Entering The Temple Of Death

Moving silently apart from the chinking and creaking of their armor, they walk through the quiet streets and alleyways of the 2nd level, heading for the stairs that take them down to the 3rd. Upon descending to the next level, they take a little more caution as they continue on their journey towards the Temple of Smurt, reaching it after a further 10 minutes.

Just before the Temple comes into view, Porter stops them all:

"Let me check out the situation first of all," he says and then, without waiting for a response, quietly pads off towards the Temple.

He returns a couple of minutes later:

"Everything looks OK to me," he reports. "The doors to the Temple are closed shut and there's no sign of anyone around, apart from a couple of Crips loitering around. I guess they must be the lookouts that the Temple of Zlodey put onto the case though."

Winnacer nods and looks at the others:

"Are we ready to do this task then?" he asks.

All nod in agreement:

"Then let's do it," the young Lord says as he starts to walk as quietly as he can towards the Temple with the others following closely behind him.

As Porter reported, the coast is clear. They can't see the Crips either, but do not doubt that they are around somewhere, hiding in the shadows, out of sight of those that don't know exactly where to look.

They approach the Temple, keeping to the shadows of the buildings in the flickering torchlight of the public lighting of the level. They keep a wide berth of the nave of the Temple that juts out from the northern rock face of the level and make their way around the side to the wall just to the west of it.

They stand against the wall, trying to keep as hidden as possible, nervous that the doors to the Temple may open.

Winnacer looks to the Bastioness:

"If you please, Bastioness," he says to her.

The dwarven female produces a lump of damp clay from her pouch and starts to mold it into a pancake between her hands. As she does so, Winnacer speaks to the MasterSmith:

"I know that you only have only been blessed with two of the silencing spells, but I think that it's important that we at least get inside the Temple without raising the alarm."

"I understand," replies the dwarven priest of Zelezny. "I'll cast it on a piece of copper. That way, we can carry it with us."

The dwarf then takes a copper piece from his pouch and starts to cast upon it.

Just before the dwarf finishes his chanting, Winnacer slings the caliver off his shoulder and lights the match:

"We should be prepared to take out the priest inside quickly as soon as the hole has been made," he says.

Gristan starts to chuckle wildly and pulls his cloak aside to reveal his own caliver. The others see that it is a particularly wide looking weapon, but it is only after he has unslung it from his shoulder and lights the twin matches that they see that it is, in fact, two calivers lashed together.

As he sees the others staring at the weapon, he laughs a little more wildly:

"Don't try this at home, kids," he says, anchoring the stocks against his hip.

Everything around them then goes quiet as the MasterSmith finishes casting his spell. He sees the Bastioness mouthing something to him that he does not understand. It is only when she makes shooing motions with her hand that he realizes that the Bastioness cannot cast within the silenced area. A little sheepishly, he walks some 20' away from the rest of the group.

Once he is out of the way, the Bastioness starts to utter the familiar incantation to the stone shaping spell. She continues to chant for a full minute until she says the last word of the spell and slaps the pancake against the wall. Immediately that she does so, the MasterSmith runs forwards to silence the area.

Immediately the stone starts to melt away to the sides, forming a narrow hole just four feet high and a little over a foot wide through the rock. As it opens up, they see nothing but blackness revealed behind it. Gristan immediately walks to the hole and sticks his twin-caliver inside it. He peers in, but does not react. It appears from his lack of reaction that Gristan has seen no one inside using his infravision. The dwarf then proceeds to enter the room, which is not without difficulty due to the fact that it is quite a squeeze to get through with his half-plate. Were it not for the silencing ensorcellment carried by the MasterSmith, he would be making a hell of a lot of noise as he entered.

As Gristan continues to struggle through, Faewen'il lights her lantern and, once Gristan is finally inside the office, she shines it through the hole. She sees that the room is exactly as it was when she saw it before, but that it is currently empty.

The rest of them squeeze through the hole in order to enter into the office. Porter, Yaz and Fae, unburdened by armor, have little problem in squeezing through the hole, but it takes a while for the two remaining dwarves and Winnacer, especially, to get through.

Once they are inside, they can see that the door to the corridor is shut. There is some faint light just visible under the doorway, showing that there are torches burning on the opposite side of the door. While they are in there, they quickly search around the office. There are piles of documents lying around the place, which Fae has a quick look through. She quickly determines, however, that all of the documents and books in the place are of a fairly mundane nature, relating only to the day-to-day running of the Temple. Porter has a quick look around to see if there is anything of value around. To his immense lack of surprise, however, he sees that there is not. He then heads towards the door and sees that it is locked from the outside.

He starts to investigate the lock carefully, looking for traps. After a couple of minutes, he assures himself that the door appears to be untrapped. He then takes a set of tools from his pouch, then crouches down before it and proceeds to start to work upon the lock. In a little over a minute, he grins, gives the pliers in his hand a final twist and the bolt moves away and he looks a little smug as he pushes the door open a little and peers through it.

He sees that, on the opposite side of the door there is a 'C' shaped corridor, identical to the one that Faewen'il drew on her map. It is dimly lit by lanterns, but there is sufficient light to see that the two doors into the public area of the Temple, and the one door leading back into private areas are all shut.

Winnacer motions to the MasterSmith that they need to discuss what to do next and so he deposits the silenced coin, which has just a few more minutes left to run, in the corridor. He then comes back into the office so that he too can participate in the planning session.

Winnacer looks at Porter thoughtfully:

"Let's start heading towards the second level and the ghouls waiting for us. If our priests can hold the beasts at bay with their Divine powers, we can rain Holy Water upon them from above and from a distance. We can leave the coin at the top of the stairs to minimize sound. Once the ghouls have been returned to Smurt, we can figure out how to proceed."

Porter cannot hide the fact that he is completely taken aback at the Winnacer's sudden abandonment of his usual 'my-way-or-the-highway.' Giving the man respect for opening his mind for once, Porter nods:

"Sounds good to me. I'm not sure I can harm those things with my weapons anyway. I'll check on the doors. We should probably bar them behind us just in case."

With that, Porter stealthily heads off in order to check the doors.

"OK then," Yaz mutters, rubbing his hands together in the cold air, "now we just go down from here, right into the wraith hallway.

"How thick is the floor?" he asks the closest dwarf.

The Bastioness kneels down, puts her ear to the floor and starts to tap on it, concentrating carefully. After a few moments, she gets back to her feet:

"It's fairly thick, I think," she replies. "I'd say around 15'."

"I don't think one stone shaping would be enough to get through it and that's all that I have left now."

"Would two do it?" Yaz asks.

The Bastioness nods.

"Well if I cast mine as well, then we should be able to do it," the druid replies.

The Bastioness nods once again:

"Yes, I think that two would be enough to do it, although it might still be a bit of a squeeze for those of us in armor."

"You can keep undead away even in silence, right?" he asks the two dwarven clerics.

The MasterSmith shakes his head:

"No, both Holy words and gestures are required to keep the Undead at bay," he replies. "But having a silenced coin allows us to quickly get out of its area of effect in order to attempt to turn the abomination. Hopefully it won't be necessary for anyone to make too much noise during a turning attempt."

Yaz nods and continues:

"Let's drop down with a rope while one of you keeps the thing at bay, then we can tune on it together, how 'bout. But let's go quick, before the silence goes away."

The MasterSmith shakes his head:

"I fear that there will not be time to complete the necessary actions before the enchantment wears out on this one. I've still got a second one blessed to me if we want to use it now."

At that point, Porter returns:

"Everything looks good with the doors here," he says. "As far as I can tell, they are not trapped and they are not locked either, just shut. There are handles on both sides of the double doors as well, so keeping them shut with an iron bar shouldn't be a problem."

"Let's not muck around with the floor here," suggests Winnacer. "We'll just be at the mercy of the wraith as we descend, one at a time. Better off saving the spells for later and taking the stairs. We should be able to take these ghouls without much problem."

"We may want to check magically for traps upon the stairs and so forth. It is going to take too long to check manually. It may be the time to invoke your spell, Bastioness."

Yaz looks at Winnacer quizzically:

"You're more afraid of one wraith, which our priests can turn, than of facing 12 ghouls, trapped iron doors, a long stairway, and a harder exit?!"

Yaz shrugs:

"Okay, sounds good, let's go the long way."

He walks to the door to stand behind Porter, ready for the signal to move.

"If we're quick, then we might be able to get to the end of the corridor and through the door down the stairs before the first silencing spell wears off," says the MasterSmith.

"Well let's do it then," Winnacer replies, "as quick as we can."

The MasterSmith quickly rushes to pick up the silenced coin, while Winnacer takes a couple of the iron bars. Indicating for the MasterSmith to stay close to him, the LawBringer quickly moves around to the two double-doors into the temple and quickly secures them by resting a bar over the handles on each one.

He nods to the MasterSmith that the task is complete and then heads off to line up with the others. At seeing that everyone is now ready to proceed, Porter crosses his fingers hoping that the door is not trapped and then opens it a crack so that he can peer through it and check out the corridor. He turns around, gives the others the thumbs-up sign, and then opens the door wider.

They start to move down the corridor, with Porter leading the way and MasterSmith IronHammer in the center ensuring that his silenced coin masks the sound of their movement. The corridor is identical to the one that they were in earlier, being also dimly lit by torches. They glance at the iron doors as they pass them nervously, checking that the doors are all shut. The party members see that, as they are just single doors, it would be impossible to secure them with iron bars, as there is nothing to anchor them with.

The party is just passing the second pair of doors when, to their horror, they see the door to the room in the northwest corner opening. They immediately freeze in surprise and see a sleepy looking dwarven priest exiting the room wearing a black nightshirt, embroidered with the skull symbol of Smurt.

With the party's being only 15' away from the priest, he immediately sees them in the corridor. With a look of alarm, he immediately jumps back through the doorway and closes the door shut behind him.

Fae, with an 'I told you so' look on her face, hangs back so as not to be effected by the silence in case things got rather nasty, as she was sure that they would. In her hands is Horvath's staff.

Porter's "shit!" is covered up by the silence spell as he immediately springs forward, Iron Bands in hand. He throws his shoulder into the door, hoping to prevent the dwarf from possibly securing it on the other side.

Moving with lightning fast reactions, Porter manages to open the door a crack, proving that the priest has not had chance to shut it yet. He then feels the door being closed once again from the opposite side. Obviously, the priest is on the other side of the door trying to push it shut again. Porter puts his shoulder against the door, trying to push the door and the priest aside. As his face screws up with the effort, the door starts to open bit by bit until Porter is almost sent flying forward as the dwarf obviously realizes that he is fighting a losing battle and runs from the door.

The door bursts open, revealing the sleeping quarters, just as Faewen'il had described them. It is dimly lit by just one torch, which is just enough for Porter to see that the priest is now turning and running for one of the cupboards. Porter immediately takes his small iron ball and hurls it towards the quickly departing dwarf. However, in his haste to try and take down the dwarf, his aim is off and the iron ball falls harmlessly to the side of the dwarf.

The others are not standing idly by while all this happens. 'Old Bohavia' leaps into Winnacer's hand as he charges headlong into the door, beckoning the MasterSmith to follow close with his silenced coin. Yaz and Gristan both head in after Winnacer and the MasterSmith, with the Bastioness and Faewen'il remaining in the hallway.

MasterSmith IronHammer immediately tosses the silenced coin into the room, aiming carefully so that it falls on the rug in the center of the room, where it is in a position to silence all of the four beds in it.

Winnacer charges after the awake priest and immediately starts to lay into him with 'Old Bohavia'. Yaz rushes after him and tries to stop Winnacer from causing any damage to the priest. However, the druid's feeble strength is nowhere near sufficient for him to stop the young Lord from lashing out at the priest. With the dwarf only wearing his nightgown, he is powerless to resist the blade and the LawBringer easily manages to hack him to pieces with two mighty strikes from the weapon.

Gristan sees one of the other priests waking up because of the commotion inside, even though the silencing spell ensures that not a sound escaped from the first priest. The maniacal dwarf brings his battleaxe down upon the waking priest as he struggles to rise up from the bed and easily manages to hack the priest's arm off, killing the light sleeper and spraying blood over the linen bedclothes.

The other two priests are still sleeping soundly, oblivious to all of the activity happening around them. Just then, they can all can hear the sound of Winnacer and Gristan's armor chinking as the silencing enchantment on the coin finally wears off.

Yaz immediately rushes to the aid of the priest that Winnacer cut down. It doesn't take long for him to realize that the dwarf is beyond help.

Winnacer shoots a quiet look of outrage at Yaz, but makes no sound. He points to Porter, then to the two sleeping priests. He stands still, not wanting his armor to awake the last of the priests.

Porter pulls out a dagger, stepping quietly to the sleeping dwarves while motioning for someone to close the door. Faewen'il and the Bastioness both quickly and quietly enter the room, with the Bastioness gently closing the door behind her.

Porter heads towards the first priest without a word. Yaz looks up angrily from the body of the dwarf that Winnacer killed just, in time to see Porter draw his daggers and advance upon the first of the sleeping priests:

"Nooo!" the druid shouts as he rushes over to interpose himself between Porter and the bed, and is suddenly startled to hear the sound of his own voice emerge from what he thought was silence.

Once again, the druid is too slow to get to the dwarf before Porter simultaneously slices the dwarf's throat while covering his mouth to ensure not even a gurgle is made. Wiping his dagger clean on the bed linen, he pulls out a net, handing it to Gristan. Making a makeshift gag with a pillowcase, he motions for Gristan to secure the remaining dwarf's body with the net while Porter gags him.

"You maniacs have fuckin' lost it!" the druid hisses in a loud whisper, before he rushes to the last of the dwarves in the room, who is starting to come around as a result of Yaz' speech.

Porter looks ready to kill Yaz, either for calling him a maniac or for senselessly waking up the dwarf.

The druid stands in front of the half-awake dwarf, trying to stop Porter and Gristan from finishing off the last of the four dwarves.

The dwarf is looking around him now, trying to figure out what's going on. As realization starts to hit him, his face becomes ashen and he starts to quake with fear.

"We're here for the Nemotz," Yaz explains in a whisper to the last living dwarf, ignorant of whether they understand him or not.

The dwarf simply stares at the druid in shock.

Looking to Fae, Porter asks:

"Please tell him not to scream or he's dead. Then ask him where their Bohavian visitors are keeping their chest."

Fae sighs, but starts to speak in dwarven; informing their victim of his 'rights' and asking him questions while one hand is upon the amulet. The dwarf shakes his head as Faewen'il speaks to him, still shaking like a leaf. As the magess finishes speaking to him, the dwarf whispers a response to her and then continues to cower on his bed.

Faewen'il releases the amulet and turns to the others:

"He be sayin tha the sick lookin Bohavians went downstairs a few days ago an that he nae be seein them since then. Only tha senior priests in tha temple be allowed to go downstairs an so he not be knowin where they or tha chest be down there."

"He nae be lyin, neither," she adds.

Yaz scowls at the others, particularly Porter, Gristan and Winnacer:

"We don't need to kill him," the druid says. "Let's just tie him up and gag him. We'll be long gone from here before anyone finds him."

Keeping an eye on the three of them, Yaz then proceeds to tie up the dwarf and then gags him. The dwarf does not offer any resistance to him, still all but paralyzed with fear.

Porter points a finger at Yaz while saying:

"You don't freakin' know that. If someone finds him before we're done, they'll know we're here, how many of us they're are, and what we're after. Even if he's found after we leave, they'll know who did this, and they'll send Manhunters after us. You might as well sign our f***in' death warrants."

"And killing them's gonna help that?" Yaz whispers harshly, throwing his arms in the air and scowling at the bounty hunter. "You don't think these guys can talk to the dead? I'll bet Smurt makes them do it DAILY! So unless you can make bodies mysteriously disappear, your ass is grass. You guys shoulda thought o' that long before coming in here. The implications of killing Smurtian priests in this are gi-f***in-gantic!"

He points to the two friendly priests:

"Especially for them and their churches."

The Bastioness and the MasterSmith both look a little nervous at this.

Winnacer's eyes narrow upon Yaz:

"Not if we put an end to them, once and for all. Or weaken them so severely that they can do little else but the services they remained sanctioned for."

Porter pauses for a second at Yaz' comment, mouthing, "shit" to himself. He had generally steered clear and temples and priests, and he was increasingly realizing why he had that policy.

Winnacer adds:

"He knows all about what the Nemotz have in store for Opava in the morning, and yet he can sleep peacefully. He is the bedfellow of the Nemotz, complicit with the destruction of all Opava. He deserves nothing short of death."

"You're guessing," Yaz replies. "Ask Maire' to use her amulet and we'll see if that's true. And I can't help but notice you ain't even paused for trial of this guy. Used Spravedelna's Sight on him yet? He's not 'evil' is he, Winn? Is he?"

"As if what I ascertain would mean anything to you, Yaz?" Winnacer asks. "Not likely."

"I don't have a bleedin' clue what you do for your goddess," Yaz spits. "And I could care less about these dwarves. What I care about is the Balance, and this temple is gonna survive, for the sake of Opava. We can take out the Necro High Priest, if that's who's behind the Nemotz pact, I got no problem with that, but the temple and its priests will survive."

Yaz looks around him, scowling:

"I don't know why I even care about you Civs and your unnatural cities. You're all so f***in' freaky."

"I have asked Spravedelna for clemency in destroying this place and all who would enslave their fellow dwarves," the LawBringer continues. "It has been granted. Their guilt has been determined by Spravedelna Herself; their fates have been sealed."

"I think sealing fates is more up to Smurt than Spravedelna, LawBringer," the druid replies. "In fact, I'd have thought you two would work together. Death seems to be the biggest punishment you got going. You're like, partners."

Yaz smirks a little at this:

"What would you do without Smurt, Winn?"

Yaz shrugs, visibly less agitated now. He speaks thoughtfully:

"Tell me something. How is it Just that these priests, as punishment for their 'crimes', are today given exactly what they pray for every day of their lives? Seems to me there's something wrong with that philosophy."

"If they really have been praying for it for their entire lives, then why are they terrified now that their own deaths are at hand?" the LawBringer asks. "By your thoughts, they should be joyous at our arrival."

"Mm, Death priests afraid of death," Yaz replies. "That makes a shitload of sense."

"But enough already, let us finish what we have to do," Winnacer continues. "There will be time to wane philosophic once Opava has been saved."

"Looking forward to it," Yaz mutters to himself.

Porter agrees with the druid, for once:

"Yes, we WILL have a talk when this is over," he nods, looking toward Winnacer.

Yaz throws up his hands one last time and stalks to the door:

"Do with him what you f***in' want," he mutters quietly. "It's too late now."

"Care ta raise tha volume on yar debate just a bit more so that everyone else in this damned temple can hear it?" Fae says sarcastically to both Winnacer and Yaz.

Winnacer takes the hint and quiets down a little as he watches Yaz storm out of the door. He turns back to the Feisty One:

"We should try and get as much information as we can from him. Could you try and find out everything that the dwarf knows about the plague: how they are planning on spreading it; who's doing it; how the priests plan on controlling stuff; what preparations the priests have made to survive it themselves; and any other information that they may have."

Fae nods and starts to bark with the dwarf in his own tongue. They can see that there is a lot of head shaking from the dwarf in response, with only a few words in addition. The magess spends a couple of minutes talking with him, all the time with her fingers wrapped around the amulet. Once she has finished, she turns back to the LawBringer:

"He nae be knowin much," she replies. "He nae be knowin any more about tha Nemotz than he be sayin already, that they be downstairs an he nae be allowed ta go down there. All he knows that may be useful is that tha DoomLord has told them to make sure that they all be finished their mornin rituals for an important meetin at 9.00 tomorrow morning."

She shrugs:

"An he nae be lyin. He really be knowin nothing about tha plans."

Winnacer pauses for a moment. As he does so, the magess looks at the dwarf.

Fae knows that the dwarf is as good as dead; if not by the zealot paladin, then by Porter's not wanting to leave anyone living behind his back.

She then turns to their prisoner and speaks to him again in Dwarven:

"Lankees decide you die soon. Pray to yer god now so he know you coming."

The dwarf barks back at Faewen'il and the magess nods before turning back to Winnacer:

"He be sayin that, if it be his time to meet Smurt, then it be his time. He jus be wantin it tae be quick."

Fae then turns away from the dwarf and begins looking around the room for interesting things.

Winnacer nods, utters a quick incantation to Spravedelna and then runs the dwarf through the heart with 'Old Bohavia'. The Bastioness and MasterSmith have to look away as he does so. Gristan, however, is watching intently, laughing to himself while his eyes are wide open and shining.

Winnacer stands looking at the corpse for a while, still uttering blessings to Spravedelna. While he does so, Faewen'il and Porter both check out the room for anything of value or interest. Porter picks up his iron ball and pops it back in his pouch.

It takes the pair of them a few minutes to go through the cupboards. Most of the items contained within are simply changes of clothing, plus sundry odd trinkets and other personal items. They do manage to find a little cash hidden amongst the possessions, however, which amounts to 13pp, 29gp and 34sp in total. Each of the priests also has a holy symbol of a silver plated shrunken skull on a chain lying next to their beds. Porter investigates them, but finds that the silver coating is very thin, and the items would only be worth five gold pieces at most, assuming anyone wanted to buy such things.

Once the room has been searched thoroughly, they all head out of the rooms, leaving the dwarven corpses lying on their bloody beds and quietly head back into the corridor where they find a scowling druid puffing away on a Nemotz smoke.

Winnacer turns to the Bastioness:

"Perhaps now would be a good time to use your trap-finding spell, Bastioness."

The dwarf nods her head and then starts to cast. After less than a minute, her hands start to glow and she stands before the door. As the others look on, they see the sign of a skull magickally appearing as a glyph on the door.

The Bastioness shakes her head:

"As we all feared," she says, "the door is protected by a glyph. I don't know what will happen to anyone triggering it, but I am sure that it is far from pleasant."

Porter comes forward. He takes care not to touch the door, but squats down and looks at the lock:

"It's locked too," he says. "I don't know whether the glyph and the lock are connected, or whether we need to get through the pair of barriers."

Winnacer looks around at everyone, particularly the priests:

"So has anyone got any suggestions as to how we should get around or through the doors?"

Fae then speaks up, pointing to the satchel slung across her shoulders:

"I do be havin a scroll tha can dispel magic... but ye have ta be sure tha ye want ta use it here."

She casually left out the fact she had two such scrolls, but they were dependent on her magic enough without giving them the idea that she was a magickal storehouse. And she would hardly mention the fact she could burn it out of her spellbook if push came to shove; but that would mean having to go back to Pardubitze to get it replaced from the Witchfinder's barracks. Rudolf was a nice enough fellow, but she didn't want to owe the Witchfinder General anything if she could avoid it.

She briefly wondered what Porter would think when he learned she was a Witchfinder Deputy General herself. The thought brought a brief smile to her lips...

Yaz leans against the wall, watching, while sucking on his cancer stick and casually picking his nails.

Winnacer looks at the MasterSmith:

"Can your magic dispel the glyph? It is too risky to attempt to remove the glyph with conventional methods."

The dwarf nods in response:

"Yes, it should be able to rid us of the glyph. I was planning on saving it to use in case we were forced to combat some of the priests. However, if the magess has scrolls that can serve the same purpose, then it would be better for me to use my godly gift now in the hope that we do not need to use the scroll."

The MasterSmith turns to the door and begins to cast, uttering an incantation while gesticulating toward the door. After less than a minute, a blast of magickal energy emanates from the dwarf's fingers heading towards the door. There is a slight flash and the skull symbol on the door disappears.

The dwarf appears to be quite pleased with himself:

"The magick has been negated," he says proudly. "Now there is just the lock that needs to be dealt with."

"Let me see if I can get past it," Porter says.

Again he takes his set of tools from his backpack and kneels down in front of the door. He fiddles around with it for the best part of five minutes, getting more and more infuriated with it all the time. Eventually he has to admit defeat:

"No, it's no good," he says, shaking his head. "It's a good lock and I can't get past it."

Winnacer sighs:

"Has anyone else got any other ideas for getting through or around the door?"

The Bastioness speaks:

"I have one stone-shaping spell left. From the look of the magess' map, the wall into the stairwell from either the priests' room or the bathroom doesn't look too thick. I think we should be able to get through it quite easily. Unfortunately, I only have one of these blessings and so once it's gone, then it's gone."

She pauses:

"That's the only way that I can think of."

"That sounds all right," Winnacer replies. "Yaz mentioned having a similar enchantment prepared as well. It should serve our purposes."

Yaz has finished with his nails. Now he focuses his attention on pulling locks of hair straight down in front of his eyes, and picking bits of wood and leaves from it carefully.

The black and brown smear of a squelched quarter-inch cigarette butt is at his feet, barely smoldering.

The Bastioness looks at Yaz and then at Winnacer:

"OK then, I shall do it," she replies, "but I'm not sure how much assistance the Brother of Prirodna is going to give us now."

She opens the door to back to the priests' room from where they just came with the rest of them following her. Once all of them are back inside, Porter closes the door so that any noise that they make is not heard from the other rooms filled with sleeping priests. The Bastioness puts her ear to the wall and starts to knock on it, listening to the sound.

"As I thought," she says while nodding. "It's less than two feet thick here. I should be able to open up a nice big hole for us."

She then takes another piece of damp clay from her pouch and starts to chant once again while she moulds it into a pancake shape. After a minute or so of chanting, she finishes the ensorcellment by fixing the clay to the wall right next to the door into the corridor. As she does so, the wall starts to fold to the sides, opening up a large sized hole in the wall. The others see that the stairwell is lit the same as the rest of the temple complex is, with the occasional torch throwing dark shadows over the stairs.

She looks at the rest of the party:

"I had better go first," she says. "That way I can check for any traps that they may have been placed on the stairs."

She then walks through the hole, dropping down the 2' drop onto the stairs. The rest of them start to follow her, with Porter right behind her and Yaz sauntering along in the rear. The Bastioness is holding her hands in front of her, chanting softly to herself as she carefully descends, one step at a time. As she continues to descend, one of the stairs below her starts to glow softly.

She comes to a halt and turns back to whisper to them all:

"No one step on that step," she says pointing to the glowing one. "It's some kind of alarm."

She continues downwards. She gets to a small landing at the end of the stairs that descend in a northerly direction and then walks around it before continuing down the next flight that run southwards down to the next level. After another five steps, another stair below her starts to glow:

"Another alarm by the look of it," the Bastioness says as she steps over it and continues down to the bottom of the stairs.

The rest of them step over it and come to join her before the iron doors to the entrance of the lower level. They stand by as the Bastioness continues to chant while pointing at the doors. As with the ones upstairs, the doors glow with a symbol. This time, however, instead of a skull symbol, the glyph takes the form of a zigzag.

The Bastioness sighs:

"Another glyph, I'm afraid."

Porter stands by her side and investigates the lock. He spends a short while looking at it and then stands back up:

"Well the bad news is that this one's locked as well," he says. "The good news is that the quality of the lock is nowhere near as good as the one upstairs. It shouldn't take me too long to get through this one."

There is a pregnant pause as all consider the implications. Eventually the Bastioness speaks:

"Well, it would appear as if we have two options. Either the magess can use her scroll to dispel the glyph and Mr. Porter can try and pick the lock or else the Brother of Prirodna could use his stone shaping ability to bypass the door totally as we did above," she continues.

Winnacer looks at Porter, then Yaz, then Faewen'il:

"Any chance we could just erase it?"

He shrugs:

"Probably not."

"Either way we deplete an important magickal resource," the young Lord continues. "I guess it should be up to the two of you to decide."

"Well... it would make more sense ta let Yaz move tha stone than ta waste tha scroll. His ability has na use in combat... me scroll do," Fae says in her typical ' you should really think before you open your mouth' tone of voice.

Yaz's face fills with mock surprise:

"Oh!" he starts, "is that right? Well isn't that fascinating."

He leaves his hair-picking task and animates once again, clearly having been waiting for exactly this opportunity the whole time:

"So lemme get this straight. We dig down from the office into the hall below, and we use two stone shaping spells. We go the long way, and we use..." - he counts on his fingers in exaggerated fashion -- "FOUR spells, a scroll, nearly trip the alarm, and KILL FOUR INNOCENT PRIESTS!"

At this last, Yaz's arms flail about his head, and his voice rises dangerously close to 'too loud'. The party winces at the noise.

"And why?" he continues. "Why?"

He taps his fingers on his chin in thought for several seconds, then suddenly raises his arms again:

"I don't f***in' know why!" he hisses.

"Yeah, I'll cast your freakin' spell for you, ya gimps," he mutters, stalking off to wherever seems the best spot to do the thing.

Porter mutters to himself:

"I ought to be leaving right now. Why am I staying in this job?"

He glances over at Fae for a moment, and when the magess notices, his look turns into a brief sneer.

Fae watches Yaz's little display with something akin to a grin on her face. Winnacer hadn't bothered to get the hint from her all along... perhaps with any luck, a dim light might shine in his Sprava-filled head from Yaz's antics.

With the others looking on, Yaz approaches the doorway and investigates the area right where it adjoins the door. Still muttering to himself, he takes some more clay from his pouch and starts to mould it in his hands.

Just before he starts the incantation, the Bastioness speaks to him:

"From what the magess said, there are undead on the other side of the wall," she says. "As soon as the hole is formed, I think that it would be best if myself and the MasterSmith go first in the hope that we can turn them."

Yaz nods in agreement, having no particular desire to face the undead single-handedly. He then starts to chant the now familiar words to the stone-shaping ensorcellment. For a full minute, he utters the words to the enchantments while holding the clay in his left hand and gesticulating towards the wall with his right. Once the chanting is complete, he slaps the clay on the wall and then backs away to allow the two dwarven priests access to the hole that is starting to be formed as the wall melts away. As the Bastioness quickly scurries towards the small hole, the rest of them look in. Once again, they can see that it is dimly lit by torches. They can hear the snarling of beasts coming from inside the room and a filthy carrion stench starts to waft through the hole.

Immediately that the hole is fully formed, the Bastioness struggles through it with a piece of holy rock in her hands. She immediately starts chanting to herself as she walks through. The MasterSmith is right behind her, holding his Holy Hammer before him.

As you look on, the Bastioness holds her holy rock high and it pulses with energy. Four of the ghouls immediately wail in terror and run away from the Bastioness. At seeing six ghouls and four ghasts still remaining, the MasterSmith also raises his hammer high and it too pulses with holy energy. The remaining six ghouls and one of the four ghasts also turn on their heels and bolt off to the far side of the room.

The three remaining ghasts are snarling ferociously, however, and set upon the two priests, with one of them attacking the Bastioness and two the MasterSmith.

Porter immediately wonders about the missing silencing spell, but figures those with more knowledge of magic have figured it's necessary to alert the entire lower level.

The Bastioness manages to dodge the claws and teeth of the ghast attacking her. The MasterSmith, however, gets scratched by both of them, causing him some quite bad injuries. He manages to avoid being paralyzed by the ghasts' touches, however.

Winnacer comes through the portal first, looking to interpose his heavily armored body between the priests and the ghasts. He rains Holy Water at the beasts close at hand. The young Lord hits the first of the ghasts full-square with the vial of Holy Water. It smashes on the creature's chest showering it with the water while the other two are splashed by the contents. This causes the three abominations to recoil for a moment. The LawBringer takes advantage of the situation by moving forwards so as to protect the lesser-armored priests from the beasts' fangs and claws.

Having a little breathing space now, the two priests both reach for their pouches and they too both lob vials at the undead creatures. The Bastioness grips the vial a little too tightly and it smashes in her hand, cutting her slightly and sending the Holy Water spilling down her arm. The MasterSmith's aim is a little off, and he only manages to splash the three ghasts with the water.

With a bit of space now having been created at the mouth of the tunnel, Gristan barges through with battleaxe in hand, laughing maniacally as he does so. Not bothering with the Holy Water, he charges into the three ghasts and starts to lay into them with his axe. With an incredible blow from the axe, he hacks the one most badly damaged by Winnacer's Holy Water in two and then follows up by hacking into a second one, causing it another mighty wound.

One of the ghasts immediately turns on Gristan. The ghast rakes the dwarf with its claws, causing it a slight amount of damage, but paralyzing him in the process. It rakes him again, causing him a little more damage, but it is unable to bite through the dwarf's armor.

With Gristan being incapacitated, the other surviving ghast launches itself at Winnacer. The young Lord manages to parry the first of the ghast's strikes with his shield, but the second strike manages to find a way through the young Lord's defense and it is only His Lady's blessing that saves him from being paralyzed too. The ghast tries to bite the LawBringer, but cannot find a way through his armor.

Yaz, his spout having apparently relieved him of whatever was bothering him, takes lucky scimitar in hand and, with an intensity not seen since Bosco's Tower, waits until there is space inside the rather cramped room and then jumps through the hole and starts to hack at them with abandon.

Fae watches as first Winnacer and then Yaz leap through the hole to do battle with the undead. Having NO interest in battling undead whatsoever, she stays back until they have been dispatched or until the group needs saving from themselves.

Porter could see a look of slight amusement on her face as she watched the spectacle before her.

"Ye would thin that they war followers o Smurt, with such an eager desire ta die...." she says nonchalantly.

Porter nods, but realizes that he can't let the others do all of the dirty work themselves and so reluctantly draws his bastard sword and squeezes through the hole in order to stand alongside Winnacer and Yaz.

With Winnacer locked in combat with the ghasts, the two priests realize that it is too dangerous to try hurling any more Holy Water at them. The Bastioness grabs her pick and the MasterSmith takes his hammer and the two of them join Winnacer, Yaz and Porter in the combat.

Winnacer lashes out with 'Old Bohavia' and easily hacks the one that Gristan damaged earlier to pieces. The MasterSmith takes his hammer and smashes it into the side of the last remaining ghast, knocking the wind out of it. Porter swings at it with his bastard sword, but his luck is as lousy as ever, and misses the ghast by a wide margin. He swings again and finally manages to nail it, inflicting a pretty bad injury upon it. The ghast lashes out at the Bastioness with its claw and rakes her arm, inflicting a minor injury to her. It's enough to paralyze her, however.

The ghast lashes out again, at Winnacer this time. Once again, it manages to find a way through Winnacer's armor, raking him badly. This time Winnacer's holy protection is not enough to save him and so he too is paralyzed.

Yaz takes a swing at the creature, but his blade is off and the ghast manages to dodge away from the blow.

The ghast is badly injured now, but only Porter, Yaz and the MasterSmith are unparalyzed at the moment. The ghast's jaws lash out at Porter and nip him slightly, although the damage is little more than a scratch.

Porter lashes out at the abomination once again, desperate to finish it off. It is not to be, however, as the ghast just manages to dodge out of the way. The MasterSmith brings up his hammer once more, but almost loses his grip on his weapon as he misses by a wide margin.

The ghast tries to make him pay for his mistake, but IronHammer manages to avoid the ghast's claws. The ghast tries again and this time manages to rake him. Once again, the damage is not too severe, but the touch is enough to paralyze him.

Yaz lashes out at the creature once again and inflicts a glancing blow upon the abomination, but unfortunately not enough to finish off the creature.

Porter is starting to get pretty scared now as he sees that he and Yaz are alone with their four paralyzed companions. To make matters worse, the ghast sinks its jaws into his flank again, this time causing some fairly severe damage.

In desperation to finish off the creature, he lashes at it again with his bastard sword, but the ghast manages to dodge the blow. The ghast has no such luck in dodging the crazed druid's strike, however, as Yaz puts all of his energy into a mighty blow that hacks the last ghast in two.

Porter and Yaz pause for a moment in order to catch their breaths before starting to think what to do about their four paralyzed companions. However, to their horror, they can see that the ten ghouls and one ghast that the priests turned are starting to cautiously move towards them.

It is then they realized that the two priests that are capable of keeping the undead at bay are paralyzed, with the result that the undead are now a threat once again.

"Aw, shit," says Yaz, wiping the ghoulishness from his blade onto his pants. He then quickly grabs the nearest paralyzed victim, who happens to be the Bastioness, and drags her back through the hole.

Porter pulls the vials of holy water from his belt pouch as Yaz starts to pull people out of the room. Porter hurls one vial at the biggest clump of undead, while yelling:

"We'll never get everybody out! Fae, we are f***ing screwed! We need something big."

He hurls the vial at the ghast leading the ten ghouls. He hits it on its chest and the vial smashes, showering the ghast with its contents and splashing a couple of ghouls next to it. The abominations recoil a little at this, backing out of the pool of water on the floor.

Fae smirked a bit as she crawled through the opening.

"Sure thin, Porter honey" Fae says, mimicking the farce she had put up in front of the DWA.

Fae then began to cast towards the undead menace. She pulls a few strands of cobweb from her pouch and immediately starts to cast in the direction of the undead. After just a few seconds, sticky strands start to quickly descend from the ceiling, entangling the undead in the web. The Feisty One's aim is good, but one ghoul manages to avoid the confines of the web and surges forward toward Porter.

The bounty hunter immediately hurls his second vial of holy water at the abomination, which hits it on the head, melting its flesh in a disgusting way. The ghoul is not quite dead, however, and starts to lash out at Porter. Porter brings up his bastard sword to protect from the creature's paralyzing touch and manages to avoid it. The creature does manage to bite him, however.

Porter immediately lashes out at the hideously deformed abomination with his sword and finally fells it with the second blow of his sword.

Porter glances at the entrapped undead and then at Fae, saying simply:

"Nice work."

Fae gives him a mock curtsy, amusement twinkling in her eyes.