Courtesy of Ubaron and Kolgrim the party teleport to Basi. Grettir is keen to take counsel with Paradoxides about developing a magical protection that might help Yu-Chi and Demeetha operate more easily in the Sunlit Lands. Yu-Chi has also been begging Grettir for a chance to replace her spider mount and he reckons the far south is the best place to look for one. They are received at court by Queen Valakar, who does not seek to hide her amusement at Grettir’s latest choice of companion. She speaks to the two Underdark Dwellers in their own tongue. Demeetha is terrified of her; Yu-Chi tries to pretend she isn’t; she dismisses both as entities of no great significance. She rather confirms Grettir’s hypothesis that they are ancient kin to the elves, saying that the elves call them the Lost Ones. Girindor looks uncomfortable. He subsequently (out of hearing of Valakar) adheres to the line that they are not at all related to elves. Grettir and the rest of the party start to refer to them as the Dark Elves.
Valakar recommends the nearby island of Santos as a good place to search for large spiders – especially the caves in the Kula Hills. Girindor summons the Wind to take them there. They leave the Dark Elves in the care of Paradoxides. As it happens almost the first thing they encounter is a spider of unusual size, but Girindor kills it. In any case it proves to be about half the size they are looking for. After some casting about they do find a promising looking cave behind a waterfall. It is occupied by local tribesmen who prove hostile. They are dispersed. Examination of their larder indicates that their interest in the adventurers might have had a culinary angle rather than just being random aggression. They are clearly party guys, because along with their larder of air-dried long pig, they also prove to have several amphora of locally brewed moonshine, distilled, according to Girindor, who seems to know a thing or two about such processes, from tubers. In the furthest recesses of the cave complex there is an ancient-looking bronze door.
The ancient temple beyond the bronze door proves to be a puzzle of great complexity. At its heart is an ancient evil that the original temple – a temple of gods of the Osiran pantheon – had been created to guard and imprison. Its purpose seems to have been perverted at some point by worshippers of a newer power – Amon, a Chaos God – whose traditions have been carried into the modern age by the cannibalistic natives. The two holy warriors in the party, Grettir (Osiris) and Wilf (Mitra) conclude that there are priestly mysteries here beyond their skill and feel the possibility that enthusiastic blundering risks unleashing something regrettable upon the world. So they have Ubaron teleport to Sequarl where Rendip Rim, the High Priest of Osiris in Chittagong is labouring to establish a temple. He returns with the High Priest.
They overcome many threats: a well of blood in which there were the captured souls of a multitude; a giant venomous snake; many powerful undead; and warriors wrought of stone. At the very heart of the complex, a statue of the war god, Anhur, still stands guard at the entrance of an evil throne room. It is occupied by an ancient lich who cast a (fortunately unsuccessful) death spell at Grettir and Wilf as they storm towards the dais upon which he sat. His undead servitors and crowd around the adventurers. Grettir presses forward to the throne where sat the lich and lops his head with a single blow of his sword. All falls quiet and the undead and stone warriors crumble to dust.
In the room is a throne and eight mighty sarcophagi. Seven of these are empty, but one is still occupied. Its incumbent can be heard crying out for its release. This was why Rendip Rim was here and he dealt with the denizen of the last sarcophagus. Meanwhile the rest undertake a through and professional looting of the throne room. All done, Ubaron returns Rendip Rim to Temple of Osiris in Chittagong with some of the more evil paraphernalia discovered. Grettir helps himself to the statue of Anhur which he subsequently sets up in a side chapel of the new Sequarl Temple, there to be honoured for his long vigil against the evil in Santos.
After the departure of Rendip Rim, and the return of Ubaron, Grettir is keen to return to the original mission: obtaining a suitable spider for Yu-Chi. There is a rearrangement of the party as Jason, Girindor and Wilf all decide they have better things to do. The magicians return them to Basi and come back with Yu-Chi and Demeetha. The new party spend some while exploring the island but though they do encounter some large arachnids, they find nothing that Yu-Chi considers suitable to her purposes. Eventually they conclude that it is a bust and the Dark Elves are transported back to Basi by Kolgrim, leaving only Grettir, Ranulf and Ubaron to explore further.
The three revert to type: Ranulf searches for interesting rocks; Ubaron seeks narcotic plants; Grettir tries to truffle out fungi. The latter two have some modest success. Ranulf curses the uninteresting volcanic rocks that are all that is to be found round here. Eventually they stumble upon a settlement. This turns out to be the domain of a sorceror named Rygon. Rygon is polite and hospitable in a formal way. He is interested in trade for magical artefacts and can tell that the party are awash with them. He has interesting potions and weaponry with a black magic flavour. Grettir and Ubaron indulge him, up to a point, with some minor trades. It is a wary, chairy sort of encounter – each weighing the likelihood of victory, if the chips were down. Grettir does not reveal his true identity (though he imagines Rygon can guess it). He does not doubt that his name attracts a bounty in certain parts of the Southern Seas, and he wants at least to give Rygon the option of plausible deniability. They spend an uneasy night and set a watch. They depart in the morning, initially to Basi, and thence back to a chilly Sequarl in the depths of the coldest winter.
G-8
OE Date: December 694
Characters: Grettir, Ubaron, Wilf, Ranulf, Jason, Girindor NPCs: Kolgrim, Demeetha, Yu-Chi, Rendip Rim
Real World: January 2007; Where: Surbiton
See also Ubaron’s Diaries