Stranger In A Strange Land

You awaken to find yourself suspended by wires, lines of IVs trace their way to your arms, hands, legs, and neck. A tube is sticking down your throat and a small collection of wires are stuck to your body which is clothed in a simple smock and a white sheet. The light is very low, reddish in most places and appears to be illuminating the exits. Looking for the exits you turn your head to see rows and rows of more wires and suspended bodies. Most appear to be dead but a few more are missing or there are other people moving.

Trying to raise yourself to sitting is a struggle worthy of grunts and groans as your muscles deny your will to move. Images flood back from a time before  and you see the cliche hallway scrolling by and fluorescent lights a medical professional pushing you while something beeps. Pokes, prods, pricks, waking up during an operation that involved your head and not being able to scream or move!

Now, in an unknown location you come together in the room to discuss what lies ahead ...

The Glory Journal

Journal excerpt from The Legend of Saramago and the Sixth Mage Guild:

More of these confounded doors. We must discern the purpose of this place before any other ill befalls us from above!  It appears as there is no written language but just symbols  to guide our decisions about this strange site. This place must be from before the skys fell but no knowledge survives about any such places or peoples. For now, it will be a fitting base of operations  for us at any rate. I wonder what will be in the altar room?

The next day we searched the altar room throuroghly and found a curious map with locations and what appears to be our point on the map. The implications of this map are great considering the cataclysm that befell all of us a few hundred years ago. Another demon that proved nearly impossible to kill, resisted many spells. Reset the protections and shut doors to return to the surface.  Smoke and fire greeted us. Damn goblin pirates bombed us from their air ships. At least the workers are safe and we have shifted production to fixing the town and the keep and moved the living quarters down the elevator to the first levels. Goblins with a covered battering ram attacked with air support. We opened the gate to get at them and the ship flew off toward the goblin camp the ranger found earlier.
We need to discover the other sites on the map and I made a copy of the map doing a average job then I cast a new secret page spell so it looks like the menu from a nice restaurant (need non-detection on it too) also the goblins need to be dealt with and we need to get a airship for ourselves.

If At First You Don't Succeed, Escape In A Cloud Of Smoke

Having solved the previous puzzles of the temple's lower level, The Group™ now stood before the door onward. The ten by twelve foot slab of stone offered no clues as to its opening other than a narrow slot carved into the center, approximately four feet from the floor. They pondered the meaning of this slot for several minutes. What could fit in the slot? Was it a trap? Would it accrue lint over time?

Feeling stumped, The Group™ fidgeted impatiently. The cleric, being a dwarf of no small courage, decided that dangers be damned, he'd figure out the mechanisms of the door. And so, with finger tips inside the slot, he lifted on the slab ever so slightly and it immediately rose with eerie quietness into the ceiling. Mouths agape, the wizard and ranger joined him to peer into the next room of the complex.

Unlike the first room, this chamber was well-lit, but there were no apparent light sources. It was as if daylight shone down through the ceiling like it were clear glass. The contents of the room puzzled them. In the center stood another statue akin to the four previous, but much larger. It's marbled skin denied dust a purchase and its more heavily armored figure looked that much more imposing.

The room also bore three more stone doors in addition to the one under which they stood. They looked like mirror copies, displaying no decorations and only a simple carved slot. Moving into the room the investigate, they were nearly taken unaware as the humanish statue suddenly animated and moved for the closest living member.

The animate stone humanoid's surprise was no match for the battle-hardened reflexes of The Group™ however. Like cobras they sprang into action, the ranger volleying a deluge of pointy death while the wizard and cleric cast beneficial spells. Though the party triumphed, it was not without incident. The ranger's skull was nearly caved in by a great smash from the statue's thick stone spear. The cleric, weaving mighty -- at least to him -- spells of healing was able to save the ranger and restore him to health.

The defeated statue then did something quite surprising. Instead of falling inert or crumbling to fragments from the damage, it nearly liquified. The wizard, after taking a sample of this goo, deduced that the statue had actually been a mimic, possibly compelled to service by the ancient denizens of the temple. One item didn't turn to goo however -- the spear the statue had used to deal its devastating blows was still quite solid. Further investigation found it to be magical. The cleric claimed it after the other showed no interest.

Opening the west door revealed a simple chamber, reminiscent of a monk or acolyte's quarters in the temples that still stood to the ancient gods. Two bed slabs carved of the same stone as the temple claimed much of the room's area, while a stone shelf jutted from the far wall. A short search revealed nothing else in the room.

The east door headed a small chamber much the same as the opposite door's. The far stone wall had collapsed in this room though, spreading debris over much of the floor. The dwarf quickly ascertained that the collapse hadn't been natural as signs of purposed destruction scarred the rubble. Again, a short search revealed nothing else of interest.

The southern slab opened into another large chamber. This too was lighted as though the ceiling were transparent. Four braziers, still burning and smokeless also cast orange flickers about the walls. A raised dais rose from the center of the room, coming to a flat some several feet from the floor. Atop the dais was another statue of the strange humanoids, but fully plated in or wholly gold. Two stone altar tables stood on either side of the room, their fine cloth covers still preserved by some kind of magic. The far side of the room was adorned by a painting of some sort, but The Group™ didn't have time to investigate further.

A screech came from direction of the room with the crumbled wall. As the ranger turned towards the sound he was assaulted by a small creature reminiscent of an imp, but slightly larger and smelling of smoke and char. It quickly bit him and he could feel a burning pain spread throughout his limbs, making his movements clumsier.

The Group™ once again sprang into action. After dealing with one of the two flying monsters, three more creatures appeared in the rubble of the small living chamber. These were not flying pests however, but small twisted humanoid figures with bloated stomachs, dripping fangs and greyish green skin covered in warts and pustules. They attacked the party with menacing glee, but were easily cut down by fearless adventurers.

Thinking this new ordeal finally over, The Group™ started to relax, but yet another being shimmered into view. The voluptuous humanoid female with silken silver hair, burning violet eyes and musical voice was betrayed by her large, leathery wings and scaly tail. "It seems I'll have to deal with you myself," she intoned.

The party immediately went into action, but she was faster yet. Striding confidently towards the ranger, her gaze lured him into her embrace. And yet the ranger had other plans. Slipping out of her welcoming grasp, he bounded backwards and the adventurers attacked as one. The battle lasted several tense seconds while the demoness attempted only to provoke first the ranger and then the cleric into her inviting arms.

Finally, as the battle had taken its toll, the demoness hissed frustratedly and reaching into a small pouch produced a clay vial which she threw to the ground. Upon shattering, the vial created a smoke so thick so as to nearly obscure the party even from each other when no more than five feet apart. When the smoke finally cleared, the demoness was nowhere to be seen.

What mysteries await The Group™ in the final room of the temple's hidden underground level? What purpose could demons have with the ruins. And what was going on above ground after a day and more of exploration below?

On Preparedness And Curiousity

Fearing for the safety of the dig site, The Group™, or mostly Saramago, decided to build a palisade and bulwark around the entire area, including the few buildings of Bryce's Field. Shifting the work force from the dig to the acquisition of materials and building, it took only five days to erect the basic structure. And quite in the nick of time as the dig was attacked by a small band of goblins on that day.


The group showed their martial prowess by slaying most of the raiding party outright. The ranger-in-attendance flexed his bow string as well, shooting down the two fleeing survivors with ease. How will the goblin commanders react to this? Only time will tell.


Wanting to delve further into the unexplored portions of the ruins, The Group™ decided to send the cleric into Arunum to hire a small mercenary group to watch and defend the dig site. He returned four days later with a force of 10 men, hired at two gold per week each.


Free to descend the inviting blackness of the hidden stairway, The Group™ did just that. Only after minutes of walking into the depths and finding a large stone door flanked by magical pillars did Saramago realize they should have been on the lookout for hidden doors along the stair well. And so they ascended the stairs again, this time under the power of spells to ferret out such things. They were rewarded with a colossal waste of time.


Back at the stone door at the bottom of the stairs, the wizard and cleric pondered over the meanings of the sigils carved into the otherwise mirror-smooth surface of the stone door. A battery of spells and attempts to decipher the markings gave them no clue as to their meaning. Only when the cleric ran his hands over the sigils and saw them light up did the wizard realize the same four symbols from the doors in the gallery above were hidden in the sixteen different markings on this door.

After applying the same order of activation to the new door, it slid silently upward into the ceiling, revealing a room beyond. In the dim light of the much discussed wizard's light spell, The Group™ could make out a small raised dais and four stone figures in plate armor holding long flag-adorned spears at attention. Across the oddly shaped room was another door quite like the one they had just come through.

As they attempted to cross the room, they were halted by an invisible wall. Finding no way around, they decided to examine the two statues situated on their side of the wall. The wizard and cleric only found that carved stone can be sharp while the keen-eyed ranger spotted a fine seem at the wrist of one statue. Further examination of the other revealed a matching seem. In a rare moment of deductive reasoning, they attempted to twist the spear hand of each figure simultaneously and thusly the invisible wall was no more.


Making their way across the room, they found the opposite door to be devoid of any sigils, while the pillars on either side radiated strong transmutation magic exactly as the entry pillars had. Nothing adorned the door save a small horizontal indentation.


How will The Group™ defeat this new puzzle? Is there truth to the rumors of howling coming from the bowels of the broken temple at night? And what might be going on above ground while they explore? These questions and more may be answered in our next episode of The Group™ Stumbles Blindly On.

Fight for your right .... to party!

Journal excerpt Saramago

This place is quickly becoming a task to keep. Recent rumors of a hobgoblin/goblin raiding parties nearby prompted us to fortify the ruins by diverting all the workers to defense. Now, we have a basic wooden fort with earthen bulwarks and archery towers. A small raiding party attacked one  night before the gates and towers were completed but we held them off. Hiring a small mercenary company to guard the fort ruins for the remaining two months of workmen contracts enabled us to continue to explore the ruins and the source of the blood curdling screams that are heard from the depths at night.

Finding the great stair, forgetting to detect secret doors along its length, more doors with what is now considered a symbolic language of whoever these  ancients were. Opening doors so far proves to be simply supplying the same symbols, and the high level transmutation on the pillars associated with each door seems to only account for the doors sliding upward into the ceiling.

The final room has yet more statues but the hands with spears move and their is a force barrier in the room blocking the other side. Moving the spears allowed us access to the new door but there are no  symbols this time.

Time to ponder again.