ADVENTURE 76: BLACK HOLE SUN
PC Roster:
"We have been expecting you," said Father Mendicus. "Please join us on the upper deck. We have our clerics and monks assembled there to hear your tale."
The five adventurers followed the elderly cleric through the opened gates of the temple of Pelor and into the building's interior. It was a simple two-story structure, rectangular in shape but with a rounded front, from which two observation platforms jutted forth on either side of the heavy wooden front gates. The heroes passed through a tunnel of sorts, with the ground-level sections of the temple on either side of them and the second story directly above, and entered an open courtyard taking up the middle third of the temple's length. The back section was a full two stories, with about a dozen young men standing in orderly rows looking at the approaching group expectantly. A set of stairs led up to the upper level, and Father Mendicus escorted the group before the rest of the temple's current inhabitants. Delphyne, the only woman in the group of heroes and, she nervously noticed, the only woman in the temple at all, felt more than one pair of eyes upon her, some being mere sideward glances and others a bit more blatant in their open stares. She shifted somewhat uncomfortably, pulling her shawl tighter around her shoulders.
Cal made the introductions, taking time to explain a bit of Akari's backstory to allay any suspicions the Pelorians might have about his fiendish appearance. The fact that Cal openly wore the trappings of Kord and Akari proudly wore the symbol of Hieroneous did much to calm any worries they might have. He also took the opportunity of having everyone assembled together to examine them through his gem of seeing, to ensure the clerics and monks were all as they appeared to be. Cal then explained their reason for being there, informing the group at large about Nakariah, his plan to extinguish the sun as a way to avenge himself on Joniah the Avenger, and the notations about this temple they had discovered in his lair.
"But why would he be coming here?" asked Brother Jacori, Father Mendicus's second in command.
"Well, there's the obvious tie of Joniah having been an adherent of Pelor," explained Akari.
"More than that," interrupted Father Mendicus. "Joniah did some of his initial training right here, in this temple, shortly after he took his vows. I'm certain we have something about it in our central records, below."
"We might want to look through those, if you don't mind," said Cal. "But more importantly, we believe he might be coming here to retrieve a sphere of annihilation. Is it possible you have such an artifact here, stored away to keep it safe from the outside world?"
"We have nothing like that here," replied Brother Jacori.
Cal looked to the high priest of the temple. "Are you certain?" asked Cal. "What we found in Nakariah's library indicates he plans on using a sphere of annihilation to destroy the sun, but we saw no evidence of him having such an artifact. And divinations reveal that he's headed this way, traveling below the surface of the sea."
"I know of no such artifact," repeated Father Mendicus. "But you are welcome to look through our records, if you like." He led the group back down the stairs, past a series of three outhouses, and into a door that led to a chapel. In the back of the chapel stood a small meditation room, with a small library just beyond. The heroes pored through the scrolls and tomes, looking for any indication the temple might have once housed a sphere of annihilation. Chalkan and Thunderwolf, not particularly thrilled with the idea of reading through temple records for the next several hours, asked for a tour of the building, so they could determine the best way to defend it against attack. This temple of Pelor was situated near the top of a small cliff side, with the sea to the north. The large, open deck at the back of the temple was not only where the monks trained in their fighting techniques, but was also where all of the temple inhabitants performed their daily rituals at sunrise and sunset.
There was not a whole lot more to see. The cleric and monk quarters were on the ground floor on either side of the massive wooden gates that were the only entry into and out of the temple. Above that area, accessible by a pair of ramps along the outer wall, stood a semicircular section where the two guards held their station and the temple inhabitants grew some of their own food in an artificial garden. Underneath the back deck, there was a small kitchen and a larger dining area, with a bathing facility jutting out into the open courtyard in the middle of the temple.
"Are there any hidden ways into the temple?" asked Chalkan. The acolyte who had been assigned as his guide replied in the negative. Thunderwolf led them back up to the northern section of the upper deck and looked over the temple walls to the sea at the bottom of the cliff below. "Nakariah and his forces will be coming from that direction," he said. "We should marshal our forces on the northern side, but they'll have to either climb the temple walls or break through the gates to get in."
"Remember, though, he's a lich," argued Chalkan. "He might just fly his army right over the wall, for all we know. We'll have to be ready for just about anything."
Back in the temple library, Father Mendicus had shown the others the documents that revealed a young Joniah as having been enrolled as a temple acolyte several centuries ago. "He was one of a small number of our faith who went on to become an adventurer," said the head priest. "For the most part, we tend to lead simple lives, aiding those in need and bringing word of Pelor's light to those who would hear His words."
Several hours later, Akari, Cal, and Delphyne had been through everything the small library had to offer, with no indications that there might be a sphere of annihilation on the premises. They gratefully accepted Father Mendicus's offer to join the temple in the noontime meal, which consisted of vegetables from their second-story garden and the results of a create food and drink spell. Over lunch, the group discussed their strategies. They learned from the elderly high priest that the temple was protected by a hallow spell, which would grant them some protection from the undead. As for their undead foe, the divination Cal had cast the day before indicated that Nakariah and his forces would likely reach the shore in the late afternoon; just to be sure, they decided to try scrying upon the Lich-King. Cal unpacked the crystal ball they had taken from Nakariah's own treasure hoard and attempted to find the undead being in the spherical lens of the orb, with no luck.
"His whole lair was protected by a nondetection spell," reasoned Akari. "It's likely he's got a similar effect on himself as well. Why don't you try scrying on Dragon Turtle Goruka instead?" That worked much better, although the image appearing the crystal ball was a sad one, for Dragon Turtle Goruka, once the mighty protector of the Lady Dorca's merfolk tribe, was now a skeletal monstrosity paddling through the ocean with dark shapes all around him and a blurry, obscured image standing upon his undead shell.
"That's got to be Nakariah," said Cal. "And I assume those are more eel-men traveling with him. Judging from the sunlight, they're not too far below the water's surface." Or at least Dragon Turtle Goruka wasn't; the anguillians, disliking bright lights, tended to remain further below the water's surface, in the darker depths.
"So what do we do for now?" asked Delphyne. "Just wait here for him to show up and attack?" It was a question asked out of helpless frustration, but it ended up being the best option for the moment. Akari summoned Tsukitora from the Beastlands and sent him flying back and forth over the beach, keeping an eye out for any movement. Delphyne sent Iggy on a similar patrol, and then fretted away the next several hours, waiting for something to happen.
Time passed, excruciatingly slowly. Late afternoon arrived with no waves of enemies rising up out of the sea. Cal volunteered to prepare dinner for the temple's inhabitants and his own group of heroes, by means of a heroes' feast spell he had prepared that morning for such an occasion. The heroes joined the temple inhabitants for the sundown ritual on the upper deck, and still there was no sign of Nakariah. The sun went completely behind the horizon, and the half-moon offered little illumination, but still there was no attack. Cal suspected that Nakariah would attack at the darkest time of the night, and suggested the clerics and monks grab a few hours of sleep. He was certain that once battle commenced there would be noise aplenty to rise them from their slumber, but he also had determined that most of the clerics and monks were new to their respective training and would be able to offer little assistance against a highly-powerful lich. In truth, he'd have preferred they abandon their temple and leave the Wing Three adventurers in place to face the threat without them getting in the way, but there was no real tactful way to suggest this.
Thunderwolf, tired of waiting, opted to grab a few hours of sleep himself and curled up on one of the dining tables in full armor. "Wake me if anything interesting happens," he told the others.
Cal tried scrying again, but the image he received of Dragon Turtle Goruka was too dark to make out any detail - not surprising, with the sun down and the undead beast likely remaining underwater. It was difficult to make anything out, but it didn't even look like there was much motion going on - almost as if Nakariah had reached his destination and was sitting in one spot, waiting.
"This is infuriating!" complained Chalkan. "What's he waiting for?" The half-elf just wanted combat to begin so he could actually start doing something. He started casting getting-ready-for-combat spells upon himself, protecting his body and equipment from fire. Cal and Delphyne followed suit, the cleric having determined it was probably close to midnight by now, and that Nakariah could strike at any moment - if they were lucky, for truth be told he was getting mighty tired of waiting as well.
Word of the attack began with a loud screech, which Akari immediately recognized as belonging to his bonded mount Tsukitora. The griffon's screech was a warning, for the beast had detected movement on the narrow beach below the temple.
"What's going on?" Delphyne asked across the empathic link she shared with her familiar. She received a feeling of dread and fear in return, and looked over the northern wall of the temple from the upper deck as Iggy landed softly on her shoulder. "Undead," the raven spoke to his mistress. "Many undead."
Several dozen undead forms had indeed risen up from the sea below. They didn't shamble around like zombies, but rather approached the cliff face with a steady determination and began climbing rapidly. Behind them strode a much larger form, easily three times the size of the others. It was difficult to make out in the darkness, but all of the forms rising up out of the sea seemed to have glistening, oddly-shaped hats of some type upon their heads.
"Here it comes!" cried Cal from the garden section at the front of the structure. "Somebody go wake up Thunderwolf, and then the Pelorians!"
"On it!" cried Chalkan, running across the courtyard to bang upon the dining room door. Thunderwolf snapped immediately awake and grabbed up Xanthros. "Prepare yourself for glory!" called out the sentient sword. Above him, Tsukitora landed by his master on the upper deck at the back of the temple.
The giant undead was the first to arrive, for it didn't bother climbing up the cliff like its human-sized counterparts but simply levitated up the cliff face. Then he cast a chain lightning spell at Delphyne, who, at the western edge of the upper deck, was perfectly situated so that arcs of electricity could flash out from her body to strike everyone else but Cal, who was too far away at the garden end of the temple, and Thunderwolf, who had yet to exit through the closed dining room. The cleric and monk acolytes were still in their respective living quarters, and thus were spared a blast of magical energy which would likely have killed them all. But the hardened adventurers shrugged it off and returned fire. Delphyne led with a magic missile strike, wanting to cast something she was sure would hit her foe. Cal cast a flame strike upon the giant, and in the illumination provided by his spell the group got a good glimpse of three things: their large foe looked to be an undead storm giant, with pale, sickly-looking green skin; the first wave of human-sized undead had made it to the top of the cliff walls and were advancing menacingly; and the "oddly-shaped hats" each of the undead wore was a jet-black octopus, glistening wetly in the moonlight.
One of the smaller undead swung a gangly arm up and made a gesture, and the temple wall between the upper deck and the ramp to the gardens simply vanished; Delphyne had time to note the gesture made corresponded to that of a disintegrate spell. "One of them's a spellcaster!" she called out to the others as the wights started altering their course to rush into the breach in the temple wall.
Above, Akari raised his holy symbol and funneled the power of Hieroneous through it; a handful of the nearest wights exploded into dust, octopus-hats included. Cal followed suit from the other end of the temple, causing another handful to be blown to pieces. But the storm giant wight was unaffected, and it strode forward into the temple with a horrible purpose, its hefty spear in one hand ready to strike. Lesser wights raced in all around it. Thunderwolf practically exploded out of the dining room to meet this tide, Xanthros cheering him on with each strike. The fighter's flashing sword tore into undead flesh while the unarmed wights howled in pain and tried reaching the swordsman with their wicked claws. Akari sent Tsukitora down to the courtyard to assist the fighter against the small horde of wights, and the griffon obediently tore into the undead opponents with beak and claw. Chalkan, in the meantime, had returned to the upper deck and used his White-Wood Whisperbow to send a flurry of arrows into every wight within range.
Another wight from one of the back ranks made some arcane gestures, and suddenly an enormous scorpion popped into existence just outside of the temple. From the surprise on the wight's face, Delphyne got the distinct impression that the spellcaster had intended for the Gargantuan scorpion to appear behind the heroes on the deck - no doubt the temple's hallow spell had prevented that from occurring. However, the creature was big enough it could simply walk up the side of the building and make a grab for one of the heroes positioned there. It grabbed up Chalkan in a massive claw before the half-elf archer could even think of dodging.
Fortunately, Delphyne was right there by his side, and a hold monster spell quickly prevented the scorpion from doing the archer any further harm. Chalkan painfully extricated himself from the massive arachnid's clutches, just in time to gain the benefit of a mass bear's endurance spell Cal cast from the other side of the temple, encompassing all of the heroes.
On either side of the front half of the temple, doors opened up and out spilled the clerics and monks, all in their battle gear. The head monk, Cornelius, roared a challenge and led his half-dozen young monks into the brawl with the wights that had made it into the courtyard - but then he and the monks he led, along with all of the heroes but Cal (who was again out of range), were caught in the arcs of electricity emanating from Akari, who had been the primary target of yet another chain lightning spell cast by one of the wights. Judging from the extra pain he felt from the spell's effects, Akari judged that this casting of the spell had been maximized, and only Cal's previously-cast mass bear's endurance spell allowed several of the heroes to remain on their feet.
Not so for Cornelius and his monks; they all dropped immediately from the spell, their charred corpses releasing little clouds of smoke as they fell.
"Vengeance!" cried Brother Jacori, leading his half dozen frightened clerics racing up the steps to the deck to deal with what the cleric took at first to be the biggest threat: the massive scorpion whose pincers hung over the temple wall and seemed to menace Delphyne, Chalkan, and Akari - in the heat of battle, he failed to realize the scorpion had been completely immobilized by the young witch's spell. Father Mendicus, too old for racing into battle, hobbled over towards the storm giant wight and prepare to cast a spell.
It proved to be unnecessary, for the storm giant was cut down before his very eyes. Chalkan was filling the giant's left side with arrows. while Cal cast a mass heal which did much to seal up the wounds his adventuring companions had sustained thus far in the fight, but more importantly flooded the undead wight's unliving flesh with positive energy, eating away at the corruption powering the giant's body. The undead storm giant fell to the ground with a crash, his oversized "octopus hat" plopping onto the ground with a wet squelching noise beside him.
By this time, most of the invading wights had been destroyed as well, those having been turned by Akari and Cal exploding into dust, while those slain by more conventional means - like Chalkan's arrows or Thunderwolf's sentient sword - having fallen to the ground, the blackened octopi from their heads crawling around on the ground in confusion. Thunderwolf took a moment to put them to the sword as well; whatever they were, they couldn't be good. Tsukitora flew over to the garden area by Cal, and the cleric mounted the griffon, ready to fly into battle if needed, but Chalkan's arrows cut down the remaining wights as he did so.
"So is that it?" asked Delphyne in confusion. "Where's Nakariah?"
She got her answer, as an undead form teleported onto the back deck of the temple. In the light of the sunrods Akari had dropped to the floor - no use in not having illumination now that the battle was on - the heroes could recognize the bony features of the Lich-King they had inadvertently freed from his centuries-long prison years before in Joniah's Crypt, where Akari had unearthed Deathstriker, the undead bane returning warhammer he currently wielded in his right hand. Oddly enough, a glistening, black octopus was centered atop Nakariah's skull as well, and Akari, facing him, began to suspect that the wights had not been spellcasters after all, merely members of a hive mind that the lich had used as convenient pawns from which to strike out without exposing himself to danger. He also noted an object hanging from the Lich-King's belt, a small metal hoop attached to a rod the size of a sword's hilt, and immediately recognized it as a talisman of the sphere.
"I had not expected such resistance," intoned the Lich-King ominously. "I suppose I must take matters more directly into my own hands." He raised a hand, and from the bony fingers flew a polar ray spell targeted at Akari - for the Lich-King had indeed spotted Deathstriker in the paladin's hand, and recognized the tiefling as the inheritor of the hated Joniah's primary weapon and thus the primary inheritor of the lich's undying wrath. Akari writhed in pain under the unexpected blast of frigid air. Tsukitora cried out in alarm at the sight of his master dropping to one knee in torment, and the snow-white griffon flew over to attack the lich, taking Cal with him, much to the cleric's consternation - he'd have been perfectly fine throwing spells at the Lich-King from a distance.
At the stairs, Brother Jacori and his clerics stopped their forward charge, a magical and quite unnatural fear flowing down their spines at the very sight of the Lich-King's undead form. But the heroes were unaffected, and Delphyne blasted at the lich with her wand of magic missiles while Chalkan let loose an arrow fortified with a true strike spell effect, causing it to fly directly into one of Nakariah's empty eye sockets. The Lich-King cried out in pain - or possibly just frustration - and pulled the offending arrow from his eye socket, as Chalkan nimbly leapt forward and grabbed up the talisman of the sphere from the lich's belt. Nakariah didn't seem to notice, and stepped forward towards Akari and the white griffon which had just landed protectively at the paladin's side. Reaching out at the two of them with a pair of bony claws, he attempted to paralyze them with his mere touch - but was then grabbed from behind by an unseen force. Looking over his shoulder, he saw that he was caught in the powerful grip of a Kord's crushing hand spell that Cal had cast from upon Tsukitora's broad back. The massive fist squeezed, and Nakariah felt bones crushing in his ribs.
"You think you have defeated me?" cried Nakariah as he struggled to free himself from the oversized hand. "Even if you destroy me today, I'll be back! You can defeat me time and time again, but I have only to win but once for eternal victory to be mine!" Another rib snapped in two, and he gave a grunt of pain.
Seeing the lich wouldn't likely escape from one of Cal's most powerful spells and was being slowly crushed to oblivion, Akari unbuckled the pouch at his side and removed a badly damaged silver chalice. He held it up tauntingly before Nakariah, who reacted as if punched in a nonexistent gut at the sight of his shattered phylactery. "Really?" asked the paladin innocently. "Without this?"
Nakariah lashed out at Akari with a bony claw and managed to make contact, scoring a minor victory as he saw the hated paladin's body freeze up in paralysis. But his victory was short-lived, for the Kord's crushing hand spell crumbled the Lich-King into bone shards. Nakariah's last word was a plaintive "Noooooooo!" as he fell to a permanent death from which he would not rise again.
Cal restored Akari's ability to move with a remove paralysis spell, and the paladin thanked him, thanked his faithful steed, and released the latter back to the Beastlands from which he had come. The group dragged the bodies of the wights - those that hadn't been scattered to ashes by successful turning attempts, that is - out of the temple and over the side of the cliff, before Cal patched up the building's open breach with a wall of stone spell.
Delphyne spent some time with the clerics, assuring the proud Brother Jacori that freezing up in battle against a lich was nothing to be ashamed of, and that the effect was magical in nature. The acolytes seemed appreciative of her words, although Brother Jacori seemed less than mollified. Father Mendicus prayed over the bodies of the monks who had been slain.
But there was still one loose end that was bothering Cal. "Nakariah had the talisman of the sphere," he said. "It only stands to reason that if he was going to destroy the sun with a sphere of annihilation, and he came here with the talisman, then the sphere must be around here somewhere!" He turned to Father Mendicus. "Are you certain you don't have a sphere nestled around here somewhere? Is there maybe an underground vault or something we don't know about?"
"There is nothing like that," replied the priest firmly. "And there are no levels below the temple. The only thing below the temple is the pit beneath the latrines."
"You don't think..." began Delphyne.
"Nega-dibs!" cried Chalkan. "I'm not checking it out!"
"It's the only place we haven't looked," replied Cal, turning to Akari. The paladin gave him a look that said "You want me to do what?" But Cal was merely looking to borrow one of the paladin's many sunrods. (Piddilink Dundernoggin had had a sale on the things some months past, and Akari, realizing their general usefulness, had purchased his whole stock out from under him.) Cal chose an outhouse at random and dropped the sunrod down the hole. It made a noise as it clattered against a rock wall - and then it disappeared, taking its illumination with it.
"Well?" asked Chalkan.
The cleric of Kord lifted his head from the hole in the outhouse seat, from which he had been watching the sunrod's descent and subsequent obliteration - while holding his breath, for obvious reasons. "It's down there," he affirmed, then turned to face Father Mendicus. "Tell me," he asked, "You haven't had to relocate these latrines at all for years, have you?"
The elderly priest's face showed his sudden understanding. "There are no records of this temple ever having to do so," he confirmed. "I never thought to question why the pit had never gotten full...."
"Well, I guess it's as safe there as anywhere," replied Delphyne. The group agreed, and with their duty there having been completed, they thanked Father Mendicus and the clerics for their assistance and then, with five touches of five Guild rings, disappeared from view.
"An unusual bunch," commented Father Mendicus after their departure. "All in all, I am rather glad I never took up the life of an adventurer." The other clerics - even Brother Jacori - couldn't disagree with the sentiment.
- - -
I think I've mentioned before the span of time we generally have between adventuring sessions. Having completed this adventure many months before I had an opportunity to run it, I decided it would be cool if I did up a three-dimensional temple of Pelor in much of the same fashion as I had done up Vandergrotten Keep. This time I used two large sheets of white poster board, because I liked the "clean" look this would give a temple devoted to the Sun God, and also because I was drastically running out of the cardboard backings of old desk calendars from work. Knowing I'd be having the wights disintegrate a portion of the wall for entry, I built the front and back parts of the temple as separate pieces, then made two connecting walls which "plugged" into the other parts but could be easily removed. (This also made it easier for me to stash the whole thing when it wasn't in use, as my man cave downstairs is already being overrun with Vandergrotten Keep and its Castle Shatterhope expansion, the Planar Scout, a tower keep, the platform rising up above a fiendish zaratan, a lizardman step pyramid, and the wooden platform which rose up from the shell of the Death-Beast from the Deep.) During the temple's construction, I cursed myself for having designed the front part as a half-circle, because that made it much more difficult to build (especially to get the crenelations to line up nicely and have a 1" grid over everything that lined up correctly), but once it was finished I was pleased with the results. I even printed out a couple of Pelor symbols to stick on the temple's front, on either side of the double doors of the front gate. (I used normal cardboard for the gates, and printed off door stickers in full color to give my white temple a bit of color.) And as cool as a "protect a building from attack" adventure can be, I think having a 3-D building to scale with use with the PC miniatures only enhanced the experience.
For the temple inhabitants, I used a new method I've taken to using for "groups of mooks." I print pictures of the people I want to use (which meant hitting up Google Images for images of "Pelor monk" and "Pelor cleric") onto sheets of large white labels, cut them out, and stick them onto cardboard (or, in this case, yellow poster board) rectangles with triangular sides so they can stand up. I make sure the images are all 1.25 inches tall, which roughly corresponds to the size of a human D&D Miniature, so they're to scale.
I did the same for the 20 wights in this adventure, although the image I used allows me to use them as wights, zombies, or pretty much any human-sized corporeal undead. I had done the same thing for "Ambrosia Red," making a couple dozen generic tavern denizens (including serving girls and a bouncer), and a similar number of vampire spawn. (The reason they're pretentious vampire spawn is because I found I got the best results from Google Image when I searched for "vampire costume" instead of just "vampire," which had gotten me image after image of Edward and his minions from the "Twilight" movies, with the occasional Buffy thrown in for good measure.)
Multiple copies of the same type of creature get numbered in the corner of the sticker, so I can better keep track of them on my monster stats tracking sheet. And I've taken to keeping these homemade "stand-up tokens" separated in these little plastic containers with lids, which if memory serves are old baby food containers from when my nephew Harry was just a baby. (I knew they'd come in handy someday!)
PC Roster:
Akari, tiefling paladin
Cal Trop, human cleric of Kord
Chalkan, half-elf ranger/cleric of Corellon Larethian/sorcerer/arcane archer
Delphyne Babelberi, human witch (wizard)
Thunderwolf, human fighter
Cal Trop, human cleric of Kord
Chalkan, half-elf ranger/cleric of Corellon Larethian/sorcerer/arcane archer
Delphyne Babelberi, human witch (wizard)
Thunderwolf, human fighter
"We have been expecting you," said Father Mendicus. "Please join us on the upper deck. We have our clerics and monks assembled there to hear your tale."
The five adventurers followed the elderly cleric through the opened gates of the temple of Pelor and into the building's interior. It was a simple two-story structure, rectangular in shape but with a rounded front, from which two observation platforms jutted forth on either side of the heavy wooden front gates. The heroes passed through a tunnel of sorts, with the ground-level sections of the temple on either side of them and the second story directly above, and entered an open courtyard taking up the middle third of the temple's length. The back section was a full two stories, with about a dozen young men standing in orderly rows looking at the approaching group expectantly. A set of stairs led up to the upper level, and Father Mendicus escorted the group before the rest of the temple's current inhabitants. Delphyne, the only woman in the group of heroes and, she nervously noticed, the only woman in the temple at all, felt more than one pair of eyes upon her, some being mere sideward glances and others a bit more blatant in their open stares. She shifted somewhat uncomfortably, pulling her shawl tighter around her shoulders.
Cal made the introductions, taking time to explain a bit of Akari's backstory to allay any suspicions the Pelorians might have about his fiendish appearance. The fact that Cal openly wore the trappings of Kord and Akari proudly wore the symbol of Hieroneous did much to calm any worries they might have. He also took the opportunity of having everyone assembled together to examine them through his gem of seeing, to ensure the clerics and monks were all as they appeared to be. Cal then explained their reason for being there, informing the group at large about Nakariah, his plan to extinguish the sun as a way to avenge himself on Joniah the Avenger, and the notations about this temple they had discovered in his lair.
"But why would he be coming here?" asked Brother Jacori, Father Mendicus's second in command.
"Well, there's the obvious tie of Joniah having been an adherent of Pelor," explained Akari.
"More than that," interrupted Father Mendicus. "Joniah did some of his initial training right here, in this temple, shortly after he took his vows. I'm certain we have something about it in our central records, below."
"We might want to look through those, if you don't mind," said Cal. "But more importantly, we believe he might be coming here to retrieve a sphere of annihilation. Is it possible you have such an artifact here, stored away to keep it safe from the outside world?"
"We have nothing like that here," replied Brother Jacori.
Cal looked to the high priest of the temple. "Are you certain?" asked Cal. "What we found in Nakariah's library indicates he plans on using a sphere of annihilation to destroy the sun, but we saw no evidence of him having such an artifact. And divinations reveal that he's headed this way, traveling below the surface of the sea."
"I know of no such artifact," repeated Father Mendicus. "But you are welcome to look through our records, if you like." He led the group back down the stairs, past a series of three outhouses, and into a door that led to a chapel. In the back of the chapel stood a small meditation room, with a small library just beyond. The heroes pored through the scrolls and tomes, looking for any indication the temple might have once housed a sphere of annihilation. Chalkan and Thunderwolf, not particularly thrilled with the idea of reading through temple records for the next several hours, asked for a tour of the building, so they could determine the best way to defend it against attack. This temple of Pelor was situated near the top of a small cliff side, with the sea to the north. The large, open deck at the back of the temple was not only where the monks trained in their fighting techniques, but was also where all of the temple inhabitants performed their daily rituals at sunrise and sunset.
There was not a whole lot more to see. The cleric and monk quarters were on the ground floor on either side of the massive wooden gates that were the only entry into and out of the temple. Above that area, accessible by a pair of ramps along the outer wall, stood a semicircular section where the two guards held their station and the temple inhabitants grew some of their own food in an artificial garden. Underneath the back deck, there was a small kitchen and a larger dining area, with a bathing facility jutting out into the open courtyard in the middle of the temple.
"Are there any hidden ways into the temple?" asked Chalkan. The acolyte who had been assigned as his guide replied in the negative. Thunderwolf led them back up to the northern section of the upper deck and looked over the temple walls to the sea at the bottom of the cliff below. "Nakariah and his forces will be coming from that direction," he said. "We should marshal our forces on the northern side, but they'll have to either climb the temple walls or break through the gates to get in."
"Remember, though, he's a lich," argued Chalkan. "He might just fly his army right over the wall, for all we know. We'll have to be ready for just about anything."
Back in the temple library, Father Mendicus had shown the others the documents that revealed a young Joniah as having been enrolled as a temple acolyte several centuries ago. "He was one of a small number of our faith who went on to become an adventurer," said the head priest. "For the most part, we tend to lead simple lives, aiding those in need and bringing word of Pelor's light to those who would hear His words."
Several hours later, Akari, Cal, and Delphyne had been through everything the small library had to offer, with no indications that there might be a sphere of annihilation on the premises. They gratefully accepted Father Mendicus's offer to join the temple in the noontime meal, which consisted of vegetables from their second-story garden and the results of a create food and drink spell. Over lunch, the group discussed their strategies. They learned from the elderly high priest that the temple was protected by a hallow spell, which would grant them some protection from the undead. As for their undead foe, the divination Cal had cast the day before indicated that Nakariah and his forces would likely reach the shore in the late afternoon; just to be sure, they decided to try scrying upon the Lich-King. Cal unpacked the crystal ball they had taken from Nakariah's own treasure hoard and attempted to find the undead being in the spherical lens of the orb, with no luck.
"His whole lair was protected by a nondetection spell," reasoned Akari. "It's likely he's got a similar effect on himself as well. Why don't you try scrying on Dragon Turtle Goruka instead?" That worked much better, although the image appearing the crystal ball was a sad one, for Dragon Turtle Goruka, once the mighty protector of the Lady Dorca's merfolk tribe, was now a skeletal monstrosity paddling through the ocean with dark shapes all around him and a blurry, obscured image standing upon his undead shell.
"That's got to be Nakariah," said Cal. "And I assume those are more eel-men traveling with him. Judging from the sunlight, they're not too far below the water's surface." Or at least Dragon Turtle Goruka wasn't; the anguillians, disliking bright lights, tended to remain further below the water's surface, in the darker depths.
"So what do we do for now?" asked Delphyne. "Just wait here for him to show up and attack?" It was a question asked out of helpless frustration, but it ended up being the best option for the moment. Akari summoned Tsukitora from the Beastlands and sent him flying back and forth over the beach, keeping an eye out for any movement. Delphyne sent Iggy on a similar patrol, and then fretted away the next several hours, waiting for something to happen.
Time passed, excruciatingly slowly. Late afternoon arrived with no waves of enemies rising up out of the sea. Cal volunteered to prepare dinner for the temple's inhabitants and his own group of heroes, by means of a heroes' feast spell he had prepared that morning for such an occasion. The heroes joined the temple inhabitants for the sundown ritual on the upper deck, and still there was no sign of Nakariah. The sun went completely behind the horizon, and the half-moon offered little illumination, but still there was no attack. Cal suspected that Nakariah would attack at the darkest time of the night, and suggested the clerics and monks grab a few hours of sleep. He was certain that once battle commenced there would be noise aplenty to rise them from their slumber, but he also had determined that most of the clerics and monks were new to their respective training and would be able to offer little assistance against a highly-powerful lich. In truth, he'd have preferred they abandon their temple and leave the Wing Three adventurers in place to face the threat without them getting in the way, but there was no real tactful way to suggest this.
Thunderwolf, tired of waiting, opted to grab a few hours of sleep himself and curled up on one of the dining tables in full armor. "Wake me if anything interesting happens," he told the others.
Cal tried scrying again, but the image he received of Dragon Turtle Goruka was too dark to make out any detail - not surprising, with the sun down and the undead beast likely remaining underwater. It was difficult to make anything out, but it didn't even look like there was much motion going on - almost as if Nakariah had reached his destination and was sitting in one spot, waiting.
"This is infuriating!" complained Chalkan. "What's he waiting for?" The half-elf just wanted combat to begin so he could actually start doing something. He started casting getting-ready-for-combat spells upon himself, protecting his body and equipment from fire. Cal and Delphyne followed suit, the cleric having determined it was probably close to midnight by now, and that Nakariah could strike at any moment - if they were lucky, for truth be told he was getting mighty tired of waiting as well.
Word of the attack began with a loud screech, which Akari immediately recognized as belonging to his bonded mount Tsukitora. The griffon's screech was a warning, for the beast had detected movement on the narrow beach below the temple.
"What's going on?" Delphyne asked across the empathic link she shared with her familiar. She received a feeling of dread and fear in return, and looked over the northern wall of the temple from the upper deck as Iggy landed softly on her shoulder. "Undead," the raven spoke to his mistress. "Many undead."
Several dozen undead forms had indeed risen up from the sea below. They didn't shamble around like zombies, but rather approached the cliff face with a steady determination and began climbing rapidly. Behind them strode a much larger form, easily three times the size of the others. It was difficult to make out in the darkness, but all of the forms rising up out of the sea seemed to have glistening, oddly-shaped hats of some type upon their heads.
"Here it comes!" cried Cal from the garden section at the front of the structure. "Somebody go wake up Thunderwolf, and then the Pelorians!"
"On it!" cried Chalkan, running across the courtyard to bang upon the dining room door. Thunderwolf snapped immediately awake and grabbed up Xanthros. "Prepare yourself for glory!" called out the sentient sword. Above him, Tsukitora landed by his master on the upper deck at the back of the temple.
The giant undead was the first to arrive, for it didn't bother climbing up the cliff like its human-sized counterparts but simply levitated up the cliff face. Then he cast a chain lightning spell at Delphyne, who, at the western edge of the upper deck, was perfectly situated so that arcs of electricity could flash out from her body to strike everyone else but Cal, who was too far away at the garden end of the temple, and Thunderwolf, who had yet to exit through the closed dining room. The cleric and monk acolytes were still in their respective living quarters, and thus were spared a blast of magical energy which would likely have killed them all. But the hardened adventurers shrugged it off and returned fire. Delphyne led with a magic missile strike, wanting to cast something she was sure would hit her foe. Cal cast a flame strike upon the giant, and in the illumination provided by his spell the group got a good glimpse of three things: their large foe looked to be an undead storm giant, with pale, sickly-looking green skin; the first wave of human-sized undead had made it to the top of the cliff walls and were advancing menacingly; and the "oddly-shaped hats" each of the undead wore was a jet-black octopus, glistening wetly in the moonlight.
One of the smaller undead swung a gangly arm up and made a gesture, and the temple wall between the upper deck and the ramp to the gardens simply vanished; Delphyne had time to note the gesture made corresponded to that of a disintegrate spell. "One of them's a spellcaster!" she called out to the others as the wights started altering their course to rush into the breach in the temple wall.
Above, Akari raised his holy symbol and funneled the power of Hieroneous through it; a handful of the nearest wights exploded into dust, octopus-hats included. Cal followed suit from the other end of the temple, causing another handful to be blown to pieces. But the storm giant wight was unaffected, and it strode forward into the temple with a horrible purpose, its hefty spear in one hand ready to strike. Lesser wights raced in all around it. Thunderwolf practically exploded out of the dining room to meet this tide, Xanthros cheering him on with each strike. The fighter's flashing sword tore into undead flesh while the unarmed wights howled in pain and tried reaching the swordsman with their wicked claws. Akari sent Tsukitora down to the courtyard to assist the fighter against the small horde of wights, and the griffon obediently tore into the undead opponents with beak and claw. Chalkan, in the meantime, had returned to the upper deck and used his White-Wood Whisperbow to send a flurry of arrows into every wight within range.
Another wight from one of the back ranks made some arcane gestures, and suddenly an enormous scorpion popped into existence just outside of the temple. From the surprise on the wight's face, Delphyne got the distinct impression that the spellcaster had intended for the Gargantuan scorpion to appear behind the heroes on the deck - no doubt the temple's hallow spell had prevented that from occurring. However, the creature was big enough it could simply walk up the side of the building and make a grab for one of the heroes positioned there. It grabbed up Chalkan in a massive claw before the half-elf archer could even think of dodging.
Fortunately, Delphyne was right there by his side, and a hold monster spell quickly prevented the scorpion from doing the archer any further harm. Chalkan painfully extricated himself from the massive arachnid's clutches, just in time to gain the benefit of a mass bear's endurance spell Cal cast from the other side of the temple, encompassing all of the heroes.
On either side of the front half of the temple, doors opened up and out spilled the clerics and monks, all in their battle gear. The head monk, Cornelius, roared a challenge and led his half-dozen young monks into the brawl with the wights that had made it into the courtyard - but then he and the monks he led, along with all of the heroes but Cal (who was again out of range), were caught in the arcs of electricity emanating from Akari, who had been the primary target of yet another chain lightning spell cast by one of the wights. Judging from the extra pain he felt from the spell's effects, Akari judged that this casting of the spell had been maximized, and only Cal's previously-cast mass bear's endurance spell allowed several of the heroes to remain on their feet.
Not so for Cornelius and his monks; they all dropped immediately from the spell, their charred corpses releasing little clouds of smoke as they fell.
"Vengeance!" cried Brother Jacori, leading his half dozen frightened clerics racing up the steps to the deck to deal with what the cleric took at first to be the biggest threat: the massive scorpion whose pincers hung over the temple wall and seemed to menace Delphyne, Chalkan, and Akari - in the heat of battle, he failed to realize the scorpion had been completely immobilized by the young witch's spell. Father Mendicus, too old for racing into battle, hobbled over towards the storm giant wight and prepare to cast a spell.
It proved to be unnecessary, for the storm giant was cut down before his very eyes. Chalkan was filling the giant's left side with arrows. while Cal cast a mass heal which did much to seal up the wounds his adventuring companions had sustained thus far in the fight, but more importantly flooded the undead wight's unliving flesh with positive energy, eating away at the corruption powering the giant's body. The undead storm giant fell to the ground with a crash, his oversized "octopus hat" plopping onto the ground with a wet squelching noise beside him.
By this time, most of the invading wights had been destroyed as well, those having been turned by Akari and Cal exploding into dust, while those slain by more conventional means - like Chalkan's arrows or Thunderwolf's sentient sword - having fallen to the ground, the blackened octopi from their heads crawling around on the ground in confusion. Thunderwolf took a moment to put them to the sword as well; whatever they were, they couldn't be good. Tsukitora flew over to the garden area by Cal, and the cleric mounted the griffon, ready to fly into battle if needed, but Chalkan's arrows cut down the remaining wights as he did so.
"So is that it?" asked Delphyne in confusion. "Where's Nakariah?"
She got her answer, as an undead form teleported onto the back deck of the temple. In the light of the sunrods Akari had dropped to the floor - no use in not having illumination now that the battle was on - the heroes could recognize the bony features of the Lich-King they had inadvertently freed from his centuries-long prison years before in Joniah's Crypt, where Akari had unearthed Deathstriker, the undead bane returning warhammer he currently wielded in his right hand. Oddly enough, a glistening, black octopus was centered atop Nakariah's skull as well, and Akari, facing him, began to suspect that the wights had not been spellcasters after all, merely members of a hive mind that the lich had used as convenient pawns from which to strike out without exposing himself to danger. He also noted an object hanging from the Lich-King's belt, a small metal hoop attached to a rod the size of a sword's hilt, and immediately recognized it as a talisman of the sphere.
"I had not expected such resistance," intoned the Lich-King ominously. "I suppose I must take matters more directly into my own hands." He raised a hand, and from the bony fingers flew a polar ray spell targeted at Akari - for the Lich-King had indeed spotted Deathstriker in the paladin's hand, and recognized the tiefling as the inheritor of the hated Joniah's primary weapon and thus the primary inheritor of the lich's undying wrath. Akari writhed in pain under the unexpected blast of frigid air. Tsukitora cried out in alarm at the sight of his master dropping to one knee in torment, and the snow-white griffon flew over to attack the lich, taking Cal with him, much to the cleric's consternation - he'd have been perfectly fine throwing spells at the Lich-King from a distance.
At the stairs, Brother Jacori and his clerics stopped their forward charge, a magical and quite unnatural fear flowing down their spines at the very sight of the Lich-King's undead form. But the heroes were unaffected, and Delphyne blasted at the lich with her wand of magic missiles while Chalkan let loose an arrow fortified with a true strike spell effect, causing it to fly directly into one of Nakariah's empty eye sockets. The Lich-King cried out in pain - or possibly just frustration - and pulled the offending arrow from his eye socket, as Chalkan nimbly leapt forward and grabbed up the talisman of the sphere from the lich's belt. Nakariah didn't seem to notice, and stepped forward towards Akari and the white griffon which had just landed protectively at the paladin's side. Reaching out at the two of them with a pair of bony claws, he attempted to paralyze them with his mere touch - but was then grabbed from behind by an unseen force. Looking over his shoulder, he saw that he was caught in the powerful grip of a Kord's crushing hand spell that Cal had cast from upon Tsukitora's broad back. The massive fist squeezed, and Nakariah felt bones crushing in his ribs.
"You think you have defeated me?" cried Nakariah as he struggled to free himself from the oversized hand. "Even if you destroy me today, I'll be back! You can defeat me time and time again, but I have only to win but once for eternal victory to be mine!" Another rib snapped in two, and he gave a grunt of pain.
Seeing the lich wouldn't likely escape from one of Cal's most powerful spells and was being slowly crushed to oblivion, Akari unbuckled the pouch at his side and removed a badly damaged silver chalice. He held it up tauntingly before Nakariah, who reacted as if punched in a nonexistent gut at the sight of his shattered phylactery. "Really?" asked the paladin innocently. "Without this?"
Nakariah lashed out at Akari with a bony claw and managed to make contact, scoring a minor victory as he saw the hated paladin's body freeze up in paralysis. But his victory was short-lived, for the Kord's crushing hand spell crumbled the Lich-King into bone shards. Nakariah's last word was a plaintive "Noooooooo!" as he fell to a permanent death from which he would not rise again.
Cal restored Akari's ability to move with a remove paralysis spell, and the paladin thanked him, thanked his faithful steed, and released the latter back to the Beastlands from which he had come. The group dragged the bodies of the wights - those that hadn't been scattered to ashes by successful turning attempts, that is - out of the temple and over the side of the cliff, before Cal patched up the building's open breach with a wall of stone spell.
Delphyne spent some time with the clerics, assuring the proud Brother Jacori that freezing up in battle against a lich was nothing to be ashamed of, and that the effect was magical in nature. The acolytes seemed appreciative of her words, although Brother Jacori seemed less than mollified. Father Mendicus prayed over the bodies of the monks who had been slain.
But there was still one loose end that was bothering Cal. "Nakariah had the talisman of the sphere," he said. "It only stands to reason that if he was going to destroy the sun with a sphere of annihilation, and he came here with the talisman, then the sphere must be around here somewhere!" He turned to Father Mendicus. "Are you certain you don't have a sphere nestled around here somewhere? Is there maybe an underground vault or something we don't know about?"
"There is nothing like that," replied the priest firmly. "And there are no levels below the temple. The only thing below the temple is the pit beneath the latrines."
"You don't think..." began Delphyne.
"Nega-dibs!" cried Chalkan. "I'm not checking it out!"
"It's the only place we haven't looked," replied Cal, turning to Akari. The paladin gave him a look that said "You want me to do what?" But Cal was merely looking to borrow one of the paladin's many sunrods. (Piddilink Dundernoggin had had a sale on the things some months past, and Akari, realizing their general usefulness, had purchased his whole stock out from under him.) Cal chose an outhouse at random and dropped the sunrod down the hole. It made a noise as it clattered against a rock wall - and then it disappeared, taking its illumination with it.
"Well?" asked Chalkan.
The cleric of Kord lifted his head from the hole in the outhouse seat, from which he had been watching the sunrod's descent and subsequent obliteration - while holding his breath, for obvious reasons. "It's down there," he affirmed, then turned to face Father Mendicus. "Tell me," he asked, "You haven't had to relocate these latrines at all for years, have you?"
The elderly priest's face showed his sudden understanding. "There are no records of this temple ever having to do so," he confirmed. "I never thought to question why the pit had never gotten full...."
"Well, I guess it's as safe there as anywhere," replied Delphyne. The group agreed, and with their duty there having been completed, they thanked Father Mendicus and the clerics for their assistance and then, with five touches of five Guild rings, disappeared from view.
"An unusual bunch," commented Father Mendicus after their departure. "All in all, I am rather glad I never took up the life of an adventurer." The other clerics - even Brother Jacori - couldn't disagree with the sentiment.
- - -
I think I've mentioned before the span of time we generally have between adventuring sessions. Having completed this adventure many months before I had an opportunity to run it, I decided it would be cool if I did up a three-dimensional temple of Pelor in much of the same fashion as I had done up Vandergrotten Keep. This time I used two large sheets of white poster board, because I liked the "clean" look this would give a temple devoted to the Sun God, and also because I was drastically running out of the cardboard backings of old desk calendars from work. Knowing I'd be having the wights disintegrate a portion of the wall for entry, I built the front and back parts of the temple as separate pieces, then made two connecting walls which "plugged" into the other parts but could be easily removed. (This also made it easier for me to stash the whole thing when it wasn't in use, as my man cave downstairs is already being overrun with Vandergrotten Keep and its Castle Shatterhope expansion, the Planar Scout, a tower keep, the platform rising up above a fiendish zaratan, a lizardman step pyramid, and the wooden platform which rose up from the shell of the Death-Beast from the Deep.) During the temple's construction, I cursed myself for having designed the front part as a half-circle, because that made it much more difficult to build (especially to get the crenelations to line up nicely and have a 1" grid over everything that lined up correctly), but once it was finished I was pleased with the results. I even printed out a couple of Pelor symbols to stick on the temple's front, on either side of the double doors of the front gate. (I used normal cardboard for the gates, and printed off door stickers in full color to give my white temple a bit of color.) And as cool as a "protect a building from attack" adventure can be, I think having a 3-D building to scale with use with the PC miniatures only enhanced the experience.
For the temple inhabitants, I used a new method I've taken to using for "groups of mooks." I print pictures of the people I want to use (which meant hitting up Google Images for images of "Pelor monk" and "Pelor cleric") onto sheets of large white labels, cut them out, and stick them onto cardboard (or, in this case, yellow poster board) rectangles with triangular sides so they can stand up. I make sure the images are all 1.25 inches tall, which roughly corresponds to the size of a human D&D Miniature, so they're to scale.
I did the same for the 20 wights in this adventure, although the image I used allows me to use them as wights, zombies, or pretty much any human-sized corporeal undead. I had done the same thing for "Ambrosia Red," making a couple dozen generic tavern denizens (including serving girls and a bouncer), and a similar number of vampire spawn. (The reason they're pretentious vampire spawn is because I found I got the best results from Google Image when I searched for "vampire costume" instead of just "vampire," which had gotten me image after image of Edward and his minions from the "Twilight" movies, with the occasional Buffy thrown in for good measure.)
Multiple copies of the same type of creature get numbered in the corner of the sticker, so I can better keep track of them on my monster stats tracking sheet. And I've taken to keeping these homemade "stand-up tokens" separated in these little plastic containers with lids, which if memory serves are old baby food containers from when my nephew Harry was just a baby. (I knew they'd come in handy someday!)
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