On the bodies the others discover:
6 common leather armors, 6 battleaxes, 6 longbows with 18 arrows in each quiver, 5 antitoxins, 2 waterskins, 2 belt pouches, 39 gp, 6 sp.
Paige checks the antitoxins to make using her brew potion skills to make sure they are what they seem to be. Then she hands them out. We will need these I think... Then she follows Yazi and Hajar.
Do you think I am poisoned as well? I felt the effects and then they ended when the feather hit me.
Hajar, how do you feel after drinking that potion? I wonder if we wouldn't be wiser to simply forge ahead? While we have the advantage of surprise?
Paige follows, watching the rear.
Hajar coughs and says I'll be fine, their poison was potent but through your quick actions my life is saved. Thank you Mistress Paige. We should continue on our quest, else the Carrion King know about us and we lose the element of surprise.
In the southwest section of the temple area rises a large, bronze-plated dome set atop a raised stone foundation. The dome is badly cracked and a gaping hole mars the southwest wall. Several human-sized, brownish-black, egg-shaped objects lie about the yard surrounding the dome.
The whole place smells like snake. Old, big snake.
Those are the biggest serpent droppings you've ever seen. Not eggs.
So, here is the deal guys...It smells like snakes. And it smells like big old snakes. And, lo, those giant completely unrelated human sized egg shaped things are actually the droppings of some giant snake. If you poke a stick into one, like so Paige pokes into one with a shtick You will see yonder fragments of bones of small animals and *le gasp* other creatures! Paige recoils, surprised that a snake would each such things...
Snakes have venom... Hajar says, properly chastened by Yazi's earlier statement, he realizes his zealotry to attack headfirst cost him dearly...and could have cost his friends their lives.
Bartan nods to Hajar. "That they do, my friend. And it is entirely possible that is where the gnolls got the awful poison that affected the two of you. We should be extremely cautious, and keep those antivenoms on hand at all times."
=> The Mute Hag (Neutral Evil, Wisdom)
Bartan draws a card from his heirloom harrow deck. "We should expect evil here, the kind of evil that will attempt to manipulate us into fighting between ourselves."
Perhaps we could use its poison against the Carrion King.
Khayal looks around intently, trying to spot the source of these droppings.
As Paige picks at the piles of droppings, bones crumple out, including a bony humanoid finger with a golden ring topped with a blue gem.
Khayal peers into the darkness, where he can make out little more than the stone-tiled floor.
Paige casts CREATE WATER and cleans the ring enough to be taken. And then she takes it, smiling.
Paige looks at the ring and tries to identify it.
Bartan takes a moment to attempt to identify the ring.
(Don't forget your Wand of Identify. Detect Magic would have helped too.) The object has faint abjuration magic coming from it. This is a minor ring of fire resistance (10 points of resistance). It's worth 12,000 gp by magic alone.
"This ring will protect one of us from fire. I would suggest we give it to Hajar, in his weakened state."
Thank you dear Yazi, but I can walk of my own volition... Hajar says stuffily. He places the ring on his finger and nods his thanks to the group for their concern. Let us go. and he gestures for someone else to lead the way into the snake warren.
The building has a tiled floor, with a different color under the translucent dome. Looking around, you're not sure what this building was for. In one corner, worm-eaten wooden bins used to hold something. A thin rug covers the tiles to the right of Yazi entering. Blown-in sand is scattered everywhere.
The larger, squarish area of the temple to the adventurers' left is shrouded in darkness, as no light from the collapsed wall reaches the area.
The smell of serpent is rather pungent here.
Hajar casts Light upon Tempest so that it glows as a torch.
Khayal looks arround the dome now that light has been brought into it.
Do you see any movement?
Between the rug and the bins, you'd swear this place was more a marketplace than a temple. Something doesn't feel right. Like somebody was selling something here.
On the far wall you make out an old painting of the symbol of Lamashtu, but defaced and several sayings in crude, faded-out gnoll writing.
The area to the East feels like a big, open area. Still too dark to see unless you get closer.
The worship of Lamashtu centered around the birth of monsters. Said cursed births were often messy, fatal to the mother, and dangerous for all concerned...
Rovagug, on the other hand, is just wanton destruction. If you can destroy everyone else first, that's a bonus, but one of the reasons the clerics of the Rough Beast don't last very long is that most of their magic doesn't protect them from their own castings.
Paige, untrained in religion, does not understand the religion stuff. But she couldn't care less, as all "the gods" seem be be but nothing compared to the nature of the universe...and to Live in accordance with nature is the motto of every good little druid and druidess...
She steps up next to Yazi. Why do they make such an ugly script? Isn't the flowing beauty of runes and magical writing part of their power?
I do not know what caused the gnolls to turn away from the Mother of Monsters...but I also do not care. They are followers of the Enemy now, and they will be destroyed. Hajar says, echoing a tenant of his training All may be redeemed save the followers of the Rough Beast. I will seek out and destroy the spawn of the Rough Beast. If I cannot defeat them, I will give my life trying.
Hajar moves forward, attempting to see better into the room.
Hajar's torchlike effect opens up the other room a little, so that you can make out several low benches to the east, and a raised platform to the south.