Twelve days after the party's trip through Banzeel, the Western command had a high-level meeting. Later that day, Nomistrus informed the party that a plague had broken out in the city, affecting anywhere from 35% to 65% of the populace. The disease can take up to several months to run its course, but there have been rumors that the victims have been coming back as undead. (65% of a city of 10,000 would make a lot of undead...) Nomistrus feared that the operative teams in the desert were a diversion, and the first effects of the Death quest spell were already happening.
Ratala, a priestess of Helibane, was teleported to the Western encampment, and she, the party, and Elbleem/Silvator tried to figure out what, if anything, they could do. Ratala was in favor of going in with whatever other Helibanes she could round up and healing who they could, but Silvana pointed out that they'd probably be rounded up themselves and used to heal the evil merchants and mages, leaving the rest of the population to die.
- Gorakheel:
- "I think it's a safe bet that Marakeel chose not to enplague its own loyal followers."
- Ratala:
- "I disagree. The Quest spell has taken its toll on any unlucky enough to be caught in the area."
- Silvana:
- "Marakeel believes the worthy will save themselves. The worthy are those with money and power to buy healing spells and protection from infection behind stone walls. They don't have any immunity to the plague beyond what their level and power bring them."
- Yves:
- "Or they have the power and money to have known to leave before the plague started."
- Silvana:
- "Evil believes that the weak should get winnowed out, so any Marakeel people caught in there who aren't clever enough to get healing deserve to die by LE's philosophy."
- Elbleem/Silvator:
- "Whereas Good believes in preserving the weak and useless so that they can continue to be a burden."
That evening, Nomistrus reported a further development in Banzeel: The Temple of Death was suddenly deserted, with many low-level priests and worshippers lying dead on the temple grounds. Nomistrus' sources believed that they would all rise as undead later that night (a full moon night, incidentally), possibly at midnight. So he was sending the party into the temple on a desperate three-fold mission:
- Prevent the dead Death people from rising.
- Locate the components of the quest spell in the temple's inner sanctum and neutralize the spell if it's still active.
- Retrieve the magic items the temple has taken from Good adventurers over the years. (This is the least important objective, naturally).
To complicate getting in and out, there have been rumors of invisible silver balloons floating over Banzeel that home in on flyers and do nasty stuff to them. And while the populace won't oppose any actions taken against the Death Temple, they see all this as an attempt to drive away their Western enemies and may not be so eager to let the party back out again.
Turning to global questions for a moment...
- Lorcan:
- "A thought has been permeating around my mind for a while. This idea of taking the army to Marakeel...Marakeel is a bigger, stronger city than Banzeel, isn't it? If the army can't take Banzeel, how is it going to achieve anything against Marakeel? Or am I misinterpeting the purpose of the siege?"
- Silvana:
- "No, you're right. As things stand now the Westerners don't have much of a chance against the East, although we don't know exactly what the Cuthbert can do. Just telling them that won't convince them of anything though."
- Elbleem/Silvator:
- "It is sad that these Westerners need a Chaos priest to show them such an obvious truth."
- Nomistrus:
- "High Priest Omimajish believes that faith will prevail where might cannot."
- Elbleem/Silvator:
- "I wouldn't hold such expectations very seriously. I have heard rumors that Omimajish wants to die in a blaze of glory."
- Nomistrus:
- "Please do not spread such malicious statements."
- [Nomistrus goes off to attend to other business.]
- Elbleem/Silvator:
- "Of course, few will weep should Omimajish explode in a blaze of glory -- on either side of the war, that is."
- Lorcan:
- "The snag is that he's likely to take an awful lot of people with him."
A short while later, Nomistrus returned with yet more news.
- Nomistrus:
- "Omimajish has declared this to be the first sign of victory. Leaving a small group to monitor Banzeel, we shall begin our advance towards Marakeel. We must not show fear or waver in our resolve."
- Lorcan:
- "Or tactical sense, it seems."
- Frankel:
- "Sense? When have we ever shown sense?"
- Lorcan:
- "Yes, but he's supposed to be a responsible adult in charge of all the sharp implements."
- Nomistrus:
- "According to the books, this holy war could be considered a gross tactical error."
The party started trying to negotiate with Issss for a quiet way into the city, but they quickly decided that he was far too dangerous to trust, and the price of his help would probably be much too steep.
Lorcan started praying to Nuket by playing his bagpipes even more discordantly than usual (to the annoyance of almost everyone in camp). He soon fell asleep and had an interesting dream:
Lorcan has a vivid dream of climbing a slippery rainbow that weaves and bucks like a giant snake. Beneath him he sees a dark swamp with many nasty grey tentacles. And then, ahead of him, on the rainbow, Lorcan sees a ladybug with purple wings. It looks at him with a crazy grin.
- Ladybug:
- "What do you want?"
- Lorcan:
- "I want to get into the Temple of Death. And out again. Alive."
The ladybug flies under the rainbow and hides from Lorcan.
- Ladybug:
- "Peek-a-boo!"
The ladybug emerges from the rainbow looking like a death's head beetle. The insect makes a nasty rattling sound. Lorcan [after making a death save] calmly catches the rattling beetle in his palm and wakes up.
Lorcan woke with a scarab in his hand but no information about the party's predicament. Meanwhile, Silvana did a sending to Horon and arranged to meet him at the "lakeside village" in the sewers, where he'd show them a way to get close to the Temple of Death.
Since Ganeth was in mid-training and had no spells, Lorcan cast a nap spell on him to let him rest and memorize; the rest of the party was going in with whatever spells they happened to have at the time. (Gorakheel, meanwhile, was being sent off with Ratala on a different desperate top-secret mission.) Frankel used an item to transform himself into a kobold for the adventure, Silvana donned her merchant disguise, and Pepper was somehow disguised as an urchin. The Westerners were able to equip the party with 20 vials of holy water, 12 wooden stakes, a scroll with three bless spells, two scrolls of cure disease, a bullseye lanthorn, a lead-lined wooden chest for the quest spell's power source, and some passes allowing movement through the Western lines to the C-Ra road (for bartering if necessary). The gnomes whipped up a batch of "gnomish remedy" for the party to give to encounters who demand healing etc.; while probably ineffective against the plague, it does protect against normal diseases and (allegedly) has no harmful side effects. Elbleem/Silvator was persuaded to loan out his teleport scroll again. And Nomistrus cast a sacred guardian on Ganeth (perhaps to have some warning before the body goes boom).
The party crossed the swamp in the turtle boat after dark and started looking for the entrance to the sewers (where the Big Oops was hopefully no longer in residence). They didn't have much luck, but Pepper and Frankel (who were swimming) were attacked by some snakes, and Silvana was able to get directions from them in exchange for food. ("I'd rather eat a swamp rat, but magic food will do.")
Next was the problem of getting past the insanity priests (or whoever was guarding the sewer entrance). While they briefly debated fireballing the area just inside the entrance, they really didn't want to risk paddling into the Big Oops, so Silvana decided to use a pass-phrase.
- Ganeth: [elvish]
- "Do we have one, or shall we make one up?"
- Silvana: [elv.]
- "Make one up."
[E.C.]
- "The rainbow rises over the otyugh's nest."
- Person inside: [E.C.]
- "What has the otyugh dragged in tonight?"
- Beeel: [E.C.]
- "I don't know."
- Person inside: [E.C.]
- "Will you guys just shut up and come in already?"
The party paddled in and saw two robed insanity priests walking on the pool of muck.
- Priest 1: [E.C.]
- "Took you long enough"
- Priest 2: [E.C.]
- "Are these the ones?"
- Silvana: [E.C.]
- "Did Fazeel send you?"
- Priest 1: [E.C.]
- "Fazeel? Cute disguise, Silvana."
- [Silvana braces for hostilities; others pick up on her reaction.]
- Priest 1: [E.C.]
- "What are you guys doing? Don't you recognize me, you losers?"
[switching to W.C.]
- "Look, guys, we really should hurry. This is not the time for fun and games. The otyugh's been drugged. Ignore it. My name's Krazeel. Let's do intros as we walk."
- Priest 2: [W.C.]
- "I'm Fuzzeel. I'm along on this loony mission because I'm being paid well."
- Silvana: [W.C.]
- "We're on this crummy mission for free."
"Krazeel" was actually Horon (though that name was never said aloud), and he didn't have any leads about Tremere (who'd gone missing several weeks earlier while on a mission for the Holleriths). He'd unexpectedly been able to gain access to the rich people's part of the sewers, which would enable them to get right under the temple grounds, but since he had no way of contacting the party about the revised plan, he'd decided to wait for them at the entrance to the sewers. Fazeel was apparently Fuzzeel's undercover name, and when Silvana went the fake pass-phrase route and later mentioned that name, he was afraid the party were Imperials coming to kill him. (Fuzzeel turned out to be a nunchaku kensai with a special manuever or two.)
Horon told the party that most of the casualties so far have been in the rich part of town; since the Death Temple is in the center of city's northern sector, it could also be the center of the plague effect. Many of the city's well-to-do are fleeing to the smelly south side, leaving their sick relatives behind.
After navigating lots of confusing turns, the party reached dry tunnel and folded up the boat. They then passed through an illusory wall, and Horon assured them he'd come through earlier and de-glyphed the area.
About three minutes later, Pepper sensed danger, and a carrior crawler came at the party along the ceiling. It was killed. Yves tried to scavenge some poison from its tentacles but paralyzed himself in the process, forcing Silvana to use a slow poison on him so they could keep moving.
Pepper continued to sense danger, Yves heard something, and Ganeth glimped something stalking them as they passed an intersection. Yves tried to hide in shadows and surprise the pursuit while the party moved on a bit; the next thing the party heard was Yves' sword cursing very loudly and yelling about killing spiders. They ran back to see Yves in combat with a phase spider. Yves killed it, and they left before whatever the sword's enthusiasm attracted could arrive.
The party arrived below the temple garden and Fuzzeel went up the ladder to open the manhole cover. He promptly fell off the ladder, already quite dead -- apparently the glyphs in this area regenerate quickly. Horon had a raise dead scroll, but Lorcan miscast it and nearly killed himself. Lorcan figured Nuket wouldn't let the same thing happen twice, so he tried again with the party's raise dead scroll, and Fuzzeel was saved (though weekly).
Horon suggested that the party try to escape through the sewers after their mission; he'd heard that the floating silver spheres electrocuted people. (Silvana thought they might be githyanki technology.) He gave Silvana a red and black feather (dipped in his blood) that should teleport him in from up to 7 miles away in a round or two (though not through teleport shielding, naturally) so that he could guide the party out once they were finished. Silvana gave passes to Horon and Fuzzeel and also gave Horon a magical lockpick. She asked him about the temple's collection of Good magic items; he believed they were kept in storerooms in the temple catacombs, guarded by spectres.
The party emerged onto the grounds of the Death Temple. The temple itself was an octagonal building with a five-story tower and a long projection on one side. The garden was surrounded by a skull-topped bone fence and included macabre statues, benches, and a raised area for outdoor ceremonies. A light fog seemed to be coming out of the ground, and all the Good folks felt a little uneasy. On DI, Ganeth spotted several invisible spheres floating 30' off the ground; they extended into the ethereal and astral planes. Pepper's danger sense continued to register. The sounds of a fight or small riot could be heard off in the distance.
On the other side of the building, the party saw a similar area, but this one had the bodies of about fifty people who appeared to have committed ritual suicide. Silvana realized that the area seemed so quiet because there were no insect sounds...I suppose every little death helps.
On closer inspection, the building's projection looked like a long hallway leading into the octagonal tower. The entrance was ornately carved with skulls, gargoyles, and geometric patterns featuring still more octagons.
- Lorcan:
- "I like this architecture. We should build more like this at home."
- Ganeth:
- "This could open an entirely different interpretation for `Forces of the Octagon'."
[When Streck disappeared, the party found a draft of a letter to Ganeth talking about a strike against the Forces of the Octagon; we'd naturally assumed this referred to the spiders, but since Kharnzeel was probably involved in the disappearance, who can say for sure?]
The party walked up to the front door and took on the two giant skeletons (as in animated skeletons of bona fide giants) guarding it, plus a gargoyle who tried a sneak attack from behind. Rogroc was badly pummeled (and subsequently healed), but the party won the opening skirmish. Silvana wiped out a glyph on the door, Yves heard what sounded like bats beyond it, and Rogroc, Beeel, and Ganeth combined to push it open...