Planning The Descent

7 DECEMBER 3460

In order that all of the spellcasters have sufficient rest, it is just before ten when both groups start to come round. Faewen'il and Will both study from their spellbooks for a while, as the clerics attend to their morning devotions. While they are doing so, the squires prepare breakfast, which Winnacer, Gronk and Xavier are more than grateful for.

Around 10.30, Faewen'il's hut disappears, accompanied by the shattering of the crystal bead that Faewen'il had left at its core. As a result, Winnacer, Gronk, Xavier and Faewen'il decide that it is time to head back to the temple. They walk up to the jetty and see that the ferry is on the other side. Faewen'il walks across the still, dark waters of the lake, unties the boat and then uses the chain in order to haul it back to the bank. The others then climb into the ferry and make their way over to the other side. They then walk around the temple, past the mass of horses and mules and meet the others who are patiently waiting for them inside the Guards' Quarters.

As soon as Padre Kokal finishes his devotions, he comes to Jihan.

"Let's see wha' c'n be one 'bout tha' leg straight 'way, shall we? I'm sure ye tired o' havin' t'depend on me t' t' cart ye 'roun."

The Padre stands over the injured elf, holding his morningstar over his broken leg. The Padre then removes the crude splint that he placed over the injured leg in order to brace it. He seems to enter a trance for a while as he holds his hand over the elf's broken limb as he chants his blessings to Radegast to knit the broken bones together. As Kokal continues to chant, the bone starts to move, almost imperceptibly until, after a few minutes, it has moved to its correct place in the elf's leg. The flesh then starts to repair over the wound, until there is but a scratch remaining.

After ten minutes, the Padre comes out from the trance and opens his eyes:

"Ye should be fine now, Jihan."

A little gingerly, Jihan tries to get up, putting as little weight upon the leg as possible. However, once he is up, he tries to stand on it and finds to his delight, that his leg is as good as new.

"Well, tha's that," Kokal says. "Remember tha' I can' do nothin' fer no disease t'day. We'll 'ave t' look t' th' priestess an' Yaz fer tha'."

After having seen to Jihan's leg, Kokal looks at Will and Gronk:

"Either of ye wan' me t' see t' ye 'fore we get goin'?" he asks, then turning to Aneira:

"I'd be 'appy t' elp ye too, priestess -- 'less it'd offend ye tha' it'd interrupt ye departin', 'course."

Aneira looked at him, quite confused:

"I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about. I have healing should you need it."

"Ye still 'aven't seen t' th' wounds ye took in th' fight, 'ave ye?" Kokal says.

"No, and I'm not really planning on it. It's just a flesh wound," replied Aneira, blithely unconcerned.

"Suit yeself," Kokal says. "Jus' tryin' t' 'elp."

"Ye're on ye own, far as I'm concerned," he sneers at Yaz.

Aneira approached diffidently:

"Yaz, if you need me to cure that disease, I can. But I won't intrude if you'd rather do it yourself."

"'s'OK," Yaz replies in a surly fashion. "Prirodna took care of it for me."

All those that look at the druid carefully can see that his rotting flesh condition is now showing strong signs of improvement, although it still has a way to go for him to be completely over it. In addition, the wounding caused by the encounter with the falling elf and the exploding box also seem to be on their way to recovery.

"I would be very thankful for your deity's graces, Padre," Will says.

The Padre nods and proceeds to start casting the familiar words of the healing enchantment while laying hands upon Will's flesh that was chilled by the glyph on the priests' room. The effects of the Padre's healing enchantment are excellent and Will is returned to full health.

Once Will has been fully healed, he approaches Jihan:

"Could I examine your new blade, Jihan?"

"Certainly," the elf replies. "If you can determine anything about its origins, then I'd love to hear about it."

Will nods, then takes the blade and looks it over.

He sees that he blade is a fine one, with a hilt made of finest Kutna Hora silver with filigree work of very fine detail that is obviously of gnomish manufacture. Decorating the pommel and the crossblade are signs of a great festival in progress, with many gnomes gathered round a feast table.

Will sits down in a corner, placing the blade on the floor in front of him, between himself and the rest of the party, then pulls his harp out and begins to strum and sing softly in an unknown tongue. After several minutes of doing this, he sets his harp down and smiles:

"'Tis a fine blade. It was borne by a gnome by the name of Isaak Silverberg. He was a freedom fighter who led a band of gnomish and halfling strong hearts against the Nyemetz immediately after the fall of Bohavia. For several years, he and his band were a thorn in the side of the Nyemetz in the area of the mountains of Sudeten. The band was very successful while it stayed within its home ground of the mountains. But alas, Isaak grew emboldened by his success and in 3445, led his band on an expedition to Kutna Hora in an attempt to free the gnomish slaves there. What happened is not known, but Isaak and his band were never heard from again."

"Take it and use it well. It may yet see the liberation of Kutna Hora."

The elf listens in rapt attention to the bard's tale, his eyes consumed with examining the blade more closely when the fact of gnomish craftsmanship comes up. Nodding as the half-elf hands it back to him, Jihan holds the blade carefully, peering up and down it's length:

"Isaak? Isaak Silverberg? By the Three, I thought this looked familiar... Luuhan and I stayed with a gnome calling himself Silverberg when the Civil War broke out. He never was one to stand down from a fight, or back down in an argument. I had only heard that he and his men were active with the dwarves during the first wave of the conquest when the Nyemetz broke the front lines... I.. I'd never heard that he fell. What was that, only fifteen years ago? His sister, Hanah, was the matron of the safehouse I stayed at when I was separated from Luuhan right when the civil war was coming to a close.. Just before the Nyemetz came... Isaak and his men were like wizards on the high passes... Kutna Hora..."

"What did he call it..." the elf mutters, his mind coursing over old memories of gnomes and wars.

"P.. Pistos! The Stinger..."

Looking at the blade with new respect, he sheaths it almost reverently across from Makanuru, his eyes far away.

"Thank you, brother," Jihan says to Will with a nod of his head.

While Will and Jihan look over the blade, the others return to the subject of what to do about the Nemotz priests downstairs.

"So, our new friend tol' us tha' th' stairs we barricaded're th' only way down, eh?" confirms the Padre. "Do we UN-barricade 'em, or maybe jus' a little bit an' try t'lure 'em up 'ere inta some kinda trap?"

Bennett then turns toward the group:

"I think we need to begin our moves into the Lab now. Surely they will be well prepared for us, but as long as we are prepared to hit them faster than they hit us, we should make it past whatever defenses they have set up. I say we put all the warriors up front, as we'll undoubtedly have one or two get knocked out by spells right away, as priests spells tend to do. If we make sure our magic people don't get nullified, then they can respond in kind. Any of you have spells to keep them quiet? I think if we nullify their spells, we won't have too much trouble. What say we start going down the stairs right now? Perhaps we can start things off with one of Yaz's fire bursts or something similar?"

Bennett grabs up his shield and Retribution:

"Do you think we'll need Will or Jihan up front right away? There may be magicks laid on the staircase, traps and stuff, and surely we will trip them. Any of you have means of detecting them? We need warriors up front certainly, as they may have their remaining muscle, including a GermSpreader or two I'd bet, defending the staircase. I think if we can get through the initial defenses without taking too much abuse, we'll be set up for success."

Winnacer sniffs then turns to Faewen'il:

"Mayhaps it would be even better if we had a better idea of what was down there before we made any moves. They know we'll be coming, and it would be in our best interests to know just what they have up their sleeves. By any chance did you select your spells of infiltration today, Faewen'il? We should get a better idea of what lion's mouth we are about to walk into before just charging down there."

"I just be havin invisibility, an only one o those," Fae says in an indifferent tone.

"Secondly, we may not even need to take the stairs," the young Lord continues. "How much stone lies between the levels, Gronk? Perhaps we can open a hole in the ground and descend by rope, avoiding the obvious deathtrap that the Nemotz would have set for us. If Faewen'il scouts for us, we can descend into an area free of watching eyes and again hit them from the rear."

Bennett does not, as usual, take offense at Winn's normal condemnation and questioning of his proposal, but casually looks at Fae and Gronk in turn as Winn questions them, nodding his head in assent.

Gronk shakes his head:

"Nah, although the walls o' this place be thin in places, it looks as if they dug pretty deep down. I reckon that we'd 'ave to get through at least 20' o' rock if'n we were to try an' dig our way down to 'em."

Bennett frowns:

"Damn. There's got to be another way in there."

"How about the walls down by the fungus rooms?" asks Winnacer. "They are already downstairs quite a bit. That may be the best way to gain entry, by opening the walls down there rather than the stairs. Why don't we look around down there? We need to destroy those flesh rotting fungi anyway."

Bennett nods his head:

"That's worth a shot. What say we pour the oil down there and light those bad boys up! I don't have any desire to go down and fight with them, though, so let's make sure and cook them before we send Gronk down to check the walls out!"

Bennett then thinks for a minute:

"You know, there's a whole bunch of pits on this level. We should trigger all of them, eliminate their inhabitants if necessary, and check each one of them out. Whatever one is farthest away from the staircase, that's the best one to try and break into, I think."

Then a thought occurs to him:

"Leaf-eater, you do have one of those stone melting spells, don't you?"

Yaz answers:

"No."

"Why don't we just use the 8 foot long torches designed to destroy the creatures rather than resorting to magic?" asks the LawBringer.

Bennett looks curiously at Winnacer:

"Who said anything about magic? I was talking about the torches!"

He shakes his head then turns back toward Yaz talking about the fungi move.

"I'm sorry, I won't let you kill them yet," Yaz says. "It's pointless anyway. We're not getting through the floor today, so we have to go down the stairs. If there's a network of caves under this place, I'm going to transplant them down to there once we're done. If not, you can have your wish and put 'em out of their misery when we leave.

Bennett looks at Yaz with incredulity:

"You're going to save them, after they rotted your flesh? Wow, man, you really do love plants."

"Tha's 'cause 'e's got so much in common wit 'em," Kokal sneers under his breath. "'Least th' vegetable kin'."

He shakes his head vigorously.

"I can send Gertrude down the stairs to scout if Maire' or Jihan can't do it," Yaz suggests. "Otherwise let's just go, and carefully."

"Well, that's if they aren't waiting for us right down the steps, which I imagine something nasty is," responds Bennett. "I wouldn't want to put your bird in too much danger, but I do think we might as well just gung-ho down there and take these suckers on. We can always retreat back up the steps and relock the door, after all!"

Winnacer looks at Bennett:

"Perhaps we should try other things rather than charging straight where the enemy wants us to go. I think you and I have both had enough of being the target of priestly magicks."

Bennett bows graciously:

"My lord, I have no trouble with the best plan for the group being put forth, even if it is not my own. I consider acceptance of other people's ideas a fine and virtuous quality."

The sarcasm is so thick it drips onto the floor as he speaks.

"Aye, milord," Padre Kokal answers Winnacer, without the sarcasm. "I thin' findin' out wha' we're 'eadin' inta is a good idea, an' so is mebbe findin' a less expected way in. If someone c'n manage some stealthy scoutin', it'd sure be a fine thin'."

"I've got no powers t'day that'll hurt th' bastard priests," he continues, turning to Bennett, primarily. "Jus' 'ealin, mostly -- 'long wit one tha' might 'elp one o' us resist any magicks tossed at 'em. An' I never been able t'make thins go quiet like ye mentioned. I'll 'ave t' do m' part wit m' star an' shield, mostly."

Bennett smiles at the big fellow:

"I am glad to hear that you have some defense against their magicks. We will surely need that. Before we engage, be sure to cast that at whoever besides Winn is in front of the group. He is already protected by his goddess."

Kokal then returns to the topic of how to proceed:

"Y'know, if it turns out those doors're th' only way down fer us, then they may also be th' only way back UP. If we 'ave t'go down tha' way, mebbe we should try t' first fix it so they can't be closed be'ind us t' block us if we 'ave t'leave ... err ... quickly an' unexpectedly? Thin we c'n jam 'em open -- physically or wit enchantment -- or destroy 'em?"

"An' I also 'gree tha' we shouldn't fall straight inta any more traps. If we DO 'ave t' ead down tha' way wit'out anyone bein' able t' give an idea o' what's waitin', I'd thin' we should open th' doors first wit'out us standin' right be'ind 'em all in a row. Mebbe open 'em fr' th' side wit' ropes or somethin' an' then wait a bit t'see if anyone or anythin' ventures up or otherwise reveals 'emselves 'fore we 'ead down?"

Bennett then turns toward the rest of the group:

"Okay, if they've got three or four guards plus the acolytes down there, they've got enough people to put up quite a fight still. Add to that the nastiness of a High Priest and two other priests, and we'd take it hard in the ass if we came down those stairs, I think. Anybody got any ideas on another way we can get in?"

The silence is deafening.

Eventually Winnacer sighs and breaks the silence:

"Well let us all check out the tunnel to the fungi pits in any case while we are deciding what to do. Perhaps there might be a concealed entrance or the walls may not be as thick as we thought."

Not having any better ideas, the rest of them follow Winnacer out through the western wing and down the corridor that leads to the stairs down. Yaz, however, leaves the rest of the party and heads back up to the control room. He climbs the stairs and then starts to drag the headless corpse of Patrik the guard down the stairs, leaving a bloody trail behind him. He carefully lays the body over the trapdoor that he fell through the previous day and then returns back up to the control room.

Meanwhile, the others are investigating the corridor down to the fungi pits. Gronk knocks upon the east wall of the tunnel as he goes. After a few minutes of tapping he shakes his head and reports to the others:

"No, there ain't nothin' but solid rock be'ind 'ere, twenty, thirty foot at the least. It be takin' a lot o' spells to get through all that lot."

Will and Jihan, meanwhile, are also searching the walls for secret doors, after ten minutes of fruitless searching, however, they finally admit defeat:

"No, nothing at all," Jihan says a little sadly. "It seems as if that staircase really is the only way up or down, unless there is another exit that goes from outside the temple."

The rest of them look pass the storage space and see the small barrel of lamp oil and the long handled torches that are contained with and then carry on into the area of the trapping pens. From the center, they are protected from the violet fungi by the bars protecting those that feed them. While they are watching, one of the trapdoors above opens and the headless corpse of Patrik falls through into the purple fungi. They watch with morbid curiosity as the violet fungi cluster round the meal and start to feed on the corpse. They then hear the sound of Yaz winching the chains in order to close the trapdoor.

Realizing that there is nothing to be gained in waiting in the tunnels, they walk back upstairs where they meet Yaz in the center of the entrance hall.

Jihan sighs as they stand around all waiting for the first to suggest a solution to the problem:

"Let us open the doors a little and see if there is anything to be seen from here before we make our plans."

The rest of them nod in agreement, having little else to add in the way of ideas currently.

Slowly and silently, Jihan and Will carefully remove the barricades from the door while the warriors stand behind them with weapons drawn in case the priests below hear what is happening and decide to make a break for it. However, all seems to be quiet from the other side of the door.

After a few minutes, the barricades have been taken down and Jihan carefully opens the doors just wide enough for him to peer through. He spends a few moments looking through the crack in the door and then closes it again as silently as he opened it.

He then turns back to the others to report:

"They have been at work during the night. They have piled up some pews on the stairs. It wouldn't be too much of a problem to scramble over them, as they are placed in a haphazard way. However, it's going to be a noisy exercise to clamber over them, which is sure to alert them to our presence well in advance and we're not going to be able to charge straight into combat."

"That's all that I can see from here. There seems to be a dimly lit wide corridor at the bottom of the stairs. I couldn't hear any signs of movement from down there."

Yaz shrugs:

"Then we move the pews, I guess. If they hear us, they hear us. But let's do it as quiet as we can."

He goes to shift the closest pews, strains, and fails to move the thing even a little:

"I ain't got what it takes, guys, help me out here."

The Padre seems mildly amused at this and does not offer to help. Will, however, moves to give the druid a hand.

Bennett talks to Xavier and Kokal quietly:

"Come on, you two, let's move these things, and try to do it quietly."

He waves his hands at Will and Yaz:

"You two cover us with magic and missiles, if you please. We'll certainly get some visitors if we make much noise."

"Yah, I vill take this end, freund," replies Xavier. "Let us move these bloody things."

Before the warriors start work on moving the pews, however, Winnacer peers at them and frowns:

"I've got a bad feeling about this."

He sits for a moment in silent contemplation.

Still leaning a bit on his newly healed leg to test it, never having had a bone broken so seriously before, Jihan seems preoccupied as the others peer down the stairwell. As Winnacer begins speaking, the elf blinks his eyes and scrutinizes the pews carefully, even going so far as to splay himself on the ground to see beneath them.

"Hold on guys..." he says to Bennett, Xavier and the Padre who seem keen on moving them immediately as the LawBringer continues.

Winnacer then looks at Yaz:

"Hey Yaz, I've seen you bend both wood and stone. Think you can bend these pews to clear a path for us? Or desiccate the wood into dust or something? It's just wood and you proved in the past to have some dominion over it."

"It's only the Druids that can destroy wood like you're talking about," Yaz replies. "I have nothing like that kind of power. I can warp one of those pews if you like, but I won't be changing anything's shape today, wood OR stone."

Yaz smirks slightly, as if at some private joke.

"Let's just get on with it, I'm tired of waiting," he adds.

He tries to lift another pew:

"Damn."

"If that's no good," continues the young Lord, "perhaps either Jihan of Faewen'il can go invisible and take to the walls to scout it out. I know Jihan can climb well and, if I remember correctly, Sylva's boots let her walk on walls as well as water. If we do a quick examination for magical traps, we could also send a climber topside above the ground to poke around and see what sits near the stairs."

Faewen'il shakes her head:

"No, Sylva be climbin walls through her mental powers, nae through tha boots. Tha boots only be capable o walkin on water."

"The Blood?..." Jihan utters at this, then returns to contemplating the corridor.

"Up, yes, but to the side?..." questions Jihan.

Looking at the wall in question, the elf checks for prominent handholds and the like which would be necessary for such a feat. While the walls are not smooth and there are small cracks between the blocks of stone that an experienced climber like Jihan could use to rise vertically, hanging from the side of a wall would require a very firm grip indeed and the gaps between the blocks are too narrow to provide him with that.

"I worry that these pews hide some awful trap, like the one on the chest previously," the LawBringer continues. "I've been blown up enough times to know I don't want that to happen to anyone today."

"It also may be prudent to ask Yaz to pray for his stone manipulation powers and proceed that way - even if to cover over the pews with stone."

Nodding his head, Jihan adds the following:

"Why would they go out of their way to drag all these pews up here for simple physical impediments? I think Winn's right in that they might be more than they seem. Especially being strewn around all randomly. They did have all night to cook something up..."

Still on the floor, the elf peeps towards the closest bench again, then speaks:

"Would anyone happen to have any dweomers for detecting enchantments and the like? Probably be best to check for such before we go kicking them around."

"Do you still have my mirror wand, brother?" he asks of Will.

Will hands the mirror back:

"Thank you for the use of the instrument, Jihan."

"You're quite welcome, Kalador," the elf says as he takes the telescoping wand to hand.

As Will does so, Faewen'il takes one of her assortment of Witchfinder rods and scans the stairs. The crystal at the end is dull as she scans them:

"No, they nae be showin magick," she says.

Jihan nods, then takes his silk lasso from his belt and cast it downwards over a couple of them, hoping to set off any traps with that. Nothing untoward happens as a result of these actions, however. When that is done, he cautiously approaches the first with his mirror stick and check over and under it, with an eye to the roof and walls just in case.

Winnacer whispers to him:

"Is there anything unusual about the pews? Are they a bit too well oiled or the like? I'd hate to get caught amongst the pews if they were rigged to burn well if some simple flame was applied - like say from a fire trap."

Jihan simply shakes his head in response:

"No, they just look like regular pews to me."

"What else can you see from down there?" the young Lord asks. "How far do the stairs go?"

Jihan ducks down in order to see as much as possible. Once he has seen all that he can, he walks back up the couple of stairs that he has descended and reports:

"They go down 30 feet. From here I can see another 15' of empty dimly lit corridor, but that's as much as I can see from here, but the corridor obviously goes on further. There's a few more pews there, forming crosses so as to make a simple barrier."

"Aye," the Padre says, nodding as he sees that the pews are seemingly untrapped. "These thins weren't put 'ere 'cept t' make us better targets fer somethin', 'cause no one could thin they'd keep us out all tha' long otherwise."

"We goin' t' try t' get a look down there firs'? Still thin tha's th' wisest thin."

"I guess they were expecting us a little earlier..." Jihan says, as the evidence mounts for the purpose of the pews being mundane in nature.

Bennett smiles:

"How about this, though I'm sure it will be as popular as most of my ideas. Fae, you said you've got an invisibility spell, right? What say we either use that on you or Jihan, who I assume you will allow to borrow the ESP amulet. Then Xavier and I can toss you over the pews and you can go in to scout the place out. Either that or if we want to be safer, you can cast the spell on Yaz's bird and he can scout the place through the bird's eyes. Either way we get some idea what's ahead, though the first would be a lot better for getting good information. It's dangerous, though. One of the other benefits would be that, if Jihan went over, he could stay over there when we alerted them, then knife one of them in the back at the appropriate time. Then again, you don't like hanging your ass out in the wind, do you Jihan? I'd do it, but I'm afraid the whole lot of you couldn't throw me over the pews, and I'd undoubtedly alert the whole lot of them within a minute or so. Anyway, it's something to think about."

"I'll volunteer to check out the floor some, invisible-like," Jihan says on the matter. "The medallion wouldn't hurt, but that's up to you, Fae. I'll give a dove call if all appears safe, or yell like a troll at a giant slug spitting contest otherwise..."

Will smirks at the young elf's language, and represses a laugh as he repeats the phrase to himself:

"Troll at a giant slug spitting contest..."

"Before you go, Jihan," Winnacer interrupts, "let's consider some other ideas. They might be crazy, but it's got to be worth a shot."

He turns to Faewen'il:

"Could you command your rope to descend the stairs at an angle and a level that would keep it above the pews? I'm not sure how the rope quite works - but if it defies gravity at all, we could kind of 'climb down' the stairs on the rope, bypassing the whole pew issue."

Faewen'il nods, but her sullen expression does not waver:

"It be goin at whatever angle I tells it to be goin, so what ye be askin is possible. Ye only have to worry about what be waiting at the other end when tha farst parson drops down over the last o them."

While the others are talking, Aneira casts, uttering an unfamiliar incantation and gesturing down the stairs. After a couple of minutes of gesturing, she stops and turns to the others to speak:

"There are no traps on the stairs," she confirms, "but there is a trap further along. I can't see it from here obviously, but 90' feet in this direction there is some form of magickal trap. I don't know what it does, but I'm sensing an insubstantial form that vaguely resembles a wyvern."

"A wyvern you say?" Jihan interjects. "Old Klauss told me about running afoul of something like that when he and the boys were trying to hide in a church a while back. A magickal thieftaker of some sort..." he mutters, "not to be confused with those that serve Spravedelna."

"It's sort of a guard that a dweomermeister can call up, that'll stand watch over a certain area and attack intruders who come within its reach. If it hits someone, they are frozen in place for a while, but after that, its supposed to just up and disappear. If they've got something like that set up down there, then there's probably someone around keeping an eye on the trap, to take out the intruder... Maybe more than one of them... I've got no idea of how to get around it, barring some sort of dispelling enchantment. I think it seeks out living things, but I'm not sure. Klauss was just lucky he had Luuhan and the rest around to drag him out of the place..."