The World of Telvar

Before beginning the adventure a long list of goals was proposed. Most of
the minor and simple ones were achieved (albeit with great difficulty).

Eli EVENTUALLY managed to polymorph four rabbits into mules to drag Groorg's
body outside to the nearby valley where we had prepared for the original
assault on the temple. There we learned one important piece of information
through -Speak with Dead-: that "the treasure room" was hidden in the 333
dimples room. We cut off his head and took it back to the Temple with his
equipment.

Teldral the dwarf's real name is Mordrick Ironhand. He is an immensely
strong and hardy dwarf. He also speaks Common decently well, far better
than we had guessed, and so understood many of our conversations about him.
After he consented to allowing Alegra and Alegra only to cast -Know
Alignment- on him (and promising never to reveal what she had learned),
Alegra found the result acceptable. Warwick dropped his objections after a
few questions under -Detect Lie- and -Detect Evil- (all done outside of the
non-divination zone) and Mordrick joined the party formally.

His skill in finding traps is in many cases better than Ludo's, and he has
such a high life total that he quickly became an invaluable member. His
claims of being name-level were confirmed by the spells and by his success
during the searches.

Warwick came up with a plan to get the person with the gems out in a hurry
should we recover them. Tristan the druid would scry on Menstat, who has
devices that would warn him of the attempt. When he returned the scry,
Tristan would be wearing a sign asking him to teleport him back to Cromwell
with the gems.

Alegra and Xavier attempted astrology readings-- the results were involving
the constellation Cornucopia and a few others. One I remember was roughly
(don't quote me on this) "The Cornucopia is unhappy."

Xavier later decided to check if our fears of a hostile force approaching
the Temple were true, and tried another series of observations. The results
were:

"Hostile approach from the north. The number 4 is important."

We decided that meant that the feared Realmish shocktroopers were coming to
find out why Groorg's men had suddenly deserted (upon the death of their
leader). The number 4 could mean one or both of two things:

1) They will be arriving in 4 days.
2) There are 4 of them.

Another rule for the Stone Soules page:

4) 1 shocktrooper is bad. 4 shocktroopers is just ugly.

After a heated debate, we decided not to flee immediately and continue the
search in the hopes of quickly finding the treasure. The problem was, if we
left we would never have another opportunity to explore the temple before it
was cleared (or worse the shocktroopers freed the Dark Servant by design or
accident).

Next we explored the dimple room and found a door that quickly revolved
around, 90 degrees at a time, using a VERY well-hidden latch. Mordrick and
Ludo were fed Lucky Days before the search which probably helped
significantly in our "success."

The first 90 degree turn put us in a small room with stuff that might once
have been worth quite a lot but was now only a handful of gold pieces. The
next 90 degree turn was actually into a room that spanned 180 degrees. (So
there are only three rooms accessible by this secret door-- the dimple room,
"treasure" room, and the dark room). The dark room was hideously resistant
to any light. Candles were found to work best. Ludo and Mordrick were able
to search for traps though they sensed hideous evil. When Warwick went in
and checked out the floor, he claimed to have seen a "vision" of something
and that he needed to examine it more to understand fully. Alarm bells went
off when he strongly refused to leave the room with Ceydric. He finally
consented under strong pressure. The feeling left him somewhat, and
eventually Alegra cast a -Remove Curse- on him. So it was scary, but there
still appear to be no adverse effects.

Most notably in the room was a portal on the floor. When we opened it, it
blasted out unbelievable cold damage and we quickly shut it. We tried
various ways to explore it, involving rings of warmth, resist cold, and
weather control spells, all to little effect. The problem with the
temperature control was that it was a stationary field. If it moved along
with Alegra, this whole would have been a LOT easier. The other things just
seemed to do very little. And regardless this cold was not quite like
natural cold, because of how it chilled so evenly and to the bone.

A plan was hatched to explore it involving Alegra putting a weather control
at the bottom and Ceydric flying down the tunnel and exploring while
literally his dozen aids were drained. The result was hideously costly and
later turned out to be unfortunate...

Ceydric (with 117 hp!) flew down and, taking continuous damage, explored.
About 300 feet down, the tunnel became horizontal rather than vertical.
There was 4-way intersection. When Ceydric passed through this a voice
spoke "Look up and see your fate." (a booming and brassy voice). Ceydric
responded, "I don't think so," and took a left. Here was a trapezoidal room
filled with books, armor, shields, weapons, urns, and jars.

Going to the right at the intersection, Ceydric saw a hexagonal room with a
few bushes, growing what appeared to be fruit. Bizarrely, the fruit
appeared normal while the bushes had a crystalline structure. The bushes
began light in color at the top and darker until they matched the obsidian
floor at the bottom. Racing against time, Ceydric went into the third room,
an octagonal room with 7 panels and designs.

He made it upstairs just barely alive due to the long flight back up. The
valiant Ceydric had done a costly reconnaissance, losing one of his ring
fingers to frostbite.

We decided that it was simply too costly to make these runs. It was also
becoming likely that the gems were hidden down there. We began to search
for a safer way down, either by "shutting off" the cold or finding a magic
robe of warmth or something.

There were also two secret doors leading to an area in back of the altar
room. The total findings in the rooms were 7 dark robes, 2 iron boxes
(magical-needed knock to open them), and 37 large balls of incense (magical).

Eli had been doing a lot of numerology with the number 333, and had come up
with several pyramid formations. In addition, the number 333 is 3x3x37-- an
interesting and useful tidbit.

The robes have been tried on by Theo (the guinea pig), Ceydric, Rangorn,
Raven, and Warwick. They did indeed block the cold completely, without any
senstation of accompanying warmth. Weird.

Past the cloak rooms were two vestries, where the dark priests adorned
themselves before performing black rites. There was a large tan mold in
one of them, which attacked Ludo and Mordrick intially, then stopped and
just sank down. Eli cast multiple attack spells at it, including magic
missile, LIMM, and Wall of Ice. No effect noted. It never again moved
though, and Ludo and Mordrick did a search. That was where we found 5 jet
black spheres (magical).

The first group down into the cold pit was Ceydric, Rangorn, Raven, and
Theo. Only Ceydric carried his sword, as the robes tend to make movement
and combat awkward. You cannot fire a bow in them. You cannoth carry
anything except in your hands, and they have only two small eyeslits, a
fairly large breathing hole, and a pointed top.

We all heard the voice as we passed, and understandably none of us dared
look up. We turned left and tried to simply collect stuff from the room
without looking closely at it. Unfortunately as Raven touched the first
book to knock it into the sack, a shadowy beast rose out of it. We turned
to run, but it was nearly as fast as us. It became clear we could never
make it up the ladder in time, and Ceydric turned to fight it. On its first
hit it tore open gaping holes in the robes and cold rushed in. Ceydric
ignored it and fought it off, and it finally retreated from damage. Ceydric
did his best to cover up the holes, buying enough time to lower a new robe
to him. After this we decided to have all the spare robes in a pile at the
base of the ladder.

Rangorn stayed up the second trip, and the three armed themselves with magic
weapons. The ethereal being reappeared when Raven touched the book again.
It is outer-planar; Theo's sword really trashed it. Unfortunately Theo's
cloak was shredded in the encounter and Raven's was torn partially. Theo
nearly died trying to get another one on before the cold finished him.

Theo returned upstairs, and Ceydricchecked out the stuff in the trapezoidal
room while Raven searched the walls for secret doors. It was all junk,
Ceydric quickly realized, though he sent one shield up just in case it was
an illusion. Sahrak's -Detect Illusion- indicated it was not. It really
was a decoy of some kind. Of course we haven't checked all the equipment
there. In addition, Ceydric sent up an urn which has still remained
unopened thus far.

Ceydric next examined the bushes and made a count of the number of fruits.
The total number was 166, 1 less than half of 333. In addition they were
grouped by numbers like 37 and 3 and 9 (Ceydric made an exact count-- I just
forgot the exact stats).

On the next trip Ceydric and Rangorn went down. Rangorn searched all three
rooms for secret doors. He found none in the first two. As soon as he
touched the wall physically in the third (octogonal room with 7 panels) the
floor glowed and a ring of purple appeared of about 20' diameter. Rangorn
and Ceydric dashed out of the room and stood near the doorway, but seconds
later the light just disappeared. Rangorn was feeling in a experimental
mood and touched the next panel (they rotate long and short sides). The
same thing happened.

One of the iron boxes was opened upstairs, revealing a wand (magical).
Finally there seemed no option but to check out the fruit. Ceydric and
Warwick went down (Warwick seemed fine) and approached one of the bushes.
There were three types of fruit. Ceydric touched one of the "green apples"
with one finger. No effect. Two. No effect. He put his whole hand around it.

...For a moment Ceydric gained the wisdom of the gods, the cleverness of
eternity...

and then fell unconscious in Warwick's arms. Ceydric had sustained mental
damage, which will take days to recover through normal healing only, and is
now operating at only half-strength. When Ceydric explained what had
happened to Warwick, his response was, "I wanna try some of that!"

We are struck by the seven robes, and seven panels coincidence. Some members
have theorized that the seven high priests could invoke dark rituals if they
all touched the panels at the same moment. Another theory is that the seven
panels were a safeguard against any single priest stealing the gems, and
that if we touched all walls at the same time the ring would encase the
gems. This is of course hideously risky to test.

Most of us agree that the voice at the four-way is in fact the Dark Servant.
None of us dare look up-- things will be "not happy."

Another theory on the gem location is that the bushes are not in fact the
gems but have grown out of them and that the gems are actually buried
underneath the bush. Unfortunately the robes only fit people above 5'6" or
so safely, so we've been hesistant to bring Eli, Sahrak, Ludo, or Mordrick
down. Furthermore Alegra, Xavier, Star, and Tristan all fear being smitten
upon touching the robes-- certainly justified. So if we still had all seven
robes intact we could try to have Rangorn, Raven, Deirdre, Ceydric, Theo,
Warwick, and a seventh person all touch the walls and see what happened. On
the other hand if one person can touch more than one panel (ie. at a corner)
then only four people would be necessary. We still have 4 fully intact
robes and one robe that is ok for awhile. Eli tried to -Repair- one of the
really damaged ones, and it began to work, then abruptly unraveled completely.

What should we do next? We have one more day to leave safely before we
expect the Shocktroopers.

End of log.

Out of character: We quit at 4 AM frustrated and worried. The party is now
debating what to do. Everything seems to lead to some reward, but at
hideous risk for the risk-taker. Zack is understandably unwilling to have
Ceydric continue being the guinea pig, and most of the other people want to
continue, but not do the risky stuff. We can stop now and be satisfied with
a modest haul, and the success of killing Groorg and retrieving the mithril
key without any loss of life.

But this is our best chance to recover a huge treasure. And there are still
some places left that have not been tinkered with, though we think we've
mapped the floor out fully. Groorg told us (when dead) that his followers
were struck dead upon touching things in the altar room. So this seems
unwise. Then there is the six sarcophogi room (six sarcophogi and one more
in another room, 7 coffins-- supports our suspicion about the 7 wall
panels). And finally the cistern with the tentacle thing.

Sorry about the huge length of this summary, but we are really up against
the wall here and I thought detail was very important for those observing.
Kyle is not alone in being frustrated-- we are all still in debate.

Thus ends Episode 2 of the Stone Soules, "The Stone Soules vs. the Dark
Servant." Watch them defy death and danger with reckless abandon in Episode 3!

Joel D. Green

"Life is full of little surprises."
-Pandora