Chapter LVIII: A Temple, Ancient, Crumbling And Diseased
Starring: The Horizon Company and Allies;
Veger
Rotses the Deep-Gnome Dragon
Knight,
Lucian Lampurge
the Elven Sorlock,
Dysmas
the Human Rogue-Thief,
Invidia
the Human Necromancer of Korth
Boreas
the Silver Dragon of Frostfell,
Rhain Kael'las
the Elven Gloom-stalking Bounty-Hunter &
Garrick Perkins
the Firbolg Folk-Hero Beast-Master (And his trusty companion Bessie
the Cow)
Accompanied by Dragon Lancer T’kkls
Where? Sharn, Cog s,
Khybers Gate District Abandoned
Temple of the Dark Six & Lady Gracaalis’ Laboratory
When?
The Same Day the World’s Best Play Premiered
After the Horizon Company
located both Dragon Lancer T’kkls and Rafi De Dura, they departed for the
Undercity of Sharn – the Cogs. Master Dysmas, a resident of the Khybers Gate
community led the way. The ‘streets’ were dark, clustered and chaotic and
without any leads we were, at first, at a complete loss as to how we could find
the beasts. However, while we were searching for clues we were confronted by
one of Lady Alinas agents – a gnome scrapper – who gave us a tip. The Beasts
were spotted entering and leaving the Temple of the Dark Six.
I wish we had not crossed
the threshold of that cursed place. The ancient temple was dark as pitch and
the walls and ceilings were slowly collapsing. I fear that I shall never wipe
from my mind the horrible sights we stumbled upon there. What unholy machines
of flesh and sinew. Frightful it was, for supremely frightful would be the
effect of any mortal endeavor to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creators
of the world.
We entered the main chamber with a diameter of 75 feet. We could not see the ceiling, if there was
one at all. When we searched for an exit we found none – in fact we discovered
that the double doors through which we entered had locked behind us. In this
confusion the first beast seized the opportunity.
Part I: The Maw
It descended from the
darkness above. A shaggy beast with four arms as long as a man is tall, and a maw that
stretched from chops to forehead bristling with razor fangs, its jaundiced
belly dragging along the floor.
Almost immediately Master
Veger charged the beast with his shields, but the beast ducked and weaved out
of the way – and it used his momentum against him. In a single bite it
swallowed up the knight. In the panic of the moment the party hurled steel and
spells at the beast to have it release Veger. We need not have bothered, it
seemed, for the one to strike the finishing blow was Veger himself – he tore
the Maw asunder from within. It was a sight of awe. When we stood over its
crumpled form it was convulsing, returning to its original form – a gnoll.
This encounter lasted
only a few seconds, and we had even less time to prepare for what came next.
Part II: The Eye
At the furthest end of
the pavilion another beast descended from the abyss above. With flayed skin, it
towered over the party – as tall as a goliath. On it left shoulder, mounted
like a weapon was a massive eye, red and diseased, that stretched down to the
navel. Its gaze was terrible to behold – my constitution was tried stopping
myself from collapsing from nausea. The same could not be said for Mai Butler,
Veger and Boreas – all of whom swayed under its terrible sight. Nonetheless the
party did battle – Veger, Boreas, Garrick, Mai and T’kkls striding forth to
confront the Eye, while Dysmas and Rhain hid in the shadows fighting from afar,
and Lucian and Invidia hurled magic at the Eye from afar. A few seconds after
the skirmish began the Eye used some form of twisted magic and in the pitch
darkness he called forth a dozen tortured shadows in the form of men. These
shadows stepped forth, and with a mere touch began sapping strength from
Bessie and Lucian. In response Master Lucian did something I thought I would
never see – he drew his short sword. He drew his short sword and it burst in
green fire, and with a graceful flourish he smote two shadows. The entire
battle paused for a microsecond, so that the company could gawk at this sight.
Seeing Garrick and Bessie is danger, Dysmas stepped closer to the beast and its
surrounding Shadows to protect the cow – and thus the Eye’s gaze descended on
him and sent him into a fit of terror. A few seconds later the Eye struck down
Master Boreas, and with its eye dropped Dysmas to the brink of unconsciousness.
To protect his friends Master Lucian summoned his eldritch magic, and hurled
three bolts at it – cutting it down.
When we stood over its
corpse it too reverted form. This time a pale warrior – a sea elf. Veger and
T’kkls took a knee, and the former mourned her loss. With stoic sorrow he
eulogized her – a sea elf captured by the Drow. Bellavantor had seen a fire
within her, that no amount of darkness could smother, and so liberated her. In
return she swore eternal service to him. She had died a warriors’ death – now
she could enjoy a warriors’ funeral. In the meantime, we spent that hour
healing, searching and scrambling for an exit – and we did find one – a caved
in set of stairs that led down. But before we could unearth it the third beast
descended.
PART III: The Tongue
It descended in the upper
quarter of the chamber. A beast the size of a tall-man, skittering on all
fours, with skin smothered in dusty pods, eyeless with a large maw, and a
tongue that stretched to the length of an arm.
Immediately we began
hacking and coughing, especially my dear Rhain, Boreas and Bessie. Not certain
why took a cow into battle, but ok. We kept our distance from the Tongue
thinking that the spores it released operated in a small vicinity – it instead
filled the chamber. Therefore, the martial warriors threw caution to the wind
and descended upon the Beast. The Mouth got a lucky strike at Garrick with its
razor tongue, and Lucian seeing his friend in pain and wishing to conserve
healing magic instead turned him into a massive ape.
Now surrounded the
warriors closed in, and so too did Bessie. Unfortunately, as she charged the
Tongue the beast slammed her into Vegers shield, knocking her out. It was at
this moment when Rhain, who was invisible in the darkness, collapsed on the
ground – a massive putrid abscess had appeared on his face. Lucian, wishing to
recover his friends attempted to channel his patron of light – instead a bit of
spittle got stuck in his throat and he hacked and coughs. Invidia, tiresome of
this attempted to enwrap the Tongue in a globe of water, but the Tongue was
strong enough to squirm out. This gave Master Veger the opportunity to slam his
shield down on the beast and caved in its head.
As we stood over the
corpse it reverted to a goblin. From Lucians gaze I knew Master recognized the
body. Dreadlocks and a massive tongue. This was the corpse of Blowguh
Showtongue. We did not have time to mourn yet – for we had to battle the Hand.
PART IV: The Hand
Right in the center,
right next to Dysmas the beast descended from the darkness above. It towered
over the man, and upon its crown stood a single massive horn. His body was
covered in ashen chitin, and where there was none instead was raw red muscles.
Its left arm was raw flesh, and its right a massive gauntlet of chitin.
Immediately it snatched up Master Dysmas with his gauntlet and drove its horn
into his chest like a proboscis. Red energy pumped into the thief and again he
was suddenly overcome by terror – not merely for the Hand, but all his comrades
except Invidia. Later he revealed that instead of his friends he saw
werewolves. Lucian realizing what had happened to Dysmas chose to invoke his
transformative magic, turn him and Rhain into Giant Apes. Invidia took that as
a cue and turned the injured Garrick into a T-Rex. While the beasts fought the Hand,
Boreas took the opportunity to use his Draconic magic to dispel Dysmas’ fear.
Soon the Hand was surrounded by the beasts and the warriors, and seemed as though
any second the Hand would perish. But it seized the opportunity and charged
straight at Lucian, realizing that he was the source of the transformative
magic. It snatched Master up and injected him with madness – when he dropped
Lucian, master seemed not to mind. He simply stood up and began bumbling around
laughing erratically. It then turned on Invidia and injected him. When Master
Invidia came to he was overcome with awe and affection. He prostrated himself
before the Hand, and began throwing his most valued possessions at it as an
offering – namely his mithril cooking tools. Boreas charged in to stop the Hand
from wreaking further chaos, but the Hand was able to narrowly slam aside the
Dragons buster sword and picked him up and injected him. When Boreas hit the
floor he simply picked up his buster sword and flipped it, point facing his
sternum. Right before Boreas was able to commit suicide Master Dysmas took the
distraction it offered and fired an arrow that found its home in the Hands
heart, and with that it collapsed. Quickly the team came to their senses, and
Boreas was narrowly able to stop himself from stabbing himself with his
oversized blade.
As the party stood over
its transforming corpse Dymsas remarked that this was the body of one of Lady
Kalis men – goliath named Rusty.
During the next hour we
healed ourselves. Now aware of the likely possibility that a new beast might
descend upon we worked at the collapsed stairs with greater effort, now putting
the magic pickaxe to work. We were interrupted by the final aberration.
PART V: The Blood
It descends from the
abyss and the chamber shuddered under its weight. It stood fifty feet tall, its
head obscured by the darkness – or would have if it did not glow. Running along
its skin, veins popped and blistered like boiling blood, steaming and glowing
an angry red. Its skin was stone itself.
Dysmas, acting first,
drew his bow and fire an arrow that would ordinally harm any being greatly.
Instead the arrow simply bounced off its stone complexion. Immediately the team
realized that this titan was immune to non-magical weapons. Boreas seized the
opportunity to allow his comrades to distribute magic weapons – he placed a
gauntleted fist on Rhain and blessed his blow with magic, then turned on the Blood
and let loose a gale of ice. The Blood seemed to be affected by it, and thus
the team discovered another weakness – ice. Its boiling fist snatched up Mai
butler and in a single gulp consumed him – down the gullet the Deadman went,
and the Bloods stomach glowed with heat at Mai disintegrated. It then turned
its gaze on the other warriors – Veger who now had transformed into a crystal
titan, T’kkls who kept the pressure on with this thunder glaive, Boreas with
his buster sword, and Garrick with his club. The Blood swiped at Veger, which the
knight dodged, but then it reeled its leg back and sent him flying across the chamber,
flying forty feet back landing at the feet of Lucian. The Blood then stooped
down again and snatched up Garrick. Lucian, fearing that Garrick might share
the same fate as Mai turned the Firbolg into a giant ape, which then climbed
the titans face and began smashing in its teeth – or as the kids say these days
‘he went king Kong on his ass’. Boreas, realizing that Garrick the Ape needed a
magic weapon to be effective chose to heft his buster sword, and toss it fifty
feet in the air so that Garrick could snatch it. When I say the word ‘Fury’ you
pictured a sea whipped and churned, or volcanoes erupting. When you say ‘Fury’ I
picture the giant ape with the oversized magic sword that fought a titan that day.
Meanwhile, Rhain and the spellcasters attempted to hurl steel and magic at the Blood,
but it too often shrugged of the magic effect. T’kkls, Boreas and Veger laid
down the pain on the Bloods legs, but often were rewarded by being sent flying
across the room. Dysmas, lacking a ranged magic weapon was forced to step into
the fray, dropping a dagger of harmony down and stepping forth to attack it
with his mithril longsword. However, the Titans foot reeled back and struck and
while Dysmas was agile enough to avoid being hurled across the room, he did not
avoid the strike, which knocked him unconscious. He could have died there and
then had the giant not feel bereft of intelligence, for its chose not to finish
off the thief but to instead snatch the lethal ape and send flying seventy feet
up into the air. The thief was able to narrowly awaken, and before another foot
could descend to finish him off he used his other dagger of harmony to teleport
out of there. While the Blood was distracted by Dysmas, Garrick was able to
hold on the walls at the apex of ascent. The ape seized the opportunity and
leaped down upon the Blood, buster sword in hand. The force of strength, and
gravity and the sword itself drove the Blood to its knees, as the blade struck
its back tearing open its spinal cord. The air crackled with cold power –
Boreas of Frostfell, Lord of the Fire newts, and Wind of the North, channeled
his Draconic fury. He charged the Titan, driving his magic war pick into its
eye, and smote its ruin within the Halls of Khyber.
As we stood over its
corpse, its slowly began reverting to the form of a hill giant. But Master Lucian
did not have time to watch the full transformation, as an aurora of energy
escaped its corpse and enveloped Lucian. His last words before he experienced
his last Dragon Dream were “Really? That counts?”
PART VI: The Dragon Seal
Later Master Lucian told
me what he saw. When he awoke he was standing in the same city as his last two
visions – an ancient city filled with marble column and lush gardened trees. The
fields in the distance were no longer on fire, and the city was no longer
abandoned. Dragonborn hustled and bustled through the streets, but it was not
an ordinary city day. The people were uprooting whatever they could, civilians
were lined up to leave the city and rations were being counted – its was an orderly
evacuation. No one seemed to see him, and his instinct led him to a pantheon – larger
than any that had ever been seen by a mortal, fit for dragons. He stepped past
the pristine white marble pillars and entered the threshold at the beckoning of
a deep voice, rumbling with power. When he did he was confronted by three
dragons – to the left a large brown dragon, grinning at Lucian. To the right,
was the same Red Dragon as earlier, sitting atop a mountain of gold. In the
middle was the largest of the three dragons, a gold dragon, and behind it was a
massive metallic disc.
The Gold Dragon bid Lucian
welcome to their common abode, and revealed that he was in fact as Lucian had guessed,
was the Old man that Lucian had seen in his visions, and that he had known. He did
not die, as Lucian believed (Master asked me to make sure that people knew that
the Gold Dragon fake his death for posterity’s sake), and that his death was a
symbol. He was Lucians patron. The Gold Dragon revealed they were the imprisoned
draconic gods. Long ago, before mortal memory, there raced a war between Bahamut
and Tiamat. A war that raged over Khorvaire the home of an ancient civilization
that had built the precursor sites that the Horizon Company had visited, such
as the Tower of Shadows. No heed was paid to the Humans, and destruction had brought
down their empire – the humans feared that their race would be next. Thus, a man
came forth and sealed the Dragons, banishing them from the prime material. Now the
only dragons that flew over Eberron were the Dragons of Argonnessen, who were
but a strand of a great tapestry. They were to the Elder Dragons, what apes are
to humans. They could never guard the world from the threats that court
Eberron. Thus, the Seal that bound the Dragon Gods must be broken else the
realm of Xoriat, the Fiends of Khyber and other parties from all realms would
invade Eberron unchallenged.
Which is where Lucian
comes into play, for his mother and thus him, were distant descendants of the
man who sealed the Dragon Gods. Therefore, only Lucian can read the seal, and
in doing so utter the ritual that would unleash the Dragon Gods. Unfortunately,
Tiamat in a fury placed a curse on the man, that all his descendants would would be idiots
and as such few of them were predicted to survive long enough to accomplish the
prophecy. As for the Seal itself? It was in plain sight the entire time – the mark
upon Dysmas’ back was the Dragon Seal. To unleash the Gods Lucian would have to
completely read it, thus ripping the Seal asunder. The process, the Gold Dragon
commented, was incredibly painful to the subject. Unfortunately, the Dragon
Gods could not choose amongst themselves who would be released into the world –
the Gods chosen would be random, therefore there was the possibility that Tiamat
would be unleashed upon the world, without Bahamut to challenge her dominance.
At this point Master
remembered that he had the note that Dysmas had left in his front pocket. Lucian
pulled out the list and began reading off groceries and then asked them how to
find the Great Black Dragon that sealed the gates of xoriat. The Gold Dragon
revealed that the he was in hiding, somewhere in Eberron and that only the Draconic
Pantheon could locate him – thus to defend Eberron from Xoriat and train its
mortals in the arts of planar magic the Dragon Gods would have to be unleashed.
Satisfied with
information Lucian bade them farewell, commenting that he would look forward to
meeting them again. The Gold Dragon replied that Lucians purpose here was
completed – he had gleaned enough information from the Dragon Pantheon and that
this would be his last vision. The only part of his destiny that would have to
be accomplished was breaking the seal. Before he disappeared, he asked the Gods
to put in a good word for Dysmas in with them and the Great Black Dragon.
PART VII: Unholy Machines
Lucian awoke in Dysmas’ lap,
dressed in spare clothes the party had brought, as the thief prepared to play a
game of cards with Garrick. Meanwhile Boreas was chipping away at
the last pieces of rubble that blocked the staircase that led downwards, and Veger was reluctantly handing Invidia a fistful of gold. Lucian
had revealed to the party what he had just learned, though he did omit the part
about excruciating pain to Dysmas, and told Veger that Bellavantor was great,
which did not arouse the knights’ suspicions. They decided that they would
complete the ritual soon, but perhaps not underneath the continents most
populated city. The team scanned their surroundings and Dysmas distastefully
remarked upon the dead hill giant – it was Andre, the leader of the Jotund
gang. He expressed his disdain by urinating on the corpse. After this we
descended into the temple and there we found a terrible sight.
I will spare you the grisliest
of details, but the halls were repurposed as a laboratory. From here Lady Gracaalis
transformed the poor people of the Cogs into monstrosities. Lined in shelves
were pickled jars of severed monster parts, and all along the lab were bodies
of the tortured and experimented. The dead will have their justice one day.
Gracaalis will pay for her abominations and her unholy machines, I swear upon the
Gods. Dysmas seemed particularly reluctant to search about for fear of discovering
friends. We did find a reward – in a locked chest that took Dysmas a long time
to unlock were magical items for all the party members, and Invidia found a bag
full of Khyber Crystals.
With that the team had
decided that they would end the night, head Downstairs, have a pint and then break the seal and unleash the
Dragons Gods.
Orco The Witnesser
