The Temple of Nergal, Part Three:
The Tunnels
The Tunnels
Dramatis Personae:
KlikKlick BoomBoom, the
TickTick, KlikKlik's Giant Bat animal companion
Klak, KlikKlik's Flying Snake construct
Taryn Al'Maera, the Drow Assassin and future Ralliakkan
Niss'RizDax Kenarn, the Drow Sword Dancer Priestess of Eilistraee, "the Moonlit Dancer"
Thea, Dax's red Faerie Dragon familiar
Xara, the Dorc Circus Eldritch Knight and Abjurationist Wizard
Baxter, Xara's red Faerie Dragon familiar
Comrades we have lost:
Sonitri, the Samsaran Arcane Prodigy Sorcerer- went home
Nyneve, the Water Genasi Druid of the Fountain- eaten by zombies
NOTE: Things will be mostly from Dax's perspective, anything in italics is from a third party view, since the priestess can't be everywhere at once.
***** Thrimidge 10, 480, Crossroads
Since we were waiting for the military to get back to us about that temple, we spent the day shopping and screwing around in town. Xara wanted a familiar, and was interested in faerie dragons, and since she couldn't simply summon a fey spirit as I had and give it that form, Thea gave her the name of a faerie dragon she knew who might be amiable to being her familiar. His name is Baxter, and he seemed rather annoyed at being summoned, though Thea and I couldn't hear what was said. Xara convinced him to become her familiar, so now we each have a little faerie dragon companion. After that I left her to study with the wizards and I went shopping.
***** Thrimidge 11, Crossroads
During her studies, Xara asked one of the mages in the tower about duckbears. This mage was an illusionist wizard who had heard about the ongoing prank Taryn and KlikKlik were spreading, and decided to join the fun. He told Xara the tower had one in a cage, and led her to a back room. The wizard used his illusion skills to make Xara believe he was leading her very far down a spiral staircase, to a secret room, and once she reached the illusionary room, Xara laid her eyes on a caged duckbear. The Dorc squealed in glee at finally laying her eyes on the beast she'd been yearning to see, and hurried back to her studies.
When Xara got back to the inn this morning, she told me that she'd seen a duckbear in the tower today. Apparently this elaborate prank has taken a turn, random wizards have joined in on the gag now. I probably shouldn't have let the prank get to this point, but I didn't realize that she would take it so seriously. She was flushed with excitement as she told me all about the duckbear in the secret room. I wouldn't be surprised if a few of those mages actually made duckbears a real thing. That seems to be where this damn joke is leading to, now that the mage tower is in on it.
We returned to the Mage Tower shortly after breakfast and met with Major General Mavha Trak'len again. She asked us to return to the Temple and assess whatever threat may remain there, because they didn't have the manpower to look into it themselves. She said we shouldn't take more than a day to return because who knows what those ghosts are up to. We took a memory stone from her and said we'd leave around midday.
Most of the corpses that weren't locked inside the Temple had been drug away by animals when we got back, and it was back to that eerie silence. There didn't seem to be anything waiting to ambush us in the area, and aside from those bodies being drug off, the Temple was exactly how we'd left it. We looked at the two paths that the ghosts had gone down, and after a moment of debate we chose to take the path on the right. Taryn found a couple of traps in the path, but with her help we were able to avoid them.
Eventually we entered a spacious room that had two tunnels going out of it, one directly ahead, and the other to our left- presumably the path we didn't take from the amphitheater. There were tables in the room with embalming tools and other things to protect corpses from decay- possibly mummy making tools. Great. There was another mural on the wall of this room, depicting the forces of Nergal destroying those of Gilgeam. Once we determined there was nothing lurking and waiting for us in this room, we continued on the path.
After following the tunnel through a few forks, we found what appeared to be a storage room. It held more embalming tools, and lots of barrels and crates that had rotted through. The next room we came upon appeared to be a bedroom, and everything in it was crumbled and rotten with age.
As we continued exploring the tunnels, they began looking a lot nicer, the stone was smoother and there were designs on the walls. The tunnel opened up into a corridor that had several alcoves on the walls. We waited at the mouth of the tunnel while Taryn snuck up to one of the alcoves, and something popped out at her- another fucking zombie.
There were ten of the fuckers- five on each side of the corridor. Taryn ripped into the zombie, but she wasn't able to drop it- the zombies surrounded Taryn and Xara, and dropped Taryn. I enjoyed healing her to revive her, since she hates it so much, and as soon as she was up, TickTick grabbed her and got her out of that mess. Xara had to disengage herself from the horde. Klik shot at them to pus a bunch of them away from Xara, but they got back to her quickly and ripped into her viciously- I was surprised she didn't go down, but relieved she doesn't. Sometimes I really hate my lady's need to get right in the face of everything we fight. At that I set up a bottleneck with my Moon Path, winding the ribbon down the corridor so they couldn't get to us. I hoped Xara would be smart enough to stay on the safer side of the Path, but I knew her better than that.
Xara broke off from the zombies and came back to me for healing. Taryn dropped a globe of darkness over the bulk of the group, taking Tick and Klak with her- since they didn't need to see in the dark. Of course Xara was pissed that Taryn dropped the darkness, and started making her way toward it, grumbling about drow and their obsession with darkness. Sometimes it's very clear that she was not raised in the Underdark. I tossed a couple of fireballs at the nicely clumped group of zombies, and I could hear sounds of fighting coming from Taryn's darkness. With them so nicely contained, we were able to finish the group off with ease. At least we've got a tactic now for dealing with these fuckers. We later learned from the mages that the designs that had been on the tunnels were about two dynasties, Azouf and Haron, who were Nergal's loyal servants, and that these zombies had been some of those kings.
After that we headed back up a ways to take a breather, and to our surprise Fred popped in to check on us while we were resting. Apparently he had felt bad about leaving us up there alone, and wanted to make sure we were still alive.
We retraced our steps and went down a new path, and spent forever trying to get Klik to make a decision about which path to take- she just couldn't make up her mind- and I could tell Taryn was about to strangle her. When we finally had reached a decision about which way to go, Klik slipped Taryn the duck call. A while later we heard a quack come from a long way up the tunnel- which Xara instantly thought was a fucking duckbear. Somehow that turned into the thought that it was a zombie duckbear, which just sounded absurd, but Xara seemed ready to believe anything about duckbears. I adore her, but sometimes she can be so dumb. I really shouldn't have let this joke continue for this long, but I had honestly thought she'd catch on that they were fucking with her, and now telling her would just be mean. Besides, I'm from the Underdark of the Old World, it would make sense that I might think they could be real. My lady was a bit disappointed when we never found out where the duckbear was hiding.
These tunnels had the stories about one of the dynasties on them, showing great battles unfolding, telling the deeds of one of the families. We traveled for hours, watching the story of this ancient house unfold, and eventually the pictures stopped and there was just writing. We couldn't read it, but learned later that this was the entrance to the crypt of one of the dynasties. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of bodies in this room. They didn't seem to be active, but we had the sinking suspicion that they wouldn't stay down for much longer. We'd occasionally see a ghost pop out of a corpse and go into another one, but that was the only sign of movement. We headed back to take a rest before going through the rest of the tunnels.
***** Thrimidge 12, Demonsclaw Mountains, Temple of Nergal
While we rested, Fred showed up again, and decided to hang out with us for a while.
We spent hours going through the tunnels, and found thousands of peasants in two different caverns. Another cavern had heaps of bodies, likely in the thousands, just piled there, having been discarded with no care. We couldn't tell how big the room was, with all the piles of bodies, but the ghosts were bouncing around in this room too.
Eventually we came into another corridor depicting the stories of the other house, and found more bodies in nice looking gear. We estimated there were about 25,000 troops in this Temple. Great.
Once we had searched the entire Temple, we hightailed it back to Crossroads. We weren't stupid or suicidal enough to attempt to do anything on our own.
***** Thrimidge 13, Crossroads
We got to Crossroads as the sun was rising, and spent the next eight hours in the tower going over everything. After that I checked in at the Temple of Eilistraee and told them about the Temple of Nergal. I think that the Temple of Nergal would be good for our cause, once we'd cleared out the undead of course, I wanted us to cleanse it and reclaim it in the name of Eilistraee. The head priestess of my temple agreed with me, but wouldn't give us any people to help cleanse the temple. We just didn't have the numbers.
We decided to go carousing tonight to blow off some steam. Later in the evening, when I turned away to get a drink, Xara vanished, and didn't turn up again until the next morning. Apparently she woke up in a field outside of town, sore and bruised.
***** Thrimidge 14, Crossroads
Just after breakfast, Mavha summoned us to the tower again. She thanked us again for our service to the Realm, and said she had an offer for us. We would be given the rank for 1st Lieutenants in the military, along with the wages that came with it, and would each have a force of mercenaries to control. Mavha said we'd be paid per mission, plus a $5,000 signing bonus; Taryn said if they gave us Pinkerton and doubled the money she'd do it. Mavha agreed to Taryn's terms, we collected our $10,000 each and were told that they'd have our teams soon. They had sent scouts to the Temple in the meantime to keep an eye on it.
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