Brother Yew smiled a little as it became evident he was no longer required to lead the way. He was content to follow Gwythe, Sven and Wonnilon south to the locked doors.

"Are these doors sealed and warded in the same way as those other doors downstairs?" he asked the Prince.

With the door open, Ronalt ushered the remaining horde of folk out of the stairwell into the large room.

"Oh my... at last" Iviana commented while helping the horde they had gathered into the large room. She couldn't imagine just how lucky the people they had rescued actually were... wondering just many people over the last decade had got sucked into the temple by their depredations. And how few had been rescued or escaped. Well she would be up on 'good karma' for quite some time now!

In reply to Brother Yew (msg # 12):

"They should be, yes."

Moving through centre section of the temple (area 3) the pillars here are white marble, veined with ugly red. The altar block of pinkish white marble is roughly oval something over 7 feet long by 5 feet wide. Its top has a hollowed out portion resembling a human form, with legs apart and arms away from the body. This depression is stained a darker colour than the rest. Just north of the altar is a circular, marble-lined pit — a well of sorts— 20 feet in diameter. Shards of broken crystal vessels lie about the well, near the altar, and scattered about the floor. A crystal knife with a broken blade lies atop the stone block.

The floor of the vestibule to the south is reddish brown slate-like stone squares, each about 2 feet square. The walls are plastered and painted with scenes befitting the nature of the Temple — disgusting acts, killing, torture, enslavement, robbery, thievery, and unspeakable things. The creeds of the worshippers here are all too evident.
Evil is flaunted and lionized. Dim light filters through the stained glass windows, casting revolting colours upon the greenish stones of the floor to the north. In that direction you can see the nave of the Temple. The pillars to either hand are of a pinkish mineral, shot through with worm-coloured veins. Their arches lead to an unremarkable pair of lesser side aisles. The columns supporting the archways, as well as the arches themselves, are worked in bas relief. As with the frescoes in the entryway, the scenes here are ineffable, vile, filthy. It is probable that this area was reserved for the lowliest of worshippers. The area beyond is better lit and more open, though it also has more of the nauseating pinkish pillars supporting the roof high overhead.

Three great double doors bar exit from the vestibule to the outside, the main bronze doors of the entry (23' high, 20' wide) are sealed with all cracks filled with soft iron. Both of the side doors do not appear to be similarly sealed.

Brother Yew heads south to the main doors but turns to examine the side doors on the right of the main doors. he checks whether they are indeed locked and peeks through the crack to see if they are chained shut as the Prince had said. If they are he will see if it is possible to open the doors even a little bit to allow some sort of access to those chains.

Amathaon walked through the room carefully. He admired the destruction that had been wrought on this evil room.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:34, Sat 04 Apr 2015.

Sven collects the remnants of chains, and the twisted manacle in his twisted claws and tries to reclaim some usefulness out of them by tying them around a granite piece from the evil monolith. That kind of destructive tool may just smash one of the side doors.

Iviana headed for one of the side doors. She was keen to 'just get the heck out of here', but didn't particularly want to be ambushed at the last minute was particularly careful as she went that way, while the others did their looting. Looting was good... she just wanted to be gone!

"Ask the prisoners if any of them remembers being brought through these doors or some other entry to this temple. That will save us some time trying to find out how to get out," Yew suggested to his friends.

"Can't we just open this door" Iviana asked pointing to one of the two side doors that weren't secured by soft lead and magical wards. She wasn't going to touch it herself: she'd learned her lesson about 'doors that look safe to open' years ago.
This message was last edited by the player at 10:28, Mon 06 Apr 2015.

"We shall soon find out," Yew replied as he checked the side door on the right of the main bronze doors.

"I hate to point out the obvious, but if this is the ground floor...can't we just break a window?"

If there were any windows of sufficient size.

Amathaon made ready in case there were any surprises on the other side of the door. One could never be too careful.

Both side doors were found to be barred from the inside and locked securely. The bar was easy enough to deal with (two people required to lift it away), but the lock would require somebody with skills....

"Oo's got picks, an' when 're we gettin' Kalador? If'n there's any 'ope of raisin' 'im, i' bett'r be soon."

"Make way, make way! This is right up my alley."
The rather short halfling made his way forward, lockpicks in hand. He stopped dead though when he saw the lock was just out of his reach.
"Somebody want to give me a boost?"

Wonnilon stepped up and away from his cadaverous shadow.
"I'll do it."
With a heave, he tossed Haldan onto his shoulders and kept him steady while the halfling worked.

In mere moments Haldan has the lock defeated and the doors are thrown open.

Outside the vegetation is disconcerting — dead trees with a skeletal appearance, scrub growth twisted and unnaturally coloured, all unhealthy and sickly looking or exceptionally robust and disgusting. The ruins of the Temple's outer works appear as dark and overgrown mounds of grey rubble and blackish weeds. Skulls and bones of humans and humanoids gleam white here and there amidst the weeds. A grove of some oddly stunted and unhealthy looking usk trees still grows along the northern end of the former Temple compound, and a stump of a tower juts up from the northeast corner of the shattered wall. The leprous grey Temple, however, stands intact, its arched buttresses somehow obscene with their growth of climbing vegetation.
Everything surrounding the place is disgusting. The myriad leering faces and twisting, contorted forms writhing and posturing on every face of the Temple seem to jape at the obscenities they depict. The growth in the compound is rank and noisome. Thorns clutch, burrs stick, and crushed stems either emit foul stench or raise angry weals on exposed flesh. Worst of all, however, is the pervading fear which seems to hang over the whole area — a smothering, clinging, almost tangible cloud of vileness and horror. Sounds seem distorted, either muffled and shrill or unnaturally loud and grating.
Your eyes play tricks. You see darting movements out of the corner of your eye, just at the edge of vision; but when you shift your gaze towards such, of course, there is nothing there at all. You cannot help but wonder who or what made the maze of narrow paths through the weedy courtyard. What sort of thing would wander here and there around the ghastly edifice of Evil without shrieking and gibbering and going completely mad? Yet the usual mundane sounds of your travel are accompanied only by the chorus of the winds, moaning through hundreds of Temple apertures built to sing like doomed souls given over to the tender mercies of demonkind, echoed by macabre croaks from the scattered flapping, hopping, leering ravens.
There is no doubt; you are in a place of ineffable Evil.

All ground in and around the place is overgrown by weeds, so observation is restricted to 15 feet in any direction with regards to objects of six feet or lesser height, except on the remains of the road and path (fortunately both Ronalt and Sven are slightly over this height). In these two areas, weed growth is scattered and shallower. The pale blue uskfruit growing on the trees is small, misshapen, and splotched with angry red patches.
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:35, Wed 08 Apr 2015.

"When we first arrived at the temple we saw signs that wolves or dogs had been around and we were watched by ravens," Yew recalls. "As we started exploring the grounds we were attacked by the ravens, which grew to giant size, and wolves came out of the thickets too. Very big wolves. I suspect we will need to fight our way out of here."

He paused as a thought occurred to him.

"I wonder if it is possible they may actually be trained to guard this place. I wonder if they would attack people wearing the black robes or uniforms of the priests and guards downstairs."

He glanced back at the torturer who was their prisoner and at the orcs they had rescued from the cells.

"Do you know anything about this?" he asked.

Amathaon drew his falchion. Being a short fellow, he didn't want to get caught by surprise.

Ronalt readied his bow to cover his companions, while awaiting the answers brother Yew had asked.

"If they come we will fight them" Iviana said "There are many of us and few of them. I have an appetite to get out of here. Among other things" she sniffed under armpits and winced "I may perhaps need a bath..."

"Homlet is that way, unless we were teleported a long way" she gestured with a hand "Let us head there"

OOC Direction sense success
09:51, Today: Iviana rolled 11 using 1d20. direction sense.

The torturer didn't appear to be all that talkative, and the two orcs only had blank looks on their faces as Brother Yew spoke to them.

"He can go first, then," Sven suggested malevolently "If he doesn't want to talk."