each step broad and tall, delves downto the north. The stone is a dull gray, but flecks of color black,blue, green, red, and white dot its surface.  To the north of thestaircase is a stone railing, with supports of alternating brown,green, and white stone."Our heroes courageously, but cautiously descend the steps."The stairs descend 30 feet to a pair of smashed and fallen bronzedoors, obviously battered down. Like those in the temple entrance,they are covered in mostly faded markings, with bits of broken ironchain lying all around them. The area immediately beyond the doors iscollapsed except for a small space(...), cleared out with greateffort, long ago."These smashed doors still radiate a faint magical aura, so much yearsafter they fall (around ten years). It indicates the power of themagic, which was used to create them. They bounded a demoness into herprison after all.But the area is clearly collapsed and unusable. They decide to try thesmall tunnel anyway, it could lead to another, less ruined, part ofthe temple underground, after all.  But this is also inconclusive. Allthey are able to find is the dire ape nest, a small round cavern witha straw couch and numerous bones all around.Coming back to the ground level, Diane spots the body of the invisiblemaster of the dire ape. It is now completely normal and appears to bean also normal hobgoblin. It was wearing leather and a whip, but thereisn't anything particular ... it is a mystery how he became invisible.What will they do now?They can't sleep in the temple with so many dead bodies, the strongodor of the fires mixed with blood and fried meat ... "How awful!" assaid Alahija already ready after her capture (nothing can shake thishalf-elf mood <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> ).They decide to further investigate the guard tower were they foughttheir first fight into the temple complex. While the main group goback to the guard tower, Gandigoot and Alahija decide that it is nowtime to search the "demon invocation ruined tower" more closely. Andonce again the party split in two ...Hopefully this time the complex is empty. All the goblinoids werekilled or fled ... and our friends are able to peacefully search thetowers.  Alahija and Gandigoot find a hidden trapdoor into the smallruined tower. It leads them to a concealed wine cellar, inhabited, butshowing signs of occupation. It was probably here that the hobgoblins,they saw before, hid themselves after the "demon conjurationincident".The other members of the party search the guard tower. After quite abit of search, with only the light of torches to help them - as thecoming night, reinforced by the obscurity of the place, now rules thetemple - they find a well-concealed trap door under a flagstone in theroom were the goblins slaves were. The hobgoblins probably didn't findit.As their map (from the letter found in the secret camp under the millin Hommlet) seems to indicate, it could be the entrance of a secrettunnel leading out of the temple to the north.  They are tired andnearly out of any magical energy, but they want to settle this onceand for all.  So they decide to push forward with the end of this veryday.One after the other, they descend into the darkness, using the ladderwhich is fixed to the wall.There is a small room under the tower, with four couches and a smallwooden table with a bronze coffer and an iron box on it. A wooden doorreinforced by iron is the single exit of the room, in the eastwall. This place was obviously well suited for defense.Lywen is out of opening spells, and they do not have so much timebefore the "real" night, so they decide to forget about the coffersfor now, and advance towards the east.After several minutes of careful march into a stone carved tunnel,they reach a natural cavern with another tunnel going north this time.After another march in a new tunnel, they reach a concealed door,which opens into a wheel. Iron bars are set in the walls and they areeasily able to go out using them.As they expected from their map, they are now near a smallbuilding. It is an old stone barn, partially ruined but still offeringa bit of protection.They could pass the night here, but they decide that the temple guardtower is the best place for defense. They go back to the templethrough the forest, to get back their horses and find the hiddenpathway leading to the barn, that they didn't find earlier. (DM Note:after such a victory it seems that they do not know fear anymore... but, sometimes, luck is with them and they didn't found one of thekind night encounter lurking around the temple)They sleep into the guard tower with a heavy watch. But the night wentwell, any monster around was probably frightened by the butcheryinside the temple.With the first light of dawn, which is probably quite late as thisarea is so dark, they decide to go back to Hommlet.But one last encounter still awaits them at the temple entrance: awoman, wearing a hide armor, made of different leather, and ascimitar.She names herself as Kella, and asks them about their actionshere. She seems happy to see the end of the hobgoblins tribe, but shewarns them that several other groups of monsters lurk around. She sawa group of three ogres two days before. After a quick, and a bit cold,discussion they split and the woman watch them depart from the temple,still seated on the main wall entrance.If the trip to the temple was full of encounters, the journey back wasuneventful. As always, it seems that lady luck is with our adventurers... for their return to safety.DM Note:Pffiuuuu, this episode is finished, at last.As you could imagine, we played a long time on this session <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />But greater dangers await our heroes ...who are still enjoying their perfect record: ten sessions of play inthe Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil campaign without a death!... soon ...----------------------------------------------------------------Episode ELVEN - To the Temple of Elemental Evil, again.(What! But we just ...)</blockquote>

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