As told by Magnus of the Island of Seren.
Some of them seem to think that the mockery will benefit them if they bleed all the way out...to death. We found some of these volunteers in a room with pools of blood-scum (kept in a near liquid state) under them as they were in the final stages of whatever ordeal it was. Xoma interrupted the ritual and killed them outright. I understand that sometimes one has to make personal sacrifices as part of a tribe. It even makes sense to die for your own people. These men and women took it too far for me; as far as I am concerned, I am happy to let them die, or to help them on their way. Whatever their laws required!
I wanted to kill them all and burn the place down. I thought it best to do it right then, since we’d already started: the incident with the blood flowers, the web, Xoma’s darkness spell, and an attack of the flayed monks had the group running for the door, and I was bringing up the rear.
Faced with a few of these disgusting monks, Cypher delivered one of his electric shocks to the lead monk, Master Ennet. The monk looked surprised and Cypher ran back out the door, saying, “You could run!” I took a swing at Ennet and, missing, step back out into the hallway between the door and Xoma, who looked to be prepping something nasty for the flayed ones.
Master Ennet said something in a weird language I didn’t understand and then all four monks dove into the blood pools around them. Xoma translated shortly afterwards: "Enact the Grinder!"
In the courtyard outside the temple, I could hear Doongal healing someone. Xoma grabbed the crowbar which had been holding the door open and said “Let’s go!” before he ran out, too. I didn't get it. We should be going in and killing these torn-up idiots!
About the time I decided that my friends must have a reason or a plan, and that I should just follow them, the floor opened up and I fall down into a chute that gently curves to horizontal at the bottom—leaving me tumbled but unhurt about forty feet below my friends. Xoma had grabbed a ledge and kept from falling.
Cypher flung a rope down to me so I grabbed on and started to climb. Only a few feet up, some sort of blade swishes through the hallway and cuts the rope, sending me back down. But it wasn't long before Xoma remembered his Levitate spell, so he floated down to get me up. Only when I wrap my arms around the drow's body do I realize just how thin he is.
About that time, Cyzicus returned with Drivinia—who he'd chased down using his keen shifter nose—and a crowd of reptilian-looking toughies. Xoma took advantage of his levitate spell to float up to the rooftops of the courtyard to scout around. Drivinia stopped moving where we all can see the group.
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| Changelings have smooth, pale features. They are rarely seen in their true form. |
Cyzicus replied with something like, "Drivinia is a changeling, working for people with our interests at heart and I have been convinced that we must destroy the monks as best we can.” This may not have been his exact words, but that's what I heard from him.
Drivinia added that there was some kind of vault in the temple with unknown goods to be plundered. She was trying to motivate us with talk of treasure and prophecy. Cypher said we are not ready for any kind of assault—but I was!
Drivinia started to carry on about how we were being tested and that we had to go fast and great were the powers in play and that someone named “Zarasha” wanted us to fulfill the this prophecy. That was all fine with me, as long as our "allies" stopped double-crossing us. I was starting to want to know what was going on! The only people we could really trust were the ones we came here with. Except....Halbazar. Nevermind.
Cyzicus and Rendar took a minute to soak this in and then shared a look. Rendar believed that what the changeling was saying was mostly true. We all talk around for a few more minutes and agreed to get back into the temple and start some serious killing. WGREAT, that’s what I'd said all along! Prophecy be damned, the Mockery was serious evil and needed to be wiped out.
Cypher asked for Drivinia to heal us if she could and she took stock of us and saw that Rendar still had a few feet of Seren war spear sticking out of him (bad luck, that). Drivinia healed Rendar with a prayer to her own god (the Shadow), and I got my spear back.
Xoma ferried us all up to the roof and we waved goodbye (for now) to Drivinia and her quiet companions. The changeling said something like, "Survive and be favored." No shit—surviving and killing opponents always brings favor! Speaking of that, Xoma told me that the spiked club I'd grabbed from that big baddie is made of...
DRAGON bone, and probably enchanted. I drop my own mace into its sheath and got ready to kill monks with the new weapon, for the glory of the dragon born. No bugbear deserved to carry this fine weapon.
Once on the roof and with a little privacy—as much as one can expect in a nightscape with harpies and gargoyles flying about and watching—we rested for only as long as we needed, binding wounds and preparing for the next phase of our assault. During the rest, Cypher looked over my new weapon and pronounced it superior to my original. The warforged then fixes the silk rope that was cut getting me back to the surface.
We mustered at the far edge of the open courtyard—there blood flowers were all quiet now—and used some rope to lower ourselves onto the stairs of the inner courtyard and the mezzanine level where the monks had first appeared. It was very quiet.
But behind the pillars was a ghastly sight. The walls were covered with the skins of dead humanoids and there was a butchery of a sculpture—some sort of idol—on a dias against the back wall. The idol seemed to be made of scavenged body parts and then sewn or magicked together to create a humanoid form with a dragonoid head. Not a proper dragon, either, but some sort of fiendish half-dragon. Bad stuff. Xoma and Cyzicus called it a golem, though we did not see it move. Doongul, more offended by all of this than any of us, tried to light the skin tapestries afire. They merely smoldered and smelled bad.
Xoma noticed and then pointed out that his “Margoyle”—an overlarge gargoyle—had landed on the rooftop above the courtyard, where we'd been only minutes before. I had no idea what that portended…another friendly foe perhaps. Continuing on our way, we descended to the courtyard and proceeded to the tall stone door that was directly under the mezzanine level. There was a handle with no lock, and Xoma called said it was labeled “The Grinder.” Xoma said there was no magic upon it, and Cypher said there was no trap, either.
Cypher, then Rendar, then Xoma tried the door, failing. Doongul made it move just a bit. This door was tricky, or we were getting our bad luck out of the way now! I wrenched it open, revealing a wide spiral stair headed down in darkness. Cypher got some magic light going and Doongul used his forgelight, so down we went.
At the bottom was a door, easier to open and behind that, a room. Lights pierced the murk and showed another nasty bit of work. It was a big, long chamber filled with pillars of blades that look just right for desecrating and shredding flesh. We heard the stair-top door slam (that was easy!) and the blades began to spin, turning the entire room into a death-machine. Cypher somehow decided that the blades were hand-powered, from somewhere, but he couldn't tell where.
Next thing, Doongul heard footsteps and announced that monks were coming down after us, no doubt to feed us to the “Grinder.” Yuck. Cyzicus saw shapes coming down and it’s time for killing. The lead monk popped the shifter in the face and knocked down. Cyzicus stood back up and cut the female monk pretty bad. This all pissed me off so I let go, releasing the rage of the Seren-born: the female died under my new mace, and that felt pretty good to me. Cypher shouted out that the machine was all on one drivetrain and that some single being was powering the whole Grinder. Weird.Doongul let his lance of faith flare into the male monk nearest and boy does it rip into him. But the monk, obviously hurt, began to mock Onatar. Not a great idea when we are all up for a fight. Rendar fired a gnoll arrow and missed. A few more monks make their way down the stairs to join the party. And Cyzicus got another strike to the face. One of the monks threw a spinning blade at me and although it hits, I was so fired up, it made no difference to me.
One of the new arrivals, an older female, shouted to Xoma, “ I must have your skin!” I doubted she’ll get it, though. She launched another blade—a “shuriken,” I later learned—but it missed. Cyzicus missed his foe, sending the monk splattering against the wall, probably devaluing his skin. Cypher popped up the stairs and zapped one of the female monks with his magic missile. Doongul loosed his lance of faith again, missing the slippery monks who really start mocking Onatar in earnest now.
Rendar nailed one of the women with an arrow, getting her blood pouring out, probably too fast for even these wierdos. Xoma let his thunder-clap cat-roar and pushed everyone around; no one falls, but the monks look more beat-up.
Cyzicus slashed one monk with the scimitar, letting lots of blood out onto the stairway. Cypher sent another magic missile at the woman and then Doongul followed up with another radiant spell, killing the misguided bitch. Rendar stepped up and lops off the arm of the male monk, killing him dead.
We don’t get a chance to celebrate because a giant, fouler-smelling, scarred-up ogre comes barreling down the stairs, pretty much naked but for a big spiked shield he wanted to bash me to death with. He did hit me and it knocked me back a bit, but his entire charge was checked by a spell from Xoma.
Cyzicus zipped an arrow into the ogre, giving me a chance to really let him have it with the new mace. Cypher made a nice shot with his arm-bow, right in the monster’s eye. It seemed that an eye-shot was too much for the ogre’s brain pan. He died and crashed to the stairs.
The warforged began to rob the dead (really!?) while I took a minute to clean my mace, letting the rage fall away. Cypher wanted one of the monks' skin-cloaks, muttering about alchemy or some nonsense. Even Xoma was put off by this as Cypher tried to wear one of the ill-fitting skins.
Meanwhile, Rendar and I grabbed the giant shield and did our best to toss it into the still spinning Grinder room. I guess it wasn’t the ogre powering it, as I had thought. The shield didn't roll or fly true and we did get it into the first blade, bending it, but not doing any real damage to the thing. A person might be able to dodge their way through those blades, maybe.
We make our way to the top of the stairs and opened up the door. Surprise: Master Ennet awaits us above and immediately turns and disappears into that mezzanine room. We follow him only to find the chamber empty again. We began a serious search, while Rendar and I began cutting the skin off the walls as a means of searching the walls and destroying this unholy place.
Xoma and Cypher approached the imitation dragon-idol. Then Cypher dropped to the ground suddenly, seemingly inert and unconscious—which didn't make sense. Xoma, at the same time, freaked out and started biting at unseen enemies and screaming something like, “Not alive!” Weird. And scary. Were they spellbound?
Doongul, as a reaction to this, sent a lance of faith at the idol—why? Perhaps this was the source of the warforged's and the drow's problems? Rendar followed his lead and lobbed a hammer at the idol and misses. I threw a spear at it and that barely sticks into its leather chest. Cyzicus charged the idol with his morning star. But then he suddenly acted like he had been grabbed in the face (which he hadn't been by anything I could see) and started waving his arms.
What fresh hell was this?
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