The huge drider, her human torso clad in red silk, her long spider legs clad in armor, her spider body the size of a hippopotamus, stares in shock, then fury at the sight of three of her phase spider children laying dead in her bedroom. Her bedroom filled with strangers going through her things; two of them bent over her small treasure chest. She screams with rage as Crab, reacting first, casts a spike growth spell centered on the drider. Thick, sharp thorns surround her stretching twenty feet all around her, filling the hallway. If she moves, sharp spikes will tear her flesh. The drider, Achren, wastes no time.
Flicking something dark from a finger, she creates a sphere of darkness that lays over the area filled with thorns. As the company adjusts to the situation, the entire room seems to shiver, and a crawling sensation washes over the group. Crab, Sarith and Obie resist the magic that washes over the rest, causing them to feel as if the inside of your clothes ripples as spiders crawl all over you, the urge to undress is very strong. The shock and horror of the feeling causing psychic damage to those affected.
Tammuz ducks behind the chest, and people spread out for clear lines of fire. Crossbows are raised, Vorkath tosses a rock into the darkness, and hears it clank off something. Buppido slips into the bathtub, and aims a poisoned bolt, and waits. Ten pairs of eyes watch the darkness The air fills with tension as everyone stares at the inky darkness, expecting something to emerge at any time. Crab draws Dawnbringer, and bright sunlight extends out in a fifteen foot circle. She holds the hilt tightly, and concentrating causes the brightness to increase, spreading another five feet towards the wall of darkness. Baern sends a flaming sphere into the darkness, but the darkness swallows it.
Cocking his head, his best ear aimed at the center of the darkness, Tammuz listens, “The thing is still there, I can hear it breathing, sounds angry. I can hear the flames burning too,” he adds to Baern. Cross Rockledge, takes out a small round metal object, twists it, and throws it into the darkness. It misses the drider, but the light grenade explodes inside the darkness, just barely overcoming the darkness spell. A bright flash of light fills the room illuminating the drider standing angrily in the center of the thorns.
Five crossbows thrum, and Tammuz lifts his merrow dart gun, and fires a burst. The first dark strikes true, hitting her in the center of her chest. Her limbs stop, her torso quivers, mouth open, eyes wide as the poison paralyzes her. “Holy shit,” Obie says softly. Slowly, warily, the group approaches, Crab dropping her thorn spikes, and brightening Dawrnbringer to her fullest. She can hear the sword singing in her mind, joyous to be spreading such light down here. The drider head is removed from the body, and the torso stripped. A ring and necklace prove to be magical, and are stowed in Tammuz’ pack. Returning to the bedroom, the two chests are examined. The small chest has a poison gas trap that Tammuz and Cross find, and Tammuz disables. The chest is locked, “I can pick locks, but I don’t have any picks,” Tammuz says.
Cross grins, and opening a leather piece that unrolls down his left leg revealing dozens of lock picks. He carefully selects three tools, “These three will let you pick most doors and small locks,” he says handing them to Tammuz. He accepts them gratefully, “Thank you, is there something I can offer you in trade?” Cross shakes his head, “I’m grateful for the company, it would have been very unpleasant to face that drider alone.” He grins, “Take them with my compliments.” Tammuz inserts the tools, and there is a *click* as the top of the chest pops slightly open. “Thank you,” Tammuz grins and opens the chest, the smile widening as it is filled with gems and treasure.
Small Chest – 49,995 GP worth of coins, art objects, and/or gems: 5,000 GP gemstones (×1; worth 5,000 GP total): Black sapphire (lustrous black with glowing highlights), 1,000 GP gemstones (×3; worth 3,000 GP total): Black opal (dark green with black mottling and golden flecks), ×2, Star ruby (ruby with white star-shaped center), 500 GP gemstones (×4; worth 2,000 GP total): Alexandrite (dark green), ×2, Blue spinel (deep blue), Peridot (rich olive green), 100 GP gemstones (×1; worth 100 GP total): Tourmaline (pale green, blue, brown, or red), 50 GP gemstones (×1; worth 50 GP total): Chalcedony (white) 10 GP gemstones (×2; worth 20 GP total): Azurite (mottled deep blue), Rhodochrosite (light pink) 7,500 GP art objects (×3; worth 22,500 GP total): Jeweled gold crown, Gold cup set with emeralds, Set of gold nesting dolls, 2,500 GP art objects (×6; worth 15,000 GP total): Gold music box, Gold circlet set with four aquamarines, Embroidered glove set with jewel chips, Jeweled anklet, Platinum bracelet set with an emerald, Fine gold chain set with a fire opal, 750 GP art objects (×1; worth 750 GP total): Obsidian statuette of drow female with gold fittings and inlay, 250 GP art objects (×6; worth 1,500 GP total): Well-made tapestry that is 4 feet by 6 feet, Brass mug with jade inlay, Silver necklace with a gemstone pendant x2, Bejeweled gold bracelet, Carved ivory statuette, 25 GP art objects (×3; worth 75 GP total): Black velvet gloves stitched with silver thread, Handheld mirror set in a painted wooden frame, Copper chalice with silver filigree.
The larger chest on the other side of the room, is made by the same hands in the same style as the smaller trunk. It has a needle trap that Tammuz fails to disarm, but it jams and does not hit anyone. He picks the lock with his new tools, and it opens to reveal clothing for a drider. Lots of silk tops, mostly red and black. The desk has nothing of value, and there is nothing under the bed. It looks like the drider had some sort of eight legged swing setup over the bed where she rested. The spider carpet and bedspread are rolled up and taken, along with all the silk sheets. It will be later discovered that Buppido took the pillows, stuffing them into his pack.
Sure that they have missed something, the group searches for things they might has missed, starting with the spider smelling tunnels. Soon it becomes clear this is a spider hatchery. Eggs abound, and there are phase spiders of all sizes crawling around. The debate rages on whether to set them on fire, but finally, they leave and head towards the hallway leading to the jail. They do not find a secret door, but while searching the office, Tammuz finds a small bronze plaque, a vertical rectangle six inches by four. “It is magical,” Crab says casting detect magic and scanning the room. While examining it closely, Tammuz’ palm touches the metal and he disappears. “Oh fuck, where’d he go?” They shout his name, but there is no reply.
Tammuz appears in the small room facing the glowing statue of a phoenix. The room smells of piss, and Tammuz sees the cupped wings of the bird are filled with yellow fluid. “Right,” he says to himself remembering. He is on the verge of popping in a gold coin and running back to the jail to find the company, when Crab appears, and one by one the others following. Soon the small twenty foot cube room is filled with ten people.
Moving out, they check the bottom of the long wall on the southern side of the large temple but find no secret doors or compartments. Moving to the small room on the eastern side with the three braziers, they stare a while and discuss how to handle them. “The colors seem to match the three pools,” Baern says. Going close to each, one is hot and filled with fire, one filled with frost, and the last some caustic stuff that smells acrid and poisonous. “Probably a bad idea to be in the room when we try it out,” Tammuz says recalling the other room filling with fire. Turning to Vorkath, he finds a large rock, and hands it to the barbarian. “Can you toss this into the red one,” he asks? Vorkath grins, takes the rock and lobs it expertly into the brazier.
WHOOSH!!
The room fills with flame, and a blast of heat sears across those in the doorway. Two more rocks are launched, and the room freezes,
WHEESH!!
then fills with green clouds of poison gas,
WHUMPH!!
that slowly leak out into the temple. The group backs away from the acrid fumes and waits for them to clear. Moving back inside, they search for secret doors, and find one in the middle of the north wall. Disarming the poison gas trap, Tammuz pushed the door open. A long hallway stretches ahead with two side passages jutting off to the right and left forty feet in. Ahead it ends in a small cube shaped room. The hallway is searched carefully, staying away from the two side doors. Another secret compartment is found on the east wall past the intersection. Tammuz finds and disarms the blade trap and opens the door. A red light spills out of the crack.
A small L shaped room with a raised dais on the far wall, atop which a glowing red skull sits. A desk and chair face the south wall, and a bed sits around the corner of the L. A book in abyssal sits on the bed, and some pages of notes about the book, also in abyssal, sit nearby. The room is searched but nothing more is found. After some debate, they decide to fuck up the skull. First Baern uses mage hand to turn the skull to face the south. Then Vorkath raises his great sword and brings it down hard, and the skull cracks, the glow dimming slightly. Crab steps forward and uses Dawnbringer, and slices off the top of the skull. The glow dies. Mage hand moves the skull and the piece cut off to the desk, and leaves them there, but the book and papers are taken.
A round robin of teleporting to the other side and returning goes on. Sixty gold is spent in the temple as ten people teleport once, twice, and eventually six times as people think of one more place to check.
The empty room next to the spider room is searched, but turns up nothing. The hallway outside however, has a secret door. Tammuz disables the gas trap, and opens the door. It is very dusty, and this seems the most unused place so far. The tunnel makes a left hand turn. Approaching, there are stairs leading upwards. Crab spreads sunlight out in a thirty foot circle and the group moves slowly upwards. There is an opening at the top that leads to a dusty room where the ceiling has partially collapsed, a pile of rubble beneath some large cracks in the stone. As the room is search, Crab and Tammuz both notice that Buppido keeps lifting his crossbow and aiming it at the back of the the goblin, Werv’s head. Each time he raises it, he looks quite serious, but eventually, he lowers it and moves away from the goblin.
Long wooden shelves of ancient zurkwood cover the far wall, filled with bone scroll cases, each neatly labeled in both drow and abyssal. 86 scrolls in bone scroll cases. abyssal or drow mostly about demonology. The search for secret compartment reveals a hidden panel with a needle trap behind a section of shelves. Disarming the trap, Tammuz opens it and finds a grapefruit sized lens on a white metal chain in the secret compartment behind scroll case. “Divination magic,” Crab says using her last detect magic spell. Tammuz picks it up and looks through it. At first he sees nothing, but when Crab comes into view, her magic sword is outlines in the lens’ eye. He spends some time with it, and learns it is lens of identification that can identify magic items three times a day. He uses two of the charges to identity the items taken from the drider; a Ring of Protection +1 to AC and all saving throws, the spider necklace is a Spell Focus +1 to spell attack and spell DC.