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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RatPunk" data-source="post: 1883697" data-attributes="member: 1246">Chapter 8 - Temple and Tower, Part 2Wow, I guess it's been a lot longer than I thought since my last update. If there's anyone out there who was actually following this story, I apologize. I'll try not to let it happen again...   <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/nervous.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":heh:" title="Nervous Laugh    :heh:" data-shortname=":heh:" /> - - - - - - - - - -Once we were done, we decided to press our already overtaxed luck and move on to the tower the ogre had emerged from. It was a mess as well, but this was a different kind of mess. This was orc and ogre nest mess. And boy did it smell. The first floor had apparently been occupied by several of the orcs and the floor was littered with numerous rugs that may, at one time, have been worth some gold. Now they were little more than soiled, disgusting blankets, which was obviously what the orcs had used them as. Jeb, however, insisted that with a little cleaning, they might still bring in some cash. We left him to paw over them.The upstairs had been the home of Jackie’s ogre friend. How it managed to get up and down the narrow staircase on a daily basis, I’ll never know. A quick look around revealed the ogre’s only apparent possession: a leather thong with twelve human skulls on it. I didn’t even want to think about the ogre trying it on. That mental image brought a pause and a shudder to everyone. We went back downstairs.During his inspection, Jeb had sorted the rugs into piles. When he had removed the last few from the center of the floor, he discovered a large board lying across the floor. Ever the suspicious type, Jeb had moved the board aside just as we came down the stairs. Beneath it was a trap door. We pondered the possibilities for a moment. Our thoughts turned to the rumors we’d heard in Fairhill of a lich and/or vampire living in the keep. The vote was quick and unanimous. Now it was time to head back to Fairhill. We returned to the courtyard and gathered what treasure we had accumulated, including the smelly rugs from the orc room. Suddenly Jeb spoke up."You know, we should take that scorpion on top of the temple, too. I’ll bet we could get some good money for that. Maybe Arlen would want it for the town."Peshal was dead set against the idea. He wanted to go back to Fairhill and he wanted to go now, the scorpion would only slow us down. As adamant as he was about leaving it behind, Jeb was more so about taking it with us. The two of them started debating the idea. Loudly. The rest of us could see the merit in both sides, but at the time we were mostly leaning towards just heading back to town.Then Pyro mentioned the war wagon.It was such a simple statement: "Maybe we could mount it on the wagon.", but it had all kinds of possibilities, many of which instantly started running through my mind. Armored sides, the scorpion on the back, maybe some kind of dwarf launcher… The possibilities were endless! I could tell that the others were intrigued by the idea as well. Except for Peshal, who just wanted to leave, and Jackie, whom we suddenly noticed was missing.Nervously expecting some new and hidden threat, we began looking around the courtyard. There was no sign of him. We nearly jumped out of our skins when his voice yelled down from above us."Hey, can somebody give me a hand with this?"He was on top of the temple and had disassembled the entire scorpion while we’d been debating the issue. All that remained was to bring the pieces down to the courtyard. Pyro went to give him a hand. Using some interesting load distribution, we managed to pack everything on the horses, including Laurial’s (which displeased her to no end, I can assure you), and we rode back to town.We went immediately to Shandril’s and presented the Crucible to her. She was extremely grateful, although not in the way I was hoping for. Instead, she healed everyone, which was almost as good. We also gave her the black candle, which she agreed to dispose of. Then we told her about the temple to St. Cuthbert and she recommended we talk to Brother Ogmund, the local Cuthbert priest. That sounded like a reasonable idea, so off we went.We located Ogmund nearby, clearing out the smoldering ruins of what had recently been the village’s shrine to St. Cuthbert. We told him the tale of the temple and that we were planning to make a return trip in the morning. When we suggested that he might want to come along, he readily agreed. The chance to reestablish St. Cuthbert’s following in the area was too good for him to pass up. With a promise to pick him up in the morning, we headed to the Cockatrice to get some much needed rest.I think most of us found that the morning came much too quickly. Still, we managed to drag ourselves out of bed, eat a quick breakfast and meet at Ogmund’s at a pretty reasonable time. He was packed and ready to go when we arrived, so we were quickly on our way. I’ll say this for him, Brother Ogmund was a much better traveling companion than Laurial had been. He was jovial, friendly and very helpful. He and Jackie hit it off quite well, but then they both followed the same deity. We told him our adventuring stories, with Jackie quickly glossing over the details of his fight with the ogre, and Ogmund regaled us with tales of his own. It definitely made the time pass quickly and before we knew it we had arrived back at the keep.We entered through the slime room and stepped into the courtyard. The stench from the corpses we’d piled up was just beginning to take hold, but it wasn’t overpowering. I think Ogmund was a little impressed to see that we hadn’t been exaggerating about the battle. We pointed him in the direction of the temple and he went off to set about the business of cleaning and reconsecrating. We gave the rest of the keep a quick once over, just to make sure it was still secure, then returned to the trap door.The door opened with a loud creak. The waft of air that hit our nostrils reeked of orc and ogre. Just our luck, we’d found their toilet. Those of us who could see well in the dark crowded around the opening to get a better look. When that didn’t reveal much, we threw down a torch. It was a circular room, empty of anything except piles of trash along the wall. Much to our relief, it appeared to be crap free. In the middle of the floor was yet another trapdoor. It had a silvery gleam around the edges and was conspicuously uncovered by trash. But there was no way down.Then Jackie pulled a hundred and fifty feet of rope out of his haversack. Yeah, that should just about do it. We found something in the room to secure the rope to and threw it down the hole. Within minutes, we were standing in the room examining the door.</blockquote>

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