Battle For The Temple

Gronk's pacing and peering at the pews belies the fact that he is growing very impatient with all of the talking and checking out of the pews.

Finally he can stand it no more:

"Bloody 'ell, let's just get on with whackin' 'em. It ain't like 'ey don't know we's be comin', no matter how quiet we be. Let's just move 'em pews outta da way so we's can gets back up quick-like iffin we needs ta. Da ice princess be sayin' da hall be clear for a piece so let's get on with it!"

Gronk then checks Thunder, nocks a bolt in his crossbow and heads straight for the pews, dodging whoever may be in between he and the pews. He manages to push the pews out of the way as he goes, in case a hasty retreat is needed.

"Done 'ad 'nough damn pussy-footin' 'round!" Gronk grumbles to no one in particular as he proceeds.

"Finally!" says Yaz, exasperated, as he follows the dwarf down the stairs.

"Let's go, nature-boy," Gronk says as he nods his head in approval of Yaz's support.

Winnacer sees Gronk and Yaz start heading into the pews. His protests are unfortunately aimed at their backs:

"Not yet guys! You'll blow any chance for..."

When Gronk reaches the bottom of the stairs he surveys the hallway ahead. From his position at the base of the stairs, he can see that the corridor, which is 20' wide, runs for another 30' and then leads into a temple that is dimly lit. The dimensions of the temple is difficult to make out due to the dim light, plus the fact that there are two more pews forming a cross at the end of the corridor. However, the temple seems to be over 50' long and similar in width.

As he looks closer, he sees a guard in the center of the room who immediately shouts something. Before Gronk has chance to react, an arrow comes flying towards him. The arrow is on target, but Gronk's chainmail saves him from any harm. Gronk immediately retaliates by loosening a quarrel from his heavy crossbow. However, in the dimness of the room, the shot is a difficult one and his shot misses by a fair margin. Immediately, two more guards present themselves and both loosen more arrows at the dwarf, one of which manages to cut his arm slightly.

As the dwarf struggles to reload, another volley flies out from the three archers. Two of the arrows miss, but one of them hits him in the neck badly and Gronk shouts out from the pain.

"Shit!" yells Gronk as the arrow removes a large piece of his neck.

"...surprise," continues the exasperated LawBringer. "We'll blow our only advantage."

The dwarf has another quick look into the temple, but can see no one other than the three guards. He sees that there are still plenty of pews left in the temple, which could provide ample cover for anyone wishing not to be seen within.

Bennett, not in a terribly attentive mood due to the confrontation of the previous night, does not notice Gronk's actions immediately. When he realizes what he has done, he grabs Jihan's folding shortbow that he borrowed to replace Smoked Goblin and heads for the pews, kicking them out of his way as he puts an arrow to the string. He fires one arrow as he clears the pews, missing all of the guards by a wide margin, then drop his bow and head for the guards.

As he makes to hurdle the last of he pews at the end of the corridor, an insubstantial haze seems to materialize and lashes out at the warrior. As he is struck by the unseen enchantment, Bennett goes completely rigid, seemingly paralyzed. As he was in mid-flight at the time, the momentum of his leap carries him forwards and he lands, head first upon the ground, where he lays, unable to move a muscle.

The insubstantial haze then disappears from view.

When the arrows start flying, Yaz ducks behind the sturdy dwarf for cover, which is difficult, as he is a lot bigger than Gronk.

Seeing Yaz use him as protection, Gronk screams in dwarvish:

"Tree-hugging wuss!"

Yaz then turns tail and runs back to the foot of the stairs, waving his arms around and shouting:

"Guards! Let's get 'em!"

Yaz waits for the others, then returns to the entrance to shoot bullets. Much to his delight, he sees the first bullet strike true, braining one of the guards who falls to the ground behind the pew he is standing behind.

Not wanting to become a dwarvish pincushion, Gronk heads for the safety of the pews before yelling back up the stairs:

"Looks like we found 'em other guards. Gotta be at least three o' 'em. We gots 30' feet o' hallway an' 'en a room 'at looks ta be 'bout 50' foot square. Little lady, ya wouldn't by chance be able ta zap 'em with some lightnin' or fry 'em up right good, would ya?"

As the rest of the party begins to react to the guards, Winnacer gives the wall a swift kick as he mutters under his breath:

"Incompetent morons....Spravedelna help us."

Jihan can only shake his head at the impatience of the dwarf and half-elf, yet still he has Weitbeissen at the ready:

"Kärsimätön äpärä..." he mutters beneath his breath in gnomish.

"Watch out for that wyvern!" the elf yells down the stairs, moving even as he speaks.

"Oh, too late," he adds, seeing the paralyzed warrior on the floor.

As he nears the position of Gronk and Yaz, Jihan crouches down and heads towards the nearest pew he can find for cover. From this position he peeps his head up and draws back an arrow, seeking targets. He lets a couple of arrows fly out towards one of the guards, one of which strikes home and injures the guard slightly.

Will rushes to cover behind a pew where he too can engage in missile combat. He too sees one of the arrows strike home, injuring the second of the two surviving guards slightly.

Not to be outdone, Gronk aims his heavy crossbow once more, but again cannot find a way through to the target.

Winnacer fell behind the warriors' charge, letting Bennett lead the way and using him for cover until the warrior got taken down by the wyvern watch.

The two remaining guards both loosen arrows towards the group shooting from the entrance to the corridor, but with all of the group hiding behind pews, they are well protected and so all of them are saved from any damage.

Suddenly, a 40-foot radius area at the back of the temple goes completely dark. As it is over 60 feet away from the group's current position, not even the demi-humans in the party can see what is happening within, as it is outside the range of their infravision.

For a few seconds, nothing happens, then a voice emerges from the darkness:

"Stop your friends from attacking us any further," a gravelly sounding voice shouts out from the darkness. "You don't need to come down here."

At this, Will walks forwards:

"That makes perfect sense to me," says the bard. "They seems like decent people, why don't we just leave them alone?"

Will puts his bow over his shoulder and lowers his hands unthreateningly as he walks into the open and speaks again:

"Certainly there have been atrocities committed here, but does that mean that these priests are without redemptive potential? Perhaps they are trying to avoid conflict so that they may have the space in order mend their ways and right the wrongs which they have done. Is it beyond us to give them that opportunity?"

"Yes," says Aneira who, along with the Padre and the others had descended the stairs to find out what was going on. "It is."

"Aye," the Padre agrees.

Then, quietly to the party:

"Foul curs're usin' a page from OUR book, enchantin' 'im like tha'."

Gronk just shakes his head at Will's comments, chalking it up to elven weirdness in his mind, and mumbles:

"Damn minstrel, don't know what ya be talkin' 'about. 'ese buckets o' pus ain't gonna be seein' da next sunrise."

Will turns to the woman and entreats her:

"Have you no warmth of forgiveness in your heart?"

Aneira turned to Will and the look in her eyes would freeze the fastest flowing river:

"This group has done nothing but kill and threaten to kill since I've joined you. You have killed mercenaries who are only serving a contract and not creating the diseases themselves, yet you would show mercy to those that kidnapped our hostess's husband and child. And, for what you did to Fae that night, you and Winnacer, I will never forgive either of you. Ever. But do what you will. You have never cared for my opinion save to scorn it."

Will looks angrily around:

"Woman, I have never offered an open word about anything you have said, for or against."

"Not true, but then again, you always were of weak will..." replied Aneira, ignoring the charmed bard.

The bard then turns to the rest of the party:

"Are you all so addicted to the carnage of war that you will not give peaceful means a chance to prevail? At least listen to what they have to say!"

"They've got his mind..." Jihan mutters, shaking his head in dismay. "Got to keep him talking so he doesn't shoot someone before we can hold him."

In so saying, the elf turns to regard the bard, and speaks:

"Mirek and Zuzana, Will, were not torn away from the rest of their family to help your friends find redemption. Everyone has the potential to be saved, but they must first answer for their actions. A GermSpreader, who's very breath brings rotting death... The core of their very existence is to hurt the living. Ask them to forsake this, their God, and all these devices, tell them to call off their guards, drop their weapons and magicks and come forward. Then we can talk about redemption."

"Fair enough," Will says and turns to face the priests once more, trying to shout above the din of battle,"WE HAVE A TRUCE! HALT YOUR DEFENSIVE FIRE AND WE WILL DISCUSS REPARATIONS PEACEFULLY!"

Will opens his mouth to reply but, seeing nothing stranger than normal in the way Will is acting, Yaz continues to fire bullets at the guards with bows. The two surviving guards, however, have now ceased firing and are just peeping over the top of the pews in order to see what is happening at the entrance of the tunnel. As a result, they are almost impossible for him to hit.

Will looks a little annoyed and easily grabs the sling out of Yaz' hand:

"They've stopped shooting at us, so I think it's only fair if we were to do the same," he says, holding Yaz' sling tightly.

Yaz's automatic response is to shove the bard to the side with both hands, crying:

"Hey! Asshole...!"

"Bloody 'ell, I ain't stoppin' 'til all o' 'em be dead," replies Gronk.

"Damn it! Somebody hold him, they've got his mind," Jihan shouts out. "Cover me," he says towards Gronk.

Gronk takes careful aim and fires his crossbow at one of the guard's who is peering over the pews. Amazingly Gronk manages to hit the guard in the face and the guard cries out in pain as the quarrel imbeds itself in the man's cheek.

"Whoa!" excalims the dwarf in response.

Then Jihan rises up and releases a blurring burst of arrows towards the darkness in a fairly wide arc, hoping to hit or at least discourage the filth priests. There is a thunk and then a moan as one of his arrows finds its target. In response, there is a muttering from the darkness and Jihan feels a terrible stab of pain, which sends him crying out in agony. As the pain subsides, he finds to his relief that the damage caused, however, was not too severe.

The Padre, keeping his shield before him, decides to rush out in order to try and drag Bennett to safety. As he does so, a priest, dressed in the familiar black and yellow robes, charge at him from their positions at the side of the walls. Both have glowing hands that they try and hit the Padre with. However, neither of them are able to find a way through the Padre's chainmail. In response, the Padre lays into one of the priests with his morningstar, hitting the priest twice. His second blow is a particularly unpleasant one that hits the priest in the groin, which is sufficient to make him keel over and die.

Bennett smiles in his paralyzed state as Kokal groins the priest.

Having hesitated in order to see what the overall plan was, and then finding out that there was no plan, Faewen'il and Xavier descend the stairs in order to join the others to the start of the corridor.

Xavier, seeing the bravery of the Padre as he takes out the first of the two disease priests, bellows loudly and then leaps over a pew and rushes to assist him. He meets the onrush of the other priest and attempts to shoulder charge the bastard with his shield back the way the priest came.

"Padre, FOR RODENGAST! FOR RODENGAST!!!" the Saxon says as he rushes to the Padre's aid.

The priest sees the Saxon charging towards him, however, and sidesteps Xavier's charge avoiding any damage, leading Xavier to utter a long stream of teutonic curses from his lips.

"Aye. Strike true, Sir Xavier," the Padre says tersely and calmly, through gritted teeth, his concentration riveted on his battle with the priests.

Aneira produces a shard of glass from her pouch and begins casting, uttering her devotions to Zima as she gesticulates wildly. Her goddess rewards her as a swirling sword-shaped formation of jagged, fast swirling extends from her hand.

Seeing that the Padre and Xavier should easily be able to take care of the priest that they are locked in combat with, Winnacer advances with the Ripper bared, heading for the blacked out area at the rear of the temple. He advances halfway across the room until he gets in amongst the remaining pews in the top half of the room.

As he does so, two more priests rise up from their hidden position amongst the pews and launch themselves at the LawBringer. One of them tries to hit the LawBringer with a glowing hand, but Winnacer's platemail saves him from any damage. The other comes at the young Lord with his sickle but Winnacer easily ducks away from the blow.

In response, Winnacer easily manages to hack one of them to pieces with two mighty blows from the 'Ripper of Pardubitze'.

Back at the entrance to the temple, Will is rushing round trying to convince everyone that it would be a really good idea to stop fighting.

"Poikasta narttu..." Jihan curses in gnomish as his body is wracked with pain from the filth priests casting. Shaking his head to clear it, the elf glances over at Will, an arrow nocked and aiming towards the nearest available target, as soon as one presents itself.

"Will, don't you remember casting a certain spell on the guard across the river? Made him friends with us? You ever think of what could happen if someone were to cast the same thing on you?" the elf calls out to the bard.

Will hears the elf and considers a moment. After a momentary pause, the bard shakes his head thinking:

"That could never happen to me."

He's currently more concerned with trying to stop the Padre and Xavier fighting with the closest of the disease priests. Before he can get there, however, Faewen'il calmly raises her wand and points it towards the bard. She then puts her finger on the rune in the center of the wand and sends a narrow beam of bluish light heading towards the bard. Will, however, with his lightning fast reactions, sees what Fae is doing out of the corner of his eye. Showing considerable dexterity, he manages to duck, thus avoiding the beam.

The bard is pretty pissed at this. He now understands why it is that he is sympathetic to the cause of the disease priests, as they have done nothing to try and harm him. He turns towards the magess and thinks to himself:

"I know how to put a stop to her little mischief."

With that, he produces his harp and aims it towards the feisty one, plucking a resonating note as he does so.

Faewen'il is no sloth either, however, and sees what Will is up to. She manages to throw herself to the side of the corridor, thus avoiding Will's charming spell.

With Faewen'il and Will locked in their own little squabble, Yaz takes advantage of the absence of Will's attention by reaching into his pouch, where he produces a flower petal. He then starts to cast. It is a spell that you have not heard him cast before and is a long one as Yaz continues to chant and gesticulate for over a minute.

"I'll keep you covered," Jihan cries to the advancing warriors. "Someone tell those other guards that they can surrender and join us if they're so inclined..."

In so saying, the elf fires another burst of arrows towards the darkness, centered around where he heard the voice grunt out in pain. This time the elf gets even more lucky as he hears two grunts of pain from two different people coming from the darkness.

Close to Yaz, the Padre and Xavier are trying to finish off the last of the disease priests that are facing them. However, the priest is agile and neither the Padre nor the Saxon are able to land blows upon him. The priest lashes out at the Padre with his sickle, but the Padre manages to knock the weapon away with his shield.

In the center of the temple, Winnacer lashes out at the priest before him once more with the 'Ripper'. This time, however, the priest dodges and Winnacer does not strike true. The priest tries to counter with his sickle, but Winnacer sees it coming and easily dodges it.

This is not all he sees, however, as he sees that the two remaining guards who started the combat by firing at Gronk are charging towards him. As they charge towards him, Winnacer brings up his shield, managing to stop either of the guards hitting him with their longswords.

Gronk rushes towards the temple, hurdling the pews blocking the way, heading to join Winnacer in the combat with the guards. Instead of the profanities that normally spew from Gronk during battle, the others can hear him singing loudly in dwarvish. The song speaks of the courage of a dwarven hero and the glory he brought his people by the battles which he won. Aneira runs towards the combat at Gronk's side, brandishing her frost blade, intent upon taking out one of the guards.

Gronk hacks into the first of the guards, noticing that it was the one that he caught in the cheek with the quarrel earlier. He notices, to his surprise, that the quarrel is now gone and that there is no wound remaining. The guard is not so lucky this time, however, as Gronk hacks Thunder deep into the guard's side, killing him with one blow.

On the opposite side, the other guard tries to parry Aneira's attack with the frostblade. The mass of swirling razor sharp ice shards simply passes straight through the guard's longsword, however, and hacks the very surprised guard to pieces.

Aneira's joy at killing the guard is fairly short-lived, however. Her expression changes to one of puzzlement for a moment and she lets the ice blade dematerialize:

"Why are we doing this?" she asks to Winnacer and Gronk. "This is pointless. I think that we should surrender."

With that, she stands stock still and puts her hand up in the air.

Will shouts in return:

"There is no reason anyone has to die here today!"

Meanwhile, Yaz finally finishes his incantation and gestures towards the darkness. From in among it you can all hear the buzzing of bees, wasps and assorted insects, although cannot see them because of the darkness. Within a few seconds, however, two priests run out of the darkness, running towards the warriors in the center of the temple. Jihan notices that both of them have been hit by his arrows.

Yaz cackles in delight as he sees the results of his work. Concentrating, and holding a hand straight out toward the swarm, he directs the insects to fly out of the darkness and toward the nearest priest.

He continues to cackle as the buzzing swarm of insects chase after the two priests that are heading off in order to reinforce the one remaining priest in the center of the temple facing Winnacer and Gronk. However, his cackles are cut short when he sees another priest, in the northeast corner of the temple, pop his head over the pews before gesturing towards the swarm. As he does so, the insect swarm disappears, leaving the priests safe from harm for the time being.

"Bastard," cries Yaz, incredibly disappointed at seeing his handiwork nullified by the priest.

Jihan sees the priest as well and tries to get a modicum of revenge by sending a couple of arrows heading in the priest's direction. Unfortunately, 'heading in the right direction' is about all that can be said regarding Jihan's efforts, as both arrows miss their target by a wide margin.

Realizing that there is nothing that he can do for the swarm now, Yaz tries to retrieve his sling. He walks over to the bard and snatches it back.

"Don't take my stuff!" he says, glaring at Will.

"Apologies," says Will, still trying to keep the sling from Yaz, but failing," but you wouldn't stop."

However, as he does so, he fails to see the thin beam of bluish color light as it darts from Faewen'il's wand. As the beam strikes Will on the back, the bard does a very accurate impression of Bennett, as he freezes in place, totally paralyzed for the time being.

Yaz turns back to make a comment to the magess. However, as he starts to, all around him goes completely quiet. He turns around just in time to see another priest, this time in the northwest corner, ducking down behind the pews again.

Knowing that a silencing spell has been cast, Yaz quickly trots forwards and is relieved to find that, after moving 15' forwards, he is out of the silenced area. Faewen'il also moves forwards out of the corridor in order to be out of the area of the spell.

This brings them close to the area where the Padre and Xavier are still hard at work finishing off the priest that they are locked in combat with. Once again, the Padre is unsuccessful in finding a way through the priest's defense with his morning star. Xavier, however, has rather more luck, as he hacks into the Nemotz priest with 'The Justifier', inflicting a terrible wound upon the cleric, but not quite enough to fell him. The Nemotz priest responds by attempting to cut into the Saxon with his sickle, but he is unable to find a chink in Xavier's chainmail.

In the center of the temple, Aneira moves to the side of the conflict. She looks extremely dejected:

"Why bother? We can never defeat them. We're all going to die," she repeats.

Gronk and Winnacer are paying no attention to her, however, as they attempt to finish off the priest in front of them before the other two priests are able to close in. Gronk manages to finish off the priest with another mighty blow from Thunder before the next two priests charge into them.

The two priests lash out at the dwarf and the LawBringer with their sickles, but neither of them is able to make their blows count. Winnacer hacks into one of them and causes a fair amount of damage with the Ripper, but the priest is still able to stand.

At the entrance to the temple, Xavier is getting more and more furious with himself at not being able to finish off the priest before him and the Padre. He puts all of his strength into bringing the Justifier crashing down upon the unfortunate priest. The black and yellow clad acolyte screams as he sees the heavy blade coming down upon him and realizes that he has no chance of avoiding the blow.

The priest is right, and the blade descends upon him with terrible force, cleaving him right in two. At seeing the priest's grisly end, the resolve of the remainder to defend the temple seems to dissolve, as they start to rush to escape from the place.

"'Ave at 'im, Xavier! Surely, Radegast guides ye arm!" the Padre cheers as Xavier finishes the priest they were facing. "Now t' give th' rest o' these vermin their share. Onward, Sir!"

From both far corners of the temple, not one, but two, priests rise up, holding hands for some reason, and dash into the area of darkness in the center of the northern part of the temple.

Faewen'il and Jihan both see them dashing towards the darkness and try to take them down as they run. Jihan unleashes a couple of arrows at one of the two that are running from the east. Both of the shots are on target and the elf looks on in triumph as one of the priests falls to the ground, dead.

Faewen'il raises her hands towards the one running next to the fallen priest. Uttering a familiar incantation, she fans her fingers and three bolts of pure energy go flying towards the priest. All three bolts impact upon the priest and he cries out from the pain, but does not fall, making it into the area of the darkness, along with the two priests coming in from the west side of the temple, who also disappear out of view.

Padre Kokal steps over the body of the bisected priest and charges towards the area of darkness. Yaz, who is close to him, runs forwards also, over to the western set of pews. As he moves between the pews, however, his foot catches on something unexpected and he falls, disappearing from view.

The Padre notices Yaz' disappearance, and once again seems mildly amused at the misfortunes of his recent adversary. The brief grin fades completely, though, as Kokal sees that the disease priests are going to make good their escape:

"Ye foul, rotting cretins! Stand an' fight!" he rages at them, stopping short of entering the darkness himself and shaking his morningstar at the fleeing priests.

As the battle progresses, Winnacer's eyes start to glow with holy radiance and his teeth are bared with hatred against his most unholy foes. As he brings The Ripper of Pardubitze down upon the priests, he shouts:

"Defilers of Spravedelna's ways! You shall all feel the cold Justice of Spravedelna! Your deaths have all been foretold in the Book of Punishments! Surrender now and Spravedelna may be merciful!"

With that, he lashes out at the priest before him. He catches the priest with a glancing blow which inflicts a minor injury upon the priest, but not sufficient to drop him to the ground. The priest's retaliatory blow is a clumsy one, which misses the LawBringer by a wide margin. Gronk lashes out at the priest before him, but the priest easily manages to dodge the blows. He tries to hit the dwarf with his sickle, but Gronk's chainmail once again protects him from any harm.

"We're all going to die," repeats Aneira, "All have already heard of the Lawgiver's mercy and wish to repay it."

Seeing the majority of priests already under the cover of darkness, the Padre decides to aid Gronk and Winnacer in finishing off the last remaining two priests that are visible. Neither of his blows are able to penetrate the priest's mail, however.

With the two priests now facing three warriors, they realize that their chances of survival are remote and so the pair of them tries to make a run for it, knowing that the rest of their numbers have already disappeared into the darkness. As they turn their backs to flee, however, the warriors unleash parting shots at them. Gronk and the Padre's blows both miss, but once more the Ripper finds its target, as Winnacer hacks the pair of them down as they flee for the darkness.

With no opponents in sight, Gronk looks up at the darkness, now being close enough for him to see into it with his infravision. He sees that there is one more priest in the center of the darkened area. As the three priests run towards him, he grabs hold of them. He then pulls them behind him, through an opening in the tapestry that covers the north wall of the temple. The four priests then disappear from view, leaving the party in control of the temple.

As the adrenaline from the short, intense combat subsides, they have a chance to examine the temple in more detail for the first time. They see that the area is 70' wide and 80' long. They see that there are pairs of pews, split down the middle of the chapel by a wide aisle that runs from the hallway to the altar at the northern end of the temple. The pews are carved from dark oak and are very simple, adorned with nothing but the rat symbol of Nemotz on their ends. The walls of the temple are the same dark swirling colors of black and blood-red found in the hallway to the south. As they look at the walls for a moment, thye start to feel queasy, as the swirling colors actually seem to move, and so they avert their gaze after a moment. Both the floor and ceiling of the chapel are of a polished, glossy black.

At the north end of the chapel is a short, 3' high railing of stone that separates the pews from the altar. There is no break in the length of the railing, though it stops 10' short of the east and west walls. The altar is a massive dull slab of stone, which is currently partially obscured by the darkness, which is centered a way behind it. The 8' long, 5' wide altar stands 4' high, through the slab is only 2' thick. It rests upon four granite blocks that raise the altar 2' into the air. As Winnacer looks towards the slab, a dull throb of pain starts to pulse through his head.

A large tapestry covers the entire north wall. Although it is currently partially obscured by the darkness, they can see that it depicts various scenes of people going about their everyday lives, though the skies above them are gray and depressing. The figures in the tapestry have all been inflicted with a horrid rotting disease, which has caused them to lose digits and limbs.

They look around to check upon the state of their colleagues. They see that Bennett is still paralyzed on the floor where he lay and Will is still paralyzed standing not far from the warrior, where he was paralyzed from Faewen'il's wand. Aneira is standing by the wall, still muttering about the futility of the exercise and extolling the wisdom of giving up on the exercise.