Experiments In Suffering

Winnacer and Bennett hand the flame-thrower to Gronk and Xavier and then the two of them lead the six of them out of the room and along the corridor heading for the final level. They wade through the filthy waters and walk through the ratmen bodies as they come to the stairs up towards the final level. Winnacer and Bennett take a look up the stairs, but all seems to be as they left it. They carry on up the stairs and get to the final level. The large iron door before them, which Jihan secured with his Sovereign Glue, is still suck fast. Cautiously, they walk around the central room to check that all of the doors are still as they left them. It appears as if everything is exactly as they left it the previous day, however, with the north and south doors to the inner temple glued shut and the east and west doors barricaded with beds, tables and other sundry furniture.

Confident that the occupants of the inner temple have not been able to escape during the night, they turn their attention to the two unopened doors on the eastern side of the complex.

They all stand before it and Winnacer looks to Yaz:

"It's down to you to get us through the doors, Yaz," Winnacer says.

Yaz nods and walks up to the door. He starts to utter the words of an ensorcellment as he gestures towards the southernmost of the doors. After a little under a minute, they hear the sound of the door timber creaking and groaning before the fibers start to tear and the wood starts to buckle, pulling the hinges from the door. All it takes is a mighty kick from Bennett to send the door toppling over into the room. As the door falls in, they wince a little, as it is very bright behind the door when compared to the gloom of the rest of the complex. That's not the only difference. As opposed to the rest of the temple, which is built from dull gray stone, behind the door, the floor, walls and ceiling are clad in what was once small white ceramic tiles. They are white no longer, however, as the tiles are dirty from mud, dust and traces of blood that are splattered around.

The area behind the door is not a room, as they might have expected, but rather a 10' wide corridor that runs eastwards for around 100'. On the south side of the wall are three more wooden doors spaced evenly along the length of the wall.

Yaz shakes his head as he sees all the doors:

"If these are all locked, then we're in trouble," he says. "I only have one more Warp Wood spell now, and we need that to go through the next door."

Winnacer nods his head in agreement:

"That's true, and we also don't have Jihan with us to check each of the doors for traps."

Bennett just nods:

"I'm not afraid to open the doors. I just want to get this thing over with."

Not waiting a response from the others, Bennett walks up to the first of the doors and tries the handle. It's unlocked and so he throws the door open and they all peer inside.

As is the case with the corridor, the room is brightly lit with continual light spells and is covered in the same dirty white ceramic tiles. The room is around 50' long and 30' wide. Normally the contents of the room would leave them appalled and disgusted, as the white tiles are littered with sundry body parts including organs, entrails and occasional limbs, many of which seem to have been gnawed upon. However, such has been the level of the atrocities that they have witnessed over the past 24 hours that they are all starting to get rather hardened to the sights.

Built into the walls of the room are some cages with strong metal bars that run from the floor to the low, 10' high ceilings. Each of the cages is around 10' cubed in dimension. Except for the filth that litters the entire room, all of the cages are empty. The doors to all of the cages are open and so they reluctantly investigate them all to ensure that they are not missing anything. They have to choose their steps carefully to stop themselves from stepping in something that they would rather not do. They spend just under five minutes prodding through the entrails with their swords, but come up empty-handed.

As there are no doors from the room, they file out and Bennett leads the way to the next door. Once again, he throws it open and they all peer in.

The room appears to be fairly similar to the previous one in terms of its dimensions and the fact that the floor is strewn with human remains. However, there are no cages in this room. It is quite obvious that this room is some sort of surgery where the Nemotz priesthood conduct their evil experiments. The far wall of the room has a long table running the length of it. Above the table is a rack, which contains an assortment of tools that look as if they are used for medical purposes, as they contain a wide variety of metal implements including large saws, knives with serrated edges, scalpels, syringes and drills, in addition to a wide variety of other implements, the purpose of which they don't even want to begin to guess at. All of the implements are filthy and are covered in dried blood, pus and excrement.

Along the length of the east and west walls of the room are several huge glass jars some 4' tall and 3' in diameter, all of which are filled with a yellowish liquid. Inside these jars are corpses of individuals that float silently in the jars. All of the bodies show highly advanced stages of disease and mutation of different kinds and the expressions on the corpses' faces show that they died painfully. All of the jars are numbered.

Despite this gruesome sight, it is the object in the center of the room that grabs the party's attention. They see that there is a large operating table there and on the table is a corpse. However, as they look at the corpse, they see signs of movement and realize that the person on the table is, surprisingly, not completely dead. They walk through the filth to investigate it more carefully.

As they look at the body more carefully, the urge to retch becomes strong as they see what the priests have done to the unfortunate person on the table.

The body of the man on the operating table appears to have been worked upon very carefully. The man's flesh has been carefully cut down the middle of his chest and legs and then peeled back and secured to the table by means of large pins hammered into the wood of the table, exposing all of the man's vital organs. Those of them with some knowledge of anatomy see that the man resembles a living diagram as to the workings of the human body. Several of his organs have been removed and placed around the rest of his body. Other of his organs have been carefully sliced in half to reveal their inner workings. Amazingly, the man is still alive, which can only be the result of some kind of magick. The party can clearly see his heart beating, as it continues to pump blood through his remaining veins. The man's skull seems to have been cut in two, with half of it having been removed. The left half of his brain is clearly visible.

As they stand over the man fighting back the urge to vomit, the man's one remaining bloodshot eye swivels in its socket to look at them. It looks them all up and down for a moment and then they see his exposed half-tongue start to move as he tries to speak to them:

"kul buh," the pain-wracked half body tries to say to them, "plth, kul buh."

He seems to be begging them with the remaining half of his face.

Winnacer looks at the three assembled priests:

"Is there any chance of this man being saved?"

"I wouldn't know," the Padre replies sadly. "I certainly can't do anythin' for 'im, I'm afraid."

Aneira and Yaz both shake their heads in agreement.

"There mus' be only foul magicks keepin' 'im alive at the moment," the Padre continues, "because there's no good god that'd let one o' their followers suffer like tha'. If we tried t' take 'im off th' table then the pain'd be agonizin' for 'im an' 'e'd probably die in the process anyhow. An' I don't 'ave any way o' deadenin' th' pain 'til we can get 'im some expert 'elp."

"Best t'put 'im out o' 'is misery, I think."

Winnacer unsheathes 'Old Bohavia and makes to speak. Xavier, however, beats him to it, as he steps forward, his face stern:

"Go in peace you, poor bastard," the Saxon says. "The pain is ended."

With these words, Xavier drives the blade of The Justifier through the poor bastard's beating heart. As his heart bursts, spraying blood over his body, the remaining part of the man's face seems to relax as he finds the release that he has obviously been waiting for.

The party leaves the room and closes the door behind them and they silently walk further down the corridor in a state of shock to the final door. Once more, Bennett tries the door and finds that it is unlocked. He opens the door wide once again and they check out the contents of the room.

The room is slightly larger than the previous two, being some 40' wide rather than the 30' of the others. The state of the room is a lot cleaner than the other two and the floor, while being dirty, is free of the human remains that litter the other two.

The room is quite obvious a laboratory of sorts, with a large table filling much of it. Upon the table is a great deal of equipment consisting of a number of glass beakers containing different colored liquids, many of which are bubbling away. Most of the beakers are connected to each other by means of copper and glass tubing. The whole room exudes an unpleasant smell, unlike any that they have smelled before.

In addition to the table, the walls of the room are covered in shelves. On the east wall, the shelves are full of books, many of them very old by the look of their bindings and the yellowing pages. Upon the west and south wall, the shelves are crammed full of more glass jars. These jars are all of a more regular size than the huge ones in the surgery, in that they are from 6"-12" tall and 3"-6" in diameter. All of the jars have lids and are sealed very securely with black wax.

Cautiously, they enter the room in order to investigate the contents. They take a look at the research equipment on the table, but none of them are able to figure out quite what it does and what it is for. Nervous of the smells emanating from it, they decide not to fiddle around with it. They then look at the contents of the shelves. Not surprisingly, the contents of the bookshelf seems to comprise a library concerning diseases and there are also many tomes regarding anatomy and medicine. There are too many books there for them to look through them all carefully, but they can see that this is a very comprehensive library indeed and contains many books in languages that are unfamiliar to them, but which look ancient.

While they are looking through the library, the door opens suddenly and everyone turns around with their hands on their weapons. They see, to their relief, that the visitors are only Will and Aneira.

"We took Jihan's body upstairs and laid him on one of the beds," Will says. "Faewen'il is also up there. She's being looked after by Milan and Tadeus."

Will then looks around at the library in awe, as a priest on holy ground:

"This is surely a find. Very probably the priests of Lechit can take this knowledge which was intended for evil and create a boon for well being this realm has never known."

All Gronk has to say in response is:

"Hrmph!, Words never be killin' nobody, cold steel be much better."

Will smiles to Gronk:

"Ah my stout dwarven ally, it is not killing that these works should be put to use in, but healing."

Along with Aneira and Will, they move over to the other side of the room and start to investigate the jars. Once again, they don't get too close to the jars, as they have no wish to see what happens should they open one of them. The jars seem to contain a wide variety of substances, with many of them liquids, while a few of them seem to contain gasses and others solids. Each of the jars is very clearly labeled.

It is quite obvious that the majority of the substances are diseases of sorts, as some of them such as malaria, typhoid, dysentery and cholera they have heard of. Most of the labels on the jars mean nothing to them at all, however, with some having names such as E-bola, others having acronyms such as H.I.V. and others having combinations of letters and numbers.

They see that there is a series of jars with code-names, all of which start with the letters XD. Their eyes are drawn to the jar labeled as XD-347, which contains a liquid that is totally transparent. Worryingly, there is a large empty expanse of shelving next to the one solitary vial of XD-347.

"The zombie slave plague," Winnacer murmurs to himself as he looks at the jar. "We should leave these for the Priests of Lechit. Perhaps they can concoct the needed antidotes, especially to the XD-347."

He stares at the bottle for a little longer and then shakes his head:

"No, on second thoughts it might be better if we were to take it with us after we have finished with the occupants. I'd like to get the Priests of Lechit to look at this before we leave for the dwarven city - whichever one it might be."

During their investigation, they also see some large purple rock fragments that are also contained in jars. The rock appears to be similar to that used for the ammunition for the firearm retrieved from the ratmen's armory and also the base of the ratpriest's idol, except for the fact that these rocks are glowing quite brightly. The jars containing the purple rocks are all labeled with the word 'warpstone'. Winnacer looks at the rocks thoughtfully for a few seconds but says nothing.

Then he changes his mind about leaving the rocks too. Very carefully, he takes the five jars containing the rocks and places then in his backpack.

Deciding to leave the laboratory for the moment, they all file out of the room once more. As they head back down the corridor in order to go through the last remaining door, Will speaks:

"Just hold on a moment," he says.

The others turn around to see that Will is investigating the far end of the corridor carefully, looking at the ceramic tiles.

"Something here isn't quite right," he says.

He starts to press on each of the tiles in turn until, after a couple of minutes, he presses on one and a 5' section of the wall swings backwards to reveal a small room, which is just 10' square.

The room inside is dark and so Winnacer shines the lantern inside in order to illuminate it. As he does so, they can see that the room contains three large chests that fills much of it and a collection of other items in a heap on the floor on the opposite side. They investigate the heap more closely to see that there is a suit of chainmail there, upon which is lying a bastard sword in a scabbard, plus a thick leather bag.

Will walks over to the bag and investigates it carefully.

It looks exactly like a thick leather bag.

The bard opens the bag and sees that it contains a number of potions, eight of them in total, all contained in square shaped bottles that are firmly secured to the side of the bag through leather straps. In addition to the potions, there is a notebook along with a small silver statuette of a snake that is coiled around a pole.

Padre Kokal kneels down and picks up the silver statuette to investigate it carefully:

"I know what this is," he says. "An 'oly symbol o' Lechit. That's what this is."

Winnacer lifts the bastard sword off the armor and tosses it to Xavier:

"It seems that this sword is fated to fight against the plagues of man. I think you are the man to champion its cause, Xavier."

"Danke, mein lord, for this gift," Xavier replies, taking the sword. "It vill be used vith pleasure as ve wipe clean the filth that remains in this place of hell."

Looking into the bag, Will recognizes four of the potions, but the other four potions are unfamiliar to him. Pulling the four potions that he recognizes from the bag, Will offers them to the group and explains their powers:

"These four potions I have seen before. They contain Concentrated Holy Water of Lechit. They possess healing powers slightly more effective that the basic clerical healing spell."

"And look here," the bard continues," a staff buried under the chainmail as well. Can't say that any of these fine items stand out to me in markings or form though."

The blade catches Will's eye, however, and he steps over to Xavier, kneeling down before the warrior and examining the blade in his hands. As he carefully examines it, he begins to speak:

"This bastard sword, however, rings a bell."

They see that the steel blade of the bastard sword seems to sparkle in the light and seems to be as clean and sharp as the day it was forged. The hilt is also made of steel and is of similar design to the Lechit holy symbol, in that it has a carved snake spiraling around the hilt. The guard of the hilt is in the form of a cross.

"I believe that I have heard and told tales about this sword," the bard continues. "If I am not wrong, it is around 150 years old and was originally used by a famous FaithHealer by the name of Yan Vrabel. The name of the noble blade is 'The Purifier'."

"Yan Vrabel was famous as a FaithHealer and his story came to be a staple story for bard's of Bohavia to recount because of his part in combating the Great Plague of 3349. Vrabel was the leader of a team of Lechit priests and FaithHealers that were dispatched to try and find the source of the Great Plague. He discovered that the Plague was being spread by rats that were being shipped up the Great River Donau and then up the River Svratka to the city of Brunn, where there was a secret cult of Nemotz worshippers who took the rats and then transported them around Bohavia, distributing them into all of the cities of the land."

"The legend of Vrabel is that he and his team were able to defeat the Nemotz cultists in their lair in Brunn, but that the leader of the cult was able to escape. There then followed a chase through the streets of Brunn as the Lechit team chased the leader and a few of his cronies towards the riverside docks. Most of the Lechit team were unable to keep up with the pace of the Nemotz leader, but Vrabel would not give up."

"The Nemotz leader leaped onto one of the boats that was bringing the rats into the country and cast off. With an incredible leap, Vrabel launched himself off the dock and managed to just catch hold of the side of the boat as it pulled away. On the boat was not only the Nemotz leader, but also several other Nemotz cultists who were crewing it."

"Vrabel managed to get on deck. Already seriously injured from the fight in Brunn and seeing the amount of cultists that he had to face, Vrabel was pretty sure that he was going to die in the fight. He was determined that he was going to take the rest of the cultists with him, however, and so he used several vials of Greek fire to set the boat alight."

"There then followed a combat that was to become the stuff of legends, as Vrabel ignored the flames licking all around him in order to fight off the Nemotz cultists using 'The Purifier', stopping them from making to the riverbank where they would have been able to escape. Vrabel fought the cultists until the boat was totally engulfed by flame, killing the Nemotz cultists, but giving his own life in the process."

"With the source of the Plague now destroyed, the other churches of Nemotz were able to cleanse the land of the taint of the disease and, apart from the odd recurring incident, Bohavia has been free of the Plague ever since."

Will looks around and sees that he has gotten carried away with himself in his recanting of the tale:

"Sorry, just thought you might like to know. The sword is equal in power to "The Educator" that I presently bear."

Xavier looks upon the sword with some admiration:

"Yah, indeed such a cleansing blade is worthy of my hand. Vhat I have witnessed the past two days has sickened me to the core. Never did I think I vould witness worse atrocities than that vhich the Fey once committed upon my homeland. The Nyemetz came close, but this temple is beyond anything I have witnessed. Surely the most base born orc vould be sickened by such acts as these committed in the name of the demonic field which these whoresons worship. I, vith some happiness, shall finish the vork of the poor bastard who once wielded this sword. The Vorld has no place for such fiends as this!".

Will leaves the chainmail, bastard sword, bag and contents for the rest of them and goes over to investigate the three medium sized chests that fill the rest of the room. He carefully checks the chests for traps, but cannot see any signs there. The rest of them back away from the room as Will cautiously opens the chest. Luckily, the lid of the chest opens up easily and without any nasty surprises. Looking inside, Will sees that the chest is filled with gold pieces. He rummages through the coins to see if it contains anything else inside, but finds that it is filled with the coins.

"There has to be a thousand gold pieces in here at least," Will says as he tries to ascertain the value of the contents.

He then takes a look at the other two chests. They too are untrapped and, once opened, reveal that they are identical to the first chest as they are filled with gold pieces.

"Let's leave the chests here for the moment," says Winnacer. "They are not going anywhere and we are burdened enough as it is."

"Let's investigate the last of the doors from the main corridor."

They walk back down the white tiled corridor and return to the main area that surrounds the inner temple. Yaz goes up to the door and repeats the casting of the warp wood spell that he cast on the other door. The results of the spell are the same as before, as the wood starts to buckle, pulling the hinges from the doorframe. Bennett once again sends the door flying with an almighty kick.

This time, the room is dark inside and so Winnacer brings his lantern up so that they can see inside. The room is a large one, being some 70' square and appears to be a large storage room, as it contains huge sets of shelves that cover one half of the room. Many of the shelves are empty, others contain sundry tools and items such as saws, lengths of rope, spades, buckets and other items that could be expected to be found in any such storage room just about anywhere. Elsewhere on the shelves are some large crude wooden crates that are sealed.

They walk into the room and see that there is a large space containing several large bales of something wrapped in sackcloth. Next to the bales are many sheets of very thin paper and next to that is some sort of wooden contraption, the purpose of which is hard to figure out. There is a smell of some kind of plant-like substance that fills the room.

Yaz sniffs at the air:

"I seem to recognize that smell," he says.

He then advances to the bale and cuts through the sackcloth with his lucky scimitar. He reaches through the cloth and brings out a dried brown substance.

"Tobacco," he says, surprised at his discovery.

Meanwhile, Will is investigating the many crude wooden boxes on the shelves. He carefully takes one down and looks over it. It looks to be fairly harmless and so he pulls the lid off. Inside the crate is a multitude of small packages made out of thick paper. He takes one of the small packages and opens it up. He looks at the contents with a look of puzzlement and then calls Yaz over:

"Hey Yaz, what do you make of these?"

Yaz drops the tobacco and comes over to investigate the bard's finding. He pulls one of the small cylindrical objects out of the package and looks at it carefully before sniffing it.

"Tobacco wrapped in paper," he says with some surprise. "What a really clever idea. It's much easier to smoke than having to fill up a pipe."

He pops one in his mouth:

"Hey, Winn, can I have a light?"

Kokal immediately heads over to Yaz and pulls the paper cylinder from Yaz' mouth before throwing it to the floor, whereupon he stamps on it before looking back at the annoyed druid:

"Are ye soft in the 'ead or somethin', druid?" he asks with astonishment. "Ev'rythin' else in this damn'd place is created to spread nothin' but disease, misery an' sufferin'. I can't believe that these evil items be any diff'rent."

Kokal turns away from the druid, shaking his head as he goes.

Yaz grabs a handful of the packages and stuffs them in his pouch while Kokal has his back turned:

"Tobacco causing disease?" he mutters to himself. "As if Prirodna would ever allow one of Her creations to do something like that."

They have a quick look around the room to check that they have not missed anything, but the room contains nothing else.

"There's still one room to check out," says Will as they walk out of the storage room. "There was one other room on the opposite side that we didn't check out. We might as well finish it off before we face the priesthood."

They all agree and head over to the far side of the level. They walk through the priest's sleeping quarters, which is now empty, as they have used all of the furniture to pile up against the doors, and stand in front of the door in the south wall.

"It's locked," says Will, trying the door once again.

"Well don't look at me," says Yaz, shaking his head. "I'm out of warp woods spells for the day."

"Leave this to me," says Bennett as takes Regret from his back. "This door doesn't look that well made to me. Fancy giving me a hand, Gronk?"

"Sure thing, Bent," says Gronk, as he grasps Thunder firmly by the shaft.

Bennett and Gronk then set to work upon the door, aiming their blows around the lock. Bennett's observations that the door didn't look too strong were correct and it takes only five minutes before they have managed to hack away most of the wood around the lock and Bennett finishes the job with a final kick, which opens the door.

They all look inside.

"Well, that was hardly worth the effort," say Will as he surveys the room.

They see that it is a small room just 20' square, which contains nothing except for a very simple bed and a small iron rat symbol on a crude table. They enter the room to check that there is nothing else there, but it is as plain as it first looked.

"Must be the GermSpreader's quarters," Will suggests.

They walk out of the room and assemble back in the priests' quarters.

"Well, we've gone through the whole place now," starts Winnacer, "so now there is nothing left to do but cleanse the inner temple of its foul occupants. This is likely to be one of the greatest challenges that we have ever had to face and so I think that we should spend a few minutes deciding upon our strategy for the attack. I fear that more of us will go the same way as Jihan if we don't co-ordinate our actions properly for this battle."

Winnacer thinks for a few moments before continuing:

"I think it would be best for us to move these barricades in a way that would not alert them. Otherwise, we may find ourselves getting attacked while our arms are full of furniture. That would be a bad thing. How long do these silence spells last? Would it be possible to move the furniture under its influences, opening the doors suddenly and quietly, then tossing the silenced markers into the room to quiet the priests themselves? It would be nice to catch them with their guard down a bit."

Aneira considers Winnacer's suggestion:

"The silencing spell will last for twelve minutes, which should give us enough time to kill the priests, or for them to kill us."

"I could cast them on small objects such as a stone and then cast them into the room once we have made our entry. It will mean that the priests will be able to move away from the silenced area, but it should hopefully slow them down a little."

Winnacer nods and then continues:

"As for tactics, I think that our best tact is to hit them from both sides, simultaneously and quietly. With one of us on each side opening the doors and quickly tossing a silenced object into the room and the others attacking with flame machine and explosive cannon, we may do well."

Winnacer pauses and then smiles:

"Perhaps we can make use of those warpstones in the disease room. If they are as explosive as the ones we've experienced, perhaps we can silence them, toss them into the room, and then catch them with the flame machine when they are underfoot of our enemies. Considering we have a lot of the stuff and we should probably stand back a bit instead of rushing in, a bunch of us can actually toss in a couple of chunks when the doors are open. With one good spread of the flame, we may set off a number of the stones, especially if we toss in a vial or two of oil for good effect. A thought anyway."

"We's just needs ta make sure we don't be killin' each other since we be comin' from opposite sides," Gronk says. "I won't be takin' kindly ta bein' shot with 'at gun and I'm sure ya don't wanna be toasted again."

"We should all be aware of the approximate range of the flame machine to know how far away we need to stay," Winnacer replies. "From what I have seen so far, I would estimate the range of the flame to be around 30'. The inner temple is 50' square. As a result, as long as no one goes into the center of the area, then they should be safe from the effects of the fire. I was also thinking that, if we decide to use the warpstones as grenade-like weapons, we'd be better off just throwing the rocks rather than firing into the room, as the cannon ties up two of us. We may want to do a test with one of the stones and fire prior to implementing the plan however."

"I guess a trail of oil and one rock will show us if it would work."

The Padre nods his head:

"Aye, that'd be a wise precaution, I thin'. There's no way o' knowin' whether th' glowin' rocks be th' same as th'ammunition for th' firearm. We can't afford t' be takin' no risks when we gets t' th' battle."

"From there," the LawBringer continues, "what we really need to do is to keep them from escaping the wrath of the flame machine and stuck in the room within its reach. My fear may come in handy at keeping them from rushing out after firing the cannon as mentioned previously. I think it will be tough to plan beyond the first few strikes on our part, as it really will depend on what's left standing. We must try to get the High Priest captive for questioning, but not at the expense of taking too much risk. It's a tough call."

Winnacer catches himself here:

"Actually, we may not. If what Aneira says is true, that life can in fact be restored to the dead, we can just carry the priest's carcass on to Olmutz. It can be raised there as well, along with the two women we failed to save, and then be turned over to Spravedelna's Inquistors to provide us with the answers we need. The Priests of Lechit may blanch at first, but restoring the life of one so evil may save lives a thousandfold. And raising the dead captives would yield a Justice that I believe may have been impossible to achieve. We may just have to make sure there is enough to carry with us rather than concern ourselves with captives. Does this sound plausible?"

"I wouldn't know for sure," replies Aneira. "But if it is the only way to stop the Nemotz poisoning a whole city, then I can't really see how the Priests of Lechit can really say no, no matter how abhorrent the idea of raising a Nemotz priest may be to them."

Xavier hearing talk of the raising of dead, raises his eyebrow and makes the sign of the inverted sword over his heart:

"Mein Lord, is dat really a good idea? My heart mourns for mein freund who died before my eyes. But surely his soul is now no longer with us. His soul now rests in the heaven of the Fey, his pain ended. Dragging him back to this earth vould be a crime, vould it not? The powers of priests are great, but is there not a moral question to answer? Ve are intefering vith the vill of the gods!"

Yaz blanches at this talk of raising people from the dead. By the time Winn finishes explaining his idea, Yaz is red in the face and fairly hopping with impatience:

"Aneira doesn't know what the f*** she's talking about!" he explodes, arms flailing.

"Resurrection?! What you're suggesting is reversing the natural cycle of life! No mortal has authority over the Cycles. A priest who resurrects is no better than f***ing Bosco as far as I'm concerned!"

Yaz wipes his frothing mouth with his sleeve and continues, quieter:

"I don't care who it is. Evil disease priests, women, or Jihan. I will not allow it."

Winnacer's eyes grow cold as he turns them upon Yaz. He waits a few brief seconds before responding, his speech stilted due to the effort to control his words:

"This really is the wrong time to speak of matters theological, Yaz, and definitely the wrong time to lose one's calm because of it. We have a serious obstacle ahead of us that we need to focus on instead of getting angry at the difference that shall always linger within the party. We all have conceded that we will have to compromise some of the things we believe in to maintain what is best for the party's good, and in a greater sense, Bohavia's good. When it comes to moral choices, we must leave them to the individual, and it is what we will have to do here."

When Yaz sees the lecture coming, Yaz throws his head back, arms raised, and screams a frustrated, animalistic scream that sounds unnervingly like that of a caged wolf.

"It should be easy enough to ask those who have lost their lives whether or not they wish to defy Prirodna or follow their deity's wishes," Winnacer continues. "Let them choose their fate if what Aneira says is even plausible, as it is not for us to foist any set of beliefs upon people. As for the disease priest, is it a greater blasphemy to return one bastard priest to life or to allow an unnatural plague to take thousands? Think about it...but after we take care of the task at hand."

Seething, Yaz quietly mutters:

"YOU asked ME, Big Man."

"We all have a lot of other abilities that we can bring into this battle," Winnacer finishes. "Let my words just be a starting point, as I would like to hear all of our ideas on this one. Our hearts are too heavy to suffer any further losses."

"We should not forget that the eastern door is still protected by a glyph," Aneira adds. "I can perhaps dispel it, but if I use the spell for this, then we have no way of countering any magicks that they might inflict upon us during the combat."

Yaz looks a little confused, his mind having been wandering again:

"Explain this to me again: who's coming with me on my side? The fighters? The cannon? What about timing -- I assume we open the door at the same time as you guys flame them. Then I'll try to hit a few with my own flame spell. After that, I'll send in Schlurp and Slaver, then maybe move in to attack with the fighting types if there's any survivors. I guess we'll see. Do we have holy water to toss at the disease demon? We should all take a vial if we can."

Aneira simply shakes her head at Yaz' question. Padre Kokal, however, reaches into his backpack:

"I got five vials 'ere. Which o' ye wants one?"

Yaz pauses to think for a second:

"Can anyone think if I should sneak up on them before all this? I could go in as a rat and get real close. I could plant an item among them, or just listen... or attack with surprise from behind. Do you think it'd be worth it?"

Yaz' question is met with shrugs all round. Winnacer finally replies, shaking his head:

"I'm not sure that we would have anything to gain in your taking that approach. It's just another thing that could quite possibly go wrong, in my opinion."

Once the planning session is finished, Winnacer then turns to the Padre:

"I think that we should try the experiment on the glowing warpstone now."

Padre Kokal looks a little unsure about this, but reluctantly nods his head:

"Very well then, but I thin' we should keep as far away from th' stuff as we can. I don' wan' t' be getting' too close to it."

Winnacer nods and then takes a flask of oil. He walks into the GermSpreader's quarters and empties half of the flask onto the floor, forming a large pool of oil upon the floor of the room. He then starts backing out of the room, leaving a long trail of oil on the ground. Once the flask has been emptied, the trail leads all of the way from the GermSpreader's quarters, through the priests' quarters and into the dining room.

"That should be far enough away for us," he says.

While the rest of the party remain in the dining room, Winnacer walks back into the priests' quarters and takes one of the five jars containing warpstone from his backpack and then carefully throws it into the center of the pool of oil. His throw is right on target and the jar shatters right in the center of the pool. Not wanting to hang around in the presence of the substance, Winnacer quickly retires to the safety of the dining room.

Here, he takes a torch and lights it from the lantern before using it to set light to the start of the trail of oil. The oil burns quickly and the party all head for the north of the dining room, bracing themselves for the expected explosion.

It doesn't come, however, and they hear no sound at all from the room. They give it another couple of minutes, but still there is no sound. Carefully, Winnacer heads back through the priests' room and peers into the GermSpreader's quarters. He sees that the warpstone is still lying among the shards of glass from the broken jar, the oil having all burned out now.

Not wanting to get any closer to the stone, Winnacer gives a little shrug and returns to the others.

"Mus' be some diff'ren' type o' th' stone wit' diff'ren' attributes," suggests the Padre.

"Oh well, it was worth a try, I suppose," replies Winnacer. "Perhaps the ammunition stones might work instead."

With that, Winnacer starts to repeat the operation. Not wanting to risk getting too close to the glowing warpstone, Winnacer instead makes a new trail from the dining room towards the midden to the west of the priests' quarters. He places one of the stones in the center of the pool of oil and then retreats back to the dining room. He uses the torch to light the trail and waits to see what the result is. The results are the same as before, as there is no explosion.

Disappointed, Winnacer returns to the midden and finds the ammunition stone exactly where he left it, unaffected by the flame. He gathers the stone back up and places it back in the thick sack with the other 18 stones. He then returns to speak with the rest of the party:

"We need to figure out something else for us all to do when we open the door that is constructive - like spellcasting, arrowfire, and other stuff like that. But blowing them up with their own rocks would have been sweet poetic justice."

"Oh well," he sighs.

"They call it warpstone, huh?" asks Yaz. "That sounds strangely... other-planar. I wonder if it works good against demons. I think we should fire the cannon on the demon if we don't use it for anything else."

Winnacer blanches:

"I don't know about that one, Yaz. The thing is not easy to aim and it has a kick like you cannot imagine. Considering I'm the only one who has any experience firing these things, I can tell you that I'm not confident with my accuracy. I would hate to miss and hit, say the flame machine. Better to use my Fear right off now we know that we cannot use the warpstones as grenades."

Winnacer pauses, obviously disappointed at the non-explosive ability of the warpstone. He wracks his brains to come up with an alternative:

"Without being able to blast them, perhaps we can toss in vials of oil, letting them splash and break to be ignited by the flame machine. How much oil do we have left?"

Will produces Jihan's backpack and takes out three vials:

"This is all of the Greek Fire that we have, unless I'm very much mistaken," he reports. "We're very well off for lamp oil though. There's a whole barrel of it by the fungus pits and plenty of glass jars from the laboratory. However, I'm not sure how much damage we would be able to cause to them in this way."

"With Yaz using his fire-based spells as well," Winnacer continues, "they'll find themselves in a world of hurt quickly, unless they have found a way to protect themselves from fire."

"It may be best if I lead with my Fear, pushing them back towards the opposite side and the flame machine. Others may wish to fire arrows from the doorway, ready to drop their bows when the resistance attempts to close in on us. With the silenced bits being tossed in as well, they'll find themselves in a world of trouble, and unable to communicate with each other to stage a coherent counter."

"Who wishes to man the flame machine? Two warriors should flank the machine, while one should accompany myself on the other side. Each side should be privy to at least one priest as well. And we'll need a signal, a visual signal before we go. We could use one of the guards to stand in visual range of both groups, using his fingercount to coordinate."

"We'd need t' use both of them in order t' create a visual chain th't can be seen 'round two corners," Kokal says. "An' we be needin' at least one o' the mercs t' keep th' stairs open."

"Mein Lord," Xavier adds, "Tadeus and Milan vould be best for the task, I think. Those lads I trust much more than the mercs. I shall go and bring them down here."

Xavier then heads off in order to bring the squires down.

"So, before we do this, does anybody have any preferences about where they stand in this fight, or any tactic they wish to be used?" asks the LawBringer. "It's a pity about those rocks...it would have worked like a charm."

Bennett replies to Winnacer's siege of ideas:

"I think we need to leave the cannon pointed at one of our attack routes as well. It has too much value as a last-ditch weapon in case that disease demon is tougher than we can handle. We are already using the flame machine, but we can't count on just that. If we come in from a ninety degree angle from the other attack, that eliminates the chances that we could shoot the flame machine or each other, and I think the benefits of using the big gun are too impressive to not try it. If we start off with a blast from the big gun and a wave of fire, we can decide what to do after that point. I would prefer not to charge in there right away if we can help it. Better to nail them with the heaviest stuff we've got, then follow with a charge, your Fear, and whatever magic we have. If we can throw in some silenced stones or whatever, like you said, we should be able to eliminate the worst of their magic in response, I think."

Will nods approval.

"Too late t'come in at a ninety degree angle now," Kokal replies. "Th' north an' south doors are stuck tight wit' Jihan's glue. It 'as t'be th' east an' west doors now, whether we like it or not."

Winnacer nods:

"It shouldn't be a problem, as long as we don't move from the doorways until after the flame-thrower has been fired, as the temple is 50' wide and the maximum range of the flame-thrower is only 30'."

"I'll get the firearm loaded and ready so that we can use it in an emergency. However, as I've said before, I don't know enough about it to fire it with a high enough degree of accuracy and I'm worried that I might hit one of us rather than them."

Winnacer and the Padre together set to work on loading the gun in case it should be required during the combat. Once the long loading process has been completed, Winnacer leans it against the wall next to the west wall so that he can access it quickly should he decide to risk it.

The return of Xavier some 15 minutes later comes with a bit of a surprise, as he has Fae in tow as well as the squires. Her face is somehow a bit paler than its normally pale self, though the dullness in her eyes has been replaced by a very weird mixture of anger, fear and confusion. She is also toting Horvath's staff. Nothing has been done to tidy up her appearance from having slept in her clothes, with the exception that she has tied her unruly and somewhat tangled red hair back out of her face.

There is an odd pause before she speaks, her voice thick with the accent that has slowly worn itself away over the past few months.

"...aye do b' cast'n me magick'd web f'r thee t'dae, an a wee bit o frost as ye'en see yon Aneerah cast. Tho me staff d' be doen a tryk o withr'n as well."

There is also something odd about the way she is standing, as if she had somehow gained a lifetime's worth of pride.

"I'm glad that you could join us," Winnacer replies at seeing the lass' return.

He then turns to the others:

"Now I think that it is time to put our plan into action."