Assuming we have found out everything we can at the mill, Garnet asks, "What next, Prince Snorri? Now that we have a vague idea of the layout of this level, we can work on getting to the island castle or move along to some of the other interesting locations, but we need you to lead us."
Stroking his beard in thought, "As far as locations are concerned, whichever we wind up next is perfectly fine with me. Although the Hall of Justice sounds intriguing. It feels as if it's a place that many 'heroes' - if you will - would gather," he says before his thoughts immediately return to other matters. "I do desire to contend with the dwarves of the Black Flame, to be honest. Leaving them unchecked feels as if we are doing them a disservice by not giving them their due peace; but I guess that will come in time. We've much left to explore. Let us continue."
Curious about the castle, Garnet looks about to see if there is a reasonable way to reach the island. True, the piers are unsafe, but perhaps a boat or an unusually large buoyant mushroom will suffice.
"Any of those five or six cave entrances on the southern wall could lead to the temple, I suppose, but the piping does indicate that it is likely more to the west side," responds Garnet, saying, "though if we could find a way to get to the island and have a quick look at the castle, it may abate Dasur's curiosity."
The boats floating at the piers are heavily encrusted in fungal growths. They don't seem likely to sustain extended forays onto the lake, but with someone bailing and someone paddling, you could probably limp across the 30 or so feet to the island.
"Well, either way, we are still in good shape, and ready for a fight. I say we press on and start clearing this place, unless we want to fortify here, to have a safe place to which we can retreat as needed."
"On further inspection, the doors and windows appear to be no more than carvings." Dasur says as Garnet looks for a servicable craft to cross the artifical river. "It is highly likely the castle is merely a decoration, and will yield little to no information of import."
Having given up on his desire to cross the river, the wizard falls behind the others. "To the west, then."
There is a room here in the southwest that appears to be a warehouse. It is full of barrels, real wood stave barrels. Should you open one, you will find that it is filled with salt preserved fish.
Moving further west you come to a wide corridor that plunges into the natural stone wall. The corridor and the vaulted ceiling above are ornately carved in rayonnant patterns.
"If this is the way to the temple it will be interesting to see if the Black Flame has avoided it entirely or repurposed it for its own ends. I wonder how many sentient energy sources worhsip gods? Very few, I imagine, if they are anything similar to elementals. I doubt they have souls." Dasur says as they make their way down the southern tunnel.
"Ummm, how long would this fish have lasted? Has someone been here recently?"
Looking at the marvelous craftsmanship, Garnet smiles at Dasur's enthusiasm, "Yes, hopefully we will reach the temple soon, and it will be...unspoiled."
The Temple is in fact a large complex. Like most temples dedicated to Torag, it is in the shape of a circle. The outer ring consists of housing for priests, clerics, monks, and other devotees, as well as a place to house pilgrims and a few shrines to lesser dwarven gods. The central temple is dedicated to Torag, while 4 satellite chapels are dedicated to Magrim, Folgrit, Angradd, and Kols.
The octagonal ring that surrounds the inner temple is littered with at least a hundred long dead dwarves, most in some sort of religious vestments, all of whom died by violence of one form or another.
"Let us hope so, Garnet. Let us hope so," he responds to Garnet, keeping his eyes peeled and the grip upon his axe firm, obviously not too confident of such.
Dasur stops as they come to the ring of dead dwarves. "Why has the Black Flame not made use of these bodies? There is much we do not understand." Taking his staff into two hands after they complete their first circuit of the temple, he makes a proposal- "We should perform a systematic search of the temple for anything that may prove useful. I also believe it would behoove us to call Torag and his family's attention to this place. It is abandoned no longer, and perhaps the gods will give us succor."
"Perhaps the Black Flame left them all here as a reserve to draw from. Alternately, there are limits to how much a necromancer can control with one casting of a spell, perhaps the same principal applies here."
Gasping at the divine beauty of the temple even given the decayed state of its inhabitants, Garnet breathes, "Perhaps the holiness of this sacred place protects the bodies of the faithful from the indignity of the black flame's corruption."
"Do you think there may be burial chambers nearby? Whatever invading foe these worthy brothers and sisters fought, they should be properly interred in honor for defending our home," suggests Garnet, adding, "though with the black flame lurking nearby, we may not have the time to spare."
"I agree with you completely Garn. We should properly bury them, but they have waited this long, they can wait a bit longer while we clear out the menace."
"We can suss out the sepulchers or catacombs of Dammerhall another time. To Inter all of these bodies would be a great task. and we would do more by our ancestors by banishing the black flame than by burying them." Dasur responds to Garnet. "Instead, Let us seek out the offices of the high priests and look for records on the spread and struggle against our ancient foe."
[b]"I agree. Let us avenge them first, then set them to rest having brought them justice. Where might the head priest's quarters be?" Garnet asks, looking around the massive sanctuary curiously.
"Good idea, cousin. Let us see what we can learn." Snorri then heads toward the High Priest's chambers.
After exploring the ring hallway, you decide to hone in on a door that is marked with symbols of Torag, likely the apartments of the high priest of Torag, who would have been the highest ranking priest of the complex.
The door is carved stone covered in a foil of Orichalcum. You probably know that Orichalcum warps time around it, but how that might be useful in a door you aren't sure. Where some artists might have been happy to craft a door with a simple symbol of the hammer of Torag, this one is far more intricate. At (dwarven) eye level, a substantial warhammer is carved into the stone and covered with the coppery metal. Above that, stones rain down in a sort of avalanche. Below the warhammer, the stones coalesce into a vaguely dwarven form. The center of its chest and belly are filled with fire.
This mirrors the myths of Torag forging the first dwarves from the earth and filling them with fire.
Under magical inspection, you find that the door is sealed and warded against intrusion.
Torvi points, "I'm not opening it! Hey! Glenda, does your helmet know the password?"
Snorri looks to Torvi before turning to the others. "Either that or can you, Dasur, remove such destructive magic?"
Iverna steps up to the door. "I might be able to figure out how to get rid of it, but it also might blow me up. I'm sure Glenda would put me back together though."
Iverna steps toward the door, stretching out her hand but not quite touching it. "I might be able to disrupt the enchantment, though I'd have about as much chance or it blowing me to bits. I'm sure Glenda would patch me up if that happened."
"I would not recommend a mundane solution to this particular magical problem." Dasur says when Iverna volunteers to disable the glyph on the door. He waggles his figures, waves his staff, and starts to untease the knot of arcana in front of him. "This glpyh makes clever use of microleylines traveling through embellishments in the stone itself. I am not sure how the orchalcum is involved, but I believe it can be safely ignored in this particular instance." The wizard drones as he works, working unseen forces.
"The majority of the spell is protected by the stone, but because the energy for the spell came from on outside source one must merely identify the origin and..." His focus intensifies threefold, plucking a string of magic from thousands of others, tugging it free, and making a dramatic slicing of his hand. "...cut it."
Garnet stands by at the ready, looking for possible threats, though she leaves the magical traps to those more skilled in such things.
The door flashes with an amber light as Dasur unmakes the spell wrought upon it. From within, you hear a voice cry out in soul wrenching pain and terror. And then, husky from the scream the same low voice, filled with gravel, says Now Parcev, they come again. You have served me as well as any such creation could, but now your service shall end. This shall be our last battle, but we will not fail again as we did the first time..."
Dasur is watching the spell unravel, acknowledging but ignoring the screaming- the cohereent speech, however, catches his attention, and he casts a puzzled look beyond the orichalcum embellistments.
"EXCUSE ME, VOICE WITHIN." The wizard suddenly shouts at the door in dwarven. "WAS THE GLYPH YOUR WORK? IT WAS FINELY WROUGHT AND I WISH TO DISCUSS IT AT LENGTH IF WE MAY BE PERMITTED INSIDE." He politely yells with palpable curiousity.
Narrowing his eyes in curiosity toward the door, Snorri leans in. "We come in peace, Protectors! As what you just heard from my compatriot, we only wish to speak! We've no desire for battle! I am Snorri, Scion of Tharnhammer, heir to the throne of Dammerhall! What say you?! Will you speak with us?!"
From within, you hear the sound of something heavy and metal being dragged toward the door. The voice replies, "I have no doubt that you can penetrate my defenses, just as you did before. But this time, I am ready for you. Come on in and feel the weight of my hammer against your chest..."
Torvi wracks her brain trying to remember whatever she can about the name "Parcev."
+2 wrt dwarves and their enemies
Torvi's studies pay off this time. Despite how obscure the name is, her memory calls up some relevant information.
The High Priest Nostramir, priest of Torag, was a dwarf of great faith. For his faith and prowess at the Holy Forge, he was gifted with a guardian and companion, a dwarf of clay that he named Parcev, the word being an archaic dwarven word for Guardian, more literally something like "Earth Keeper."
Parcev was said to be an immense dwarf, fully 9 feet tall.
Clay Golems are usually crafted by divine casters. Like all golems, they are extremely resistant to most magics. Their construction makes them supernaturally tough and the clay of which they are made absorbs slicing and piercing blows. Because of their divine energy infused bodies, wounds from a clay golem are difficult to heal with magic.
Torvi hefts her newly acquired Gunzarak dorn-dergar with a smile, "the perfect weapon against this foe then."
"Must we fight it? If this golem is the creation of a dwarven priest of old, perhaps it can become our ally," suggests Garnet, reluctant to destroy a Dwarvencraft item if it can be avoided.
Nodding, "That is exactly my hope as well, Garnet. I am torn on how to proceed. I do not wish to destroy them but I am unsure they will give us much choice in the matter. I believe they could still remain the protectors that they are if they are willing to listen to reason." He strokes his beard in thought a moment before returning back to the door.
"Protectors! Is there no chance for parley?! Can we not settle this in peace?! I would prefer to come to some sort of truce rather than to come to arms!"
"Nostramir appears unwilling to exit his dweelings or listen to reason. We are left with two choices... open the door and potentially face his wrath, or walk away and leave the secrets he protects under his care." There is a pause as Dasur thinks. "A third option occurs to me. Perhaps Nostramir would be willing to answer questions through the door if he knows we fight the Black Flame and seek to reclaim Dammerhall. Given Nostramir has been inside of this room for hundreds of years and is certainly not alive in a conventional sense, I suspect this option is unlikely to suceed. Personally, I feel we should open the door if we are to learn about the Black Flame."
"THERE IS NO PARLEY WITH THE FLAME! THE FLAME CONSUMES!"
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Looking to Dasur and then to the door for a moment before looking back to Dasur, "I fear you may be right, cousin. If I gather correctly, that one may has found its way within the confines of madness... and pain. Possibly generations of it." Figuring there to be no other option, "Then open the door we shall. Arm yourselves if you haven't already," he tells the others as he readies himself with his own weapon. "The only other option we may yet possess is if any of you are able to cure this one of its madness. If not, then prepare for battle." And with that, Snorri will open the door once everyone is prepared.
Erebos
Dasur
Enemies
Iverna
Torvi
Snorri
Garn
Glenda
Erebos strokes a dried bat wing from his spell pouch, rising slightly off the ground.
As the door swings open, Dasur locks eyes with the clay golem in the back of the room. A tiny shovel appears in the wizard's hand from a belt pouch, and he uses it as a sort of baton to focus the nearby latent energies that ran through the stone of the apartment.
The energies suddenly culminate into a 30 foot extra-dimensional space below the golem's feet, and gravity does the rest of the work.
Beyond the door, you see a large suite of rooms that were, no doubt, once the well appointed rooms of a high priest. You see the remains of a wooden bed, upholstered couches in a sitting area, shredded and burned tapestries, smashed tables, broken pillars of wood and fine stone, and, scattered hither and yon, various suits of armor, weapons, jewels, and all manner of other items.
The only two things animate in the room is a massive clay dwarf, nearly 10 feet tall. It appears to be wearing armor and wielding a massive hammer and shield, but all of this is sculpted from the same clay as its body.
And, from beside it, the choking order of smelted steel tinged with burnt hair and flesh wafts on a foul wind. The jangling of heavy chains echoes ominously. A hulking dwarf wrapped in heavy steel links approaches. Its face, hands, and body are riddled with glowing hot hooks and half-melted razor wire. Black smoke rises from its smoldering beard, framing its freakishly contorted face in ashy darkness. The tormented thing hefts a black iron hammer and as it charges the chains draping its form spring to life like metal serpents.
The golem leaps away from the pit growing beneath it, charging its foes to defend its master. The massvie clay hammer
The chained dwarf holds back, waiting for you to approach.