Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Plane Sailing" data-source="post: 1499990" data-attributes="member: 114">At last, an update...The Imperial OutpostGarrick leads them deeper into the depths of the earth. Does a day pass? Two? The size and scale of the network of caverns they pass is impressive, but the darkness and weight of rock above them is oppressive to all except their svirfneblin guide. The only thing that marks the passage of time is the twice daily messages from Dominic, keeping them informed of the goings on in the world above, the gathering of powers and the increasing uncertainty.“Stop” says Garrick. “There is something up ahead which might interest you. A sealed old human outpost”.Curious, the party edge down the side passage Garrick indicates and they find, set into a rock wall, a corroded old iron door covered in ancient imperial pictograms. Taran moves forward and carefully runs his hand over the door. “I can read this” he says. “It is imperial, from the age of the Jade Emperor a thousand years ago. Records speak of many underground military arcane listening posts which the Empire maintained – this must be one of them”.“Can you get in?” asks Tania.A few minutes work and Tarans nimble fingers have decoded the lock on the door and it swings slowly inward. A dim blue light glows from the ceiling of the short corridor which leads into an octagonal chamber. Halfway down the corridor there is a large humanoid bas-relief figure set into the wall on one side, amidst a wide range of carvings and pictograms. The chamber has a table in the centre and four other apparent exits, three of them leading to small rectangular chambers with decomposed rubbish in a thin layer on the floor. The fourth is blocked by a sparkling magical field of some type. Taran speculates that it might be some kind of magical prison, before going back to the entranceway to keep watch with Garrick. Trajan’s investigations reveal a hollow section in one of the walls of the octagonal room, and he breaks it down with a few fierce kicks, revealing a secret hollow containing an ancient breastplate – a breastplate which is covered in fine and delicate inscriptions.Suddenly there is a tremendous cracking sound from the entrance corridor, and what looked like a bas relief steps out of the wall in a shower of plaster, revealing itself to be a stone golem, which charges in and attacks Trajan!He strikes at it then tumbles past to lure it out. Tania attempts a ray of enfeeblement against the golem but misjudges its reach and gets knocked flying by its AoO. It then chases Trajan and starts hammering at him again. Taran tumbles between the golems legs and goes to the prison, on the basis of "the enemy of my enemy may be my friend". He is able to deactivate the prison and finds a woman in heavy armour finishing a sentence in Imperial. He replies in the same language, warning her to leave now because of the golem. Trajan tries swapping full round attacks with the golem but comes off second best, so he decides to lure it further away. Tania blasts it with a fireball... ineffectively.  (she has not really had any experience fighting golems yet!) Then the released Asuran priestess calls out some command words in Imperial, and the Golem stops its attack and returns to its hiding place. Taran manages introductions with Zherinda the priestess, who can speak Imperial with Taran and can communicate in pidgin Asuran with Trajan. Tania doesn't understand any of it. Zherinda was trapped here about a thousand years ago. She had been on a mission to seek the body of a lost Singharese champion who was leading resistance against the Jade Emperor. From her conversation she recognises Trajan as a sword saint, albeit a Southlander and not Asuran like herself. She clearly reveres sword saints, which is likely to put her at odds with most of her contempory priesthood. Her world was quite different to this one.Among her belongings she carries a scroll of raise dead, and as thanks for her rescue she agrees to use it to attempt to bring Anne-Marie back to life. The scroll is completed, the divine energy crackles around the room – but her body is too badly damaged, and it looks like it will fail. Trajan steps forward and with an invocation to Asura pours healing into her body; Taran also steps forward and jiggles around his little divine icon to activate it, and between them they repair her body enough for life to return to it. With a shuddering breath, Anne-Marie comes round, and gazes up into Trajan’s open face with adoring eyes. “You brought me back” she says.</blockquote>

Verification