Day 6 - The Altar of Evil

The day begins like any other.

Waking up on a stone cold floor, covered in several days worth of blood, guts, and gore, some of which doesn't even belong to you. A stiff dungeon draught speeding under the wooden door, broken down to with an inch of falling completely off its hinges - only that door, Lotto's magical glyph, and that one eye of whomevers turn it is to be on watch.

Arnie has come to like the last watch. He meditates on the smell of a summer morning in Ainsun. He hasn't seen a sunrise in about a week now, or squinted through the dewey glare of a hillside as he absorbs the sounds and smells of a clean, peaceful morning.

A hundred push-ups, a stretch, armour up, and it's back to duty.

"What of this Orb?" he wonders. The good clerics feel its innate evil, and shun it. A simple gold sphere, three inches in diameter, shaped to resemble a human skull, sans lower jaw. Atop the crown is a raised diadem with depressions, perhaps designed to hold a small object.

As Arnie examines the object, he too starts to feel its power. Whilst holding the object, he feels as though it is searching for evil, and in so doing, contrasts strongly with the good clerics, Lotto, Guru, and Kazandra. Arnie senses that the possessor of this thing will be able to use its power to sense alignment, to know truth, and perhaps even to inflict harm on others. He wonders also, what might this device be capable of if possessed by a minion of evil, or used on an evil creature? And what might it turn into if indeed there are pieces missing that might fit into those depressions?

"Lotto! Wake-up! Catch!!" Arnie rouses Lotto and tosses the thing at the fumbling priestess. The prank conceals his deep-seated relief as it leaves his grasp.

Lotto reviles as she catches it - it might have been the testicle of a 3-days dead troll. "So what is this thing?" Arnie asks, "Why do we even have it?"

Lotto places it carefully on the ground, and reaches back to turn its face away. "I don't know. I don't think I want to know. But I'll see what I can divine."

Over the course of the morning, Lotto's research confirms the following:

• the item may also be known as The Orb of Golden Death, Yellowskull, Goldenskull, or the Death Orb;
• no good cleric or paladin will willingly touch it;
• the possessor can employ it to Know Alignment and Detect Lie;
• it has the ability to Poison, but you're not sure how this works;
• it may have detrimental effects on the possessor;
• it may have a powerful effect on certain Chaotic Evil creatures.

---

"Ok guys - let's get this job done. By the way Pan, I wouldn't go playing with that little statue. Remember what happened last time..." Vandross rallies the party, and gives a plain observation that, if you don't want to alert yourself to the "PTB" (Powers That Be) in these parts, fiddling with the little ebony statue of a four-inch tall grinning horned skull is probably the last thing you want to be doing.

---

To room 419 - The Greater Temple

This vast centre is impressive in its simplicity. The ceiling is a full sixty feet overhead and appears as a quiet outdoor night sky with stars gleaming in their constellations. The walls are lined with smooth onyx, of such fine craftmanship that the joints can barely be detected.

Around the sides of the room, eight corridors lead off into the unknown. High on the walls between each corridors are small flying buttresses.

Thirty feet north of the entrance is a series of broad steps, leading five feet upwards to a stone altar. Draped across the altar is a sheet of red silk, with an eight-pointed fire symbol embroidered upon it in golden thread.

Flanking the altar are two pillars of gold which reach to the ceiling overhead, and behind the altar is a glistening purple curtain, unmarked by any design. The walls beside the curtain bear ornate carvings - a triangle, an eight-pointed star, a square, and a circle.

In the niches just north of the altar stand monumental statues, each twenty feet tall. To the left is a humanoid garbed in robes, with a horned and grinning skull head. To the right is a monstrosity with a fat bulbous body, four elephantine legs, a long thin neck, and a tiny humanoid head surmounting the whole.

The party decides to explore west (420, leading to 421) and is suddenly engulfed in sleet. A trap? An invisible caster? To make matters worse, gargoyles swoop from the buttresses and attack the party, who are not only blinded by the ice, but also struggle to keep their feet. Pan flies up to avoid slipping, and confronts the main assault team. His stoneskins quickly evaporate, but Chris Bright manages to engage all four in a Hypnotic Pattern. Once Arnie is free of the storm, his decisive and powerful blows make short work of any enemy within range.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the storm, Vandross finds himself in an interesting pickle. Seems there are now TWO Vandross's. After a brief exchange of finger-pointing as to who the REAL Vandross is, and some less than helfpful suggestions from the party as to how best to resolve this problem, Vandross takes matters into his own hands and takes on the doppleganger one-on-one. Now if the doppelganger's mind reading capability had have been working properly, he would of known not to get too close those propellor blades Vandross calls daggers.

With the battle over, the party has the chance to examine the triangular room at the end of the brown corridor. The walls are unmarked save for a huge triangle on each wall, and a baleful red and white eye within each figure. A large circle is inscribed in the centre of the floor, and within it is another triangle, but without an eye.

Not wanting to be hasty, the party moves back to the Greater Temple, looking to explore some of the other corridors. But this time - ICE STORM! The party is hit hard by hail stones as they cross the room, knocking Dwervyn down. Vandross moves quickly to perform CPR, whilst Lotto steps forward to Detect Evil. Pan uses the Gem of Seeing, and reports that one of the statues seemed to be laughing at you. The party flees down the main corridor, with Lotto and Vandross covering the retreat.

What you learn is that the curtain itself radiates evil, and possibly behind the curtain are more evil creatures using magic against you whenever you are in range.

Now that you are back to a point of relative safety, the question is what to next? Do you attempt to avoid the barrage of spells from the altar area and continue to explore the corridors? Do you tackle the curtain directly? Or do you look for another way?

Comments

[TheDM]

One things for sure, you guys know how to buff. You should probably call yourself the Buff-meisters. Invisible, hasted, silent, enlarged, strength'd, flying, prayer'd, protection vs evil'd...

But what do you know you are defending yourself against? Have you got plans to mitigate in the event of sleet, ice storm, magic missiles, and whatever else you were throwing saves against? And is there anything else that is likely to be thrown at you?
If you don't go with an assault, do you go for sneak around in the corridors on level 4? Or is there anything you need to try?

[Arnie]

Buffing up with enlarge etc is good but I'm thinking we should be more careful with this encounter than a full on frontal assault. This is the "Altar of Evil" afterall, they seem to be "Boss" types or at least "Lesser Boss" types and I get a sense that the curtain gives them some kind of advantage.

[Vandross]

If we want to be extra prepared these ideas were tossed around as well:
Stone Skins
Endure Heat & Cold
Prayer
Enlarge Arnie & Vandross
Strength Arnie & Vandross
Haste
Dust devil the curtain
Sanctuary ???

So go hit a laughing statue at 8 x running with haste enacted while invisible & silenced coin tossed near curtain:
Invisible Enlarged Strengthened Arnie whacking with 2 handed sword in one hand against foolishly large enemy
Invisible Enlarged Strengthened Vandross +2 Long sword (d12) & +2 dagger in 2nd hand
Haste cast so is that double attacks ??? Something like 4 per round in 1st round each then RUNAWAY!
Guessing in vicinity of 100 + hp damage round 1, more if 2 more fighters having a go too likewise enabled.
Like an Aki and another daring damage dealer.
Possibly magic missile or 2 from spell casters as far down corridor as possible because they are always fun.
Plus Sarim and his fabulous this n that haste Bear etc?
And as we are stupidly fast (Haste) invisible and silent might just get the surprise round and be back in safe zone by start of round 2? Vandross thinks even though corridor would be great fun on horseback hasted with lance it probably isn't a good idea... even at full gallop... but is open to discussion.

Not that we shouldn't try to find a more well thought out way to deal with it all but... worth putting out there.
Kinda worked against the Dragon which had Pan under claw at the time from memory, he survived... not Dragon.
Keeping in mind Statues may not be anything we really need to deal with but then again they might be.
And like the recon but that is because it likely isn't me doing it...

Hey pretty sure nothing happened until we started exploring one of the branching off corridors so likely similar will happen when we venture down another? All need to be healed and spelled up I reckon.

Thoughts?

[Arnie]

Right.

So we sort of concluded that the plan going forward might be to cloak ourselves in invisibility 10 foot radius, and silence and then to go back into that room where we got ice stormed and take on the bad guys.

We got a clue from Mike - a scarab might be useful in the encounter. We were sort of talking about Arnie's drained scarab at the time but he made it clear that it wasn't Arnie's that he was talking about. Since I've been absent for most of this adventure, can anyone recall something scarab-like that might have been obtained at some point in this adventure?

Lotto did some evil detection - the purple curtain and then folks behind it lobbing spells at us were evil. If we do go in all invisible and silent, do we have an idea about how to get through the curtain? It might be as simple as pushing it aside but since it's evil, how about we assume it's going to be more difficult than that.

Alternatively, do we have a method for checking out what's going on behind the curtain without getting in a fight?

Could we send in Pan invisible for a bit and have him just observe the goings on in 419 without us going in?

Could we all go back in under invisibility and silence and just scope out the node/plane portal rooms and perhaps avoid any fight at all?

Lastly, could we draw them out for a fight in the open?

Let's come up with a good plan and then execute on it when we get back together for a face to face.

Arnie is down 19 HP but that's not as big a problem as it is for others. Healing is always useful when you're heading into this sort of situation. Are there any more healing options we can burn before we take this on? Is Sahrim an option? Mike? Can he wink off some healing spells now we've moved back to the base of operations?