Secrets revealed...

The older of the sibling herders sat watching the old ashik sleep, there was something about the old man and his tale that nagged at the back of the herders mind when he sat still in the pre-dawn hours watching out for predators. Perhaps it was just his mind playing tricks on him, it was prone to doing that when he was tired and his focus drifted. He shook his head like an erdlu being bothered by flies trying to shake away his clouded thoughts, and when his eyes came back to rest on the old ashik he realised that the old man was awake. The old man stretched his aged limbs, sat down next to the herder, and continued his tale.

Leaving the fungus covered storeroom behind, Kank leads the group down the corridor and eventually arrives at an ornately carved door. The door is covered in intertwined snakes in a similar style to others seen within the temple, and so Kank calls forward Balboa and steps back. Balboa, still holding the key, steps up to the doors and pushes them open. Beyond the doors he can see a large room, just beyond the doorway to the left sits an altar and in front of the altar is a deep pit. There is a glow of purple tinged light emanating from the bottom of the pit, and beyond the pit sit twin pedestals surmounted by water basins and overlooked by two dragon headed water spouts. Leading from the room are the remains of two collapsed tunnels that appear from the doorway to be impassable.

Being a creature of action, Scar pushes past Balboa and steps into the room. When nothing happens she wanders over to the edge of the pit and can see that the bottom of it is littered with glinting coins, she smiles to herself knowing exactly what Arthur will do as soon as he knows about them. But she cannot make out where the odd purple light is coming from and so she moves back towards the altar and discovers that it is covered in runes that she is unable to read, but she can discern that the runes are written in many different languages. She continues to move anticlockwise around the room getting a closer look at the twin pedestals.

Up close it is obvious that the dragon heads are water fountains above water basins, Scar marvels at the wonder of fresh water on demand, and dips her hand into the basin and drinks deep of the liquid there. As soon as she removes a handful of water from the basin more water squirts out of the dragon's mouth and refills the basin, Scar almost laughs with delight. She wanders back to the others who are crowded within the doorway, as she steps up to them she casually says;

The pit is full of coin!

Arthur almost falls over his own legs in his rush to get to the edge of the pit and look in. With a glint in his eye he looks back over his shoulder;

We need to mount an expedition!

Kank agrees and suggests lowering Balboa into the pit. Balboa turns pale and is pleased when the discussion turns to ownership of the coins, with Miloch baiting Arthur. Eventually they all head into the room and begin to search, but finding nothing they turn back to the pit. Kank cuts down a gourd and forms it into a scoop, he then takes a rope and unbraids one end and weaves it around the gourd so that it can be dropped into the pit and dragged along the bottom to scoop up the coins. Kank hands the scoop to Arthur and then ties a rope around his waist and holding the other end moves back towards the doorway.

Arthur heads to the edge of the pit and throws in the gourd, as soon as the gourd hits the bottom of the pit there is an ear splitting screech and a heartbeat later eight apparitions of horror appear out of thin air around the room. Arthur drops the gourd and hefts his iron maul, he looks into the pit and screams;

If I die I’m going to die in a pit of money!

But Kank’s firm hold on the rope stops him from leaping straight into the pit and so he takes a step backwards and takes a hefty swing at one of the wraiths, but his iron maul passes straight through it as if it wasn’t there. The horror strikes back at him and it’s clawed hand seems to pass straight through Arthur’s chest. Scar uses the power of the Sword of Kemalok to magically sharpen her blade and only just avoids being clawed by one of the horrors. As her and Arthur back towards the door Kank steps into the room to cover their retreat.

The wraiths continue to advance and one of them only just misses Arthur with a swipe of it’s claws. Unfortunately, Scar and Kank are not as fortunate. Scar is clawed twice and with the first blow she feels her intelligence diminish, and the second strike saps her energy. As Kank is hit he feels his mind slow as his intelligence dims, but he is still sharp enough to shout;

FALL BACK!

Arthur starts to back away as Kank and Scar close ranks in front of him, but the wraith attacking Arthur just phases through the group's front rank and continues to pursue him while more wraiths attack Kank and Scar. Balboa shouts a warning as he spots a silver ribbon starting to form between the dragon headed water spouts, in a heartbeat it transforms into a giant silkworm and lashes out at Kank, but fortunately misses.

Kank lashes out with Bone Crusher but the Mul’s maul passes straight through the insubstantial horror. Two wraiths attack Scar while another two strike at Kank, but all four miss their target, then the silkworm strikes out at Scar but also misses. Scar slashes back at one of the wraiths with the Sword of Kemalok and it diminishes significantly. Balboa calls upon the power of his iron banded mace and enchants it with a bludgeon spell, he then strikes out at the wraith attacking Arthur and his enchanted mace injures it. The wraith attacks Arthur but misses, and then a second one appears out of the wall beside him and instantly attacks. As soon as the creature's claws scrape down Arthur’s back he feels his strength seep away.

Kank is hit twice and his intelligence is drained from him once again, then Scar is hit and her fortitude shrinks again. The silkworm strikes out again, but once again it narrowly misses Kank. Kank calls upon the gnomes of the earth to increase his strength through the power of the earth ring, and then he swings a mighty punch at one of the wraiths. Yet again his fist just passes through the creature doing no harm. Balboa hits one of the wraiths attacking Arthur again and again it is injured but it carries on attacking and diminishing Arthur’s strength. Both Kank and Scar are hit once more and their life essence is drained. At this point it becomes obvious to the group that they are losing this fight.

In desperation Kank tries his final card. He shoves his hand forcefully at the wraith and fire pours from his palm and envelopes the wraith, the creature is clearly injured by the attack but it continues to attack. Kank starts to look desperate. Scar calls upon her inner magic and enchants Arthur’s iron maul with bludgeon and he swings hard at the wraith, hitting it with a firm blow and this time the horror evaporates in a mist of darkness.

Scar and Kank are once again hit by the wraiths attacking them and their intelligence is reduced once again, by this stage Kank was no brighter than his domestic namesake, and was fighting out of pure instinct. Scar once again calls upon her inner well of power and enchants the swirling Bone Crusher, Kank smashes Bone Crusher into one of the wraiths and it evaporates. Both Arthur and Balboa hit the remaining wraith behind the front rank and it disappears in a wisp of darkness. Kank flails around blindly with his beloved maul and catches yet another wraith and yet again the horror ceases to exist.

Arthur, Scar, and Kank are all hit by the remaining wraiths and Scar just has enough intelligence left in her to cast an enchantment on Miloch’s iron battleaxe. Arthur swings his iron maul and disrupts another wraith, Kank is still swinging wildly and connects again dissipating the creature. Miloch wades into the fight looking for a target, and Kank points at the wraith attacking Scar and shouts;

SWING FOR THE PRETTY LADY!

Miloch steps in and swings at the wraith attacking Scar and slices it in half. With fewer wraiths in the way, the silkworm strikes out once again. It bites Balboa in his leg and the diminutive Mul collapses and remains unmoving on the floor. The friends lay about themselves with their Scar enchanted weapons and dispatch the remaining wraiths. Arthur rushes forwards in an attempt to grab the gourd scoop, as he passes Scar she yells;

WORM!

The silkworm lashes out at a gold dazzled Arthur, narrowly missing him, and Scar charges towards the creature. Like a loyal guard beast, Kank charges with her. As soon as they get within melee range of the sinuous creature it locks eyes with Scar and the lithe warrior woman feels a powerful consciousness pressing in against her mind, but Scar is not weak willed like her companion Kank and the mental attack shimmers off of her mental defences. Scar strikes as quick as a snake with her fabled dwarven blade, the Sword of Kemalok, and the magically sharpened blade passes clean through the coils of the silkworm cleaving it in half and killing it instantly.

The silence after the fight is shattered as Kank and Scar burst into laughter pointing at the bisected beast. No one knows what they found so funny, but they laughed like fools until they cried. Then Scar announced that she was tired and sat down on the spot and went to sleep. Kank wandered over to where a paralyed Balboa lay and poked him gently with a calloused finger. He continued to do this for several minutes, but when Balboa refused to move Kank just lay down beside him, put a protective arm around him, and went to sleep.

Arthur and Miloch looked at each other and shrugged. Kank and Scar showed no physical wounds, but it was clear that they were not themselves, Balboa had been bitten badly in the leg but it wasn’t bleeding and with Scar out of action neither of them could do anything for him. And so they agreed to turn their attention back to the pit, and in particular the coins at the bottom of the pit. Miloch lowers Arthur down into the pit and they are both relieved when nothing happens, Arthur starts to fill up the scoop and Miloch pulls up the coins and starts to pile them up. All of the coins are silver, and there are hundreds of them.

As he moves methodically along the floor of the pit clearing it of coins, with a wide grin splitting his face, Arthur discovers an old satchel. And it is obvious that this is the source of the mystic purple glow. Arthur reaches out to grab the satchel but as soon as he comes into contact with it the ancient holdall disintegrates at his touch, spilling several items across the floor of the pit. In front of him Arthur can see a few clay tablets, an uncut pale green gem, an iron gorget, and a thin circlet of gold. And it is the thin circlet of gold that is emanating the purple light. Miloch drops down a sack for Arthur to place the items in. The last item that Arthur reaches for is the piece of the crown.

As his grasp closes around the fragment of the Crown of Dust Arthur feels, rather than hears, a female voice whispering in his mind;

Place the crown upon your head. Together we can rule the world!

With an effort that makes the veins stand out on the side of his head Arthur shoves the fragment into the sack and hands it up to Miloch. Miloch, being far more cautious, places the sack well out of reach of everyone and treats it as if it is full of venomous snakes. Eventually the pit is emptied of coins and Miloch helps Arthur climb out. As Arthur hauls himself over the lip of the pit he says to Miloch;

Be careful with that circlet, it tries to talk to your mind!

Miloch looks down at the mighty Dwarf and nods;

I suggest that you do not put it on. It feels like very bad magic!

At that moment they hear a noise behind them and both spin around to discover Balboa disentangling himself from a drooling Kank. Balboa looks up at the pair and says;

Can you hear that banging?

While Balboa calls upon the gnomes of the earth to heal his wounds, the others listen and can hear the distant boom boom of something heavy being rammed into something solid. As they listen they realise that it can only mean that the Templars have made it as far as the outer locked door. They decide that they need to get moving. Balboa asks what they have found and Arthur shows him what has been discovered. Balboa inspects the clay tablets and identifies that they are magic spells. Detect magic, dispel, magic, regrow limb, and the final tablet Balboa cannot read. He suggests waking Scar and seeing if she knows what it is. They do so, and Scar has regained some of her intelligence while sleeping, as soon as she looks at the clay tablet she knows that it is defiler magic. She passes it back to Balboa and says;

It details a ritual. It tells you how to create a vampire.

Balboa also looks at the iron gorget and discerns that it is capable of casting a protection spell on its wearer. They kick Kank awake, who is still no brighter than a domestic beast, and Arthur gives him half of the coins to carry. They agree to head back to the storeroom and check to see if there is another way out of the complex. Miloch and Balboa step up to the edge of the pit within the storeroom, as well as the fungus growing around the room they can see lots of detritus and several cracked clay vessels, one of which seems to contain something shiny. Balboa agrees to be lowered into the pit to investigate, but being aware of what happened last time everyone is on guard. Kank and Miloch hold the rope and start to lower him in.

As soon as Balboa starts to descend one of the vines within the pit comes to life and rears up. It whip cracks at Balboa but narrowly misses, Scar starts to laugh again, but her laughter stops when several fungus men step out of the patches of vegetation. Kank and Miloch pull hard on the rope and Balboa flies out of the pit to land with a thump on the floor by the pit edge. Once again the call to fall back echoes around the group and they start to inch backwards into the corridor. The vine cracks again, but once more it misses as the shambling fungus men close in.

Miloch swings with his iron battleaxe and lops off one of his creatures legs. Kank crushes another one's arm, while Scar manages to dodge a punch thrown by one of the fungal beasts. Arthur spots that the creatures are trying to avoid Scar’s torch and so he and Balboa quickly start to light more torches. The largest of the fungal creatures rears up above it’s smaller compatriots and spores burst from its mouth covering all of the friends, all avoid breathing them in except Kank and Scar who cough and splutter with the spores blocking their noses and mouths.

Scar swings with the Sword of Kemalok and slices off a leg, the creature stops moving. Kank slams down with Bone Crusher and smashes another leg, but it continues to attack. One of the fungal creatures is weaving its tendrils about and it seems to stare at Scar, but the spell slides off of Scar’s mental shields. With the torches lit the group begin to force the fungal men backwards, the spell casting fungal man points at Miloch and he doubles up with pain in his stomach. Seeing a gap in the line, Scar leaps at the largest of the shambling creatures slicing down viciously with the Sword of Kemalok striking it cleanly in the chest. The big beast tumbles like a felled tree.

The vine in the pit strikes out at Scar,but she nimbly steps aside and backhands it with her Dwarven blade notching it. Miloch swings with his iron battleaxe into one of the felled creatures and kills it. Kank charges straight at the fungal man casting spells, but it casts another spell before he reaches it. Suddenly Kank is overcome with a feeling of demoralisation;

Why is everything in this world trying to kill me? I just want a hug!