Y5 D4 & 5 Report

General Summary

The new year saw a return of most of the townsfolk to Sage's Hollow in preparation for the Adventurer's planned return to the Earth Temple. It also saw Tanaros finally pry himself away from the library of the Shady Tavern and return to Sage's Hollow. The Adventurers who braved the Earth Temple once again found there indeed had been new undead attracted to the place by the evil Lich who currently resides there. The, now higher level Silver, Alger and Conord who returned made light work of the first few giant zombies they encountered. They explored deeper into the Temple than they had before, coming across a strange underground river which lead to steaming vents. The party followed the caves under the temple deeper and discovered more shadowy evil that resides there. They were attacked by a ghost, poor, young Titus taking a deadly Shadow Bolt, which forsake him to a walking death. Not even Alger's freshly made HP potions could help Titus as the Shadowy Energy consumed him. They thought they were prepared for it for the evil energy this time, but that proved to be a miscalculation as the ghosts were not only unable to be seen or touched, but they were more powerful in the shadow magic than enemies previously encountered. Rothgar located some familiar mushrooms which he identified would allow the imbiber to see ghosts, but would also make one nauseous but unfortunately, he located them too late. As Titus died from his shadow bolt the ghosts shadow energy refreshed and he shot another bolt, this time at Rothgar who also did not have enough life force to stand the shadow. With his dying breath, Rothgar gave Alger a note from Alger's father. After the deaths, the group took the next 6 hours to rest and decided to continue on so their friends' deaths would not be in vein. The continued on down the caves only to find yet another ghost. This time, the party knew what to do. They took the mushrooms and were able to destroy this ghost before it got another chance to kill someone. Then, Varren saw something at the end of the cave. There was light and as he got closer he saw lava...then a familiar sight. He saw a rune suspended by chains above the Lava. He ran as fast as he could, balancing along the narrow chains with little effort and touched the rune, learning the power of Earth. Jut as he did, a creature came swimming out of the stone wall and shot a wave of elemental energy at Varren. On the brink of death, Varren thought quickly and dodged the blast of energy by dropping off the chain, catching it with his hands and vaulting back on top with a graceful spin. He got out of the way just in time to catch a heal from Silver. The creatures swam through the earth, hiding until their earthen powers refreshed and shot elemental energy and created ground spikes that damaged allies. After a tough fight, the Adventurers killed the rock men and Silver was free to also learn the Earth rune.