The Temple of Nergal, Part Two:
The Statues
The Statues
Dramatis Personae:
KlikKlick BoomBoom, the
TickTick, KlikKlik's Giant Bat animal companion
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
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 8, 480, The Temple of Nergal
When we finished our rest, we took stock of our supplies, and realized how tapped out we were. Taryn decided to fly back to Crossroads to get us more items, while the rest of us stayed behind. I brewed healing potions and KlikKlik worked on building some items, though I'm not sure what. Since I had the makings for several half potions, Xara volunteered to go look for the rest of the ingredients I needed, taking Tick and Thea with her.
While Xara was gathering what Dax needed for potions, a pack of eight wolves attacked. Thea used her euphoria breath to make the alpha run away. Xara then killed five other wolves and knocked another unconscious, which made the final wolf run away in terror.
On the way back from shopping, Taryn was attacked by two giant owls, and she killed them easily.
***** Thrimidge 9, The Temple of Nergal
We opened the next set of doors at dawn, and were greeted to a large coliseum/amphitheater, with piles of bones in the stone chairs. There were stone statues like the ones we'd faced in the first room, with candelabra near them, and scattered throughout the rest of the room. On the other side of the room was an altar made of basalt, with a desiccated body laying on it, that was decked out in some pretty nice equipment.
As we walked in, the candelabra began to light up, that wasn't fucking ominous or anything. At the very end of the room was a massive statue of Nergal, with a tapestry behind him and two paths that broke off in different directions. The tapestries depicted a fight between Nergal and Gilgeam, who was the head of the Unther pantheon. One path was next to the picture of Nergal, the other next to Gilgeam. Somehow, the tapestry was in perfect condition, untouched by the centuries this place had been abandoned for- it was probably preserved by magic.
When we were about halfway across the room, ghosts began to appear in the seats. There had to have been at least 300 of the fuckers. We all felt ourselves age at the horror of seeing so many ghosts; though it only seemed to affect Xara since she wasn't a full drow. Then another ghost appeared before the altar and began preaching in a language we couldn't understand. It was so unnerving that we all froze in place. After what felt like eternity, but was really only like a minute or so, the ghost of the priest flew into the body on the altar, the other ghosts flew down each of the hallways, and the statues animated. A voice told us we were to be sacrificed to Nergal. Great.
Taryn flew straight at the priest and shot him, but she didn't seem to penetrate his shield. Great. I attempted to banish him, but he shrugged it off and said some sort of Power Word that flung Taryn from her broom and slammed her into the ceiling. The statues picked up the candelabra and began throwing them at us like they were javelins. One of the candelabra slammed hard into my side, and I began bleeding profusely. Another hit Klik, but didn't seem to hurt her as much as the one that had struck me- the others were lucky, none of the candelabra managed to hit them.
Klik sent acid at one of the statues, and seemed to hurt it. Xara decided to fly up to the priest and slashed at him with her blades; Taryn followed up by shooting him. His sword lit up and he slashed at Taryn, hitting her pretty hard- I wish she'd let me heal her- and a sadistic, gleeful chuckle came from our undead foe. At that, I cast out a blessing of Eilistraee at my friends- and Taryn actually accepted it! She really doesn't make sense to me, she'll accept a blessing of Eilistraee, but she won't accept healing magic that can save her life. A globe of darkness appeared on Taryn, Xara, and the priest. Great.
Klik, Tick, and I concentrated our fire on a single statue right before we heard Taryn scream in darkness, and a blast of fire bloomed out of the dark. Great. I could tell what strategy Taryn was going for- it was a typical one taught in the Underdark- so I didn't dispel the darkness to investigate, all I could do was pray that Taryn and Xara were okay, and trust that Eilistraee would protect them. The statues had run out of candelabra to throw at us, and began picking each other up and wielding their comrades as weapons. Honestly, it was kind of comical to watch these massive statues swinging each other around as if they were swords. Since Tick has echolocation, Klik sent him to help with the priest while we kept working on the statues, who had put themselves into a nice cluster, so I dropped a fireball on them. Then one of them hit me and I felt myself slip into unconsciousness.
At the sight of Dax falling, KlikKlik called for everyone to fall back. She had TickTick revive Dax and fly her toward the doors, while she shot the statues with acid.
Within the globe of darkness, Taryn told Xara she was about to do something crazy and Xara needed to get the hell away. The Dorc listened. Taryn had stuffed her bag of holding with 35 pounds of gunpowder, all of her extra bullets, alchemical fire, and oil... then set a fuse going into the bag. She lit the fuse and managed to slip into a room that was concealed by the tapestries. Taryn managed to turn a table on end to shield herself just before the massive explosion rocked the room. Neither Taryn or the priest went down from the explosion.
I saw a massive explosion from the area I'd last seen Taryn, and smoke obscured all vision of the area. I had a feeling she was still alive though, that bitch is hard to kill. Tick brought me to the doorway, and Xara followed. I used a wonderful spell Eilistraee had just opened to me, and dropped a large path made of moonlight in front of the doorway, creating a barricade big enough for us to hide behind, but still shoot at them over. Taryn emerged from the smoke, yelling at us that he was right behind her, and she ran for my path- Klik was also heading to us.
The priest shouted out another Power Word at Taryn as she worked to retreat. Once we were all safely behind my barricade, Klik shot the priest with a silence bullet, preventing him from casting any spells. We were all shooting at the priest and his statues from over the wall, with me working to keep everyone healed- except Taryn, of course. The priest began trying to dig the bullet out of his arm, and once he got it out, he dispelled my path. Klik shot him with another silence bullet and I got my path back up, keeping us sheltered.
As the others kept shooting at our enemies from behind my path, I attempted to beseech Eilistraee for help, but she was unable to grant me assistance. It seemed she wanted me to do this on my own, so I kept shooting our foes from the safety of my wall. After taking a couple of nasty shots from Taryn, the priest finally seemed injured. We kept working at it, and after what felt like an eternity, Taryn blew the priest up! It took another five minutes to mop up the mooks, but we had succeeded! I just had to have faith in myself and my friends that we'd succeed, I think I understood the message Eilistraee was sending by not helping me.
Klik decided the altar had to be destroyed right away, and once we finished destroying it, we all took a rest. We were exhausted from that fight, and drenched in blood. While Xara and Klik slept, Taryn and I decided we needed to go back to Crossroads. We didn't think we could get through the rest of this place without help. As soon as the others were up, we went right back to Crossroads, locking the temple behind us.
We got back to town at nightfall, and reported to our respective groups. Unfortunately the Temple of Eilistraee wouldn't be able to give us much assistance, there really weren't many of us here yet.
After everyone had reported in, we took this odd book we'd found in the temple to the Mage Tower, and had them record our memories of the temple.
No comments:
Post a Comment