You each gain 5000 experience points.

Please update your character sheet accordingly, adding an XP bonus if applicable.


After seeing Fingas and Battrus go running past them in screaming terror to the flight before apparently falling to some miserable demise, the party decides to explore to the west before venturing south.

But first, Shae peeks south, seeing only the empty, ruined halls of the old inner temple.  A path leads east before ending in a dead end from a cave in, although it also has a branch off to the south before the cave in.  The main corridor to the south has two halls branching off to the east before it descends some stairs.  It is from down the stairs somewhere that you heard the last words of Fingas and Battrus -- the Hatt and the Batt.

Going to the west, you find that the hallway abruptly cuts off.  A sheer drop goes straight down as far as you can see into an abyss of blackness.  The far side is nothing but a sheer wall too, meaning that this temple carved into the mountain never extended past this chasm.  A rope is tethered to an iron rod pounded deep in the ground here, but it is so old that the rope would fall apart at the touch and the rod is covered with rust.  The rope itself is 100 feet long.

Shae will look over the edge to see if anything is below, using infravision and the light sources held by the party.  She will also pull up the rope to check its ends, approximate age, and anything else out of the ordinary.

Lukas offers, " I can climb down and find out what below, but shouldn't we check out everything up here first?"   Lukas heads out in front of the group checking for possible troubles that might not be that agreeable to the rest of the group.  He will check out the path to the left first and then any additional pathways to be found.

OOC: It look like if we head straight ahead there are some stairs that go down.

"We should identify what it was that scared the other two so much that they ran down a cliff before we to further." Kahan states, looking around to see what approximate route they would have taken.

Lukas does a little snooping through the halls, up to going south to the top of the stairs.

He sees the following:

Two eastern passages end in dead ends from cave ins back in ancient days.

There is a closed door leading east and a closed door leading south along the side of two of the halls.

At the bottom of the stairs, a corridor runs east and west.

Shae sees nothing along the far side of the chasm except for a solid wall going up and down as far as she can see.  Infravision does nothing to expand her vision.



Shae pulls up the rope.  The end of the rope is sheared off smoothly, as though cut with a blade.  But the rope itself is ancient, has been here for many years, and barely holds together even at the touch.  It would not hold any weight.

"I agree with Lukas, let's check out what's up here first."

Shae says, "Let's try that door over in the eastern area first."

She will open the eastern door where the hall makes a square, first examining it to make sure there is nothing odd about the door itself.

"Agreed.  This ravine seems to run the length of this level and it's likely we'll end up down there soon enough." Tahldar says in reply to the suggestion to remain on their current level.

Nodding to Shae's suggestion, he remains a good distance away from the eastern door with the Gnomes in tow.

Lukas will lend a hand with checking out the door to see if it is free of troubles

Kahan follows behind, mace at the ready to swing should something evil emerge.

Didit refrained from suggesting exploring the ravine on her own, last time it had been unpleasant enough and had ended up needing assistance, so she didn't bring it. She also followed along, alert.

As everyone approaches the door Leogold keeps his voice low and says, "There is a good chance that whatever scared those two away is still somewhere around here, let me see if I can hear anything behind the door."

OOC: Leo will detect noise  while the door is being inspected.

Having previously just looked briefly down the corridors, you now approach the door to have a look at it.

The door itself is an ancient stone door that is long and tall, a full 15 feet tall at its top.  You brush off some of the old dust and look closer at the door.  The ancient stone has a bas relief carving of a winding dragon moving toward a glowing orb of some sort.



The door does not have any door handles or apparent hinges.  An inspection does not reveal any traps on the door.  However, the orb in the center of the door (about 6 feet off the ground) appears to not be carved out of solid stone and perhaps could be pushed in.

Nothing can be heard beyond the ancient door, which does not appear to have been opened in a long time.

Shae will try to push the--button?  Doorbell?  Whatever the orb might be.

Borimer stands behind Shae ready to deal with whatever may come through the door.

Lukas attention is drawn to the dragons on the door, studying them in further detail.

Tahldar pulls out his spellbook, looking at spells for a potential one to cast at the door.

Meanwhile, Shae pushes the orb.  It does not budge.  A strength greater than her own is apparently needed to budge it after so long being in the same place.

Tahldar closes his book and ponders what to do.  "Seeing as Borimer is the strongest, if he were to use some type of pole arm, he may be able to push the orb and be far enough away to not be affected by whatever trap it may spring.  If it does at all, but likely will."

"Maybe if we lubricante the thing. I think I know something that could work." Didit beagn performming something, hoping to help.
cast Grease

Didit casts grease on the orb, ensuring it gets into the cracks.

Amount of pressure to push in orb just decreased from 300 lbs to 150 lbs.

EDIT: The "grease" spell will last for 12 rounds.
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:34, Mon 22 Sept 2014.

Borimer looks around for anything that he can use to push the button.

making sure everyone is a good distance from borimer before pushing the button, assuming something is found that can reach it.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:53, Wed 24 Sept 2014.

Leogold pulls a dagger out from somewhere under his clothes and prepares himself for Borimer to attempt the door.

Borimer is able to push the button orb using a great deal of force (about 150 pounds worth).

The button orb pushes in, and when its center gets past the stone outer face, it rolls away automatically.  As it does this, the door begins to open of its own accord.  It does not slide or drop, but instead it rises diagonally up and to the left in short and slow 1 foot increments, moving and stopping, moving and stopping.

Stale air pours out at you from the interior, which has been closed off to the outside world for a long, long time.  It is completely dark inside.  In fact, it is so dark that no light seems to penetrate it.

As soon as the door rises nearly all the way to the upper left corner, it stops with a thud, and you begin to hear a faint and very slow ticking sound, as if something from within the wall is very slowly ticking at about once per every three seconds.

"I believe we only have a short time before the door closes again.  We need to act quickly." Tahldar says to the group.

"A simple light spell should temporarily negate the darkness.  At least while it lasts." he says before casting the spell into the room beyond.

OOC:  Tahldar will cast the 0 level spell light.  It will last for 9 turns and has a 20' radius.  The spell description says if it is cast directly against darkness it will negate it as long as the light spell remains in effect.  I assume if we bring another source of light in the 20' radius it will then work.  He will cast the spell so that it will cover as much of the room and entryway as he can.

Tahldar casts the light spell, but nothing seems to change within the dark chamber.  In fact, from the darkness, you begin to feel a sense of fear, panic, and despair like a tangible thing in the air seeping out.  Whatever spell was cast in there, it was very powerful--and obviously has endured for eons.

But the light spell does illuminate something not previously seen.  On the floor at the threshold, in the spot which was previously directly beneath the bottom of the door, you see words inscribed in the stone.  The door itself was down about six inches into the stone floor in a lip carved into the floor, and reading the words is like reading the words at the bottom of a dried up river.

The words read in an ancient scribed hand that are most likely a hybrid of Ancient Allevian:

"The First Test of the Faithful"
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:20, Wed 24 Sept 2014.