TGAT: Session 33

The Earth Temple is carved from the raw rock of the temples foundations

## The Great Ziggurat of Boccob (Cont...)

### The Earth Temple

The party stood at the huge bronze doors to the Earth aligned section of the Ziggurat. Richard Dickens ordered Cubone to scout ahead, scope out the area and report back.

Cubone noticed that the walls, floor and ceiling of the Earth Temple area was build from entirely raw, unfinished stone which had to be bolstered in sections with thick wooden beams.

At the end of a long corridor Cubone could see a massive window-like pane of semi-transparent crystal which he crept up to in order to peer inside. The room on the opposite side contained a treasure trove of gemstones, crystals, and chunks of gold, silver, iron, lead, and copper ores ranging is size from a clenched fist to a fairly rotund human torso. These treasures were being arranged and sorted, and buried in the room by a pair of earth and mud mephits.

Cubone reported back and the rest of the party accompanied him to the crystalline panel. Richard Dickens knocked on the window and told the mephits to stop what they were doing. The mephits looked at each other somewhat stunned before melding into the earthen walls and floor around them.

The party enter the door to the west believing it to take them to the room with the now hidden mephits. Upon opening the door they are greeted by a hulking great 15ft wide stone golem, its hands upturned and outstretched. Einrik Stürmkarst notices marking around the base and wrists of the stone golem and concentrates hard (casting comprehend languages) and a few moments later the glyphs morph in his mind forming readable letters, and seconds later sentences.

Einrik reads:

> *"The earth revels in possession, it's avarice has no bounds, but motivates the souls of others in the acquisition and holding of all that is truly precious. It seeks to acquire all that shines, sparkles, or is buried... and that which it can never have..."*
>
>

Richard Dickens largely ignoring the stone golem proceeds into the room to the north to confront the mephits. As he opened the door a 15-foot cone of rock shards and pebbles comes blasting out of the room, closely followed by a belch of viscid mud which coated Richard Dickens immobilising him.

Einrik Stürmkarst, Cubone and Siya Lia battle the Earth Mephits who keep spawning more of their kind each round. Einrik Stürmkarst drops the Mud Mephit who explodes in a burst of sticky mud coating all the combatants within 5 feet of it restraining them until the end of their next turn. With a single Earth Mephit left it softens all of the earth in the room, causing everyone inside to sink up to 4 foot into the mud and it asks to be spared, although only Einrik Stürmkarst hears this request, the others simply hear what sounds like rocks smashing together. Einrik Stürmkarst relays the request to the group and they stop attacking and instead pull themselves free of the mud and return to the doorway.

They watch as the Earth Mephit spawns in another of its kind and returns to stacking and burying gemstones and ore into the earthen walls and floor. Cubone hands them his whetstone and they silently take it and bury it. Cubone hands them all his whetstones and they silently take them and bury them. Richard Dickens hands them a copper piece and they silently take it and bury it.

Cubone takes a look around the south of the main corridor and finds another crystalline window to the south with another room mirroring the mephit room to the north, with another pair of mephit's sorting and burying various examples of the earths bounties. Cubone also finds a pair of bronze doors to the east but they won't open.

Einrik Stürmkarst suggests they look at the stone golem again. They try placing some earth in one of the open hands. Nothing happens. They try placing a giant chunk of gold ore from the north mephit room, wrestling the ore from the mephit's who really don't want to let them take the ore but have no hope of over powering the party. When again nothing happens, the mephit's swiftly reclaim the ore.

Richard Dickens places a Thunderstone in the stone golem's hand and it shifts slightly but nothing more. He tries again cracking off a sunrod and gifts the earth an offering of light. The stone golem's hand slowly clenches tightly around the sunrod, the light its emitting vanishes as it becomes entombed within its massive fist. Einrik Stürmkarst lights a torch and gifts the earth an offering of fire. The stone golem's hand slowly clenches tightly around the torch, extinguishing the flame as it too is compressed between the golems huge palm and craggy fingers.

They leave the golem room back into the large corridor and again try the bronze doors. This time they are unlocked but are obstructed by rock fall and won't open further than being barely ajar. The party retrace their steps north and notice a secret tunnel has also opened in the north section of the large corridor, the opening is perfectly round and splits off in two directions about 20 foot from the entrance.

The party quickly scour the tunnels by the entrance and find a passageway that drops down 20 foot but opt to leave it alone. A few minutes later they find another passageway that drops down 20 foot. Richard Dickens drops his torch down and the passageway heads north. He sets a grappling hook into the earth floor and rappels down. As he turns around he is confronted by a set of teeth lining the walls of the tunnel ahead within a circular "lip" of purple strobila.

Richard Dickens swiftly exits the tunnel back the way he came and the worm doesn't appear to follow. Einrik Stürmkarst who has found another tunnel, he peers down to see a Purple Worm staring back at him and is panicked, he turns around and runs away screaming.