Post by Dead Greyhawk on Apr 13, 2008 21:29:17 GMT -5
The Company went into the City of Hidden Guilt, forcing their way through the ruins, sending their band of merry men under Choatal's command to the docks to start a fire at daybreak. Fighting past two rakshasa, the Company eventually makes their way into the inhabited parts of the city. The Company paused to reconcile whether they planned to assault the temple before the sun rose, after the sun rose, or as the sun rose. They eventually realized that Choatal's distraction would hopefully draw the lizardmen away from the temple, so it would be best to be in the temple then, rather than trying to go against the flow of lizardmen.
The metropolis of the City of Hidden Guilt is large, and it takes many hours to carefully make their way through the ruins and into the city proper. A wandering, drunk guardsman is avoided, and the Company stealthily avoids a trio of guards at a well-lit intersection. The lizardmen seem to need light almost as much as the Company does.
The Company reaches the parade ground before the temple two hours before dawn. The Temple of Twillus reaches up into the sky, a ziggurat with apparently only one doorway in, a large set of stone double doors. The ziggurat lacks stairs on the exterior. Looming above is a great glinting statue of Twilus, sword upraised, reaching downwards at the parade ground.
The parade ground is flanked by smaller buildings, and, opposite the Temple, a large set of barracks sits behind a pool of muddy water. The pool is long and broad, but doesn't appear deep. Lights burn in the windows of the buildings, and the sound of guards in the buildings can be heard.
Dell sees no one within the Temple, so Jasper and those with the strangely fire resistant elven cloaks are sent in. Two lizardmen guards hide among the carved columns that support the thirty-five foot ceiling. Another statue of Twillus opposite the doors is partially obscured by the columns. The stench of death lingers by the statue and the columns near it.
The two lizardmen guards are paralyzed after a small scuffle, and the rest of the Company brought into the Temple. After briefly scouting the area surrounding the main temple, the Company finds many doors, several passageways, stairs upwards and a stone door blocking some unknown egress.
The lizardmen stir against their bonds, paralysis worn off, but appear unamenable to questioning. They struggle against their bonds, try to make noise, and lash their tails about. Even corporal punishment does not persuade them, and in the process, one is brutally crushed by Grisela's flail and killed. The Company carries the unconscious and dead lizardmen with them.
The Company ascends to the second story, which is full of doors, a pool, and large spaces. They find another stairwell upwards and reach the roof.
The roof is open to the air. The large statue of Twillus reaches down over a platform altar, smeared with blood and gore. Two large pits are visible, one by the platform altar, and one behind the statue. Both appear to descend more than ninety feet, the depth that Clift can see. One is hotter than the other and reeks of death and decay.
The Company plots to waylay those who have the prisoners when they bring them up to the top of the temple. After discussion, they plan to seal the front doors with magical wards and perhaps, instead of waiting, slaughter all within the temple. Dell commits the necessary spell of sealing to memory. He then leads those in the dark elven cloaks back to the temple area.
His keen hearing picks out the sounds of hissing and the small band stops as they near the ground floor. The stone door is missing, stairs lead down beyond them, and two lizardmen stand guard at the top of the stairs. Three other lizardmen hiss at each other where the Company has entered. They seem to be talking at a place close to where one of the lizardmen was slain. A huge black-clad lizardman, almost as big as Clift, enters from the temple area, briefly speaks to them, and returns. Dell and the others head back to the roof.
The Company decides to assault the large temple area below. They sneak down as quietly as possible and find the stone door closed again. The door into the temple area is shut as well. Rather than batter the door open, Pfiffwin creates a tunnel using his wand of earth and stone, and the Company quickly files through. No foes are found. The temple area is empty, and the front doors are closed.
Faced with the closed doors, they still have Dell ward the doors shut. Rather than begin the slaughter, they move to the stone panel and try to get it open. Al's eye doesn't see any catch, so Antonus knocks it open, over Raven's objections. The panel slides up in segments, curling back into the ceiling. The cloaked foursome go first, followed at some distance by the rest of the Company.
A corridor leads to the left, with doors leading off of it to the right and left, evenly spaced and heavily banded with iron. A dozen lizardmen hiss at each other before the doors. Dell drops blocks of ice on them, appearing from nothingness, crushing half of them where they stand. The others are quickly slain, with only minor wounds accruing to the Company.
The doors are locked, and Dell methodically checks for traps and then opens them. They reveal square rooms with dirty, muddy reed floors and manacles on three walls at the five foot mark. The first two are empty and the third difficult to open. While they struggle with it, Jasper hears human voices coming from the end of the passage. When this door is opened, three men are found, chained to the walls.
Only one is lucid and he names himself Alcazar, a captain of the Sea Princes. He tells of working as a mercenary in Sterich, caught in the retreat on Istivin. He accompanied the sage Will to meet with Hisspeck and was captured with him. These three men are the last of those captured with Will; at dawn on each of the recent days, men have been taken and sacrificed. Will and the lizard sage were kept in adjacent cells; if they are gone, they are to be sacrificed at dawn! Alcazar can confirm that minutes earlier a great amount of noise passed in the corridor outside his cell. Indeed, Otto's keen eye shows recent traffic out of the adjacent cells and that one held a human, another a lizardman.
Hugh summons Fido and has him gather the scents of Hisspeck and Will. Fido is set to track Will while Alcazar and his men are carried out of their cells. Fido leads to a hidden door at the bottom of the stairs and then back to the stairs. "First through the wall, then later up these stairs," growls the onyx dog. The Company has Fido lead them up. The trail goes back to where the lizardmen were seen on the first floor and then into the temple area. The hole in the wall is still there, and the Company uses it.
Fido leads them on a trail directly to the front doors. Dell opens them. "Lead on," tells Hugh to Fido. Fido looks out into the parade ground, lit buildings surrounding it, the sounds of lizardmen in the city. The sun is not yet up, perhaps another half-hour before dawn. Does Hugh really wish Fido to go out? wonders the onyx dog. Indeed Hugh does. Fido lopes forward, nose to the ground, following the trail through the middle of the parade ground, heading for the barracks on the far side of the pool.
The Company begins to head out after the dog. "But wait," says Dell, "do we really want to expose ourselves to any line of sight? We'll be very obvious if we do so." Indeed, the Company does wish to, and they head straight out across the courtyard.
The alarm is almost immediately sounded, with the Company perhaps halfway across the parade ground. Almost a hundred lizardmen pour forth from two buildings as the Company closes ranks. A fierce battle takes place, with almost another hundred lizardmen joining in. Fireballs are thrown, ice storms cast, stinking clouds summoned, gods and goddesses might invoked to paralyze their enemies, javelins flung, and men and women grappled.
The battle continues. The red block objects are the buildings surrounding the square, except for the one with the statue on top, the Temple of Twillus. The white dice are lizardmen in hold person spells. The green dice are lizardmen sergeants in hold person spells. The black dice are lizardmen captains in hold person spells. The blue tupperware tops are the pool of water, broad but shallow.
Starting from the right, the doors of the temple, sealed by Dell, echo with the sound of repeated battering.
Florin, cut off and surrounded, is knocked to the ground and rent, now at -7. A timely slow spell by Dell has drawn out his death and caught the lizardmen surrounding him in its grasp.
Alcazar has fled the battle, leaving his two compatriots unconscious and weakened on the field. Clift and Adrienne, who were carrying them, have left them there in the crush of battle.
Dell, having established a stinking cloud as a defensive barrier and using his hold person spell and ice storm spells, is currently engaged with a lizardman sergeant, armed with an obsidian sword. Dell is slightly wounded.
Adrienne is toe to toe with a small horde of lizardmen. After casting a series of hold person spells, three of them have jumped her and dragged her to the ground. She's slightly wounded and grappled.
Antonus hovers over the battlefield, fifty feet up, casting spells at folk. He's got fly and protection from normal missiles going. He was injured in the opening salvo of lizardman javelins.
The cardboard circle is the stinking cloud, up now for 6 rounds
Fido hides by the side of the building.
Winthrop has been mobbed by lizardmen who have attacked him, believing him to be unarmored. He is injured but not grappled. He's immune to normal missiles.
Clift, Solaria, Adler, Jasper, and Raven form a fighting block. The battle has gone poorly suddenly, with Raven and Adler both being grappled. Jasper is sorely wounded and Clift has taken a mighty blow as well. Clift's sword screams in vengeance and struggles with Clift's control.
Perrin and Cedrus are also beset. Perrin has been tackled by two lizardmen, Cedrus by one. They are overshadowed by the huge Tyrannosaurus Rex that rends the lizardmen, though the lizardmen leaders shout that it is not real. Pfiffwin hides in the shadow of the building, controlling this spectral force.
Al, Grizela, Hugh, and Otto form the other cluster of fighters, and they have been mobbed as well. The sweat and blood made Otto's sword slippery and he has lost his grip once already. The heavily armored warriors have been swamped and grappled. One holds Otto, one holds Hugh, two hold Grizela, and two hold Al.
The two buildings nearest the temple are ruined temples to lizardman gods. Four of the nearby lit buildings have disgorged lizardmen; two of the lit building have not. The carnage among the lizardmen is great. The Company has slain 60 warriors and 4 sergeants, as well as holding many more, but the drums beat in the background, likely calling for reinforcements. There is no sight of Will, Hisspeck, or the large lizardman clad in black.
The metropolis of the City of Hidden Guilt is large, and it takes many hours to carefully make their way through the ruins and into the city proper. A wandering, drunk guardsman is avoided, and the Company stealthily avoids a trio of guards at a well-lit intersection. The lizardmen seem to need light almost as much as the Company does.
The Company reaches the parade ground before the temple two hours before dawn. The Temple of Twillus reaches up into the sky, a ziggurat with apparently only one doorway in, a large set of stone double doors. The ziggurat lacks stairs on the exterior. Looming above is a great glinting statue of Twilus, sword upraised, reaching downwards at the parade ground.
The parade ground is flanked by smaller buildings, and, opposite the Temple, a large set of barracks sits behind a pool of muddy water. The pool is long and broad, but doesn't appear deep. Lights burn in the windows of the buildings, and the sound of guards in the buildings can be heard.
Dell sees no one within the Temple, so Jasper and those with the strangely fire resistant elven cloaks are sent in. Two lizardmen guards hide among the carved columns that support the thirty-five foot ceiling. Another statue of Twillus opposite the doors is partially obscured by the columns. The stench of death lingers by the statue and the columns near it.
The two lizardmen guards are paralyzed after a small scuffle, and the rest of the Company brought into the Temple. After briefly scouting the area surrounding the main temple, the Company finds many doors, several passageways, stairs upwards and a stone door blocking some unknown egress.
The lizardmen stir against their bonds, paralysis worn off, but appear unamenable to questioning. They struggle against their bonds, try to make noise, and lash their tails about. Even corporal punishment does not persuade them, and in the process, one is brutally crushed by Grisela's flail and killed. The Company carries the unconscious and dead lizardmen with them.
The Company ascends to the second story, which is full of doors, a pool, and large spaces. They find another stairwell upwards and reach the roof.
The roof is open to the air. The large statue of Twillus reaches down over a platform altar, smeared with blood and gore. Two large pits are visible, one by the platform altar, and one behind the statue. Both appear to descend more than ninety feet, the depth that Clift can see. One is hotter than the other and reeks of death and decay.
The Company plots to waylay those who have the prisoners when they bring them up to the top of the temple. After discussion, they plan to seal the front doors with magical wards and perhaps, instead of waiting, slaughter all within the temple. Dell commits the necessary spell of sealing to memory. He then leads those in the dark elven cloaks back to the temple area.
His keen hearing picks out the sounds of hissing and the small band stops as they near the ground floor. The stone door is missing, stairs lead down beyond them, and two lizardmen stand guard at the top of the stairs. Three other lizardmen hiss at each other where the Company has entered. They seem to be talking at a place close to where one of the lizardmen was slain. A huge black-clad lizardman, almost as big as Clift, enters from the temple area, briefly speaks to them, and returns. Dell and the others head back to the roof.
The Company decides to assault the large temple area below. They sneak down as quietly as possible and find the stone door closed again. The door into the temple area is shut as well. Rather than batter the door open, Pfiffwin creates a tunnel using his wand of earth and stone, and the Company quickly files through. No foes are found. The temple area is empty, and the front doors are closed.
Faced with the closed doors, they still have Dell ward the doors shut. Rather than begin the slaughter, they move to the stone panel and try to get it open. Al's eye doesn't see any catch, so Antonus knocks it open, over Raven's objections. The panel slides up in segments, curling back into the ceiling. The cloaked foursome go first, followed at some distance by the rest of the Company.
A corridor leads to the left, with doors leading off of it to the right and left, evenly spaced and heavily banded with iron. A dozen lizardmen hiss at each other before the doors. Dell drops blocks of ice on them, appearing from nothingness, crushing half of them where they stand. The others are quickly slain, with only minor wounds accruing to the Company.
The doors are locked, and Dell methodically checks for traps and then opens them. They reveal square rooms with dirty, muddy reed floors and manacles on three walls at the five foot mark. The first two are empty and the third difficult to open. While they struggle with it, Jasper hears human voices coming from the end of the passage. When this door is opened, three men are found, chained to the walls.
Only one is lucid and he names himself Alcazar, a captain of the Sea Princes. He tells of working as a mercenary in Sterich, caught in the retreat on Istivin. He accompanied the sage Will to meet with Hisspeck and was captured with him. These three men are the last of those captured with Will; at dawn on each of the recent days, men have been taken and sacrificed. Will and the lizard sage were kept in adjacent cells; if they are gone, they are to be sacrificed at dawn! Alcazar can confirm that minutes earlier a great amount of noise passed in the corridor outside his cell. Indeed, Otto's keen eye shows recent traffic out of the adjacent cells and that one held a human, another a lizardman.
Hugh summons Fido and has him gather the scents of Hisspeck and Will. Fido is set to track Will while Alcazar and his men are carried out of their cells. Fido leads to a hidden door at the bottom of the stairs and then back to the stairs. "First through the wall, then later up these stairs," growls the onyx dog. The Company has Fido lead them up. The trail goes back to where the lizardmen were seen on the first floor and then into the temple area. The hole in the wall is still there, and the Company uses it.
Fido leads them on a trail directly to the front doors. Dell opens them. "Lead on," tells Hugh to Fido. Fido looks out into the parade ground, lit buildings surrounding it, the sounds of lizardmen in the city. The sun is not yet up, perhaps another half-hour before dawn. Does Hugh really wish Fido to go out? wonders the onyx dog. Indeed Hugh does. Fido lopes forward, nose to the ground, following the trail through the middle of the parade ground, heading for the barracks on the far side of the pool.
The Company begins to head out after the dog. "But wait," says Dell, "do we really want to expose ourselves to any line of sight? We'll be very obvious if we do so." Indeed, the Company does wish to, and they head straight out across the courtyard.
The alarm is almost immediately sounded, with the Company perhaps halfway across the parade ground. Almost a hundred lizardmen pour forth from two buildings as the Company closes ranks. A fierce battle takes place, with almost another hundred lizardmen joining in. Fireballs are thrown, ice storms cast, stinking clouds summoned, gods and goddesses might invoked to paralyze their enemies, javelins flung, and men and women grappled.
The battle continues. The red block objects are the buildings surrounding the square, except for the one with the statue on top, the Temple of Twillus. The white dice are lizardmen in hold person spells. The green dice are lizardmen sergeants in hold person spells. The black dice are lizardmen captains in hold person spells. The blue tupperware tops are the pool of water, broad but shallow.
Starting from the right, the doors of the temple, sealed by Dell, echo with the sound of repeated battering.
Florin, cut off and surrounded, is knocked to the ground and rent, now at -7. A timely slow spell by Dell has drawn out his death and caught the lizardmen surrounding him in its grasp.
Alcazar has fled the battle, leaving his two compatriots unconscious and weakened on the field. Clift and Adrienne, who were carrying them, have left them there in the crush of battle.
Dell, having established a stinking cloud as a defensive barrier and using his hold person spell and ice storm spells, is currently engaged with a lizardman sergeant, armed with an obsidian sword. Dell is slightly wounded.
Adrienne is toe to toe with a small horde of lizardmen. After casting a series of hold person spells, three of them have jumped her and dragged her to the ground. She's slightly wounded and grappled.
Antonus hovers over the battlefield, fifty feet up, casting spells at folk. He's got fly and protection from normal missiles going. He was injured in the opening salvo of lizardman javelins.
The cardboard circle is the stinking cloud, up now for 6 rounds
Fido hides by the side of the building.
Winthrop has been mobbed by lizardmen who have attacked him, believing him to be unarmored. He is injured but not grappled. He's immune to normal missiles.
Clift, Solaria, Adler, Jasper, and Raven form a fighting block. The battle has gone poorly suddenly, with Raven and Adler both being grappled. Jasper is sorely wounded and Clift has taken a mighty blow as well. Clift's sword screams in vengeance and struggles with Clift's control.
Perrin and Cedrus are also beset. Perrin has been tackled by two lizardmen, Cedrus by one. They are overshadowed by the huge Tyrannosaurus Rex that rends the lizardmen, though the lizardmen leaders shout that it is not real. Pfiffwin hides in the shadow of the building, controlling this spectral force.
Al, Grizela, Hugh, and Otto form the other cluster of fighters, and they have been mobbed as well. The sweat and blood made Otto's sword slippery and he has lost his grip once already. The heavily armored warriors have been swamped and grappled. One holds Otto, one holds Hugh, two hold Grizela, and two hold Al.
The two buildings nearest the temple are ruined temples to lizardman gods. Four of the nearby lit buildings have disgorged lizardmen; two of the lit building have not. The carnage among the lizardmen is great. The Company has slain 60 warriors and 4 sergeants, as well as holding many more, but the drums beat in the background, likely calling for reinforcements. There is no sight of Will, Hisspeck, or the large lizardman clad in black.
