Session 12/18/07

                Nerida 2: After resting for the night under the watchful eyes of Gril’daun and the other Bloodflayer orcs, the companions awaken at dawn and mount their giant owls for a second foray into the Fane of Tiamat.  The outer cliffs are now deserted and the five-headed dragon trap disabled, but as Kaelin crosses the inner threshold of the Fane she sets off a new glyph of warding.  A painful burst of electricity arcs through his metal armor, but Ayotunde is behind him with her blessed healing. 

                 The five adventurers make a thorough search of the upper fane, ransacking numerous storerooms and barracks where Azarr Kul’s personal guards kept mundane weapons, armor and foodstuffs.  The upper levels – at least, where the party has previously explored – seem eerily quiet.  After completing the search, the group heads north down the main central corridor together, taking a side passage to the west that leads into the blackspawn raiders’ barracks with the rotting, gargantuan corpse of the unfortunate bronze dragon.  A large wooden door lies at the far north end of the barracks, and though each hero smells delicious odors of appetizing baked goods through the door, they are also taken aback with a sense of foreboding.  Klar slams the door open and reveals the source of the wholesome smells: a fully functioning gourmet kitchen, well equipped with ovens, wood-burning stove and plenty of prep space for the fussy cook.

                 Altaer’s head swims as he sees the kitchen’s main denizen: the black-skinned hag Imyatra, who has tormented his dreams for months.  “Ahh, Altaer!  You’ve finally come to enjoy some of granny’s baked goodies with your little friends!”  Imyatra grins horribly, revealing a mouth full of cold iron razors held in place by a bolt-on facial appliance.  Worse, she wears a set of cold iron gauntlets ending in sharp blades at each fingertip.  As the cackling hag enters combat the party braces for her violent assault.  A moment later, the pantry door flies open and Altaer’s stomach turns… as he and the others see a tiny gingerbread cookie, fully animated, carrying its decapitated cookie head in one hand and a rolling pin in the other.

                 The Gingerbread Golem looks up with its candy eyes and pleads with the stunned adventurers as they draw steel against Imyatra: “I’m sooo delicious… won’t you please eat me?  Take a bite, you’ll love it…”  Altaer realizes with chagrin and disgust that the golem is speaking with his own boyhood voice!  Worse yet, as he casts a haste spell over his companions, the golem seems to absorb the magical energy, redirecting the haste effect to itself and its hag mistress.

                 “Yes, dearie!  I made him specially for you, grandson, with your very own precious vital fluids!  And now it’s time to get fat and happy on granny’s treats!”  Imyatra crosses the tiled floor of her gruesome kitchen and lays into Jack with her cold iron claws, bypassing his fey hide and cutting him deeply.  Kaelin tries to ward Altaer from the golem’s enchantments with protection from evil, but the creepy little cookie blows forth a blast of flour, which dispels magic as it settles on the adventurers.  As Kaelin turns to cut the cookie apart with his longsword, he realizes that each blow he lands on the golem deals damage to Altaer in equal measure.

                 Imyatra giggles and cackles with dark glee, and the gingerbread golem looks imploringly up at Klar.  “I’m delicious… please won’t you eat me?”  A strange compulsion takes hold in the half-orc’s mind, and he sets down his ancestral double-axe to pick up the golem.  Opening his maw as wide as he can, Klar takes a deep bite out of the golem’s cookie body.  As he does, Altaer screams in agony as an identical bite appears on his shoulder, bleeding heavily.  It seems that if Klar devours the entire cookie, Altaer will surely perish with it.  At that moment, the hag shifts away to the ethereal plane, leaving the party struggling and dumbfounded as to how to deal with the gingerbread golem.  Ayotunde lays her healing hands upon Altaer, but the sympathetic connection between the sorcerer and the golem causes the healing to repair its cookie flesh instead, leaving Altaer bleeding and dizzy.

                 Imyatra returns moments later with reinforcements: a pair of grinning bearded devils wielding wicked glaives, and the two blue abishai from the party’s previous battle at the Fane.  Though weakened and somewhat panicked, the group rallies together to engage the four devils.  Jack slices through one bearded devils’s neck while Kaelin slays the other, and Altaer fires precision spells at one of the abishai until it finally falls dead from a magic missile.  The other abishai flees away down the main corridor and deeper into the Fane, living to report on what it has seen and fight another day.  Klar continues to munch the gingery soft flesh of the golem, and each bite bloodies and weakens Altaer further.  Imyatra moves among the group, slicing and tearing their flesh with her razor claws and teeth, screaming her shrill taunts the whole time. 

                 The situation seems almost hopeless until Kaelin is struck by divine inspiration.  “Altaer, grab the cookie! I think you have to eat it to destroy it.”  His announcement angers Imyatra greatly, who shrieks “Nooo!  Don’t you dare, sonny.  Don’t you ruin my fun!”  She cuts Kaelin across the face and chest, but Kaelin gives as good as he gets, cutting Imyatra deeply and stabbing through her abdomen.  The grievously wounded hag moves toward the north wall, activating a hidden catch and attempting to flee, but Kaelin and Jack are hot on her heels. 

 Just as Klar shakes free of the gingerbread golem’s mental compulsion, Altaer snatches it from his hands and devours it completely in just a few desperate, gluttonous bites.  As he eats, the sorcerer feels his strength return as his stolen vital fluids reincorporate into his body.  Kaelin’s inspiration was correct, and Altaer is now free of the golem’s curse thanks to his friend’s quick thinking. 

 The destruction of the prized golem angers Imyatra greatly, causing her to release a bloodcurdling scream and flail her sharp blades at Kaelin.  However, the canny liberator is ready for the hag’s attack and easily deflects her assault.  A moment later, Kaelin ends the life of Imyatra, getting past the hag’s defenses again and piercing her black heart with cold steel.  Imyatra slumps to the ground dead as Kaelin braces his steel boot against her chest and pulls his sword free, standing triumphant over the hag’s body in the archway of the kitchen’s secret door.

    A downward sloping corridor beyond the secret door leads deeper into the Fane of Tiamat from Imyatra’s kitchen.  Before heading down the corridor, the group searches Imyatra’s pantry thoroughly.  Aside from many disgusting ingredients in jars and cans, including “powdered Halfling,” “dehydrated elf ears,” “human cartilage in chili sauce,” and many others, they find a huge barrel of dried beetle husks.  Apalled by this discovery, Altaer unleashes his draconic rage against the kitchen and its now dead mistress, burning Imyatra’s corpse and every macabre ingredient in the pantry with a series of fiery bursts.  Imyatra’s taunting has left him with more questions about his heritage: is she truly his “granny” as she claims, and if so, what does that say about his own mother’s bloodlines?

                 Leaving the burning wreckage of the hag’s kitchen behind, the party advances deeper into the Fane.  As they emerge from the corridor through another concealed door, Ayo gasps quietly.  The corridor opens up into a cavernous chamber lit by hunders of red, blue, green, black and white candles fitted into niches along the walls.  The middle of the room is slightly sunken and contains several rows of pews, while the vaulted ceiling (rising over 60 feet high) is decorated with hundreds of dangling leather strands.  These strands are covered with dragon scales and claws, and they clatter and twist softly in the breeze.  At the northen end of the room, five raised alcoves – each corresponding to one of the five chromatic dragon colors – remain shrouded in shadowy candlelight.  Before the pews stands a bloodstained, raised sacrificial stone altar carved as a stylized five-headed dragon.  Ayotunde’s knowledge of religions tells her that this must be a great temple of Tiamat, and she passes this along to her companions.  As they move fully into the room, five large winged shadows stir in the alcoves and take flight!

                 With a cold hiss, four blackspawn raiders emerge from a secret panel hidden in the shadows to the north, as five bestial wyverns fly forth from the raised alcoves.  Each wyvern seems infused with elemental energy, corresponding with its color – red, blue, green, black and white, respectively.  As the blackspawn raiders strike, the wyverns snarl with rage and dive toward the interlopers, intent on purging Tiamat’s temple of their presence.  In response, Altaer enlarges Klar, who stands tall against the swooping, diving wyverns.  Jack supports Klar from the ground, firing eldritch blasts of fey energy at the wyverns while he and Kaelin move to intercept the blackspawn.  Ayotunde calls forth a flame strike of holy justice upon the white/cold wyvern, incinerating the creature in a matter of heartbeats.  Kaelin’s and Jack’s flashing steel is more than a match for the blackspawn raiders, and Altaer uses his area effect spells (energy substituted fireballs to weaken the other wyverns for Klar to cut down.  Ayo confidently stands in the back rank, providing the curative blessings of Shandae at range as she always does.  Klar decapitates the blue/electricity wyvern and green/acid wyvern with a mighty cleave as the two dragon-kin dive past him, and looks up only to realize all his foes are dead. The five companions have defeated the guardians of the Great Temple of Tiamat and penetrated the inner Fane.  However, the fiendish half-dragon architect of all the recent troubles in the Elsir Vale and Valley of Obelisks still awaits somewhere within.  Unbowed and primed for victory over the High Wyrmlord Azarr Kul, the heroes turn to the north and prepare to move through the raiders’ secret door and face whatever challenges lie beyond. 

Azarr Kul's Ambition