Chapter 19: Exploring the City Tunnels

October 8

The group returns to the city, and Agnarr gets his axe repaired and also buys a spare weapon. An hour later, the group returns. They continue forward and first look at the corridor heading east. They pass the storage room and then continue right from the next intersection and come to some kind of shrine. At the edge of the shrine is a ramp and stairs going up a meter, and up there is a black granite altar. On the altar is a black bowl. In the bowl is some dirty-looking magical water.

Neiia talks Kieron into tasting it, so Kieron drinks from it, but the water doesn’t feel good. It feels like she can’t hear anything properly, and her reaction ability is quite slow. Jaysek comes to see what’s wrong with Kieron and notices that the whole temple is an unholy area.

In addition, he states that the water is also unholy water. Jaysek states that either Kieron is pretending, or she is confused, cursed, poisoned, possessed, sick, or something else is wrong. Neiia tries to test if Kieron reacts to anything and goes behind her back and shoots Kieron with a fire bolt in the back. Kieron doesn’t notice anything.

After a moment, Kieron walks to the corner, sits down, and turns her helmet in her hand for a couple of minutes, and then throws the helmet away. Kieron remains sitting and wondering. The others think about what to do. First, they consider whether anyone has restoration healing potions, but no one has them. They give Kieron one healing magic potion, but it has no effect.

Next, the others think about what to do next. They decide to return to the city and think there about what to do with Kieron. Jaysek tries to get Kieron to stand up, and after a little more than five minutes, finally gets her to stand up. After that, Jaysek starts leading Kieron away. They get out in half an hour.

They take Kieron to the Sandpoint high priest so that he could examine what’s wrong with her. The high priest restores some of her intelligence, and after that, they go to see Ertak, who heals Kieron more.

October 9

Kieron doesn’t want to leave, and although Neiia tries to talk Kieron around, she doesn’t succeed. Ertak also starts to talk Kieron around to at least go away, so she leaves, intending to go home. On the way, Kieron suddenly gets an idea and goes to the high priest after all and asks how a restoration potion works, whether it can be drunk even if one has already been healed with the same spell. The high priest states that it can be used that way, so Kieron drinks her own magic potion and is in slightly better condition again. Kieron also buys a couple of healing spells and is after that in much better condition.

The others have talked Ertak around that if he’s healed a lot, they’ll probably get him back in shape, so after that, we can leave. Ertak and the others go to the priest to get healing. Meanwhile, Kieron returns to Ertak’s place, but the others are no longer there, so she returns to the church to the others. Ertak is put back in good shape, but Ertak doesn’t succeed in healing Kieron more, so Kieron is still a bit slow, but the group decides to go forward anyway.

The group goes back down and comes to the altar room. Ertak examines the room and states that it is really evil. He states that it would take hours to purify it, so the group doesn’t start doing it. They prepare to go forward. Behind a pair of doors opens a large temple cathedral, whose walls have runes raised from stone, and in the middle is a platform with a bubbling pool in the center. This pool is surrounded by human skulls. On the other side of the room is an even higher level, which is reached by stairs. On the upper platform is a triangular altar.

The lighting in the room is blood-red, and the bubbling pool looks as if it’s boiling blood. The steam rising from the pool looks yellow. Kieron steps into the room, and in front of her, about 7 meters away, appears a small flying devil. The devil shouts, “So you dare to come into mother’s sanctuary, I will avenge this to you.”

The devil cuts a wound in his wrist with his knife and lets blood flow from it into the pool. From the pool rises the same kind of creature that the group already fought earlier. Kieron and Agnarr run around the pool and attack the small flying devil. The devil dodges and rises into the air. The multi-armed creature gets up and rushes at Agnarr. Neiia casts a failure spell on the multi-armed creature’s strike but doesn’t accomplish anything, though Agnarr still manages to dodge.

Kieron states that such a flying creature is annoying, especially when it throws daggers at Kieron, so she blocks the dagger and throws her sword at the creature, but the creature just barely dodges. Agnarr states that such a creature is annoying, and he starts hammering the creature really hard.

The creature smiles at Agnarr and moves to attack Kieron. Kieron gets her thrown sword, as does the flying devil to it’s thrown daggers. The multi-armed creature continues hitting Kieron, but Kieron blocks the strike, and the multi-armed guy’s weapon breaks.

Kieron also starts kitting the creature, and both Kieron and Agnarr hit the creature very quickly, and arms start falling off. The devil curses and moves low above the pool. Ertak states that now it’s coming close to fight and orders the creature to fly to the ceiling. The creature gets annoyed by this and while flying throws a dagger at Ertak, but the dagger doesn’t penetrate his armor. Because the creature flies to the ceiling after this, Neiia throws an explosive fireball at the ceiling, and the flying devil appears to be on fire.

Agnarr is taking off his glove, and Kieron hammers the multi-armed devil with her swords, and the creature’s last upper arms are off. The multi-armed devil tries to bite Kieron, so she blocks the strike with her weapon, and the creature’s other leg falls off, and when Kieron hits the creature a couple more times, the creature falls to the ground.

Agnarr has meanwhile gotten his glove halfway off, and Ertak runs to Agnarr and asks what’s wrong. Agnarr answers that he’s pissed off and starts putting the glove back on. The devil gets annoyed with the group and waves his hands, and the liquid starts bubbling, and from the smoke rises eight similar multi-armed creatures.