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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Amaroq" data-source="post: 1861468" data-attributes="member: 15470">Issue #16: The Shrine of Gormoth - Episode 4 of 5We have reached the end of the passageway. At its end, it opens up into a cavernous hall. It must be fifty feet wide, and easily a hundred long; the end of the passage opens into the center of one of the narrow sides. The arching ceiling is nearly forty feet above us. A massive crack splits the room, running lengthwise down the center of the floor.  The room is walled with polished marble with streaks of green running through it. A narrow raised area lines the edge of the walls, about five feet above the floor, and just wide enough to walk on; in fact, where the passage enters the hall is similarly raised. In the center is an altar, with a starburst pattern radiating out from it. The crack runs directly through the altar, as though a great force has split it. At the opposite end of the room are the remains of a large idol, tumbled and smashed beyond recognition. Only the feet remain intact. The rubble spreads around over a fifteen by ten foot area. There are two columns of beautiful marble pillars along the length of the room, near the walls. By the statue, another brazier with purple flame is set up, and there are seven rat men standing around it. One is pouring sand from a bag into the brazier, and it appears that this is what burns with such bright color. “Ratmen!” cries Chuck, drawing his long sword and stepping into the room, at the edge the ledge.  Thus alerted, the ratmen turn toward us. Like the ones we encountered above, they are strange and misshapen. One has a horse leg growing out of its chest, while a second has a weird squid tentacle. Vestigial bat wings grow from the back of a third, and another has a large crab-like claw for an extra arm. Extra tails, arms, and legs adorn the others.Goldpetal and Novalia are the first to react, stepping into the room, him on the left and her on the right. They fire their bows almost in unison, at the closest rat man. Goldpetal’s shot misses, but Novalia flies true, and she draws first blood. Telryn steps up into the doorway in the center, and looses his crossbow bolt. It caroms harmlessly off the altar.The ratmen closest to us begin charging towards us, but the three in the back start making a weird wriggling motion. Tiny ratman homunculi begin to claw their way out of their flesh, and are quickly standing beside their progenitor. We all watch, bordering between fascinated and horrified. “That’s the most disgusting thing I've ever seen,” Chuck gasps.Then the four that charged at us are upon us. The first two claw at Novalia, and one of them wounds her. The third to arrive has a horse leg coming out of its chest. He kicks at the archer, but she leaps back out of the way. It looks like he could kill with a single blow: the leg is powerful but ponderous. The fourth one, with Novalia’s arrow still in its side, attacks Goldpetal, but the elf dodges his claws.Still powered by the bull's strength, Paks steps to the front center and attacks the one with the horse hoof. Her longsword catches it deep in the neck, killing it instantly. Chuck steps to her left, between her and Goldpetal, and attacks the injured rat man. He cuts it across the rib cage, but just as he does, he screams in pain. He hasn’t been hit, but he clutches his left arm to his ribs, right where he wounded the rat.Hands of Fire steps into the room, stepping past Novalia towards the far right of our line. One of the ratmen claws at the lizard man as he moves through, and rakes him brutally. The blow knocks the great warrior off the narrow ledge, and he falls to the floor of the room. He is unconscious, not moving. Miriel steps to the doorway of the corridor. From there, she can’t see that Hands of Fire is injured, with her view blocked by the battle and the edge of the short ledge. Instead she asks Madriel to bless everyone. Beside her, Telryn begins mumbling a spell.On the left side, Chuck’s snake bites at the injured rat man. It glances down in time to notice, and dodges, but Goldpetal takes advantage of the momentary distraction. The elf’s scimitar slices the ratman from armpit to armpit. Its eyes glaze over, and it falls over backward. Telryn completes the spell and unleashes a magic missile at one of the rat men in back. The magical cyan bolts strike it in the head, and it falls over, apparently dead. The other two are lumbering towards us with their homunculi, and mere seconds away from reinforcing their comrades. However, behind them, the mage sees the third homunculus return to the corpse. The strange, small figure climbs back into the body, and the “dead” ratman comes alive. It shakes its head as though disoriented, and then climbs to its feet. On the far right, Novalia is in desperate straits. One of the ratmen has climbed up onto the ledge, cutting her off from Paks and the others. The archer drops her bow and tries to stab the ratmen with an arrow, but they have better range. When she hits the one the ledge, she barely scratches it. In return, it swipes at her, and lands a solid blow to the side of her head. As she falls, unconscious, the other one next to her wraps its squid tentacle around her. It has no trouble grabbing her limp form. Paks yells, “Miriel! Hands of Fire is in really bad shape!” Just as she finishes, the two rat men from the back reach us. One charges Paks, with its homunculus just behind. Both have a scorpion tail, a crab claw, and an extra rat tail. His homunculus, identical, leaps forward and tries to claw Paks, but she blocks it with her shield. That leaves an opening for the larger one’s crab claw, and it pinches her leg.The second rat man and its homunculus charge Chuck. They both hit him, knocking him backwards. He is badly wounded, bleeding from numerous places. He backs into the doorway, fumbling for his piece of bread, while his viper attacks the homunculus. The brave little snake scores a hit. As the Vigilant eats his bread and feels the healing power course through him, he hears Miriel shouting, “Chuck, move out of the way so I can get to Novalia and Hands of Fire!”On the left side, we’ve been holding our own, but on the right, nobody can make enough progress to reach the wounded lizard man. The ratman holding Novalia tosses her aside. Her body lands, like a rag doll, on top of Hands of Fire. Their blood pools together beneath them.Paks thrusts her sword at the crab-clawed ratman. The sword penetrates deep into its breast, and it slumps to the ground. She feels a deep piercing in her own chest, as its agony reflects back onto her. To the left, Goldpetal attacks the homunculus in front of him, spawned from the ratman attacking Chuck. He misses, but Telryn casts a magic missile at its progenitor. The ratman looks badly wounded. Its homunculus climbs back into it, and the ratman claws at the snake. It misses.The squid-tentacled ratman steps forward from the right side into the gap in our line, and attacks Chuck. It claws him across the face, but its tentacle gets caught on Paks’ shield, to Chuck’s right, and that throws the ratman off balance.The other one which had been attacking Novalia rushes around to our left and attacks Goldpetal. It leaps with its full weight on him, clawing him, and biting deep into his shoulder. The frail elf screams and collapses beneath it, unconscious. The final homunculus leaps back into the crab-clawed ratman, the one which Paks had killed. As we had seen before, the return of the homunculus reanimates it, and it staggers to its feet, trying to escape her reach. The last ratman, from the back, finally reaches the skirmish, and charges to its rescue. It rakes Paks with its claws, but she shoulders it aside, using the Bull’s Strength. She steps over to the right, and with a solid blow of her sword, she kills the crab-clawed one a second time. She can hear Telryn chanting another incantation behind her.Chuck swings sword and dagger wildly at the ratman on top of Goldpetal, trying to drive it back from Goldpetal’s body. He misses, but forces the ratman to retreat, buying Miriel space to treat the stricken elf. Miriel leaps to Goldpetal’s side, and begins bandaging his bleeding shoulder. Telryn casts color spray, and a rainbow of blinding brilliance bursts from his fingertips. It stuns three of the ratmen, knocking them unconscious, and leaving only one standing. The surviving rat man rushes towards the mage, leaping over the snake. It flaps its vestigial bat wing to help it glide the short distance, and claws Telryn as he desperately tries to reload his crossbow. The ratman’s teeth fill the young mage’s view as it tries to bite him, then Paks lops off its head, and it falls at her feet. Miriel and Paks rush towards Novalia and Hands of Fire. Miriel bandages Novalia, who is pale but breathing, while Paks ministers to Hands of Fire. She looks up with shock on her face. “He’s dead,” she says.Stunned silence follows her words, and then Miriel steps to his body. She checks for a pulse, but a sad shake of her head confirms the announcement. The great lizard warrior has passed to another place.While Paks sits in stunned silence, Chuck and Telryn administer the coup de grace to the remaining ratmen. Telryn shoots one with his crossbow, while Chuck slits throats of the other two.  Then, the process of administering healing begins in earnest. Miriel prays for Madriel’s healing upon the unconscious Goldpetal and Novalia. When they are conscious, the archer eats her chunk of the bread of life. Miriel gives Goldpetal her last chunk of bread, which the elf also eats. Telryn and Chuck both follow suit.Paks sighs, and gets to her feet. She places the newly forged morningstar across Hands of Fire’s chest, and closes his eyes. She leaves him everything he has carried with him, but does take his slice of the bread of life. She utters a brief prayer to Madriel, and a brief promise.The rest of us search the room quickly, but don’t find anything save the rubble and a lot of dust until Chuck looks behind the statue. “Guys, over here,” he calls. We walk over, and see a spiral stone staircase continuing down.“I don’t think we can go on,” Miriel says. “I think we should rest here.”Novalia argues, “There’s probably another ritual going on.”“We must stop it,” Goldpetal declares firmly. “There is no time to rest.”As though to make the druid’s point, an unearthly scream of pain echoes up from the earth. Without further discussion, Novalia runs for the staircase, followed by Goldpetal, then everyone else, with Miriel reluctantly bringing up the rear. We run sixty feet down the spiraling stairs, which describe a slow turn of about 180 degrees to the right. At the bottom we see a hall very similar to the one we just left. We’re entering from the opposite side this time. The marble walling this room is an unsettling deep blood red, and two braziers akin to the ones above bathe the room in a disturbing flickering purple light. A wide chasm runs through the center of the room, but it passes to the right of the altar, which is not cracked. At the far side, there’s a tall statue of a hideous being, perhaps 30’ tall. The crack runs through it. The wall behind the idol looks shadowy and insubstantial. We can see shadowy tentacles which appear to be seeking a way through it.What truly grabs our attention, however, is the angel bound to the cold altar. It is nearly fifteen feet tale, and is manacled, spread-eagled upon the massive stone slab. Standing around it are five Stricken led by a fearsome shaman. The shaman has two heads and two tentacles on either side, in addition to its arms, and a scorpion stinger. The angelic creature is being ritually tortured. Blasphemous runes have been carved into its flesh, and a pattern carved into the altar is filling with its glowing blood. The ratmen have removed the angel’s right eye and are in the process of sawing off its left wing. Miriel and Goldpetal both look shocked. “That’s a Hope!” the priestess cries, recognizing the angel as one of the celestial beings consecrated to Madriel, and she is alternately horrified and saddened at the blasphemous things which have been done to it. The druid, however, is gaping at the tentacles which are beginning to come through the far wall. He whispers a single name, in mortal terror:“Gormoth!”.</blockquote>

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