By Brian P. Clausen 1/17/99
Aliou tries to convince the party that they should go retrieve the contents of the glyphed room in the mine while he and the recovering Pole create a "diversion." The party insists on knowing what Aliou has in mind, and he reluctantly reveals a plan that involves bombing the capitol of the Empire with boulders from the air and carrying off the orichalcum capstone which serves as some sort of beacon and power device for the Emperor. The party is of the opinion that that might be a worthy objective, but that they should do that together if at all because of the risk involved. The party votes to shelve that objective for now and handle the trip to the glyphed room first.
The adventurers set off for the eastern portion of the continent, stopping midway at the Vault to make use of its restorative mud. They find that the mud level is very low, probably due to the Tolarian pirates carting the stuff off. Aliou sends an elemental to fetch some mud to speed Pole's recovery and then has the elemental place a boulder over the well to give the mud a chance to regenerate.
Finally the party reaches their tower, still in one piece and still magically blended so as to escape notice. The party moves through the tower in search of their enemy but nothing appears to be amiss. Convinced that they are not going to escape from here so easily, Aliou uses elemental coins provided by the dragon to summon and bargain into service four level one earth elementals, four level one air elementals, two level two fire elementals, and one level three water elemental. This entourage ventures into the mine. Again, nothing seems to be amiss, except that when Aliou casts "Detect Horror" the corruption of the elements caused by the passage of Horrors is everywhere and it is strong.
In the chamber outside the glyphed room the party takes a deep breath and gets ready to make their attempt, come what may. In a procedure similar to the one the dragon used on Pole, Aliou releases the magic of the orichalcum coin prepared by the dragon and the runes (both namegiver and Horror-made) protecting the mysterious room are temporarily abated. The party surges forward to attempt entrance, only to find the room locked. Meanwhile, the Horrors spring their trap, causing the ceiling to collapse. Only the presence of the four earth elementals keeps the party from being crushed beneath chunks of ceiling carved out by dwarf-potlings. Meanwhile, terrible somethings speculated to be ork-potlings approach in great numbers down the corridor so quickly that even the air elementals cannot make them out clearly. The fire elementals provide Neth cover while he attempts to pick the lock.
It quickly becomes apparent that this will be the largest conflict the party has ever participated in and perhaps
ever will participate in. As the elementals ready themselves to fight their ancient enemies they wonder if any of
them will survive the confrontation.
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Copyright © 1999 by Brian P. Clausen. All rights reserved.