Editing Journal - Flames and the Guardian (section)

==The Ancient Temple==

Falcor saw that there was an entrance in the side of the building red pants had been near, and there was a body sprawled across the threshold - one of the false Elvrabor. Runes were carved over the entrance, which Falcor was able to partially decipher, although I had not seen the like before. The letters were: &quot;ELLE?IA E? RA?ACCAN&quot; and Falcor recognised &quot;Accan&quot; as some kind of crossing of a barrier or boundary. There was a stone floor inside and, although it was unlit, we could see three large bronze cylinders rising from floor to ceiling spaced equally with one in the centre of the room and one either side. There were what looked like doors in each, with keyholes, also fashioned out of bronze.

I joined Falcor, noting that what had once been a stone door looked like it was broken from the inside. I suggested taking a look on top if we could get up there, and Falcor had some dweomer that could help - it allowed me to jump vertically right up to land on top, despite it being at least eighteen feet above the floor. From there it seemed that the rubble was clustered around the points where the cylinders rose from blow, so it was possible that they emerged at this level. There was a bronze hand poking out near the centre, which I could pick up as it wasn't connected to anything any more, so there had been at least one statue decorating the top. I took a moment to focus on the psychic residue of this place, and for a moment I felt like I was looking through eye cutouts in a mask, looking out over a sea of bodies - hundreds of humans on the ground, all on their knees prostate before me. The vision was gone in a moment, but it was clear that this had been a place of worship.

I spent some time excavating the cylinders, with no help from Falcor I notice. Too busy &quot;keeping watch&quot; to do any fucking work. I enjoyed the simple exercise, although it took time. Sure enough I revealed the tops of the cylinders that had been hidden by the rubble. Each of the three were broken at the top, and each had ladders leading down. The central one, though, continued down below ground level and there seemed to be a faint light source somewhere below. I conjured some lights and sent them down the other two shafts just to make sure that they were empty, which they were, and then the central shaft as far as ground level. The ladder seemed intact, but the shaft opened out into a room below and I would not be able to see any more without descending.

Falcor came up to join me using a rope with a grappling hook, and then let himself down the central shaft with the same rope. As he neared the room below he heard what he thought might be movement so he flipped himself upside down, somehow, to poke his head into the room. There were five glowing beetles in the corner over a dead body, feeding it seemed. Three doors were in the walls, two on one side and one opposite them, and there was an old anvil near some large storage amphorae. Falcor returned himself upright and lowered himself slowly to the floor, unnoticed by the beetles. I could feel the tension release in the rope, and started to move onto the ladder.

Just then Falcor was noticed and a loud chittering sound echoed up the shaft as they advanced with surprising speed, surrounding him. One bit Falcor and spurted a gel that burst into flame, thankfully mostly missing him. I hurried down, getting over halfway but then losing my grip and falling heavily into the mass of beetles and catching Falcor. I rolled off the shells to my feet, though, so it could have been worse. Falcor assailed them with his mind and two collapsed; I guess their basic minds couldn't put up much defence. I landed a hit on the one nearest to me and gel spurted out of a crack in its shell, splashing me a little. Thankfully I had taken the time to protect myself from fire before climbing down, and I didn't suffer any damage.

I was bitten, again avoiding fire damage, so I ignited Aramat and stuck the sword through the creature's carapace, the cold sucking all heat from it and leaving a dark husk behind. I struck a blow on another beetle as Falcor also killed one, before he turned and struck the injured creature to kill that as well. It was suddenly quiet again, and I returned Aramat to its scabbard. The room was lit gently with the glowing bodies, apart from the one that had been drained of course. We picked a door to try but found that it was locked. I tried forcing it but it seemed quite solid. Falcor strained at it, though, and managed to rip the lock mechanism apart! Bits fell away as the door shifted and we were able to force it open more easily.

We followed a corridor that turned back on itself, finding another door on the right after two turns. There were some signs of movement inside, so we left it for the moment. The corridor opened into another room at the end which had tables on the side nearest us, and two large fire sources against the wall to our right - more like strongly glowing coals than blazing flames, despite giving off quite a bit of heat. There were pots and a pestle and mortar on the tables, like an alchemist's bench. On the far side was another opening, closer to the glowing coals. We went back to the door and Falcor forced it open. As he did so there was an explosion of cold, like an elemental blast, that flooded the doorway and the vicinity. It was very powerful, but thankfully we were both protected in some way and it washed over us without effect.

The room inside was composed of a strange off-white stone. In the far corner, coiled around each other tightly, were a pair of red serpents with intense heat and impressive plummage along their backs. It's possible they had recoiled from the cold and were sharing heat in some kind of defensive reaction, but we shut the door quickly as we didn't want to start a fight we didn't need to. Falcor shouted telepathically through the door but received no response. We decided to press on, even if it was just to learn more. As he entered the next room, though, flames started to ignite within the coals and the heat built in intensity. Figures started to form within the flames so Falcor ran to the far door, entering a cooler room with a glistening floor. I dashed across as well, pushing past and into the room. I was put off, though, when I found that the floor was soft underfoot so I stopped fairly quickly to investigate.

Tendrils of flame shot at Falcor from the figures in the last room, just missing him twice but then splashing across him. It was elementally hot and should have caused searing pain, but Falcor resisted it well and was only burned a little. I had pushed forward, not able to identify the liquid on the floor although it wasn't just water. I found the skeleton of a serpent in the corner, similar in size to the two we had seen in the other room, but with nothing else catching my eye and no clear exit other than the way we had entered. We were forced to run back through past the fiery creatures. Falcor was missed but I was engulfed in flames, and only saved by the dweomer protection I had put upon myself. It was still intensely hot and painful. I was grateful, then, when Falcor healed most of the damage, although I could not stop myself flinching away as he reached out to touch me without warning.

We headed back to the room we entered through to find another way onward. I tried the opposite door, but it was locked and neither of us could shift it, and the third door was not only stuck but the handle came off when Falcor tried to force it! Going back to the first one we passed a rope through the ring and put both of our weight to work, eventually forcing the door open. There was a corridor beyond, and thankfully no hint of fire. There were doors on both sides before the corridor turned to the right beyond them. As we cautiously made our way forward, we noticed that the door on the left was ajar. Falcor edged up to it, and I ran past to position myself on the other side.

I gently eased the door open with the tip of Aramat, revealing what had once been a living space, but the items inside had been shoved to the sides and were all trashed or rotten. Falcor noticed some kind of lizard thing on the ceiling in the far corner, so I pulled the door to (the latch was broken) and left it. Falcor opened the door to the south, revealing another living quarters but in a much better state. It looked recently trashed rather than derelict, and an ominous mark of blood on the floor suggested someone had been killed or seriously injured recently. A wooden staff was lent against the wall in the far corner; it looked simple, like a tree branch but with a claw shaped group of branches at the top. As we entered we saw an old painting on the wall that showed a three-quarter length portrait of bearded human holding a staff like the one in the room, but with a sphere in the clawed part. It wasn't clearly identical, but it was very similar.

I tried to gain some psychic impressions from the blood on the floor, and I had another flash of vision: I was sat at the desk in the room, but looked up as the door exploded open violently and three 'dark elves' swarmed in and rapidly overwhelmed me. Their leader struck me down with a glistening dagger, and with my last vestige of dying will I committed my soul to the figure in the painting. Falcor, meanwhile, noticed that there was a stone without mortar set within the wall opposite the painting. He was able to remove it and found two scrolls within; I recognised one as enabling someone to communicate with a soul in my father's realm - to speak with the dead! The other I didn't understand, but I took them anyway in case they proved useful. Finally, we approached the staff and I reached out to touch it... noticing a slight jolt as the energy within it reacted to my touch. I wasn't damaged, though, so I tried to get a psychic impression from it. I received a very clear message, from Kelditch it seemed, that his power was not for me. His voice was commanding and authoritative but not cruel, but he did refer to me as &quot;niece&quot;. I felt like my father (well not quite the same, but similar) had scolded me to warn that I should avoid a thing that could harm me.

I had a closer look at the painting, as this was the first time we had seen an image of Kelditch. There was a faint symbol on his clothes over his heart in fine gold, like two circles but crossed over top and bottom. Then we continued down the corridor to the turning at the end. I peered around the corner and saw two doors on the right some way down, with light coming from the cracks around them. There was some kind of humanoid shape at the end beyond the doors, which became clear was a statue of Kelditch as we drew nearer. There were shouts from behind the doors and Falcor doused his lantern. Figures ran out of the, hastily opened, doors with one wearing a long golden mask embossed with a visage of Kelditch. That one had a sword at his belt, but a staff similar to the other one held in front of him. He challenged us, the others beside him with swords in hand. We called out that we were seeking an audience with Kelditch. He wanted us gone, though, calling us demons - apparently because we had blood of Karmana. He called me a blasphemer for claiming a distant relation to Kelditch.

The priest started chanting, and Falcor reacted (I was going to wait, hoping that he might be trying to divine our intent, but Falcor was less patient it seemed); Falcor waved a rod and chanted, seeming to mesmerise a couple of the swordsmen. More barged past, though, attacking Falcor as the priest continued his chant. Falcor's armour reappeared as he was struck, although the blow still drew blood. I conjured a spray of colour and three of the swordsmen dropped unconscious... and still the priest chanted. We he finally finished there didn't seem to be any noticeable effect, though. Falcor also conjured a spray of colour, but the priest stubbornly remained on his feet. I tried to grapple him to the floor but ended up just grabbing his leg, although I was able to disrupt whatever prayer he was directing at us. I shouted at him to stop, as we did not wish to fight them. He resisted, though, still yelling at us to leave, so I pulled his leg out from under him and he fell flat on his back. Falcor was able to restrain and tie him up, although he made sure to leave his staff with him.

Unfortunately one of the others came round before we could bind the rest, but Falcor faced up to him and threw the rope to me to sort the others out. We could see inside the first room now, and there were half a dozen bunks in the room, which looked well lived in. There was a slight smell of burning, although the source was not clear. The door at the far end of the room was spiked and had wood nailed across it, clearly barred from this side. I tied the unconscious swordsmen up with the rope, noting that they were starting to come round as I finished. The one that had recovered seemed nervous and backed away from Falcor whilst waving his sword in fear, asking that we leave, but not looking very sure of himself.

Falcor asked him to sit, reassuring him that he would not be harmed. He did sit, keeping his weapon in hand but not seeming very proficient with it if I'm honest. Falcor relighted his lantern and asked why the door was spiked. Apparently the &quot;fire creatures&quot; had run amok and were free so they had tried to defend themselves. Falcor offered our help, listening at the door but not hearing anything - it did seem slightly warm though. I picked up the priest and carried him towards the statue of Kelditch, but as I approached a powerful force of negative energy washed over me. Thankfully I had inherited a resistance to such energy from my father and I was unaffected. I kept saying that we meant no harm and were only looking to help Kelditch, and a voice spoke as if from the statue, still wary of our intent. I finally managed to convince them that we might be able to help, although I had to admit that I was a child of Kraldar. That shocked them, of course, but did seem to mark a turning point in their willingness to hear us out.

The short version is that they were willing to seek an audience with Kelditch for us if we were able to drive away or defeat the Fire that had overwhelmed the temple below. The gate to fire was open, and had been for countless years - it seemed that Kelditch had been experimenting on the creatures of fire, and some of them remained bound by his will. Perhaps he had sought power over them for some aim, or to travel through their realm to somewhere else? He seemed to care little that the gate allowed creatures to enter the temple and that his followers had dwindled to the point that they could no longer contain them. I had a debate with Falcor as to why we should help at all, and Falcor was particularly confused as to why anyone would worship such a God. I had seen for myself that there were people willing to worship the most viscous, uncaring Gods so it did not surprise me. We were ultimately looking for the sword, and there might be other ways to find it, but as Kelditch's realm was attacked by the dark Elvrabor it seemed that an alliance would make sense, at least temporarily.

The priest was at least willing to give us a key to pass through the entrance room to the other side where the fire creatures were loose. Thankfully we were able to open the unlocked door despite the lack of a handle, and we entered a corridor with a door on the right and a corner ahead. There were sounds of movement behind the door, but it was closed and seemed contained so we moved on. Turning left, we could see that the corridor turned back on itself ahead, but there was a door on the opposite wall in the corner. The door was warm to Falcor's sight, and we warily advanced on it, noting that the corridor on the left was empty until it turned right just ahead. We could feel the warmth here, but again it seemed contained so we moved on to the next corner. There was a doorway on the left after another stretch of corridor that had been spiked; it seemed we had reached the dangerous section. Falcor fished a cooking mallet of all things out of his pack, and struck the spikes on alternate sides until they loosened enough for him to open the door.

We entered a bedchamber, but immediately noticed that there were holes in the stone floor as if something had melted through it. There were four in total, each just over three feet across. There were also two fire serpents in the room, like the ones we had seen contained before, but these were feasting on a corpse (the smell of burning flesh was sickly sweet in the air). They reacted quickly to our entrance, though, so I charged forward and activated Aramat as Falcor launched icicles into them from the doorway. As they were still reeling from the ice striking them, I cleaved one in two with Aramat and the other, sensibly, dived down a hole and disappeared. Glancing down I saw that the hole turned about ten feet down so it was out of sight.

We moved to the other door and threw it open, but there was no sign of foes here. The room had an iron cage on the right with a chain-locked gate, and inside were some chests and a stone lecturn with a leather-bound book on it. There was an ominous pit of glowing coals to the left, like the ones we encountered before that had proved so painful! I was all for leaving this place, as it belonged to the temple priests, and heading down instead. Falcor, though, seemed obsessed with the book and used an item to conjure a wall of stone to seal off the pit of coals while he entered. He ran in and strained to bend the bars of the cage, forcing his way in as I kept an eye on the holes, unwilling to be a part of robbing the people here. In fact I took a closer look at all of the holes, finding one that opened into a room below at the side against a wall. It was noticeably hotter than the others, so it got my attention. Falcor returned carrying a chest, and not the book (apparently it was a holy book and he didn't want to take it); the chest contained two glass vials with a clear liquid inside as well as a metal flask.

We both floated down the tube I had taken an interest in, emerging in a corridor that was much warmer than the previous room. The corridor met with a junction of other corridors a short distance away, but the junction had been cut open with a forty-foot wide tube from below. The edges were glass-like, similar in appearance to the smaller tube we had used to get here. We cautiously approached the edge, and saw that the corridors leading away from the tube were spaced evenly around it, so it had been a central nexus of some kind before it was cut through. Looking down, we could see that it was a perfect tube that cut through maybe forty feet of stone before emerging into a large space below. There was a writhing sea of fire at the base below that, which must be the gate to Fire that Kelditch had opened. The heat was intense even from this far away so it was difficult to look for long, but one thing we did notice was the glowing gold embossed lines around the gate that matched the symbol on Kelditch's clothes we had seen in the painting.

As we watched the fire we noticed a couple of squat things that might have been formed from magma emerge, with what looked like wings just about visible in the heat. We backed off, resolving to find another way to progress, and Falcor uttered an incantation that suddenly engulfed him in a dark blue flame. It gave off no heat, and didn't seem to do him any damage, though so I assumed it was a means of defence. There was no other sign of movement so we walked back towards a turn in the corridor. As we neared the holes we had entered through, though, a fire worm emerged from one of them. Falcor reacted first, grabbing a staff and sending icicles at it, which caused it to recoil as the cold clearly caused it pain. I moved forward to engage it, but it fled back through a hole as I reached it, so I let it go.

We were distracted by the sound of a high pitch whistling coming from the shaft behind us, almost like steam escaping through a crack. Falcor scanned down towards the base of the shaft with his mind, finding a lot of neutrality and some shades of good, but definitely some evil farther down. A new thing came into sight within the shaft at our level, a flying smallish imp-like thing made almost entirely of flames but with a solid black core. Falcor ran back, peering over the edge to see what was going on, and then turned to come back. The shaft was massively hotter than the corridor, and Falcor's face was blistered and burned despite his protection. It was clear that something was containing the heat within the shaft or we would have been much hotter in the corridor! Falcor noticed that the surface of the fire seemed more active than before, which explained the heat, but otherwise saw nothing new. He healed himself using mental powers, repairing most of the damage to his face - a few eyebrow hairs were still missing, quite comically.

We continued to the corner away from the shaft, finding a corridor that extended for fifty feet or so before turning to the right again. We moved forward together, wondering how we could affect such a powerful force as elemental fire, and looked around the next corner. The corridor continued a short way and ended in door. We were about to head towards it when I noticed something slightly off about the wall on the corner, and when I took a closer look I found a hidden mechanism in a hole in the mortar that, when Falcor inserted a knife, popped open a concealed door. It swung towards us to reveal an empty, dusty room.

There were a couple of short swords lent against a wall, but the new room was otherwise empty and abandoned. Falcor found another concealed door in the far corner, though, and opened it as I stood ready beside him. There were shouts of alarm as the door popped open, which I thought might be a good sign as the fire beasts hadn't done much talking so far. A shout in common came as a challenge: &quot;who's there?&quot; I stepped inside with my hands out and said that I came in peace. There were more priests here, wearing the now familiar mask of Kelditch. They were not convinced that I was there to help (I had only revealed myself so far). A couple of lanterns illuminated the room, and I could see there were five priests in all, one carrying a staff like the others we'd seen.

The &quot;leader&quot; with the staff used a prayer to confirm that I was telling the truth about being sent to help, and he introduced himself as Baltheus, a priest of the 3rd Order. He acknowledged that Kanadius, the high priest, had sent us. I revealed Falcor and there was a similar reluctant acceptance that he could help them. We asked about the false Elves, which he referred to as &quot;Ilianna's folk&quot; (Ilianna being the Queen of Lies)? Yes, they had been here but it was the fire creatures that troubled them. He offered to guide us down to the temple below, but insisted that we leave their people alone; we readily agreed to his terms as we did not want to disturb them or put them at risk of harm.