diary: Turok and false temples

[cellio]

December 9 (Monday)

We arrived at the druid grove today. Liandra was able to get an audience with Bradigan, an elderly druid and apparently the person in charge here. They spent quite some time talking while the rest of us waited at a distance, and then Liandra told us that Bradigan would attempt a reincarnation tomorrow morning. Some of the other druids showed us to a place where we could settle in for the night, and they fed us (which saved us the awkward question of the cooking fire).

Liandra has spent the evening in quiet conversation with the druids here. Kyle did not seem to be in a mood for conversation, so Hrolf and I spent more time together. I also prayed to Pelor, sort of stumbling over the words Brion taught me once upon a time. I hope intentions are enough to make up for lack of skill. I can't even remember all of the words to the prayer for divine mercy, and if this isn't a time for that, I don't know what is.

I do hope that Bradigan is able to restore Turok to us! Things are just not the same without him.

December 10 (Tuesday)

The gods have a sense of humor, obviously. I should have been more specific in my prayers.

Bradigan was, in fact, able to bring Turok's soul back to us. This is wonderful! What is confusing -- and I could tell that Bradigan was bothered by this, too -- is the form Turok's new body took. Over the course of an hour we wall watched the body form and grow, and it was not human. Humans don't have tails, and claws, and snouts. I thought maybe this was an intermediate step (this kind of magic is strange to me), but it turned out that when Turok stood up after an hour and announced himself, he was inhabiting a lizard-like body. (It almost looks like what you would get if a dragon and a human mated, which of course is impossible.)

Turok is fairly irritated, though I don't think he's mad at us (or Bradigan). I think he's just upset that he is no longer human. He spent most of the day sulking, or occasionally talking with Bradigan. The rest of us steered clear of him.

I'm glad to have Turok back, but what I really want is to have our Turok back!

Liandra told me tonight that Bradigan had told her that there have been many monster attacks in Tergia recently, some from the mountains and some from caverns below ground that no one knew were there. So it's not just happening back home. Lovely.

December 11 (Wednesday)

We left the druid grove this morning, heading into the mountains in search of the temple of Dorl Tavyani. (Renard's letter mentioned it, and we have better ideas about how to find it than we do about finding Marius's magician friend!)

Turok is still being somewhat distant, but he did talk with me today. He wanted to know some things about the magic of transformation, and I did my best to tell him what I know. I believe I have stopped him from doing something he may regret later.

December 12 (Thursday)

Some god! After all the danger we went through to reach him, he could at least have turned out to be a god! Sheesh. But no, not a god at all -- more like a demon. And he hurt Kyle.

And, to make matter worse, there is a demonic weapon loose in the world, and Prolix is talking to it. As if I needed even more excitement in my life.

We got to the temple of Dorl Tavyani. We found it occupied by bugbears. We told them that we were only interested in visiting the temple, and weren't looking for a fight, but they attacked us anyway. We killed a bunch of the ones at the entrance, but one got away and ran calling for "Skullcreeper". So we ran after him.

We found more bugbears, and one huge one who seemed to be in charge. (I later learned that this was an ogre, not a giant bugbear.) And that one was wielding a giant magical club, banded in iron and just oozing hatred. (You can't see that, but you can feel it. Or at least I could; I don't think Prolix noticed, and I'm not sure that those not attuned to magic would notice.) I've heard of that club; there are stories of a club like like that, wielded by the bugbear warrior Mulruk against humans. Evil, nasty stuff. I thought they were just stories.

The stories didn't mention that the wielder of the club could teleport instantly across a room or away from a fight. They also didn't mention that the club seems to have a will of its own, and that it seeks out humans in particular. (I know this, because the ogre told the club "yes, I see the human", and because that club glowed black when it got near me.) Needless to say, this club frightens me.

I grew wings to fly up out of reach, and I fired spells at the ogre while others attacked it. (We were also fighting the other bugbears, but a well-placed fireball helped considerably with that.) And then the ogre disappeared. Poof! Just like that! We searched the caves and didn't find him, though we did find an elf who had been a prisoner of the bugbears. (The two bugbear prisoners we had weren't talking, unfortunately.) Turok, Liandra, and I felt we had to go after the ogre and kill him before he could raid into Tergia with that club; Prolix and Kyle disagreed, so we left without them (taking Slade, who was able to help track). There wasn't time for an argument if we were going to catch the ogre. (I had an intuition that he was not far away.)

We did find him, and managed to kill him before he did too much damage with that club. I'm grateful that he did not hit me; I worry that the club would have sucked the life out of me or something. It did a lot of damage to Turok, and he's not even fully human any more! (He has a human soul, and I suppose that counts for something.)

We carefully wrapped up the club and brought it back, though none of us really wanted to touch it. I let Turok and Liandra handle it; as part-humans instead of full humans, maybe they are more protected from it. (Not entirely, of coure; it did attack Turok.)

We returned to the temple. Kyle and Prolix had searched the place and gathered up some valuables. When we got back, we all talked with the elf, named Firella. She was kidnapped by the bugbears, who were apparently trying to ransom her. She was in pretty bad shape. We fed her and Liandra tended to her.

The room we found her in had an elaborate carved relief in the back wall, showing a hero vanquishing monsters. It looked similar to the art we found at the entrance. Eventually we found the hidden door in this wall and opened it, entering what was obviously the temple. There were Dorl Tavyani depictions everywhere -- statues, reliefs, tapestries, paintings, and more. Someone was pretty enthusiastic about the decorations. (I am now convinced, however, that this "someone" was actually "Dorl Tavyani". It fits the tackiness and ego we later saw.)

As we entered an inner room with an awful stench, and a magical fountain of clear water at the far end, we were attacked by a bizarre creature with three heads. One looked like a dragon head, and that one breathed noxious gas at Turok. The others were even more disturbing. Liandra, Turok, and Kyle circled it to attack, and I fired spells at it. Eventually it died.

The creature hadn't been in the room when we entered, though; it somehow came through the wall or floor, from behind a tapestry. We pulled that tapestry aside and found a large mass of black slime on the wall, but we found no way to pass objects through it.

Eventually, Kyle spotted a hidden door well above the fountain -- at least 15 feet. He climbed up there (that magic rope is working out well) and was able to open it. It revealed a long shaft down, with a ladder and rungs spaced very far apart (about three feet). The shaft was only about five feet across, though, so it appears that whatever built it was not a giant.

We climbed down, and we saw an elaborately-decorated room deep in the earth, complete with ever-burning fireplace and a comfortable bed. And Dorl Tavyani, who at first seemed delighted that his supplicants had returned but then grew more and more agitated. He said he wanted to restore his name in the world, but when Prolix said the world is ready for him to come out and lead, he ignored the suggestion. He also ranted quite a bit about someone named Elyssisoriel, who banished him here (he said), but again, we told him he was free and he didn't go.

I began to grow nervous; this was not a sane mind, and I was pretty sure that the image was actually an illusion. (Liandra thought so too.) I told Hrolf to fly up the shaft quickly to safety, and for once he didn't argue with me.

Dorl Tavyani, as it turned out, was not a man or a god at all, but some sort of evil undead ghostly being. It seemed that half the time our spells and weapons did no damage to him, and he was very aggressive. Fortunately, Prolix was able to make us all invisible, buying a little time, and then he used illusions to distract the thing while the rest of us attacked it with holy water, flaming spheres, and magic weapons. Eventually we killed it, but not before it reached its "hands" around Kyle's throat and sucked out some of his energy. Kyle was weakened quite a bit by this attack. We'll know tomorrow whether the damage is permanent.

So after all of this, we find there's no active temple here, no information to help us explain what's going on, and nothing to help us in the task Lord Marius asked us about. Unless we can get Firella to talk to us; she's an elf, so she probably remembers the Cataclysm. So far she hasn't been very willing to talk to us, though. I suppose we didn't give a very good impression, given that when we found her many of us were sweaty, dirty, and wounded. Maybe she'll be more friendly in the morning. (Maybe she'll want an escort back to wherever she was kidnapped; there must be more bugbears out there, and she shouldn't travel alone.)

Meanwhile, I think I'll read Dorl Tavyani's journal. (We found it in his room. A quick look suggests that he's just as self-centered and tacky in writing as he was in "person".)