Well, none of
us wanted to go into the forest, and it was felt that a small party
could sneak through easier than all of us. Krelga volunteered to go and
we pressured Tev to accompany her. Tev, the poor stupid dog, kept
saying that if he saw any of "those weasels" that he'd bite their heads
off. I'm not sure if he realized that those weasels can turn you into
stone if they bite you.
But they did get through to Regab. A lone bootmere attacked them and
Tev killed it. They had to wake up Regab, who was hibernating or
something. ("Wait, we hibernate?" asked Gorg.) But he quickly grasped
the deadly seriousness of the situation. The three were attacked by a
dozen undead bootmeres, who don't have the petrifying bite but are
still quite dangerous.
Once back at our camp Regab elaborated. An evil sorcerer named Teliget
used to rule over this land with his undead minions. It took Regab's
father and Dotregidim's father to drive the sorcerer into a cave where
they trapped him, not forever but for a long time. And it looks like
that time is up. Now it's up to Regab and Dotregidim to battle Teliget,
though unfortunately Dotregidim is a bit too young to help. Teliget
obviously wanted to get to the Fire Temple to loot it for his own evil
purposes.
Well, we can help, for some of the Fire artifacts in the Fire Temple.
What, have you no honor that you'd help fight this obvious evil? Hey,
it's not my backyard. Perhaps I can give you a small item or two, if we
defeat Teliget. Of course we'll defeat Teliget! What's a sorcerer and a
host of undead minions have that we can't handle?
That night, the bootmers and rock slugs came down to finish the dam.
This time we fought them. It wasn't much of a fight as the bootmeres
didn't want to go into the water. We picked off the rock slugs and
destroyed the dam. Feeling exuberant at a job well done, we went back
to the Fire Temple to rest and plan our assault on Teliget's lair. That
night we slept the sleep of the victorious.
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As it turned
out, we had celebrated too early. Strange sounds woke up
Krelga, who stepped out to investigate. Ack! The bootmeres had built a
make-shift suspension bridge across the river and were now storming the
Temple! We quickly gathered and realized that there were too many of
them for us to fight. Quickly boys, out the back way. It was a grievous
setback as we lost the Fire Temple, but only a temporary one.
Now we had to assault Teliget's cave. Surely he would be weak now that
most of his forces were at the Temple, ransacking it looking for the
artifacts. We ventured into the forest, only to be attacked by giant
marengo apes. No real match for us, but they did weaken us a bit. We
continued onwards and reached Teliget's cave.
Attack! A maze of rooms with undead bootmeres and rock slugs in every
room. Hack, slash, stomp, smash! It was bloody work (well, not really
as the undead don't bleed much). We slowly fought our way to the inner
sanctum as Gorg and Tev went down. Finally in Teliget's chamber the
master himself fought us, striking down Regab in the initial salvo. But
superior numbers and an unconquerable will soon won the day and Teliget
was destroyed forever.
We took Teliget's crystal ball and patched up the wounded. All the
undead minions were once again inanimate, littering the Fire Temple.
Still, clean-up wasn't our problem and we did have a reward coming,
which Regab grudgingly gave us. It's a scroll with three sorcery
spells. We all looked at Tev, who doesn't want to be a sorcerer but
he's the best suited for that job. He just has to learn how to read... |