We continue……
The “shade” starts reaching it’s hand towards Perrol again as he menacingly laughs, presense attack. Ghoral notices that the zombies on the floor with severed tubes, appear to still be alive (notices eye movement). They will be treated as “sleeping” for now, so 0 DCV. The result is that Perrol is cowed - DCV is 0 and will do whatever told for a while, most likely. The hand goes through his left thigh, doing 17 stun and 8 body. Perrol is turning grayish-blue, says he is turning real cold. Perrol collapses, in hopes of not getting attacked any more. Glaive attacks the tubes on another zombie against the wall, DCV 5 , and severes the tubes. The “shade” screams again. Kross attempts to attack the zombie he had severed the tubes on; hits DCV 6 for 10 body, the head is severed from the body. The shade shrieks, the bright gem dims and the “shade” appears to become less substantial. I attempt to turn undead, “In the name of the SkyFather I banish thee!!!”, has no effect. Ghoral attacks the zombie he had severed the tubes on, hits DCV 7 for 7 body, crushes the zombie’s throat. Again, the shade shrieks, the bright gem dims and the “shade” appears to become less substantial. The “shade” moves over to Kross and reaches his hand out into his lower back doing 10 stun and 5 body. Glaive attempts to hit the zombie, hits DCV 10 and slices neck. Once again, the shade shrieks, the bright gem dims and the “shade” appears to become less substantial. Kross attacks the last zombie against the wall, hits DCV 12 (made by 5) for 9 body; head flies off the zombie. I move to the center of the room and attack the center zombie, hit DCV 11 (made by 5) for 9 body and crush the zombies head. The “shade” mists away and the gem becomes clear. Combat is over. Tubes are still oozing liquid. Perrol and Kross recover quickly. Perrol does detect magic; the liquid is magical and the gem is magical but it slowly drains until there is no magic. I perform detect evil and nothing appears to be evil anymore. Ghoral says the gem looks valuable so we take it out of the ceiling; it’s about the size of a smushed basketball.
We move to the last outer pentagonal room. Inside are two tables about nine feet long. Along outside wall are four work benches, bins, etc. I perfrom detect evil and find none. Perrol performs detect magic and finds none. Under the tables are glassware with fluid in them. Kind of looks like an operating or mortician room. There are also scrolls. Perrol opens one and there are diagrams with alien and humanoid “grays anatomy” pics with a language you don’t understand. Perrol has to perform and ego role and misses. He gets a splitting headache and he loses -2 to perception and ego rolls for the next hour. Before he got the headaches, he notices that some of these appear to be designs on how to design some of the things encountered in the other room. I check some of the bins and they appear to contain parts for the gearworks, etc. I want to destroy the scrolls because they were used to make evil things. Perrol thinks they should be saved for knowledge sake. Ghoral thinks the scrolls may be worth something. I take one scroll and we will hide the rest. We’ll take it back to the Skyfather temple for guidance. One other note, the contructs and other things appear to be hand drawings while the other diagrams appear to not be hand drawn. Ghoral notices that the knives and bone saws (two of each) are made from a metal that he doesn’t recognize and are VERY sharp; may be worth money. Perrol and Glaive take the knives and Ghoral takes the saws. We head to the center, pentagonal room.
We listen at the door but hear nothing. Perrol opens the door. The room is lit and there are varios piles of “things”. Piled in heaps from ankle deep to waist height, weapons, bones, statues with gem, etc. One pile has a bunch of small rocks that are glittering. Ghoral and I enter the room. We detect evil and magic and find neither. Ghoral says the rocks have ore in them, which is why they glitter. Ghoral rolls a natural 3 for perception and can tell the ore is silver (over 200 lbs worth 500 gp), some of the bones are human.
We all head back to the room with the landscape room. We investigate the tables again and the rocks are all down, including the five that were up before; none are up. Perrol tries to pick one up again and this time there is nothing. So, it appears that this room is a map representing the other rooms????
We start taking the stuff topside and will wait for the mages. After three days we see two figures coming out of the woods; Chad and Bob. The walk up and say, “hey’. We ask what they are doing there and they say they were “following the spike”. We ask why and they said they knew it would be near the temple. We ask how they knew that and they said they heard it being “discussed”. We asked why they are interested in the temple and they say they are interested making sure the religion does not get hold again. We ask how they know about the religion and Chad answers that he knows we should destroy the (evil) books that we have. I say we will take them to the Skyfather priests to be destroyed and Bob says we should hide them from the priests. We decide to show them the scroll and after reviewing, they say they want a tour. While in the room with the stalagtites, Bob asks Glaive is she has been practicing her centering and breathing. When we get to the alcoves with the frozen bodies. Bob say, oh shit, live ones. Bob says the Skyfather priests need to get involved because this is the last of this race but they are evil, so is genocide justified? We head to chiefs room and show the pyramid. As we pass the pyramid, Chad tells Bob that this will have to be taken care of, I’ll take care of it. Then we head to the priest’s chambers and we tell them that it’s booby trapped and we don’t think all have been set off. I ask if they know what the green fluid is, but they say they don’t. Chad says he’ll take care of this one too. I ask what he is taking care of and he says it needs to disappear, before the mages see it. We take them to the initiation chambers and Perrol tells them what happened and then we take them upstairs to the pentagonal chambers. As we pass things (machinery, etc.), Chad says he will take care of it too. When in the temple, Bob says I should definitely hide the books before the priests get here. I ask if he knows when they will be here and they think about a day. When in the room with the five bodies, Bob says he’s never seen these types of creatures before. When we ask about the fluid, Bob will look at Chad quizically say some sort of alchemy? “The cooling unit in the stalactite room is of interest to me”, Chad says. Bob takes out a knife and starts probing one of the bodies where the tubes enter. Chad starts explaining what colors of tubes where going to which body organs. We explain about the “shade” and they say it sounds like a wraith. In the operating/morgue room, Chad looks in the bins. He says it would be easier than thought because he can just put the parts in bins. After we are done with the tour, I decide to show Bob and Chad the tablet and book. As we are walking out, we notice that Chad doesn’t follow (and neither does Perrol). Perrol asks why he’s staying behind and he says he’s “cleaning”. Perrol asks if he can watch. Chad snips the wires on the guy in the priest chamber and then “shoves him in to the stone” to Perrols amazement. Meanwhile, I’m showing Bob the tablet and the book. Bob seems surprised at the book. He shows me it’s a primer for translating the evil religion to an ancient language in this world. He says it’s up to me on what to do with it. After much debate, we ask Bob and Chad if they can take the tablet to the Skyfather’s priests, but they don’t want to due to the way they travel. We decide to head back to Tietha immediately.
I have second watch the first night and I hear some rustling coming from the woods (not quiet); guessing 4-5 people. I quietly wake up everyone. We hear, “hello to camp.” Kross says to state your business. We are part of the wizard delegation from Tietha. We were camped a few miles away but we detected the crystal (camera). A young wizard with three bodyguards comes in the camp. He was checking to see if it was dropped or if it was us. The mages in their camp want us to meet them in the morning for debrief. We decide hide the tablet and booklet before the meeting. At the meeting, we lay out everything for them and give them the crystal. They start looking over everything. The guards pull about 10 pelts for “historical” significance. They also take the large gem, since it’s a possible focus. Then they dismiss us. We make it back to Tietha. We get two xp for finishing the adventure and one for the camera and one for the good role playing. One hero point each for keeping the tablet away from the mages.