On the 28th of February 616, Arianna Devinshire had a vision in her sleep. After her vision, the high priestess of Athena prayed for insight. The future of Oerth rested on her decisions, her choices, her wisdom. Greek heroes from across the Flanese soon began arriving in Dragondale. Athena's Champion was not the only one who received divine guidance, at least her two closest allies; in far-off SeaHaven, Vladimir Drake and Rufus also heard the calling.
Answering the call were Arianna, Vladimir, Rufus, Damelia St Karlon, Kephalonia, Jasmine, Stephanos, Cassandra, and Tony. While all of these others were known to Arianna, another hero arrived who was not: Theseus aka Deimos the Minotaur. A well-born amazonian youth, Theseus had been cursed for hubris and although he served Pallas Athena was cursed to live life as a minotaur.
On the 2nd of March, using Kephalonia's dimensional folding these heroes traveled to the Eastern Medegian Isles, where they searched through an ancient ruin. Once a temple to Harmonia, the complex had been taken over by the followers of the demon-god, Amnissos, centuries before. Indeed, the heroes received a brief message from Harmonia, the goddess of emotional balance and rebirth after war. The Hesper was not the only lost treasure within the sprawling complex. The group limited their search, however, and ultimately, after battling hordes of undead and both stone and iron golems, the group found and recovered the Hesper, an ancient artifact that allowed the wielder to gaze through time and space. Victorious, the heroes returned to the Temple of Athena in the wee hours of the 3rd of March.
Meanwhile, the same night that the Greeks had departed, servants of Ghaunadaur attacked the Temple of Bahamut, nearly carrying off the Orb of Law. It was only through Sage's use of her talisman of law that the heroes triumphed. The followers of Athena were notably absent. Moorak, Sage, and Rhanée decided to move the Orb to another safe location: Treblo's hidden cloud-castle of Bolthold. Damelia and Xena were sent along to help hold and guard the relic; they secretly took the Hesper with them in order to sequester it in Treblo's hideaway.
Arianna's second vision was to recover the Faces guarded by an ancient lich, the Lord of Eternal Night. For this attempt, the heroes consisted of Arianna, Vladimir, Rufus, Theseus/Deimos, Kephalonia, Cassandra, Tony, Brand, and Allyrion. The later two, followers of Zeus, had received visions of their own, but it had taken several days for their griffon mounts to reach Dragondale.
Again, using Kephalonia's dimensional folding on the 7th of March, the party was transported to the Sea of Dust. With great difficultly, the heroes breached the evil seal on the lich's tower. With even greater effort and much luck, the group reached the lich's inner sanctum, only to confront the hasted undead arch-mage/high-priest along with his invisible minions of 5 spectres, 10 mummies, and 18 shadows. All seemed lost. Indeed, within moments Rufus fell, to be replaced by the boy, Mikhail, amid distant, ominous bell-ringing.
All seemed lost. Luckily Apollo had given Stephanos a prophecy of the future which Jasmine planned to avoid! Using her considerable charm spells, she'd managed to enslave Treblo, charm Gere, Aurora, Ursula, and Tabitha, recover Rhanée's mirror of mental prowess, and gather the remaining Greek heroes of Oerth. Joining the original party were Stephanos, Clara, Adama, Vaughn, Gwen, and Andar. Despite this added help, the heroes only narrowly avoided defeat. Theseus and Stephanos only survived the soul-draining attack of the hasted spectres because of their potions of super-heroism. Andar did not fair quite so well. Stephanos, however, managed to turn the undead back long enough for Vladimir to imprison them with a wall of force. Meanwhile, Treblo's charmed shambling mound and flesh golem went to work on the lich. Unable to continue freezing the party with wave after wave of cone of cold, the Lord of Eternal Night was forced to battle for his life. Before he was able to dimension door, to safety, however, he found himself surrounded. After a tremendously fierce fight, the heroes recovered the Faces and defeated the lich.
Journeying back to Amberwood, the heroes stashed the lich and his treasure in the Temple of Athena, intent on dealing with the mess Jasmine had made. In order to save them, Jasmine had ensorcelled several non-Greeks. She had been careful to limit their knowledge, but not only would her spells not last long, but they presented a potential liability -- a serious information leak. The group decided to journey to the world of Eon and freeze the non-Greeks in time, using Treblo's sepia snakes. There, not only were there no spell casters capable of removing the dweomer, but if Oerth were to be destroyed, Gere, Aurora, Ursula, Tabitha, and Mikhail could live. Stashing the victims near Bear Creek, the only people even remotely likely to find them were Kalavor, Urthur, and Holly. Before he left, however, Andar instructed Kalavor to stay close to Chipping Dale in case his missing son, Willish, were found and Andar needed aid with the boy's rescue.
Upon returning to Amberwood early on the 9th of March, the heroes discovered that the Lord of Eternal Night had not been truly slain. He had magic jarred into the body of a stonemason working on the temple. Soon afterward, the mason-mage slew a dozen or more inhabitants of Dragondale in order to find a strong, healthy body. He took back his magical items and began gathering spell components. Meanwhile, he buried his phylactery in the nearby graveyard and animated over 100 corpses to guard it. The former-lich had also communed with his goddess, Wee Jas, the Suloise goddess of Death, Magic, Law, and Seduction, in order to discover what was going on.
The Lord of Eternal Night had just been getting ready to depart the region when the heroes confronted him. Jasmine used her charms to have Treblo's cast one of his scrolls of limited wish. The mage wished an attack team of Arianna, Clara, Adama, Tony, Theseus, Allyrion, Brand, Andar, and Kephalonia, as well as many others to appear surrounding the former lich. Most of the group was hasted and Allyrion managed to use Brand's cube to transport the lot of them to a swampy world full of dinosaurs before the Lord of Eternal Night could magic jar to safety. Cut off and silenced the 14th lvl wizard / 20th lvl high-priest was quickly overwhelmed, despite his spectre and invisible stalker bodyguards. Andar used the distraction of the battle to probe the lich's thoughts and reveal the precisely what the lich did and did not know.
Victorious, the party returned to Oerth. Realizing that the Faces must be well-hidden, the heroes placed it within Treblo's prison of Zagyg, which they gave to Andar for safe-keeping. Taking the unconscious stonemason into the Temple of Athena, Pandora used her magic wand to begin exorcising the lich's spirit within. At the same time, Andar continued his probing of the lich's memories. Meanwhile, Arianna brought along several of the heroes to the graveyard in order to destroy both the newly-created undead as well as the Lord of Eternal Night's phylactery. What a very long day...
There is great suspicion about what is really going on in the Temple of Athena, given that a large force of over a dozen adventurers suddenly teleported to the attack in the middle of town. Many of these heroes are known throughout the land; it begs the question where they've been for the last several days! In addition, the group has in its custody two innocent by-standards, a young girl charmed by the lich and a farmer who'd simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Moreover, the kiss of slavery spell on Treblo was due to end on the 10th of March, the following day.
Suddenly, to make matters worse, Moorak demands to speak with Arianna. He had discovered that both Rhanée's mirror and apprentice were missing! Arianna diplomatically headed off a conflict, although the Baron warned her that as the temporal ruler of the fief, his law superseded whatever "divine injunctions" Arianna was under. He would remain patient only for a limited time... Meanwhile, the Baron too took action, asking his friend BlackRobe to commune with the spiritworld. Moorak learned of the captive, former-lich and chose to take other action for the moment.
Moorak asked his shaman-friend, Black Robe, as well as his eldest son, Prince Garlok Drake, the prince's girlfriend, Mina, and Moorak's former adventuring companion-turned-spy, Goldilox Took (and didn't even think about giving back), to watch over the fief in general and the Temple of Athena in particular. Together with his brother Shang-lung, his wife Sage, Zandra, Artec Artlen, Ken Mu, and Tyris=Flare, the Baron of Amberwood traveled to Wintershiven. The capitol of the Theocracy of the Pale had been captured and enslaved by a "purple dragon". Indeed, in truth a demon, enhanced by the powers of one of the Shards of Chaos had conquered the nation and slain not only the Theocrat but all of the Council of Nine. Using its power to steal sanity and enslave children, the creature had amassed a mighty army of youngsters to do battle for him. After a difficult battle avoiding these innocents, the heroes defeated the mind-numbing demon. Strangely, not all of Sage's spells were working. Exhausted, the heroes prepare to rest for the evening, but first, Moorak, Sage, and Shang return to Amberwood. Moorak itemizes a grain silo in order to feed the starving people. Sage and Shang in turn confront Arianna about the Faces!
Arianna avoided giving anything away, although the tension was electric. Sage left, clearly frustrated. For her party, Arianna too was frustrated and worried about the liability the former Lord of Eternal Night presented. Without a word, Theseus took matters into his own hands, snapping the neck of the former-lich's host. With such a cold-blooded murder ended the 9th of March.
Meanwhile, Moorak, Tycho, Sage, and Shang returned to Wintershiven. Early in the morning of March 10th, Sage actually raised one of the Council of Nine to life, in essence selecting the new Theocrat. Moorak, meanwhile, began the day transporting food and water supplies throughout the region as the mind-numbed populace had quit working and lay dying of malnutrition. Much work lay ahead for the heroes, but it was never to be completed...
Arianna's dreams were fitful. Again Athena appeared to her, warning her that time was running out. "You must recover the Annulus before sunset or it will be too late..." With that, Arianna awoke to the sound of alarms; Amberwood was under attack! An invasion of goblins and hobgoblins was striking from the Horned Society! Without the aid of the Greek heroes, it was quite likely Dragondale and all of Amberwood would fall. But the words of gray-eyed Athena came back to Arianna, "My temple matters little if the whole of the world is lain waste." Gathering together a group of the assembled heroes, Arianna sent one group to Klarr (using a still-charmed Treblo under Jasmine's thrall) while Kephalonia dimensionally folded herself, Arianna, Theseus, Brand, Tony, Vaughn, Adama, Cassandra, and Andar to a tropical jungle half a world away.
Within moments of arriving, the group fought six shambling mounds. Powerful and resilient, the monsters proved quite difficult to vanquish. Brand was forced to use his cubic gate to draw two monsters away to Gehenna, only to discover that the connection between Oerth and the Outer Planes was likewise breaking down; only narrowly was Brand able to rejoin the party! For his part, Andar managed to mentally enthrall a creature, but had his arm broken by another for the effort. Unfortunately, neither Arianna nor Tony's weapons were of much use against the plant-creatures. Amazingly, Theseus was able to hack two huge gashes into one monster, exposing the core of the thing's central nervous system. With a tremendous yank, the minotaur ripped it out. Working together, Cassandra and Vaughn hacked another apart and the heroes triumphed.
The group made short work of a choke creeper and found an ancient, vine-hidden mausoleum. From the well-worn bones and broken door-seal, the Greeks were not the first to discover this ancient tomb. Opening a secret door, Theseus found a short hallway, filled with twelve stone statues depicting the gods of Neregan -- Ra, Set, Osiris, Nephethys, Isis, Hathor, Horus, Khnum, Thoth, Bast, Ptah, and Sekhmet. Unfortunately, as Theseus and Vaughn entered the cramped chamber, the stone door slide shut and locked into place. Brand and Tony only barely managed to join the minotaur and ranger. Then the 12 stone golems animated and attacked! Worse, rather than possessing slow each had some unique magical ability similar to the god the statue represented! Theseus was quickly stunned by the Set-golem, forcing Brand to battle the Ra-golem. Vaughn did quite well, shattering several of the constructs, but the Hathor-golem shatter his shield-arm. For his part, Tony was seriously battered and nearly died. Things looked quite bleak, darkening when the Thoth-golem transported Vaughn to the ethereal plane. Ironically, this saved his life and gave him time to drink his elixir of health. Brand and Tony managed to hold off the remaining golems long enough for Theseus to recover and rain destruction on the automatons. Brand used the time to rescue Vaughn from the ethereal, clearly distressed that his cube was failing and the barriers between worlds were dissolving. Victorious, Brand used Arianna's mace of shattering he had been borrowing to smash open the trapdoor. Exhausted and horribly beaten, the party licked their wounds and regrouped. And that was only the first room!
Marshaling their strength, the heroes re-entered the tomb. The next room was filled with cobras, but not just any kind of venomous serpent; these were shadows! And there were 50 of them! Arianna's faith in Athena proved the heroes most potent weapon as she banished the undead from the mortal plane. Next came six mummies, then six more wraiths and a false tomb. Andar's clairvoyance revealed the deception and that the sarcophagus was actually filled with hundreds of living scarabs. The heroes continued on, battling six more mummies. Brand's ability to detect invisible and hidden objects combined with Kephalonia's spell to find traps allowing the Greeks to bypass the worst mechanical and even magical dangers the tomb-builders left for them. Continuing, the heroes battled strange "ceramic golems" and thwarted a water elemental. In the passage to the lower levels, giant scorpions animated from drawings on the wall, but proved no match for Vaughn, Cassandra, and Tony.
Reaching the bottom level, the heroes were exhausted. They had expended most of their spells and the majority of their magical potions and scrolls. Arianna agreed that soon the party would need to use Gwen's time-shifting hourglass to restore their strength. Thus, Andar used Kephalonia's potion of clairvoyance to first more fully explore the nearby region. Ahead lay catacombs with their niches filled with zombies and lesser mummies of cats, dogs, monkeys, hawks, crocodiles, ibises, and other animals. Again, the faith of Arianna proved more than a match for the undead. Unfortunately, around the corner were four more mummies and 18 juju zombies! The party was badly battered; Brand, Kephalonia, and Arianna were cut off from the rest of the group. Brand dimension doored Arianna to safety while Kephalonia used her magic cloak to appear dead. Unfortunately for the witch, the undead continued to cause her minor injuries as they fought forward over her fallen body. Poor Cassandra, for while she was paralyzed with fear from the mummies, several zombies attacked and ripped off her left leg below the kneecap. Things looked bleak, so Andar invoked Gwen's temporal accelerator; except for Cassandra, Theseus, and Kephalonia (who appeared near-death), the heroes were restored as if a full day of rest had passed. Theseus and Vaughn took point, again forming a powerful brute squad to squash these foes and protect the non-fighters. Gallows, Kephalonia's raven familiar, meanwhile, drank Andar's potion of fire breath and bathed the zombies and many of the mummies in a wash of dragonfire. It wasn't enough. The bird was nearly beaten to a pulp. Brand had to burn Theseus as well in order to help hold the hall, using an Aganazar's scorcher followed by a lance of disruption to help whittle down the opposition. The heroes bound their wounds and magically tended to the injured. Luckily, Cassanrda was able to continue, benefiting from a fly spell from Brand.
Beyond the catacombs was another altar, this one guarded by a pair of winged bulls with the faces of men. The shedu insisted the party leave immediately, lest they unleashed a powerful and tremendous evil. Arianna tried to use reason, to explain that the world was ending, but the guardians weren't interested. Theseus' response was to attack! Joined by Cassandra, Vaughn, and Tony, the Greeks put the lawful good Babylonian creatures on the defensive. The shedu, however, counter-attacked psionically, taking out half the group. Andar engaged one mentally, disrupting its perception of reality. The telepath's reward, however, was for the shedu to single-mindedly batter him with its hooves! Brand drank half of Vaughn's potion of storm giant strength and began punching the guardians into unconsciousness. The heroes beat both shedu senseless and moved on. Meanwhile, Kephalonia administered enough herbal depressant to incapacitate a titan to one shedu. Andar, meanwhile, raped the mind of the other one. The other heroes battled six bronze asp automatons in another tomb. This appeared to be the final chamber, complete with the mummies of a hawk-headed woman and lion-headed man. Again, Brand's talent revealed two more passages beyond.
Indeed, the heroes had reached nearly their goal. The next room contained the mausoleum of the Faceless One -- as well as an iron golem in the shape off a cobra! Brand cast haste on most of the heroes, although the majority of their weapons proved ineffective against the metal monster. The golem unleashed a noxious cloud of lethal vapor; Arianna fell dead. Although Theseus did some damage, the creature then turned and killed Cassandra, biting her nearly in half. Two dead and with only minutes left to achieve Athena's quest, the heroes fought on. Brand administered a potion of sweet water to Arianna immediately, saving her. There was nothing that could be done for Cassie. The heroes bested the golem and set about opening the massive stone structure. Together, Vaughn and Brand, enhanced with the strength of a storm giants, tried to force their way in. Vaughn was successful, becoming the target of an ancient spell. He disappeared without a trace. Andar announced that the chamber below held their goal. Hurrying down the steps, Brand, Theseus, Tony, and Kephalonia found the sarcophagus of the Faceless One.
Atop the stone coffin were four matching stone scorpions which animated and attacked. One sting turned Tony to stone. Brand and Kephalonia attacked one gargoyle while Theseus obliterated another. Andar, Arianna, and Adama joined the battle, and the heroes narrowly avoided being petrified. Again, Theseus' fighting prowess proved crucial with a little help from Brand. The minotaur tried to open the sarcophagus, but it wouldn't budge. Brand used a knock to remove the ancient wizard lock and Kephalonia pushed open the lid, only to be sepia snaked for her effort. But there lay the body of the Faceless One, still wearing the golden, squid-headed death-mask. Without pausing, Theseus attacked!
And the minotaur's actions broke the millennia-old stasis spell on the former Pharaoh. Rising, the powerfully built warrior unleashed a psionic assault worthy of an ulitharid. The only heroes left were Arianna, Adama, Theseus, Brand, Andar, and Gallows. Andar engaged the monster mentally, but couldn't gain any meaningful hold on its mind. Meanwhile the others attacked physically, only to be mentally overwhelmed; not only did this being look like a mind flayer, it also had the powers of one, including mind blast! Not only that, the former ruler could attack mentally twice per round. Things looked bleak; only Arianna, Andar, and Gallows were still standing. Arianna launched a flame strike while Andar continued to hammer at the prince's mental defenses, but both proved useless. Then the cavalry arrived...
When Arianna died, Pandora's sacred guardian revealed the event to the other Greeks in Klarr. Having already planned for this possibility, Allyrion gathered Vladimir and Clara and using the standing Chevic's tracer spell he had on Brand, used a potion of teleportation to instantly appear in the Faceless One's resting place. The group didn't manage to really harm the Faceless One, but did keep him busy long enough for Theseus to recover, just as the reinforcements had their own minds' scrambled. Together, Theseus and Andar caused the former Pharaoh great damage; Andar's mental assault forced the Faceless One to either engage in a purely mental battle or else leave himself defenseless to Andar's mental offensive. While his psionic prowess was formidable, the prince had simply too many foes. Theseus' hammers brought the Faceless One to the edge of death before the minotaur's mind was again stunned into helplessness. Luckily, it was long enough for Brand to regain his wits and attack. Augmented by storm giant strength, he knocked the former Pharaoh unconscious. Vladimir then killed the former tyrant and removed the object of the third quest, the golden squid-shaped helm, the Annulus.
With only 10 second left, Arianna, Andar, and Vladimir teleported back to Klarr, while Brand stayed behind to tend to Allyrion and the others. Andar's elixir of the maedar restored Tony and Allyrion's dispel magic freed Kephalonia. Using Brand's spell adder, the witch dimensionally folded the heroes back to Klarr, beating Arianna to Kephalonia's home there. The heroes assembled, their quest successful, but the world was still coming apart around them. In the distance, several of the heroes could hear a bell tolling faintly. What next?
There was a quiet knock at Kephalonia's door. There stood a hobbit boy who insisted on seeing either Arianna or his father. Insistent and a little petulant, the youth refused to be ignored. Finally Arianna invited the hobbit into Kephalonia's front room, whereupon tears formed in his eyes.
"I'm sorry, Arianna. I've had to lie and hurt people, but the gray-eyed lady said it was important." With that, the features of the hobbit blurred, revealing the face of Amber, Vladimir's six year old daughter.
"What are you doing here," Arianna asked.
"The gray-eyed lady said I had to come and give you her plan. She said it was the only way. I couldn't let anyone in my head until I did and that my mommie and daddy's life depended on it. Are they going to be okay? Can I see them? Where's my daddy?"
"It's okay, Amber, your father is here. I'll send for him. But first, what was Athena's message?"
"She said that the bloody bowl will let someone see when and where the wrapped up priests put the silver stick. But it will make you go crazy if you don't wear the golden cap. And the golden thing will also let you move to other dimensions. Then the powerful stick will give you the power to go to the places and times you can't. But you can't go. It has to be someone else. *sniff* If Uncle Rufus is still alive he has to kill himself. *sniff* But you have to take all this stuff to where the stick left so it won't be lost. The lady said this would all make sense to you."
Clearly, it did make some sense to Arianna, who sent for Jasmine. "Get Mikhail immediately"
The heroes assembled together, this time with both young Amber, and fifteen year old Mikhail. Mikhail immediately asked, "what's going on? Something really major is happening and you're not telling me. Mom? So far I've teleported away from my friends and sister, helped fight a lich, transported to Amberwood, been itemized a couple of times, and now I'm in Klarr. Would you PLEASE tell me what's going on?"
Arianna answered, "Mikhail you need to put on this helmet so you can save the world." Jasmine nodded. With that, Mikhail donned the Annulus. "Now, use this bowl to see where the Staff of Law is and use this rod to get it back."
"You stupid, pathetic cow. You have no idea what you're asking," responded Mikhail is a strangely deep and forceful voice. "I can see in your simple thoughts how little you understand. In order to accomplish this task, I'll need to be at the location the priests of the Nereganti god of creativity cast the Staff from our reality. I may be now able to shift between time and space, but my arms must remain attached to my body, you simpleton."
After a brief discussion, the heroes listed which adventurers knew of the fate of the Staff of law: Raitan, Asfaloth, and Tetsuko. The group then started to discuss various plans to get this information; Asfaloth being the best target since he lives in Klarr.
Arianna suggested just asking him, but Jasmine responded, "he's evasive by nature. He won't just volunteer the information we need. And since he's an elf, he's tough to charm. I've been trying for years as a joke and still haven't managed to snare him."
"It's simple, you dullards. I shall rip the information out of his mind and leave him a quivering mass. What is one life against that of the world?" And this from Mikhail, who grew up with Asfaloth...
"Maybe you should take off that helmet now, Mikhail," began Arianna.
"Over YOUR dead body..."
"Perhaps we should focus on the problem at hand," Vladimir half-growled, half-whispered, his hand nearing his scimitar.
If Mikhail noticed Vlad's movement, he gave no indication. "As a child, I spent much time with Borlon in Neregan. We traveled extensively across the land, including several trips to the High Temple of the Nereganti God of Creativity. I remember it quite well. I could project an image of the complex into Kephalonia's mind and we could use her spells to travel there. Once at the temple, we can interrogate the high priests. Surely you wouldn't mind questioning them?"
"But we're not going to kill anyone, understand?" Arianna stated plainly.
"Unless they get in our way," she added abruptly, with an almost imperceptible jerk. A faint grin spread across Mikhail's face, obscured by the golden helm he wore.
Using the image Mikhail supplied her, Kephalonia invoked the powers of Hecate to fold space. A disc-shaped gate began to form, only to collapse in on itself into a figure-8 and then vanish. Trying again, Kephalonia chose two different ends for her dimensional folding, resulting in a stable portal. Although it was only about 9:30 in the morning in Klarr, when Arianna, Kephalonia, Mikhail, Jasmine, Brand, Allyrion, Theseus, Tony, and Gwen appeared it was the middle of the night in Nereganti desert. The vast temple complex was a sleep, but curiously blanketed by several inches of fresh snow. The heroes crept to the main entrance to the High Temple, only to find it sealed. Using a knock and Theseus' tremendous strength, the Greek heroes entered the inner courtyard, where guards moved to stop them. The lesser warriors were no match for Allyrion's sleeps while the leader fell to Gwen and Jasmine's various charms. Atoom agreed to bring the party into the temple and send for Hutaatep, the High Priest.
Once inside, Arianna, Allyrion, and Theseus faded into the shadows courtesy of the sand shadow spells Vladimir had cast before they left. The group decided there wasn't time to wait and had Atoom being them directly to Hutaatep's quarters. Arriving, they saw several guards as well as one of the priestesses from the main gate in the hallway outside Hutaatep's rooms. The priestess challenged then, demanding they leave the sacred precincts of the holy. Guessing that Atoom had been charmed, she and the guards attacked. While the party made short work of her and her allies, it bought the High Priest the time he needed to word of recall to safety. Mikhail plucked the location of the priest's destination from the priestess' thoughts. Gwen and Jasmine then charmed the more potent guards and priestess who led the heroes to the inner sanctum of Ptah.
Outside the doors, a pair of copper statues stood, each appearing as a powerfully built woman with a lion's head. When the party attempted to enter, the automata attacked. As they fought, they grew warm, heating up from within. As if that weren't enough, guards began pouring in from both directions. Things looked bleak.
Until this point, at Arianna's suggestions, the heroes had been able to avoid any body count, but now such niceties would likely doom their mission...
"Sky-Father, forgive me," Brand intoned, unleashing a sunfire into one of the on-rushing masses of guards. Of the nearly twenty men, only two weren't reduced to ash. The lone man on his feet then met Theseus' magical hammers striking from the shadows...
On the other side of the hallway, the heroes were not quite so lucky as warriors slashed Jasmine and Gwen. Calling their charmed defenders to protect them, the two women were able to get free, aided in no small part by another sleep from Allyrion. Tony battled one copper automata as Arianna called down the strength of one on the lawful members of the group. Suddenly possessed of Theseus' strength, Brand, Kephalonia, Gallows, and Arianna were able to battle free of their foes. But this only added to the body count; Kephalonia accidentally decapitated one man while her raven shattered another warrior's skull. The timing was excellent, for at this moment Tony fell, nearly dead. Allyrion then managed to knock the main doors to the inner sanctum but Arianna couldn't push them open. Instead, grabbing the Faces from Kephalonia, Mikhail telekinetically ripped the bronze doors from their hinges. He, Arianna, Jasmine, and Atoom then entered only to be greeted by two animated stone statues of Ptah and a wall of fire. In front of the altar was Hutaatep, surrounded by a whirling shield of spinning blades.
Had it not been for Allyrion and Arianna's careful planning, the quest would have ended there. But, each party members had received a resist fire and thus instead of being incinerated, Mikhail simply collapsed. Unfortunately for Atoom, Jasmine's kiss of slavery and her poor choice of wording combined so that he attempted to grapple his high priests despite the blade barrier; he survived the attempt, but only just barely. Arianna rescued Mikhail from the flames while Jasmine hid in the inner sanctum invisible. Gwen attempted to dispel the wall of fire blocking the entrance, but failed. Allyrion called down a cloudburst which proved more successful, but which filled the entire temple complex with blistering steam. Those few defenders who could have been saved were cooked to death within seconds, the heroes only surviving again through the benefits of their resist fire. Hutaatep attempted several other spells, only to be interrupted at each attempt by Brand's magic missiles or Kephalonia's spark shower. Mikhail recovered and mentally stunned the High Priest, although only thanks to a timely alternate reality from Brand. Strangely, although Allyrion had first come up with the idea, his own spell failed to do anything. Gwen then dispelled Hutaatep's blade barrier and prayer spells. Theseus grabbed the stunned priest and put him in a headlock. Jasmine's kiss of slavery then took the fight out of him.
Using his new telepathic abilities, Mikhail scoured the priest's mind. He moved into position before the altar, the Faces in one hand and the Hesper at his feet. "Guard this room with your lives or fail your quest." With that, Mikhail peered deep into the Hesper choosing the moment in time and space when the high priests of Ptah banished the Staff of Law from Oerth. With the power of the Annulus to protect is sanity, Mikhail pierced the veils of time. Then, augmented by the Faces and tapping his own talent to time-shift as well as the Annulus' power of probability travel, Mikhail slipped across time-space to the destination of the Staff of Law, snatching it away an instant before it was last to null-space.
In a few seconds it was over and the destiny of Oerth altered.
"I am the GOD of Mental Power! All shall worship me!" exclaimed the 15 year old boy, now holding the Faces in one hand and the Staff of Law in the other. On his head, the Annulus greatly augmented his native intellect and psionic talents and at his feet, the Hesper let him peer through time and space. The raw might of the four artifacts was too much; the persona of the Annulus took complete, megalomaniacal control. Using his new, god-like power, Mikhail let loose a psi blast of unimaginable power.
Every living being within six miles, awake or asleep, man or beast, Nereganti or Greek, was struck down, suffering both mental and physical trauma. Hundreds died in that single instant. Of all the heroes, only Allyrion, Arianna, and Gwen were able to resist the massive psionic onslaught. Earlier in the battle, Allyrion had hasted most of the heroes. This action saved Mikhail, the Greeks, their quest, and perhaps all of Oerth. Acting with blinding speed, Allyrion and Gwen attempted to wrest the Annulus from the boy's head while Arianna tried to pull the Staff of Law from his grip. All three failed. Allyrion's reward was to be telekinetically slammed into the ceiling at over 150mph, nearly killing him. But, at that instant, however, Gwen managed to rip the golden helmet from Mikhail head. No longer possessed by the artifact's persona, the Staff rejected the no-longer lawful druid. He fell in a quivering heap, his eye staring blankly forward.
The heroes paused a moment, at a loss for what to do next. Over the course of several minutes, Jasmine, Brand, and Kephalonia recovered. Using those few spells they had left, Allyrion and Brand itemized Mikhail's catatonic form as well as Theseus and the Hesper. Arianna picked up the Staff of Law herself. With the other relics tucked away, the group hurried from the temple. A few guards challenged them, but Jasmine has Atoom order the Nereganti warriors to another emergency. The few moments of hesitation was enough; once outside, Brand and Allyrion un-itemized their griffons Yambre and Warango. The group then flew to safety, traveling across nearly a hundred miles of desert before sunrise.
So what are the heroes' next moves…?
© 2004 buddhabear@geocities.com