Secrets revealed...

The two brothers sat by the side of the muddy oasis and watched the herd graze. They sat in companionable silence and enjoyed the peace of their surroundings, the sun had set below the horizon and the the air was cooling slightly making it more comfortable. Beside them sat the old ashik, and as the younger sibling watched him he turned his head and locked eyes. The eyes of the old ashik held a spark of youth that seemed out of place in his heavily lined and weather beaten face, but with a blink it was gone and the young herder believed that he had imagined it. Almost as if distracting the brothers the old ashik took up his tale once again.

Once Miloch and Scar have made sure that Arthur and Kank are safe and not in imminent danger of dying, they assist Balboa in getting across the underground river. Scar performs first aid on the wounds of her friends and after a short while both of her companions regain consciousness. They discuss their options, but with Arthur and Kank still badly injured and Balboa not much better they agree that they are better off resting up until Balboa is feeling powerful enough to heal them.

While the others are resting Scar searches the bodies of the dead creatures and finds that, with the exception of the chieftain, they have no possessions. She grabs the iron mace and removes the key on a leather thong from around the chieftains neck and hands them both to Balboa, she then takes Miloch and carries out a full search of the caves. While they are doing that Balboa has a closer look at the light mace and finds that it is a thick shaft of wood banded at one end with studded iron rings. Halfway along the wooden shaft is embedded a black stone, and when he looks closer at the stone he realises that it is faintly etched with earth runes.

In one of the caves dead ends Miloch and Scar discover a stone pedestal topped with a stone font, the font contains a dark red viscous liquid that neither of them wish to sample. As they are looking at the pedestal Balboa wanders up behind them and offhandedly points out that the stone font is designed to swivel. Scar twists the font and it reveals a shallow niche below that contains a clay tablet and a small leather pouch. Balboa takes a closer look at the clay tablet and confirms his theory that it has a spell etched into it. Scar tips the contents of the small leather pouch into her hand and finds that it contains two gemstones, one is deep red and the other deep blue. She drops them back into the pouch and walks back into the main room and hands the pouch to Arthur. The big Dwarf perks up a little when he sees what is inside.

Having searched everywhere on this side of the river the group believe that they have dealt with all of the creatures and that for the moment they are safe from attack. Scar takes first watch and everyone else drifts off into a fitful sleep.

Balboa finds himself standing on a narrow mountain path fighting a warrior in black armour. The warriors armour is covered in spikes and he and Balboa are fighting to a standstill with neither given ground.

Balboa wakes with a start as a tired looking Kank shakes him awake and tells him that it is his turn to watch. Unbeknownst to either of them, Kank experienced the exact same dream. The group rest up for the rest of the day and throughout the night, with Balboa calling upon the power of the gnomes of the earth to heal those injured one at a time. Scar also fills all of the groups water carriers with fresh water from the underground river and everyone drinks their fill of the refreshing liquid. By the end of the night everyone is healed and hydrated and they get ready to cross the river once again. Arthur concentrates hard and disappears, he reappears on the far side of the river and Miloch throws him a rope. One by one the group either leap or haul themselves across the eight foot gap and head back towards the obelisks.

Balboa leads the way, with the newly discovered key in hand, and steps around the corner and into the line of sight of the first lightning throwing obelisk. Nothing happens and so he continues on his way, Kank follows him and as soon as he steps out there is a smell of charged ozone in the air and the unmistakable crack of electrical discharge. Kank only just manages to sidestep the bolt and starts to sprint for the other passage, closely followed by his friends. The obelisks continue to fire at everyone apart from Balboa, and one of the bolts catches Arthur a glancing blow in the arm but he carries on running.

Balboa skids to a halt in front of the stone portals and slides the key into the lock. As soon as the key and lock are joined the lightning ceases. Balboa pushes the doors open and sees a short corridor leading to a crossroads, across which he can see another set of double doors. But the thing that really catches his eye is the skeletal remains of what looks like one of the creatures fought in the other passage. The walls are of dressed stone and as he observes closer he realises that the double doors opposite him are wooden. After a long and thoughtful pause Balboa steps into the corridor and walks to the crossroads, when nothing untoward happens the others follow him in. Scar closes and locks the doors behind her, hoping that if the Templars do make it into the temple then the obelisks will cause them some inconvenience.

They look into the right hand passage and find that it leads to a long room containing nothing but a stone basin. Scar steps up to the basin and can see that it contains an aquamarine liquid. They quickly check the opposite room and find that it is a mirror image, but this time the basin contains a red liquid. From the crossroads Arthur scrutinises the double wooden doors and can see that they are ornately carved with writhing serpents, when he points this out Balboa says that he is still getting a very funny feeling from this place.

Scar leans over and smells the red liquid and says that it smells sweet, she then heads back across the crossroads and does the same for the aquamarine liquid and says that it smells fresh. Having run out of ideas she dips her hand into the liquid and drinks some, much to the surprise of her friends. After several heartbeats she laughs and says that she feels energised. She then looks across the corridor and says;

I wonder what the red one does?

Arthur looks around and suggests that someone should try drinking from the red basin. Without a moment's hesitation Kank volunteers, he scoops some liquid out with one of the gourds and drinks it. It is refreshing and sweet but nothing miraculous happens. Scar points out that she drank hers from her hand and so Kank tries that. The moment that the water touches his lips he can feel an itching in the shoulder of his injured arm, and slowly he starts to regain feeling in his crippled limb. The group discuss others drinking from the basins, but Balboa counsels;

Two of us have drunk and had positive effects, and perhaps we should leave it at that.

The others agree with him and so they head for the ornate wooden doors. The doors swing open easily, despite their clear age, and beyond can be seen a large room dominated by a bone altar halfway along the opposite wall. As the doors swing quietly open four large braziers, one in each corner, burst into flame and cast an eerie glow across the skeleton of a giant snake like creature laying in the centre of the room.

The light from the braziers catches off runes carved all over the bone altar and make them seemingly dance. Given her height, Scar can see that nothing rests on the altar and guesses that whatever it is they are looking for must lay beyond this room. Arthur suggests that as he holds the key, Balboa should enter the room and cross to what looks like another exit in the right hand wall. It takes a short while to convince Balboa of this plan but eventually he enters and is pleasantly surprised when nothing immediately happens. Emboldened by this lack of activity Balboa pushes further into the room and as soon as he does there is a dramatic puff of smoke from all four of the braziers.

Balboa just has enough time to catch a glimpse of flaming skeletal figures stood in the two braziers either side of the altar and the sound of shambling creatures moving from the braziers opposite the altar. The tail of the skeletal snake whips at Balboa but he nimbly leaps over it and dashes for the doors and his friends. Kank steps into the room and calls upon the power of the earth ring to lend him strength, and Scar shouts;

Fall back to the crossroads!

The two flaming skeletons stand within their braziers and throw balls of fire at Kank, the big Mul manages to dodge one of the flaming balls but is struck firmly in the chest by the second. He staggers backwards and regroups with his friends who have formed a defensive line at the crossroads, and he watches as four decayed humanoids shamble along the corridor to engage them. Scar swings and hits one of them firmly in the arm, it attempts to counterattack but it misses. Another one swings at Balboa but is also unsuccessful, Kank punches hard and is gratified to hear the sound of breaking bones in one of the creatures legs. It collapses but continues to fight, but as it falls one of the flaming skeletons gets a clear view of Kank and loses a flaming ball in his direction. The fireball flies true and strikes Kank clean in the head, the big Mul’s head is snapped backwards and he collapses unmoving to the floor.

Scar slashes with the Sword of Kemalok and cuts the leg out from underneath the decaying creature that she is fighting. It falls but continues to battle. Arthur steps over the unconscious form of Kank and swings his iron maul into the fray. The melee rages on with neither side gaining an advantage until Scar stabs the Sword of Kemalok deep into the chest of her opponent and it finally stops moving, only to be replaced by another creature stepping over its unmoving form. Twin balls of fire fly into the fray but both of them narrowly miss Balboa, much to his relief. Arthur swings his iron maul in an overhead smash and crushes the decaying creature on the floor in front of him, it stops moving. Dead once again.

The group set about the two remaining undead creatures in the corridor, Arthur slams his maul into the head of one of the beasts and it is reduced to nothing but grey matter and splinters of bone. The creature's body drops to the floor and with his anger up Arthur swings once more and shatters the chest of the final creature. As it falls to the floor more fireballs rain in with one striking Arthur and the second catching Balboa in the right arm with such force that he loses the use of that limb. Scar and Miloch grab Kank by the arms and everyone dives for cover into the aquamarine water room.

Balboa calls upon the gnomes of the earth and heals Kank of his wounds, while Arthur moves to the basin and takes a drink of the blue liquid, but it does not seem to have any effect. Scar tries the blue liquid once again but nothing happens for her either. Kank quickly peeks around the corner of the crossroads and finds that the doors are closing of their own volition. As the doors close the bodies strewn across the crossroads disappear into nothingness.

Arthur walks across to the red liquid room and takes a drink. Once again, nothing happens. At least for a couple of heartbeats, and then Arthur doubles over in extreme pain. Miloch is quick to hand him some weezer honey, the only thing that they have to counteract poison, but even after Arthur has swallowed the honey he continues to suffer the consequences. But eventually it subsides and the pain eases.

Scar tends to the wounds that both Arthur and Balboa took during the fight and manages to get Balboa’s arm functioning once again. They agree to wait until Kank’s arm is fully healed, which Scar believes will only be an hour or so, before attempting to storm the room once again. During the wait Balboa decides to attune to the iron banded mace, to do so he has to push part of his own life force into the weapon, and once done he tells his friends that the mace will allow him to make the weapon magical and to envelope himself in magical armour. The stone in the shaft of the weapon will also allow him to store his own magical power, giving him a well of power to draw upon.

After just over an hour Kank flexes his hand and reaches over his back and unslings Bone Crusher. He gives his beloved weapon a couple of practice swings and a smile crosses his face, he looks up at his friends and says;

What’s the plan?

They agree that they will once again trigger the room, something that Kank happily volunteers to do, and draw the shambling undead into the blue liquid room so that they are out of range of the fire throwing skeletons. Once they have defeated the decaying creatures they will rush into the room, with Arthur and Kank attacking the flame throwing skeletal creatures and Miloch and Scar attacking the skeletal snake. Balboa shakes his head in disbelief at the plan, but goes with it.

Kank pushes the doors open and steps into the room, he gets about ten feet across the room when there is a puff of smoke from all of the braziers. Kank was expecting it but even so he is a little surprised how quickly things happen. He turns and runs towards the line of defence, he feels the heat of fire at his back and dives for cover as two balls of fire narrowly miss him and splash against the wall. Once again the decaying creatures shamble around the corner and crash into the friends. Scar slices out with the Sword of Kemalok and severs one of the undead legs. Arthur slams his iron maul into one of the shambling undead and Miloch cuts a leg out from another.

Balboa swings with his new iron banded mace and it smacks into the creatures leg and there is a wet snapping sound. The preparation of the friends put the battle heavily in their favour and the shambling undead were rocked and failed to hit. Arthur swings again and crushes its chest, the creature drops dead to the floor. Kank swings Bone Crusher with a broad smile across his face and plants the stone head deep into an undead chest, and yet another of the creatures stops moving. Scar stabs the Sword of Kemalok deep into the chest of another creature and Arthur fishes the short skirmish with an overhead thump of his iron maul that shatters the skull of the final creature.

Before the dead body of the last of the creatures hits the floor, Arthur and Kank are sprinting towards the temple, closely followed by the others. As they cross the threshold of the room Kank is hit with a ball of flame, as is Arthur. But the two warriors, Dwarf and Mul, split and run straight at the braziers either side of the altar. Scar and Miloch charge at the giant skeletal snake and Scar slashes downwards with her blade but the snake is deceptively swift and dodges the blow. The snake counterattacks but misses the tall and lithe warrior woman.

Kank swings hard at the flaming skeleton but it somehow manages to dodge the blow and all Kank gets is burnt hands for his attempt. He then dodges the ball of fire thrown by the flaming skeleton, both Scar and Miloch miss the skeletal snake and the snake misses them in return. Arthur then slams his iron maul into his flaming skeleton and it disintegrates in a burst of flame and smoke.