Before venturing back to Bysantos, Grettir took counsel with Eshen, the senior priest at the Temple of Ptah in Chittagong. Ubaron went with him. Eshen was somewhat distracted by an upcoming ceremony in which he would be consecrated as Heirophant. Because of this no-one could really be spared from the temple to join the expedition at this time. Enquiries about Amonsil who had ventured to Ushkedir were met with vagueness. Grettir never had a great deal of faith in Eshen, who he had always found to be somewhat ingratiating and lacking the gravitas of the likes of Rendip Rim. Ubaron took a similar view. Nevertheless, Eshen gave the venture his blessing and somewhat redeemed himself in Grettir’s eyes by giving him a ring – a token of Ptah made of gold and lapis lazuli. He also offered some useful detail on the probable structure of the Temple of Ptah, which he said would likely be on three or four levels each of greater holiness than the one above.
Their first attempt to plumb the depths of the Temple of Ptah brought limited progress. Paradoxides eventually resorted to brute force by casting a couple of Fissure spells to crack it open. The first was quite successful, but the second brought the roof down – they barely got out alive. Girindor explored the ruins by walking through the earth and found a pocket that had resisted collapse, and beyond it a blocked stairway. He brought Paradoxides to this place, who took teleport co-ordinates. On the Sequarl payroll were a team of dwarves who Grettir used for civil engineering projects. The dwarves were summoned and readily agreed to assist when promised a bonus and an armed guard while they worked. Dwarves work fast and efficiently. In but a day they had cleared the rubble and shored up a passage into the second fissure created by Paradoxides. They were teleported back to base.
It still required a lot of climbing in the wizard-wrought chasm to get the whole party to the door at the bottom of the broken stairway. It was marked with sigils of Ptah and was impervious to all the conventional methods of opening until Grettir presented the ring that Eshen had given him. The passage beyond was guarded by undead spectres. Once more Grettir’s ring allowed him to pass but his companions had to rely upon the Protection from Undead amulets that Paradoxides had wrought for each of the party prior to the expedition until Wilf called upon the power of Mitra to hold them at bay.
They came to a large chamber. Its roof was adorned with the carved figure of a naked goddess. From the floor, aligned with the groin of the goddess, sprouted an unmistakably phallic pillar. At the base of the pillar was a skeleton, wisps of vestments still adhering, arms around the pillar. Grettir put his hand upon the skeleton’s head and spoke words of Osiris that its soul might pass on to judgement and be reborn. As he did so the bones crumbled to dust, in amongst which could be seen an artefact. He had seen it before in his dreams – it was a Phthet of Ptah.
Grettir prayed to Osiris and meditated (there was to be a lot of this sort of thing on the trip). The female figure was Knut, the Sky Goddess; the phallus belonged to Geb, God of the Earth; their congress represented creation or renewal. It had been appropriate to send the priest to his rest. However, the priest had been warding off evil forces interfering with the completion of the ritual of Geb and Knut. These forces were trying to enter the Earth from the Void. For now, in the absence of the priest, it was Grettir’s personal presence keeping them at bay. Grettir inferred that he had made himself morally responsible for providing the protection previously offered by the priest’s sacrifice. Being somewhat unwilling to spend the rest of his life and beyond clinging to a pillar, Grettir turned to his comrades for suggestions.
Ubaron volunteers to teleport back to Chittagong to seek help from the Temple of Ptah. Girindor starts to commune with the temple. Paradoxides reconnoitres the Astral Realms. He returns with news that the temple is besieged by a family, or perhaps a small tribe, of blue demons. Ubaron is not expected back from Chittagong imminently and in any case Paradoxides is only able to take four companions. Grettir, Wilf, Jason and Kolgrim join hands and Grettir grips that of Paradoxides. They arrive in a bare windswept landscape dominated by the Pillar of Ged, which exists equally in this place as in Byzantos. It is surrounded by demons who are poking and prodding at it. There are several large demons. There is a couple (male and female) that are extremely large, others have wings. There is in addition a host of smaller imps. The demons are armed with a variety of weapons and some have powerful magics. It is a hard fight but the humans win the field. Most of the demons are slain, including the two behemoths, and the rest flee. The victors strip the bodies and collect demon requisites. Paradoxides transports them back to the chamber with Geb and Knut.
About an hour later Ubaron shows up with Amonsil. It seems that everyone in the Temple of Ptah was drunk or stoned after their ritual (or at least that’s how it sounded to Grettir), but that someone there had let slip that Amonsil had formed some sort of splinter group. He’d set up his own shrine down the hill in a shack with a temple cat and an acolyte as his ministry. Ubaron looked him up and explained the situation. Amonsil simply grabbed up his satchel and his staff. He could hardly contain himself with excitement as he arrived in a genuine ancient Temple of Ptah. He repeated to Grettir more or less what he had said to Ubaron. After the epiphany of his experiences at Ushkedir, he had returned full of excitement and enthusiasm to Chittagong. However, the Temple in general and Eshen in particular had been unmoved by his insights and insisted upon continuing with their dry and dessicated rituals and forms of worship. Eventually he could bear it no more and so founded his own temple. It was small affair but he was convinced he was on the right path. He examined Grettir’s Phthet and confirmed that it was the real deal. However, he had to inform Grettir that it was empty – it had served its purpose and had been exhausted of its charge. Grettir was disappointed.
Amonsil sat to pray and meditate. After a relatively short while, he awoke. He said that Geb was stirring and pointed to the elf. Everyone had rather forgotten Girindor in all the excitement but now they noticed that he had slumped over. His vital signs were dangerously weak. Grettir put forth his ka to bring him back from the brink of death. Ubaron then cast several healing spells. The elf recovered sufficiently to tell them that he had tried to waken Geb. No-one bothered to ask why he had decided to do such a thing, since the elf had never met a powerful entity that he didn’t want to poke until it did something. Girindor had tried once using his own earth power to wake the god. Then he had tried again using his own life-force. Geb had stirred but had not woken.
After consulting Amonsil they decided that perhaps waking Geb was the way forward now. Paradoxides offered his store of Chi to Girindor to make a third attempt. They went into a trance together while the others looked on. Shadows that gathered around the floor from whence sprouted Geb’s phallus to solidify and take the form of a giant man whose arms reached up to embrace Knut and draw her to him. The earth began to shake and debris showered down around them. It was time to leave. The wizards teleported them away from the collapsing temple. Grettir gave up a prayer of thanks to Osiris that Girindor’s first two attempts had failed.
In Sequarl Grettir consulted Rendip Rim. He felt that they had acted correctly. They had foiled an attempt by demonic forces to enter the prime plane and facilitated the completion of a ritual of creation and renewal. The destruction of a long-abandoned temple with no living worshippers was acceptable collateral damage. At the Temple of Isis Cassandra said much the same to Ubaron. Amonsil, was sent a dream that confirmed to him that the world was renewed by the completion of the ritual and though the destruction of the temple was a matter of regret, at least it had not fallen to evil. Only Eshen struck a more cautious note when Grettir went with Ubaron to return the ring. He looked ill and haggard and spoke of bad dreams and ill-omens. He confirmed that the Phthet of Ptah, though now discharged, was still a significant artefact and might be used in some future ceremony to Open the Way. However, he regretted that the present time seemed inauspicious. Grettir privately decided that the High Priest was a broken reed. Amonsil though less senior in the priesthood had far more vim and vigour. He looked to Grettir like the future of the cult of Ptah in Chittagong. After leaving the Temple of Ptah visited Amonsil’s small shrine, made a significant donation and assured him of his future support.
G-15b
OE Date: April 695
Characters: Grettir, Paradoxides, Ubaron, Wilf, Girindor, Jason NPCs: Kolgrim, Filir, Gunnar, Amonsil
Real World: May 2009; Where: Surbiton
See also Ubaron’s Diaries