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Pieces of the Past
Prelude
In the Pits of Valdornora:
"The lock has been opened, my Lord. We can enter the catacombs and retrieve what we seek." a little slimy golbin spews out from it's lips with a bit of a hiss to his words. The man he's talking to just starts to laugh as he stares at the opening to the catacombs. After a few seconds he turns and leaves.
"I wouldn't worry about it Grime. What we seek, will come to us."
In the Black Forest of Mykyll:
Sniif, sniif, sniff, sniif.
"HUMANS! SMASH! KILL! BREAK! WE MUST CRUSH THE HUMANS"
(Cheers follow, marching starts.)
In the Whispering City:
"Ma'am." Baroness Katrina bows before her Queen sitting on the Sapphire Throne.
"Rise and report, Baroness Katrina."
"My Queen I am proud to report that the plan has been a great success. We have agents through out the world, ready to strike at any moment. Kingdoms of man have joined forces with us, giving us aid in all areas. Soon the kingdoms of men will all be at our feet, swearing loyalty to the Sapphire Throne." The Queen just smiles with the news.
"Excellent. Now what about our true goals, what news do you bring of those."
Katrina seems a bit nervous as she nods for one of the manslaves to take a case to the Queen.
"I present to you, The Eye of Roland. Our sages are working morning and evening to find out the full potential of the gem. We also believe that we have located another fragment of the ring, however it is in a remote and some what dangerous place. We will only be able to take a small force to retrieve the fragment." Katrina starts to point things out on a map.
"And what of the earth fragment?" Katrina keeps talking a bit, "Baroness, I asked you a question. What of the earth fragment?" Katrina looks down and sighs heavily.
"We were unable to retrieve it." The Queen's eyes flare with anger at this news.
"WHAT? How is that possible? The fragment laid in Bistal, a small and weak kingdom that was on the verge of a civil war. We spent the last six months making sure that war happened. You had the help of the southern turncoats, and the ogres. The royal family had been murdered, it was all perferct."
"There were a small group of....men that retrieved the fragment before us." Katrina doesn't even finish her sentence before she feels herself thrown back acrossed the throne room into the far wall, then up it and around the ceiling. The force not only moving her, but causing great pressure on her chest, she could feel ribs snap.
"MEN?!?!?! MEN?!?!?! WE ARE THE SUPERIOR RACE! WE ARE THE MOTHERS OF MAN!! THEY ARE WEAK WHERE WE ARE STRONG! THEY ARE NOTHING, WE ARE EVERYTHING!" The Queen's anger finally subsides a bit as she lets Katrina down to the floor again, and puts away her sceptre. She walks down the stairs from the throne to the floor and kneels down in front Katrina, who's trying to breath again. Grabbing her by the throat she lifts Katrina off the ground. "As you can see Baroness, I am not happy with your report at all. For you see, without all four pieces the Ring of Elements is useless, and with out the Ring we will not be able to harness the power of the Elemental Tower, which would defeat everything that we have worked for for so long. Katrina trys to catch her breath between her throat being crushed and her broken ribs, she does manage to say one thing.
"There...ther...there is....there is..anoth...another....tower...of....power" The Queens eyes lite up, and she lowers Katrina to her feet.
"Well, tell me about this tower."
At the Wizard's Council at Ambroe College:
The rooms is filled with old and ancient wizards of Aredel. These are perhaps the most powerful wizards of the free world known. They are almost shouting over each other to be heard.
"I say we must find him and destroy him. He's becoming to powerful and we can not control him."
"No, we must bring him here and talk with him. His power can be used for our benefit."
"Kill him'
"Capture him"
"Kill him"
"Capture him"
"Gentlemen, enough!" Ri`Kynral, leader of the council speaks up. "I agree that we must capture him and bring him back here. We could use his power and he could make us even stronger. And we must be quick about it, we can not have a renagade wizard such as him roaming free. Send out the Collectors"
Adventure Summary
The party got ready to leave the Lost Temple of Gramlock, but found it hard to do. They all felt compelled to enter the temple further, while Olown and KierMan where not as compelled as the rest of the party they stayed behind to guard the entrance. As the party investigated further in the temple, they discovered that the holy symbol on Gramlock's statue was a trigger for a secret door. Following the secret passage downward the party found themselves in some sort of dungeon below the temple. Moving through the rooms and hallways, they found it to be mostly empty. While there were torches still on the wall, one touch turned them to dust, and they also noticed in some parts the walls were scorched from some sort of flame. Entering what appeared to be an old kitchen/dining hall the party found a trap door in the floor and Ulrich dropped down to investigate. As he landed, Urlich felt a rush of air around him and a chill was sent through him and he felt slower and weaker. Soon the rest of the group had joined him and they noticed four air elemental creatures that would form in the corner of the this cellar room and then attack. After killing eight of these creatures, the party quickly left the cellar, and Toglard burned the cellar out.
Searching a bit more they found a room that appeared to be someone's living space. Going through stuff on the desk, they found a wand and two potions. Opening the closet doors they discovered a skeleton with two daggers stuck in the throat. The skeleton was wearing a fine set of robes, and two of it's fingers on the right hand where missing. Moving on they came into a room that had a table in the middle of the room with a chest on it, and two stone statues in the far corners. When the party moved forward, the statues came to life and moved towards them. Toglard acted quickly and threw up a Wall of Force in front of the statues. Morduke opened the chest and felt eight needles stick into his wrist. Withstanding the poison of seven of the needles Morduke found that the eighth needle was to strong for him and he felt himself get weaker and slower. Opening the chest, they found a finely made holy symbol of Mirqual, the Fallen God, the one that was slain by Gramlock. Taking the holy symbol they noticed the shelf could be lifted up and under it was a pile of gold and six gems. Urlich picked the chest of and felt a strange feeling come over him. Suddenly Ulrich turned and started to attack Cutter. Moving quickly Morduke tried to use his magic to stop Ulrich in his tracks but Urlich was entranced and was unaffected. Toglard announced that anything he do to Ulrich would kill him, and Cutter was left for a bit to fight against Ulrich. Shane moved into to try and stun Ulrich long enough for the enchantment to wear off, but with no luck. Urlich quickly ran out of the room, and used his ring to left off a fireball into the room. The party shut the door to the room to keep Urlich out, who was trying to get back in to attack again. It was at this time that Toglard pointed out his Wall of Force was not going to last much longer. After a few minutes Ulrich's enchantment ended and things were back to normal.
The party moved through the last part of the dungeon to find themselves in a huge room over 80 feet on it's sides, in the center of the room on he floor was a giant symbol of Mirqual, four nine foot statues lined the right wall and another four on the left. One of these statues was Gramlock, at the far wall from the part was a 12 foot statue of Mirqual himself and in the center of the room floating over a pedestal was a large shield also bearing a version of Mirqual's symbol. Moving carefully through the room, the party started to investigate. Cutter moved through the room straight to the pedestal. As soon as he stepped with in the holy symbol area on the floor, the eight statues came to life and moved towards him. Jumping on the pedestal, kicking the shield out of the way, Cutter prepare to fight the statues. As Cutter attacked he discovered his blade was not enough to hurt his attackers. The party moved to help, but only Ulrich and Morduke seem to have the ability to hurt the statues and even then their attackes were hurting the statues very little. With the doors to the room shut and locked the party was feeling this may be their last battle, but Morduke is a gambling man and a holy man and he started to pray for guidance. It was then that the legend of Gramlock's accesion to God-status came back to Morduke and he quickly moved and struck Mirqual's statues with Gramlock's sword. The sword split the giant statue in two, and the other eight statues turned to face Morduke. Each statue moved to face Morduke one on one, and it was then that Morduke realized this was a test of strength that is often found in any temple of Gramlock. Slowly but surely Morduke proved himself and defeated all of the giant statues. Gather the shield, the party made their way out of the temple and headed north to meet with their ship.