Iuz makes an appearance

Late on day 4 of the Temple investigation, you're back together. Resting, memorising, planning, and doing push-ups.

Looks like someone has come to find out what happened to Falrinth. A late night wandering wizard was caught short and found himself on the end of Arnie's sword.

Wizard: "Wall of Fie-yarr - ha HAAAAA!!!"

Arnie: pauses <shrug>

Wizard: "Huh? You just walked straight through my Wall of...." <gurgle>

Yeeup. Arnie's bad-ass.

Oh - and Sahrim - nice work on the Detect Poison. Yeah. That was a *good* idea. I mean we all know how much dwarves like to quaff poison BUT...

DAY 5

Ok. Here's the plan. We go in - front door - start punching guys in the face. Their friends come. We kill them. We kill their friends. We take their stuff. Don't talk to me about strategy son, *I* know strategy. I know heaps of it.

OR

We disguise someone as that wizard, who kinda looked important around here, and lure a few bad guys out, killing them swiftly and quietly. When we can see a hole in their defences, we conceal ourselves and sneak in, springing our trap on the unsuspecting guards.

We also take out one of their commanders in his sleep, go toe-to-toe with Iuz the Evil and a few minions for a couple of rounds just to see what he's made of, then organise a diversion whilst an agent of good planted deep inside the temple shows us to an escape route where we can re-group.

What will we use as a diversion? Easy. We just happen to have a beagle, who is actually a hydra, but who *thinks* he's a beagle. We dispel him back into a hydra, and make our grand escape.

Press "play" on that one!

---

Well as it turns out, plan B is the better one.

What next then?

The Guru has been recalling, slowly, parts of a poem that seems to relate to the Temple and the powers within.

Kella (your secret agent on the inside) has also told you about the existence of portals somewhere in the lower levels that lead to elemental planes. Although some lead directly to the plane - a potentially lethal environment - some lead to elemental "nodes". Although the nodes are no doubt hostile, they are potentially habitable, and may contain the secrets to eradicating the evil in the temple and surrounds.

But what about that mysterious part of level 3 that you know about but have struggled to access? What about those brass-bound doors? Have you missed something critical here, or are you best to leave it alone and come back to it?

You've suppressed the factional elements on the upper levels effectively, and even hurt the Greater Temple guard. But with Iuz on the prowl and god knows what else, how long will it be before new, stronger factions emerge from the seemingly endless supply of evil-doers passing through Nulb and the surrounding areas.

TheDM.