The Temple of Antisanity

**The Temple of Antisanity**, is the eleventh episode of *The Chain*. It aired on April 10th, 2019.

The Chain of Acheron free themselves from The Isle of the Dead and set off for The Island of Madness where The Temple of Antisanity awaits.

## Summary

### Isle of the Dead

After ordering Junior Officer Toad to muster the troops to protect the ship, the senior officers go charging towards the skull, smashing skeletons as they go.

Battle commences! As they enter the skull, the floor changes from rocky to covered with bones. The Balhannoth is inside the skull. Judge tries to attack it with no success, then disappears. Judge is surprised to find himself back on the ship. Boots dashes in and deals a lot of damage to the Balhannoth... and now it disappears. Copper, the best ranger, is able to hit the invisible Balhannoth with one of his shots, allowing the rest of the party to see that it's still in the same place it was. Leech's attack, however, was unsuccessful, leaving Slim to try to figure out how to find the invisible foe. He decides to try to kick a bunch of debris through the area to see if he can find where it went.

That doesn't work, but it reappears on the ceiling above King, reaches down and grapples him. They trade blows and the rest of the Chain continues to attack. Leech casts faerie fire to keep it from being able to disappear on them again. After a few more exchanges, tentacles erupt from the ground and attacks Slim. Judge steps up to the memory eater and slams his greatsword through it, killing it. The skeletons all return to the mound and disappear.

The Chain searches the cave and comes up with a couple of potions, a couple of scrolls, a greatsword, and a bone bow. They then return to the ship and resume searching for the Isle of Madness. Once back on the ship, Leech gives them all more information about the Lord of Madness. He has many worshipers (derro) and is, himself, an Old One with many tricks up his sleeve. They should be prepared to have a hard time. They spend some time preparing weapons for their confrontation with the Lord of Madness and strategizing how to access the inverted tower.

### Isle of Madness

Slim sets the course and orders the ship to stop a mile short of their destination so everyone can rest up prior to their confrontation with the Lord of Madness. After spending the night, they approach the Isle of Madness. It's relatively small and has seven tall, spindly alien spires reaching up from it, like seven fingers reaching to the sky. Leech reassures the senior officers that this time he's certain they're in the right place. He tells them many years ago it used to be the Isle of Magic and that there are eight towers on it, one of which is inverted. Each of the towers represented a school of magic.

Leech sends Odie to scout a place where they can storm the beach. Odie flies over and in the middle of the ruined city finds what appears to be a Roman-esque temple. From above, Odie sees the dome, a square building, and a bunch of pillars. Leech instructs Odie to turn invisible investigate the temple. There is a couple of heavily armed derro guarding the entrance to the temple.

When Odie enters the temple, he sees an elaborate alien symbol carved into the flagstones of the floor, a pool, and a number of derro. There's a large gong next to the pool. When Odie enters the room, one of the derro sniffs the air as if it's detected Odie, so Leech instructs him to leave immediately. Leech recognizes the symbol. Leech then jumped into the water to see if he could spot another way into the tower, but was disoriented in the dark and was attacked by a kuatoa and rescued by the senior officers and pulled back up on the ship.

They draw close enough to the island for them to disembark along the tentacles. Leech warns them that the symbol he saw in the temple is a powerful symbol of magic that will induce madness. Then they make their way stealthily through the city towards the temple.

Boots tries to sneak as far as he can into the temple without risking detection and attempts to hide, but he's detected. Suddenly, he stands up and the rest of the Chain can see an iron crown over his head. Leech warns them all to stay away from Boots because he'll attack them. The derro who detected Boots go back inside the temple, so the Chain waits for the spell to wear off before taking any other actions.

They send Odie into the temple to try to trigger the symbol of madness, which they believe is a one-use ward. When Odie goes in there, they can hear the derro shouting. One of them says, "The alarm's gone off!" The guards move to attack him, but the symbol isn't triggered. When the guards move to attack the imp, King steps out to attack them with a fireball...