Session 24 – The Amber Temple

6th Day of the 4th Quarter of the Moon of Songs, Season of Wines, Year 766.

Days in Barovia: 9. The moon waxes gibbous.

Diplomatic Relations

Black tentacles writhed across the floor, coverting the west side of the room; within their grasp there was no sign of the shaman, the barbarian or the hell hound. The three charmed warriors and the dog look dejectedly at Paris as Cornelius dumped the corpse of their comrade on to the floor.

It was cold- deathly cold, here, colder than the waters of the Luna river, colder than the wind that howls through the chasm in mount Ghakis, well below freezing. Cornelius did not feel the chill, but Dickie and Paris’ teeth started chattering as their breath steamed from their mouths. The Tergs, flesh coated in grey  mud, wore heavy furs that appeared to be keeping them warm.

“My dear fellows, I really am awfully sorry about that-“ Paris gestured to Cornelius’ kill- “but we’re still pals, aren’t we? You won’t hold it against us?”

The Tergs did not appear to speak the same language as the Bullingdon Boys, but were able to communicate with Paris through empathic cues and gestures.

“Pals, Paris?” Cornelius spluttered, “you’re pals with these degenerates?”

“Yes!” Paris said emphatically, winking at Cornelius. “I think they’re absolutely… Charming!” He winked again.

“Paris, something is wrong with your face.”

“I charmed them with my ‘personality’,” Paris said pointedly, subtly gesturing to his wand.

“Ah, I see what you mean,” said Cornelius as he cottoned on, “you charmed them with your magic?”

Clarence had stuck his head back through the fissure, and seeing the peaceful scene he dismissed his tentacles. As they puffed away into oily smoke, he clambered down, turning on Paris.

“I can’t see very much of a difference between that and what you assured me were charmed individuals!”

“Well, these ones aren’t attacking us because they think I’m friends with them. What I was saying was, if you’d stopped attacking the priest I’m sure I could’ve persuaded him to cease the attack. But you made it incredibly difficult for me to make peace!”

As Paris’ voice was raised against Clarence, the Tergs turned on the Bullingdon, moving towards him menacingly. Thinking quickly, Paris said “Ah, but I forgive you!” and pushed past his new friends to wrap Clarence in an embrace. The Tergs stopped as Paris gave them a big thumbs up- one sheepishly smiling and reciprocating the gesture- but another pointed at the corpse Cornelius had deposited on the floor and communicated something like “I’m not very happy that Cornelius has sauntered in and thrown the dead body of my comrade at my feet.”

“I don’t think they’re very happy you’ve dumped that corpse there, Cornelius. I think maybe we should-“

“No, hold on Paris, I can explain.” Cornelius turned to the mud-clad warriors and spoke slowly, enunciating each word. “This was a ‘misunderstanding’. My brother and I thought you were trying to kill us. And we responded in kind. I apologise. I am sorry for the death of your friend, OK?” He raised his hands in a pacifying gesture.

It appeared to work, as the Tergs looked at each other; at Paris; narrowed their eyes at Clarence, then looking from Cornelius to the corpse morosely. One of them gave a forgiving shrug.

“Very good, very good. Here, you can each have a shiny coin for your troubles!”

As Cornelius pressed the coins into mud-coated hands, Dickie slid over to the south wall of the room where something in the pattern of the stonework looked… wrong. His fingers probed the discrepancy and found a mechanism; with a click, a section of the wall slid backward revealing a dusty cloister. Cylindrical holes fit for scrolls were carved into the south wall, but any papers that may once have been there had long since crumbled to dust.

Dickie sighed. “Well, that’s a disappointment.” Then, to his companions, “Bloody cold in here!”

“Is it?” Cornelius asked. “I feel quite comfortable.”

Paris did some pantomime with the Tergs to indicate that he was cold, and they should give him their furs. The Tergs pantomimed back that indeed it was cold, and their furs were keeping them nice and warm. Paris tugged one of their coats, pointed to himself, and indicated that they were friends. Cornelius loudly cleared his throat and tapped the dead Terg, also wearing a rough coat, with the toe of his boot. Paris dove for it.

“Right,” said Paris from within his new furs, “now we’re all warmed up-“

“Speak for yourself, I’m bloody freezing,” said Dickie, his hands under his armpits, teeth chattering.

Cornelius suggested his companions share the fur coat- Paris wearing it for ten minutes, then Clarence for ten, then Dickie for five. This suggestion was not popular.

Dickie suggested killing the remaining Tergs and taking their furs. Paris wasn’t comfortable killing his new friends- Clarence was less squeamish.

“Now, look here,” Cornelius said after some discussion. “We don’t need to kill them. We could trade with them!” He turned to the Tergs with an electrum piece in his hand. “I will give you this shiny bead for your furs!”

The Terg muttered at Cornelius, showing him the gold piece the Marquis of Saxonia had paid him a few minutes previously. An electrum piece obviously wouldn’t do, seeing as Cornelius had been so free with gold already.

Paris conjured a small carving in his hand; a lewd statuette of a naked woman in posed provocatively. He gave the Tergs a wink and showed them his work; one chuckled, reaching for the trinket, but Paris snatched it away. The barbarian shrugged off his furs, handing them to Paris, who gave him the statue. The Terg laughed deeply, then turned, shivering, towards the fissure and left. The dog followed him, and the two other mud-clad warriors as well, bereft of their furs once Paris made them similar rude idols.

“There we go- clothing for pornography,” said Paris, tossing a fur cloak each to Dickie and Clarence.

“Say chaps,” said Dickie through chattering teeth, “before we push any further into this… Citadel of Darkness, I could really do with a rest.” Leading the long, hard journey from Berez had left the manservant exhausted.

It was early evening now, and the Bully Boys retreated from the temple- out through the crevasse- back to the mountainside façade. Paris conjured the Golden Bully Hut, and they settled down to while away the evening and recover their strength. The temple could wait until morning.

This night, they set watches, lest the Tergs return in anger. They did not, and the night passed uneventfully- except for Clarence, who heard the beating of some huge wings passing over them in the darkness. And then silence.

When morning came the Bully Boys entered the Amber Temple. Cornelius led the way, striding confidently through the entrance guarded by amber statues. As he descended the steps into the sepulchral darkness, Cornelius snapped his fingers and his holy symbol beamed with light; a glow then joined by Paris’ luminous orbs.

Cornelius strode through the entrance corridor out on to the balcony where he had killed the Terg warrior, but coming in behind him for the first time, the other Bullingdon Boys payed some more attention to their surroundings. There were slits in the stone- murder holes- along each side of the corridor.

“Ooh!” Paris pressed his eye right up to one, and sent a floating ball of light through to the chamber beyond. The room appeared to be empty… Except for a skeleton in one corner, in a blue wizard’s robe, clutching a wand to its chest and lacking a skull.

“Err, wand in there, Clarence.”

“Really?”

“Yes, have a look. Press your eye to this murder hole.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Pressing your eye to a murder hole?” Clarence emphasised murder.

“Well, when you put it like that…”

From the limited perspective of the murder hole they could not see an entrance to the chamber- only bare stone, no doors along the walls or traps on the floor or ceiling. The chamber on the other side of the corridor was the same, minus the skeleton.

“If there’s a way in, I’m sure we’ll find it,” said Dickie, joining Cornelius. Clarence and Paris followed, and Paris’ lights illuminated the chamber before them.

Skulduggery

They stood on a wide balcony of black marble with shattered railings, overlooking a vast temple. Black marble staircases at each end of the balcony descended to the temple floor, thirty feet below them. The walls and ceiling were covered in an amber glaze, weirdly reflecting the magical lights. A set of amber doors stand closed to the west- to the room where the Tergs had camped- and another set stand open to the east.

Below and before them, four black marble columns held the vaulted ceiling of the temple, where at the far end stood a statue, forty feet tall, of a cowled figure in flowing robes. The statue’s hands were outstretched in some arcane gesture, and its face was a void of utter darkness, even as Paris’ lights washed past it.

The ominous statue stood between to black marble balconies, the easternmost partially collapsed. The walls of the temple are sheathed in amber, and the doors are of amber as well. Arched hallways coated with amber led to the west and east, and these exits were flanked by alcoves which held white marble statues of robed figures with pointed hats and golden staffs. One was shattered upon the floor.

Along the walls of the upper level, arrow slits looked down into the temple. Those along the eastern wall- just north of the Terg’s chamber- flickered internally with green light.

Dickie looked from the cowled statue, to Clarence, to the cowled statue. “Blimey, Clarence, I didn’t realise you had this big a following.”

“It is not that I am followed, but I am the follower.”

“Yes,” Cornelius nodded, “you are all my followers.”

“Precisely.”

Dickie raised an eyebrow. “Yes, clearly.”

“I’m glad you both agree. Now, where shall we go from here?”

A door on the south wall just next to the Terg camp entrance them lead into what looked like an empty guardroom or barracks. It would be adjacent to the western murder hole chamber, and while there was no door, investigating the wall between the two spaces Dickie found once again a disguised mechanism that hid an entrance. The chamber looking onto the corridor was empty but Dickie was getting a knack for finding these secret doors.

Dickie was staunchly against going into the Terg’s camp, as they may be back and hostile; additionally, the flickering lights behind the arrow slits gave him pause. They went through the open door to the east of the balcony which led into a large stone room. Double doors of amber stood open to the north, where the marble floor was cracked. There was a single door just south of the doors they came through, and a rough-edged hole ten feet in diameter in the floor of the eastern side of the room.

In addition that cast by Cornelius’ holy symbol and Paris’ dancing lights, a flickering green light emerged from the well. Paris and Dickie watched as the source of the light revealed itself: green flames, rising out of the hole, flames enshrouding a skull which floated upwards, eye sockets holding menacing flames. Two other flaming skulls followed it, as Paris screamed, gibbering and cackling as they emerged.

“Clarence, stop that gibbering and cackling,” Cornelius said obliviously as he studied the stonework of the walls. Clarence and Paris recognized these things, aptly known as “flameskulls”, fashioned from the remains of dead wizards in a ghastly ritual.

Dickie did not know how they were made but he had an idea on how to unmake them: his dagger flashed in one hand, and the sword-cane struck in the other, smashing the jaw clean off the closest skull. Cornelius appeared next to his manservant and the skull collapsed into fragments beneath his fists.

The golden bully sword appeared and Paris, waving his frost-enchanted wand, focussed through the crystal orb he had claimed from a vampire-wizard when they left Vallaki; and rather than the usual finger of ice flowing from the wand, a shower of warm golden light fell upon the skull.

The bully sword swung wide as Paris and Clarence scrambled out of the room, equally aware of the explosive infernos these flameskulls were known to cause. Blasts of eldritch energy covered Clarence’s retreat, scattering teeth from one skull, but both of the undead constructs opened their mouths wide cackling and balls of flame erupted around Cornelius and Dickie.

The pair flung themselves away, rolling with the explosive force, and were left singed and smoking but still alive. Dickie rolled to his feet, slashing and striking again, and Cornelius reared behind him, reached through green flame to grasp both skulls and smashed them together. The fires died as the skulls fractured, and Cornelius stomped his boots on the pieces.

“That’s not… I’m not a fan of those. They’re more dangerous than they look!” said Dickie, brushing embers off his coat.

“No no no- this fight is not over!” Paris cried, “Does anyone have holy water?” 

“Why?” Dickie asked.

“I’m a very experienced wizard, I know what I’m talking about. These things will regenerate in no time if they’re not covered in holy water.”

The skull fragments were swept into a pile and doused with a vial of holy water Cornelius had pilfered from Van Richten’s wagon. Some theological discussion as held as to Cornelius’ personal capacity, as prophet of the Morninglord, to make holy water; which led to discussion about Cornelius’ credibility as said prophet, and whether the Morninglord was gullible enough to empower his blessings.

The single door behind them led to another empty barracks, where Dickie found another secret door leading to the chamber with the headless wizard skeleton. The wand clutched in bony fingers was clearly magical, but its exact properties would require more study to discern. Paris claimed it, tucking it into one of his pockets amongst his other wands. Clarence explained how the head had likely been removed to make one of the flameskulls, much to everyone’s discomfort.

The well through which the skulls had emerged opened into a chamber with a red marble floor, some thirty feet below. They left it, for now, and exited the annexe through the northern amber doors, entering the corridor with a floor of cracked marble.

Paris’ lights flickered off the glazed amber covering the walls of the corridor. The western wall held a number of arrow slits looking down into the temple proper and across, where now familiar green lights flickered through arrow slits in the opposite corridor. The amber doors at the far end were open, and another set of double doors led east from the corridor. Cracks in the black marble floor led the length of the corridor, and through the doors at the far end.

Dickie opened the eastern doors to reveal a chamber brightly lit from red copper lanterns that hung from the ceiling. The walls were sheathed in amber, shaped in a bas-relief of wizards with spell books. Wide stairs descended to an obsidian lectern, behind which a board of slate hung from chains. Between the stairs sat descending rows of red marble benches- this was some kind of lecture hall.

The Bullingdon brothers were immediately whisked away in their memories of the university of Jotun; Cornelius’ joyful, Clarence’s fraught with terror. Dickie and Paris, less whimsical, noticed a man making a terrible effort of hiding behind the lectern: his feet stuck out from one side, and they could see him covering his head with his arms around the other.

“Show yourself!” Paris’ voice boomed magically, snapping Clarence and Cornelius from their reveries. A startled scream answered from behind the lectern; a face peered up at them, tight with terror, but relief swept across it when it registered the party.

“You, you can’t hide here! This is my hiding place, you can’t, you go away and shut the door!” the stranger’s reedy voice rattled up the stairs. Dickie casually shut the door behind him.

The man stood, revealing scorched robes; unkempt hair half burned away, arms and face covered in blisters. “Who are you? What are you doing here?” Paris demanded.

“I’m, I’m Vilnius. I came here with my master, looking for magical secrets but it’s, it’s all gone horribly wrong.”

“Who is your master?” Clarence asked.

“Who was my master! Jakarion, he’s dead now. The flameskulls did for him what they’ll do for the rest of us, if not that… Thing, before them.”

“Thing?” said Paris, “What thing?”

“Didn’t you see? You must have come down the corridor. The Thing!”

“Well, what does it look like? What kind of thing?” Paris was sceptical.

“I don’t know!” this Vilnius cried despairingly, “I’ve never seen it! But it goes stomping up and down the corridor and it’s broken the floor- you can hear it going!”

“I have little doubt whatever it is shall fall before our might,” Clarence boasted.

“Well I’m glad you’re so confident, but you could just leave me here  in peace, couldn’t you? Have you got any food?”

Paris approached Vilnius and offered the man a hard biscuit, which was snatched out of Paris’ fingers and devoured. Up close, Paris could see an amulet hanging from the man’s neck, a pendant shaped like an upside down V. As he saw Paris’ eyes upon it, Vilnius shoved the amulet inside his robes.

“Now, what was that, what was that symbol?”

“It’s mine, I found it!”

“What did it say?”

“It doesn’t say anything, it’s none of your business, it’s mine!”

Dickie coughed pointedly. “It’s clearly magic or he wouldn’t care so much.”

Vilnius narrowed his eyes at the manservant. “What do you know about magic?”

“I know a lot about crazy wizards,” Dickie replied flatly.

“There aren’t any crazy wizards in here,” Vilnius said obliviously, “they’ve all been turned into bloody flameskulls!”

Cooking With Gas

Vilnius did appear to have cracked somewhat from his experience in the Amber Temple. He wanted the party to leave him in peace; he wanted them to take him home. He wouldn’t let them leave without him, but he wouldn’t leave until they’d killed “the Thing” in the corridor. He had a magic amulet, but declared he had nothing to pay them with. He didn’t want to go deeper into the Temple, but he didn’t want to leave without his master’s magic staff, and he didn’t know the way he’d come as he had fled in panic.

The Bullingdon Boys tired of him and left him in the lecture hall, promising they would destroy “the Thing” and see him safely home before shutting the door.

They followed the cracked marble flooring north through another pair of amber doors, into a room where the walls and ceiling had collapsed. Amber doors led west onto the balcony abreast the huge statue in the temple. In the centre of the room stood an enormous statue of a hawk headed warrior made of cracked amber. Large chunks were missing from its form and the whole thing, near twice the height of a man, flickered: disappearing and reappearing, sometimes in whole, sometimes in a fluttering of different parts rendered invisible and then visible again.

“I bet it’s that,” said Dickie as they approached the room, “I bet that things going to bloody go for us.”

“It’s just a statue,” said Paris incredulously.

“Paris! We just fought flying skulls.”

“Ah. Yes.”

“Skulls are living things, Dickie, statues are just inanimate objects!” Cornelius explained.

“Not to contradict you milord, but skulls are the opposite of living…”

“You know what I mean! Skulls used to be alive, a statue is always just a statue.”

“You’re getting paranoid,” Paris said.

“I don’t trust it. It’s flickering! It’s weird.”

“I do agree with Dickie,” said Clarence.

“You know what, if it’s so safe, you can go first,” Dickie said to Cornelius.

“I always go first,” Cornelius said, striding through the amber doors, “for I am the leader.”

The statue turned to face him, and clenched its enormous fists.

Clarence, unsurprised, blasted energy at the statue while stepping back the way they had come. Dickie, likewise unsurprised, nocked an arrow but the missile when skidding off the flickering amber surface of the construct. The amber golem held its hands forwards and a wash of pressure rippled down the corridor, wrapping around Paris and Clarence who’s limbs became heavy, minds sluggish as they were ensorcelled.

The statue stepped towards Cornelius, the marble floor cracking further under each footstep. Cornelius took a deep breath, turned on his heel and ran back down the corridor, propelled on his way by the crushing impact of an amber fist.

Paris waved his wand, invoking a magic specifically designed to shatter inorganic material; a painfully intense noise reverberated from behind the statue, and the cracks in its form spread, amber flaking from its surface. Paris backed away, having to push his muscles as if he were in water.

There was a stink of brimstone and sulphur as Clarence conjured his hell hound, between the golem and the retreating party. The slowing effect faded as Clarence willed himself to move away, while another of Dickie’s arrows clattered against an amber shoulder to no effect.

The hell hound’s fangs skidded off of solid amber as two huge arms smashed down on it, almost crippling the demonic dog. Cornelius stopped his retreat: he turned, ran, and launched into the air crying “Cornelius Bullingdon!” He bodily slammed into the huge statue, which already thrown off balance by its assault on the hound…. Toppled.

Paris’ shattering spell rang out again and more cracks spread across the flickering form of the golem. Dickie gave up on the bow, and raced forward with his dagger, but that blade too simply skidded from the amber as the colossus climbed to its feet, energy lashing towards it from Clarence. Amber fists swung to Cornelius but a flash of light from his holy symbol diverted the blow, as a statuesque foot smashed into the ground inches from the waning hell hound.

The hound’s mouth opened, and flame rippled up from its gullet, scorching around Cornelius, Dickie and the statue: Dickie avoided the inferno, Cornelius was singed some more, and amber cracked and flaked from the golem.

The flickering statue was starting to fall apart, Cornelius’ fists pounding cracked amber, frost from Paris’ wand and swings from the Golden Bully Sword; Dickie’s dagger finally struck true in a deep crack in the statue’s thigh which caused the whole leg to rupture and collapse, the golem taking a plaintive swing at Dickie who was clobbered as it fell. Finally it shattered into chunks of amber, the flicker between visible and invisible stopping as Cornelius’ fists reduced it to rubble.

The hell hound breathed in, about to unleash its firey breath over the party once again, but a ray of frost flitted from Paris and the inherent flame of the creature was put out- it collapsed in a pile of brimstone-scented steam.

“I have to admit, on this one occasion, Dickie, you were right about that statue,” said the flamboyant mage as the fracas closed.

Some discussion followed on where whoever built this place got their hands on so much amber; and what amber even was, the conclusion being that it was probably all the fault of wizard nonsense. Dickie wanted a breather, but Clarence wished to push ahead. Vilnius had mentioned his master’s staff, and the younger Bullingdon was excited at the prospect of more arcane artefacts.

The balcony overhung the northeast corner of the temple, beneath one arm of the huge faceless statue. The next room held a shrine, in which the fragments of a shattered obsidian statue were scattered. There were empty alcoves to either side and Dickie, knowing what to look for now, found another concealed door.

The door opened into a dusty corridor where a dark staircase curved down. The air was thin, but carried the heady stench of death. “Phwoar, blimey,” exclaimed Dickie, “Do you smell that? Death!”

The Bullingdon Boys advanced with uncharacteristic caution. Dickie led, catlike, silent, down into the bowels of the temple. The stairs descended to a collapsed hall with a high ceiling and walls of amber. Rubble was strewn across the floor but a path led to an open doorway, from whence the stench issued.

Dickie held up a hand to stop his comrades, and moved across the rubble, not even a pebble shifting in his wake. Silently, he reached the door and looked within. The room had amber glazed walls and a floor of green marble, strewn with bones. In alcoves to the north, east and south stood sarcophagi carved of amber blocks, points of darkness flitting within them like shifting shadows.

Two feral-looking humanoids with ghastly grey skin and long black claws crouched chattering in hushed tones, and Dickie saw they had three eyes: two as one may expect to see upon a man, with a third, lidless and clouded in the centre of their heads. Five more creatures clung to the ceiling.

Dickie returned to his comrades and described what he’d seen. He suggested Paris throw a fireball into the room of monsters- Paris was wholeheartedly on board, and worked his way towards the door. He was not as stealthy as Dickie- a stone skidded from his boot, and he paused with his heart in his mouth, but whatever was within did not seem to notice. He moved into position undetected, and, glancing back at his comrades, twirled his wand.

An ember floated from the tip, growing rapidly as it spiralled into the room. A three-eyed head turned to Paris and then a great explosion of heat and fire washed out of the amber door. There were brief screeches of agony, and a thud-thud-thud-thud-thud as five bodies fell from the ceiling; the death-stink was lost beneath the equally unpleasant smell of burning flesh, and a lone creature came stumbling from the room, horrifically burned and wailing, flesh sloughing from its body.

Cornelius stepped forward and, with a single blow, put the creature out of its misery.