11 Longday 508

The party is still ensconced outside of what they assume to be the main sanctuary of the temple of Jörn. Savaric has just been healed of his wounds, after being shot by Surm, who thought the invisible ranger was an invisible priest.

Suddenly everyone in the room is wracked with the pain of negative energy. One of the priests of Jörn is standing in the threshold of sanctuary. Mõrvar moves quickly and attacks with his sword. The figure runs back into sanctuary, skirting the large ring of fire in the room. Mõrvar casts acid spray at the running priest while Surm passes his crossbow to Rilka. The priest falls at the side of the ring of fire.

Savaric stands in the doorway and fires his bow across the ring of fire into one of the shadowy figures he sees on the other side. Suddenly the doorway is filled with a column of fire and the ranger falls. His snake, Victor, is nearly turned to char.

“Feel the fires of Jörn, infidels!” announces a booming voice from across the flames.

Rilka charges inside and starts rounding the left side of the ring of fire. She is met by two priests of Jörn. Mõrvar charges in to the other side of the ring of fire and bull rushes a priest into the flames. Furfur is flying about the room, crowing loudly.

Suddenly, a huge ape-like creature with long, muscular arms that stretch to the ground, ending in wickedly curved claws appears next to Rilka’s priests and begins attacking her! Fortunately, the Dire Ape misses. Savaric fires at the ape from the head of the room and misses. The good priests begin to pour into the room to assist. Surm enters the room and begins to skirt the wall, making his way to the far side.

Then a multicolored explosion of leaping, ricocheting energy appears in the room around Surm, Rilka, Mõrvar, and Mirka. All but Mirka are wracked with pain and Rilka is slowed by the chaos hammer. Mõrvar is met by two more priests and he begins fighting them. One of them stabs him in the appendix with a poisoned dagger. Mõrvar moves away from him and heads for the High Priest, positioned in the back of the room, standing before a large obsidian throne. Sigurd moves in and starts attacking the priests that Mõrvar left behind. He hits one with one of his hand axes. Surm surges forward and casts mage armor on his brother.

Rilka hits one of her priests with a mighty blow. The Dire Ape hits Rilka with one its long claws. One of the priests hits Sigurd. The High Priest channels negative energy, wracking Surm and Mõrvar with pain. Mõrvar hits the High Priest with his mighty sword. Sigurd swings at his priest with his twin axes, but misses. Mirka swings chants a prayer to Ulfethinn to holy smite the evil in the room—and gets more than she bargained for: Mõrvar goes down as the priests shriek in pain. Even Surm, Rilka, and Savaric feel some pain from the divine magic. Furfur caws in pain. Surm uses a divine healing scroll on Mõrvar to revive him while Savaric fires his bow at the evil priests.

The Jörnites continue to attack and the Dire Ape hits Rilka again with its claw. Rilka finally fells another priest. Mirka heals Rilka with a spell while Ivarin does the same. Surm approaches the High Priest from the rear and goes for a sneak attack—but misses. Sigurd hits his opponent with both of his axes.

Ivarin casts a spell of guidance on Rilka while Mirka hits the Dire Ape with her warhammer. Surm misses the High Priest again while Mõrvar hits the High Priest—and fells him. He then delivers a coup de grace and decapitates him.

Meanwhile, the Dire Ape claws Rilka again. Surm moves and attacks Sigurd’s other opponent but misses. Mõrvar casts ray of enfeeblement on the Dire Ape. The ape then attacks and misses Rilka. Mõrvar then moves forward and fells the Dire Ape.

All of the priests are then finished off. The sanctuary is searched and Savaric finds a secret door. The High Priest’s body is looted, as are the other priests. On the High Priest, another thunderstone is found, a suit of masterwork studded leather, a masterwork morning star, 5 daggers, a masterwork dagger with a ring of flame motif, a silver holy symbol of Jörn, a pouch with gold in it, and two vials with an unknown substance. There is also a tuning fork (which Surm determines is probably used for a plane shift spell), and a bag of diamond dust (which he also determines is probably used for a non-detection spell). The other priests have all the same belongings as the other priests encountered in the temple.

Surm determines that it is very late—probably close to midnight.

The room next to the sanctuary is a vestment room of some sort. Sitting in the center of the room is a small wooden box. Savaric checks it for traps and finds none. He opens the box to find an ornate gold collar with obsidian snakes worked into it. Rilka mentions that in the religion of Jörn, he has been known to appear to his followers as a serpent. The collar rests on a velvet lined platform within the box. Mõrvar appraises the collar at being worth 400 gold pieces. Savaric checks the room for “secrets”—he finds none.

Savaric then goes to the door in the south of the sanctuary. He checks it for traps. He finds none. He opens it. It opens into a corridor.

The party starts to follow the corridor, with Savaric looking for traps. They come to another door, which they open after checking it for traps. It opens into a full-fledged alchemy lab. There are shelves with a variety of alchemical potions and vials labeled upon it. There are several items of interest labeled on the shelf:

• 1 lb. bag of Foaming Powder
• 5 vials of Invisible ink
• Pouch with 10 smoke pellets
• 2 vials of Black Adder Venom
• 2 vials of Greenblood oil
• 2 vials of Small Centipede poison

After gathering up all they could in this room, and comparing the vials they gathered from the priests to the vials in this room to identify them (or not, as the case was for the vials on the High Priest), they passed through an arched doorway into a corridor into what appeared to be a dormitory. There are 10 small beds with chests at the foot of each. Each chest contains simple black robes, candles, bedding, pots of sword black, and 2 vials of Greenblood oil.

They return to the alchemy lab and find a locked door heading south. Surm disables the lock and they head inside. Inside the room is a long chest. Surm manages to disable the trap on the chest. They open to find a bevy of treasures.

• 521 gp
• Engraved jade scarab
• Gold candelabra with holy symbol of Ulfethinn [Storm Cloud]
• Gold mask
• Ivory drinking horn with copper ends
• Silver comb with gold handle
• Silver holy symbol of Jörn
• Scroll
• Wand

The group takes their treasures back to the sanctuary and and then enters the secret door that Savaric had found earlier. They follow a long, stonework corridor that descends into the mountain. Savaric misses a trap and magical dart of ice shoots out of nowhere, striking him. Eventually, the stonework gives way to natural tunnel and they find themselves in a the broad cavern with a pond that they had encountered before. They turn around and head back to the sanctuary.

Once back in the sanctuary, they explore the one turn that they had not made upon entering the lower temple and find a storeroom full of firewood and cleaning implements. They return again to the sanctuary and then gather up the guards from the upper temple. They take up all the bodies of the fallen and gather in the sanctuary.

As the group gathers, Rilka notices Mirka eyeing Mõrvar thoughtfully. Meanwhile, Mõrvar is decapitating all of the fallen and places the head of the High Priest in his own lap. Rilka approaches Mirka, but the priestess insists that nothing is wrong. Rilka then tells Surm what she’s observed.

The group takes their rest in the lower temple, with Alasir and the party taking guard shifts.

12 Longday 508

As the group gets ready to depart the temple, Mirka casts detect magic over their treasure horde. She determines that the wand and the scroll are magical in nature. Neither Surm nor Mõrvar can make out the scroll. None of the priests have the necessary skill to make out the scroll either. The wand provides no clue to its nature.

The group, along with the party’s porters, work to haul all of their loot out of the temple. They drag some of it on tapestries. They also use the large chest to haul some of it as well. They eventually make it to the boulder blocking the trial and the priests heal Tarben of his wounds.

After a long day of hauling loot and making it over the boulder, the troupe decides to pitch their camp on the other side of the large stone.

The party is awakened that night by screams of “Dragon in the camp! Ware the Dragon!”

Mõrvar and Surm look out to see Alasir being clawed by a young white dragon on a flyby attack. Surm attempts to wake up those that have not responded. Savaric fires at the beast with his bow. It breathes icy cold into the camp. Savaric fires again. Mõrvar attempts to hit it with a ray of enfeeblement. He stirs up the magical energies so well, that doubles the amount strength sapped from the creature—but he also switches places with it. Savaric fires again at the creature. Sigurd emerges and hits it twice with his axes, now that it is on the ground. Surm, now that it has appeared right beside him, attempts to attack it, but misses it. Savaric fires once again and hits it. Alasir recovers and hits, finally slaying the beast.

Savaric goes about the task of butchering the beast as best he can as the camp attempts to go back to some semblance of order. Everyone goes back to bed and the rest of the night passes without further incident.