Crismyrlor

Temple Ruins,Trakar Swamps, 8th April 1655

DM Note: Nearly a full house this week, only Uruk was without a player.

As Gorfang stood over Berretlan, Méabh pushed through the sullen but passive lizard warriors to take charge of the now rather bedraggled shaman Yassukhir. Taking no chances, she bound his hands and feet and hobbled them together to force him into a back-bent posture of some discomfort, and wound cloth around his eyes. Then she cast a Detect Magic on him and searched him thoroughly.

His staff and armour were magical, as was a shield he'd dropped on fleeing, a small bottle of oil, and a grotesque mummified human hand strung on a cord around his neck. She cast an Identify on this lot, and declared the armour, shield and staff as enchanted [+1]. Gorfang took the shield, more to add a magical shield to his collection than from any desire to use it, and Méabh packed the staff and armour on the pack lizard as presents for the Mengis on the way back. The other items she seemed unimpressed by and dropped into a pouch.

She then healed him with the healing staff, and stood him on his feet. "Right! We're going into the ruins there," she told him, "tell us what you know about them." Yassukhir appeared reluctant, but some toe-curling threats from Méabh and some very ungentle arrow-extractions from Gorfang broke his resistance down. He bowed his head, and began to describe the caves inside the hill. After a while, Méabh freed his hands and eyes, and he sketched a map. He explained that he had not been everywhere within the Temple of The Gods; he was quite open about his fear of the unexplored places. His predecessor had warned him that to stray was to die.

He himself lived in a small side-cave near the entrance, he continued. As each young tribeslizard came of age, he would bring them into the ruins to the Round Hall and test them, a rite of passage which marked their transition to adults. Once a year, the whole (adult) tribe would process up to the Hall of Life and bessech the Gods for their blessing, before the Crismyrlor. If the Gods were extremely pleased, blessings - healings, remission of illness, better fish harvests - would be granted, although he confessed no major gifts had been granted in his lifetime.

The Guard Lizard was a creature he had trained, he explained, and could be made to stay put by speaking the Krultac word for 'guardian', Mazkokh.

Méabh smelled a result here. "Describe this Crismyrlor," she said intensely. With more than a touch of awe in his voice, Yassukhir went on to describe something that sounded exactly like the Crystal Pyramid the party were seeking. Grins appeared on faces. "Easy then," said Gorfang, "all we have to do then is walk up there, pick it up, and go home." His expression was sardonic in recognition of the probability that it wouldn't be quite that easy. "If you lie - you die," stated Méabh flatly. Yassukhir sneered. "I don't have to; the Gods will strike you down for this blasphemy." She grinned nastily back at him. "If they do, they'll get you as well," she commented. "You're going with us."

Meanwhile, Gorfang had allowed Berretlan up and forced him to back his warriors off and disarm them. Eloy called Bog over from where he was crouched on the pack lizard, and obtained a flask of Boom Boom, which took the edge off his wounds. He pointed at the wounded Fionath, some prone, some crawling towards the village. "Can you do anything for them?" he asked. Bog appeared unwilling, "they're the enemy," he pointed out, but grudgingly handed around some clean bandages, a novelty in this muddy environment.

At this point, it occurred to some of them to wonder where Lynien was...

After disappearing at the onset of hostilities, Lynien had slipped past the battle lines with the idea of flanking their foes. The battle was over before she could act on this, though, so she carried on into the Fionath village.

Seen close up, the village was little more than a fairly grubby cluster of primitive huts, well-built for their type, but nothing special. Lizard females and children were clustered towards the edge, anxiously watching the events at the water's edge. Looking at them, it occured to Lynien how healthy they all looked. The Mengis had had stong warriors, older warriors, warriors with badly healed wounds or sicknesses. Among the Fionath, either here or down on the beach, there were no weak specimens; all appeared well-fed and hale. Opportiunities to pick up loose gold, jewelry, or magic seemed pretty thin, however, so she carried on to the cliff face of the ruins.

Peering in through the three ragged holes to the right of the entrance, she could see a large - very large - room of dressed stone, with the back and left side partially caved in. The openings meant that swamp creatures of various types had been in here, and the signs of their habitation were everywhere. Nothing else interesting was visible, and she was considering climbing in when she heard the others approaching from behind her. Turning, she doffed her ring and joined them.

The entrance-way gave onto a passage leading straight back into the hill. It was the same size as the arch, 30' high and 30' wide, made of dressed stone of extreme age; once sharply defined, it was now crumbling and eroded. Heaps of rubble from past stonefalls from the ceiling were a regular feature.

The ceiling was high enough, so Gorfang mounted Shamlakh and rode down the passage. Lynien and Eloy followed, with Méabh dragging Yassukhir on his rope tether, and Uruk and Bog bringing up the rear. After 150', it opened out into the Round Hall marked on the map.

Just as Gorfang was about to cross into the round hall, both Eloy and Lynien screamed "Stop!". Shamlakh froze, and Gorfang turned in the saddle. Both Eloy and Lynien were staring at the ceiling at the exit from the corridor. "Doesn't look right," commented Eloy. Méabh busied herself with the ropes binding Yassukhir, freeing up a ten-foot tether. "All right, smart guy," she said, "You can go first!" She shoved him ahead and awaited results.

Yassukhir walked towards the opening readily enough. As he passed through, though, he diverted to the left, crossing one of the heaps of rubble rather than using the clear track in the centre.

Once he reached the extent of his tether, he stopped and stood still.  There was a moment's pause; and then his body began to ripple and change form [druid's Wild Shape]. At this point, several things happened at once.

Méabh hauled back on the rope, dragging Yassukir back into the entranceway with a crash. Eloy, sword drawn, charged across the rubble along the track Yassukhir had followed, just in time to crash into the shaman as he was jerked back. Above them, with a grinding of stone, part of the ceiling began to fall in. Gorfang nudged Shamlakh into a leap through the arch, avoiding the presumed trap triggers, aiming for Yassukhir.

Falling rocks pelted the unfortunate shaman, who - being half-way between lizard and snake and tied up - couldn't dodge. Eloy twisted frantically, evading most of them; Shamlakh's leap carried him through the rain of stone before most of it fell.

The fall was not large. In a few moments, Uruk, Méabh and Lynien were across and into the room. By this time, Gorfang had Yassukhir by the throat and had dragged him to the edge of the Death Hole. "Change back or I'll throw you in!" he growled. There was no doubt that he meant it, and Yassukhir shimmered back into his own form. If it were possible for a lizardman to look sheepish, then Yassukhir was doing so. Gorfang adjusted the ropes binding the shaman to attach him to the warg, of whom Yassukhir was clearly frightened. "Next time you try anything clever," he said, "you go in!"

Behind them, Lynien strolled through the archway in perfect safety. Gorfang glared at her. "Why don't you start going first?" he demanded. "You're trained to spot these traps, and to disable them!" She shrugged and grinned at him.

The others were looking around the hall. It was built on the same cyclopean lines as the corridor, nearly two hundred feet across and fifty high. Carved designs had once decorated the dome, but they were so eroded as to be impossible to identify. They were clearly not lizardmen. For some reason, the style of their design reminded the observers of dwarvish decoration they had seen in the past. There were five exits leading out; referring to the map, they headed for the one marked "Spiders" on Yassukhir's map. Paying out the rope, they sent the shaman in first.

He went willingly enough, and even appeared to become chatty as he went forward, talking a deluge of drivel about nothing in Krultac as they went. The oval room, part collapsed by a stonefall, was choked with webs except for a small walkway through the middle, and barrel-sized objects could dimly be seen clambering around inside the mass. On hearing Yassukhir's voice, however, they all retreated to the back of the cave and allowed the group to pass through unmolested.

The next location was the corridor passing the room where Yassukhir kept his guardian lizard. Méabh looked at the shaman, weighed the odds, an then shoved him forwards again. "Go on," she said, "say the word." The lizardman shook his head slightly, faced forwards and enunciated clearly; "Obvqui". The Krultac word, meaning basically down or sit, had the desired effect; the sound of a large creature backing away into the room was plainly audible. Lynien chuckled to herself. She was starting to admire the sneaky way Yassukhir kept trying to get them all killed.

Leaving the lizard guardian behind, they rounded the corner and reached the stairs Yassukhir had drawn. Part of Churat's ravings now became plain; the stairs were built on the same titanic lines as the passages and rooms. Each tread and riser spanned more than 2', making climbing them more of a scramble than a stepping. Most managed it without difficulty, but Uruk slipped as a piece of the friable rock crumbled under him and tumbled ten steps before he could stop himself. A little shaken, he elected to wait on the landing at the top as rearguard while the others explored the Hall of Life.

Like the rotunda beneath, the Hall was round and domed. Despite millennia of wear, the depredations of lizardmen and the collapse which blocked a third of it, traces of gold remained in the inlaid decoration of the dome. An open doorway gaped darkly to the right; a sealed door matched it on the left. Looming with gloomy menace on a dias in the centre was a massive object, part altar, part plinth, part support for that which rested upon it, pulsing with a faint green radiance; the Crismyrlor. Their satisfaction at locating the object of their quest was tempered by surprise; the Crismyrlor was nearly a yard on each side. Unspoken came the thought: As big as a head. But whose head?

Méabh, Eloy, Lynien and Bog approached it cautiously, and began to check the floor for traps. Gorfang, however, lost interest and wandered off to explore 'the flying room'.

He found it a similar round, domed room, rather smaller, and empty save for a mighty chair built of plain stone slabs. He eyed this for a moment, while Shamlakh sat down patiently to wait. Then he climbed into it and sat down.

Instantly, he realized why Churat had gone mad. All perception of his own body, and his previous surroundings, vanished. Disembodied and unsupported, he found himself looking down from some height on a swampy landscape - outside the hill, he realized. With a renewed shock, he registered the fact that the Fionath village wasn't there any more. Or was that - yet? He was beginning to have his suspicions. To be sure, he needed to see more, and he tried to think of a way to see other locations.

An involuntary exclamation escaped his lips, as 'he' hurtled across the landscape close to the ground. The subjective speed was incredible. Rivers, trees, lakes, forests flashed past beneath him. For an instant he saw a magnificent Elvish castle, framed against the sea - something no-one had seen for more than a thousand years.

Sitting next to the chair, Shamlakh watched his master, beginning to worry. Yassukhir the shaman nodded knowingly to himself and said nothing.

Meanwhile, the others had carefully checked around the edges of the dias and found two suspiciously-different looking slabs. Marking these and avoiding them, they turned their attention to the pyramid itself, examining it with great care. They found that there were two small golden disks beneath the Crismyrlor, upon which the golden bindings of the object itself rested, and two thin strips of gold running from them down the legs of the altar (or whatever) and into the floor.

Eloy and Méabh cracked open the second door. Inside was a similar room to the one Gorfang had found, complete with chair, in rather better condition. Written across the far wall in a language similar enough to archaic Dwarvish for Eloy to read it, were the words The Hall of Hearing.

Lynien, who had gone to find what had happened to Gorfang, eyed his comatose form worriedly. She was convinced something was wrong. Gathering her courage, she reached up and gently touched his ankle. Nothing happened, so she heaved the orc across the stone and off the chair. As he came off the chair, he shuddered and gulped, turning a paler green, and before she could dodge the orc threw his last meal up all over her.

Seeing an option to secure Yassukhir, she siezed him and slid him onto the chair. She watched him for a moment, then, satisfied with his immobility, followed Gorfang back into the Hall of Life.

With great care, Méabh leaned forwards and rested her hands on the crystal. It was warmer than the cold air in the ruins. The pale light illuminating it from within began to pulse steadily, at a rate matching that of the human heart. For a few seconds, this was all that happened. Then, with no warning, a sudden pulse of energy washed out from it, flowing past and around the startled adventurers for a moment, before vanishing again. The Crismyrlor resumed its slow pulsebeat, although at a dimmer rate than before. Blinking, each of the group realized that they felt rested, aches eased, tiredness gone, small hurts erased. Lynien returned to the Hall of Life as Méabh completed her tests by shoving the crystal gently, and establishing that it could move freely. It appeared to be theirs to take.

For the moment, they turned their attention to the slabs on the floor. After a great deal of debate, Eloy and Lynien decided that the slabs were a switch of some sort rather than a trap. Synchronizing their movements, they stepped together onto them. With a gentle grind, the two slabs sank slightly into the floor. Nothing else visible happened.

From deep below their feet came a dull boom, and the sound of falling stones. It didn't last very long, and was followed by renewed silence. Méabh looked around the startled faces. "Time to move on," she commented.

Lynien turned and jogged back into the Flying Room. Grabbing Yassukhir, and this time making sure she was out of range this time, she hauled him off. The effect of the change seemed far less; the lizardman simply blinked. Then he looked smug. "Oh," he said, "this is going to get interesting. Trouble is coming."