Chapter 2: The Land of Sulan

[Longman]

The mage and cleric sneak across the sunken garden and the scorpion shows some signs of moving towards them, but then stops. You are OK.

The sea-elf is still back with Teruk and his men, at the south entrance to the garden.

Jaali floats down the newly-dug tunnel into room 9 and sees the old wooden furniture mentioned before. It is of a totally unfamiliar style, a little like this except in much worse condition.



There are also 2 piles of skins on the floor, quite large (about 10' long each), and some signs of recent activity like candle wax, food scraps etc, but it looks like whoever was in here has packed up and gone now.

The doorway leading north to area 8 is open.

The rest of the group can come inside, if they wish. There's not much point standing around in the garden. You will eventually draw the scorpion's attention.

[Woe]

Kanya will enter the room. She'll avoid the skins (fleas!) and instead see if she can determine which deity was (is?) being worshipped here.

[quozl]

Yuan-Cheng will retrieve his sword and also go down the tunnel.

[SerGavin]

Saracen follows them, rifle raised and wary of ambush.

[mTeasdale]

Jaali will sneak through the hallway leading to room number 8.

If some could poke the skin with a staff or pole to check if there is something hidden under, that would be good I guess ?

[quozl]

Yuan-Cheng stabs the skins with his sword and moves them aside.

[Longman]

Everyone is now in the room.

There is nothing under the skins. These were the places that 2 of the ogres were sleeping. That's all. You find a few personal effects - including a rather neat flint and steel, and a harmonica - but that's all.

Now you are away from the scorpion threat, it's time to speed things up. There are 2 skull warriors left in this part of the complex (in room 10) who surrender as soon as you enter that room.

Corridor 8 has a tunnel leading upward 70' to the surface, which is empty. Ropes and climbing spikes are placed in the tunnel.

Room 10 features 3 15' tall statues of Island gods that turn out to have semi-precious stones set into their fingernails. There are 30 gems all up. Do you want to remove them? Jaali thinks they are worth maybe 1000 gp or more, all up. The gods look evil, but Kanya does not know anything about them.

Room 10 also contains 2 more piles of skins for ogres, and lots of sleeping spaces for skull warriors, plus many minor possessions and signs of habitation - but nothing of any real value.

The 2 remaining ogres have either gone, or, are hiding somewhere you haven't explored yet.

Area 11 - There are many paintings of insect spirits. This area is full of chirping, and the rushing noise of the surf outside. Kanya suspects the area was probably used for divination, and the paintings are very old. The wooden statues in area 12 are much newer - maybe only 2-300 years old.

You have 2 prisoners. You have not explored 3-4, or 5, 6 and 7. The doors to 5, 6 and 7 are brass and totally sealed and Jaali thinks no one has been inside there in a very long time.

Do you want to interrogate? Explore?

[MevlyTM]

Maju looks closely at the prisoners, attempting to be as intimidating as possible. In Salayan (which I assume the skull warriors understand) he says, "We have every right to kill the both of you, or worse." He points at the cleric, "In fact, this one here pays homage to her deity by inflicting pain…the more the better. So if I let her get hold of you, you're in for a long…painful…life…what's left of it anyway. So you had best answer my questions. And I already know much of the truth. It would be bad if you lied." Once he's convinced that they're sufficiently frightened he says, "First question, what was your group digging for in the village, and why?"

OOC: If this works, I have additional questions for them. @Longman, if you want to go ahead and play it though, that's fine. Some of my additional questions:

1. Where are you from?
2. What interest do you have in the nearby village?
3. What did the witch-doctor promise you for your service?
4. What will happen once word of this reaches your homeland?
5. Where is there any treasure here?

Also, if anyone else can think of any questions, Maju will gladly translate.

[Longman]

The reaction roll for Maju is again excellent, so here goes. Feel free to add questions.

- These warriors are badly burned. One will die soon if he does not get help.
- When you mention that Kanya is a priestess of a pain goddess, they say: "You mean like Zruka? That's who we worship, as well! The whole island used to worship her! These are statues of her 3 main forms - Pain, Hate, and Greed!"

- 12 warriors + Ishakt arrived 2 weeks ago and enter temple via the front door, kidnapping people from the village soon after. They are from a larger sect of Zruka based at Skull Village in the south.
- Teruk fought the sect, but lost men against the giant animals, and went to seek the ancient well in the desert - and ran into you on the way.
- The ogres showed up 10 days ago. They were also seeing the temple, and were interested in finding "lost objects" - i.e the blue spheres. They found one of these, using a magical excavation device (some kind of small black sphere), embedded in the earth above area #8. They went seeking another blue sphere, in the village.
The two warriors you have captured do not know what these spheres are, only that the ogre leader seem to have some way of detecting them using a pair of magical goggles.
- The ogre leader and his friend just ran away, about twenty minutes ago, by climbing out of #8 with a blue sphere, the detection goggles, a magic excavation device, and other items. They told the warriors not to follow, or they would kill them.
- It becomes apparent that two more healthy warriors have also recently fled, on a magical flying token bird (basically a thick log, carved to look like a bird). They took lots of loot with them - loot that the cult found when they raided the temple.
- The warriors will not enter area 5, 6 and 7 and say that Ishakt said it was haunted and protected by the ancient wizards who made the temple.
- The warriors don't get anything for serving Ishakt. They're cultists. They say that the cult leader, "The Doctor of Doctors", is much worse than Ishakt, and has many more animal tokens. If he becomes aware that there is serous opposition to his plans up here, he will probably send more men on flying bird tokens to attack you. But he is at war on several fronts with southern villages as well.
- Jaali is actually wearing the mechanism for controlling the remaining token animals; a belt made of the skulls, that are linked to the tokens. The warriors do NOT know the command word for the crabs or scorpions. But Jaali (or someone) could probably control the snakes, if he concentrated on it while they were active. I think you have 2 red and 3 green ones. I'd have to check.

Phew.

[mTeasdale]

Wow, so much information !

While this discussion is going, Jaali will sneak out of the room and will try to pry out the gems of the statues in room 10, starting with one, and if nothing happens, he will get them all.