Episode 25, Part 1: Let's Get The Band Back Together...

The last of the workers climbed on board, and an ice elf sealed the hold behind her before heading below decks. The ship started to move, then a few moments later, dove and began to travel underwater...

Xeno refused to lurk behind his crates any longer. Sliding out from his hiding place, he convinced the orcish Iryien to lend him a swatch of clothing so he could pretend to shine up the interior of the amphibian ship.

"What is that idiot doing?" Iryien hissed. Kobayashi peered out at the orc as he polished the bone archway that led into the next chamber.

"Look like he scouting," replied Kobayashi. "Perhaps I scout too."

He lifted the top off the crate he was hiding behind, but due to the damage it had sustained earlier, the entire crate broke open, spilling the contents loudly on the floor.

A number of the black, spiky objects lit up and started to beep.

"I suggest we remove ourselves," whispered Xeno. He hurried into the next compartment. Kobayashi quickly followed, and joined him in what appeared to be a storage closet for pungent meat.

"Fools! You can't leave these here! We'll all die! In the water!!" As Xeno wedged himself in between two crates, he pried one open and reached inside. He found two bloated sausages, their pale skins barely containing the questionably pulsating contents.

They seemed to be alive.

"Well, they should absorb some of the blast, anyway," he remarked to Kobayashi as he too crouched low.

There was a click. And a BRZOOOM!!. And a muffled cry of pain.

Then it all went silent, and the only thing that could be heard was the clatter of heavy boots up a nearby ladder as some orcs arrived to investigate the noise.

Xeno emerged from his hiding place, attempting to blend in, pretending to snack on the turgid meats.

Somewhere inside the sausage, They sensed the warmth of a living creature... felt the cradling hand... could hear the heartbeat that They longed for... hungered for. As They were lifted towards the mouth They coiled, tensed, readied themselves to strike...

And then it was gone. The creature was only pretending to eat.

They would have to wait a little longer...

As Xeno watched, a burly female orc arrived on the scene and ordered Iryien's unconscious body be taken away. The female then pointed to Xeno and another orc and ordered them to clean up the pointy weapons. Perhaps they wouldn't notice of one went missing, Xeno thought...

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Takemiya approached the final cell in the passageway and peered inside. There was a diminutive figure lying unconscious on a dirty cot inside. She looked familiar, but as Takemiya's thoughts bounced around his helm, he found himself at a loss, loosing touch with the vagaries of temporal existence.

What he really wanted was to perch himself on top of a really nice hoard somewhere. You know, some really resplendent dragon's horde somewhere and just chill out for a century or two and quit worrying about all these creatures and their constant struggle to avoid Death - like you have a chance - I mean, he's practically in our party now! How crazy is that?

But some part of him drew his mind back - his human mind - back to the present where he was staring at the prone body of...

Xoe.

Xoe! How did she get here? He tried the cell door, but alas, it was locked. He looked around for a key or a lever but stopped short as he heard approaching footsteps.

He now could make out the guard Karl and the robed priestess making their way towards him. Still invisible, he bunched himself up into a corner in order to let them pass. As they stormed by in agitation, he could hear the priestess say "They said she had captured two intruders: a gnome and a human. But when she went to interrogate them, all three of them disappeared!"

A gnome? Interrogation? Disappeared? That could only mean one thing.

Xeno.

Takemiya looked up from his thoughts in time to catch an old man in older armor pop into the hallway ahead to intercept the priestess. He asked her what was going on and she instructed him to double the guard on the prisoners and be on the lookout for anything strange. He nodded and turned on his heel, and when he did, Takemiya spotted the key ring.

Aha, Mister Jailer.

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The amphibian ship had docked, and Xeno and Kobayashi were two of the first topside. A long gangplank led down to a dock that ran parallel to a rocky beach. Kobayashi, whose transmogrification had worn off, was directed to hit the water as Xeno hopped off the dock. He met up with Kobayashi under the gangplank and looked to see where they were.

A huge stockade lay like a bloated tick in the darkness at the end of the dock. Armed guards patrolled the walls. Large, pointy logs told strangers that not only were they not welcome, but they were likely to be on the receiving end of a painful buggering if they tried to gain access without permission.

A delegation emerged from the stockade and came up the dock to greet the ice elf and her bodyguards. Xeno and Kobayashi strained to hear the conversation.

"The shipment has arrived and is intact? Excellent. My Master will be pleased. He is here to inspect it himself."

The two hidden figures recognized that voice.

Count Fundus.

What was HE doing here? Does that mean we're in Plank Town? We're back on Lungfish Isle? And his Master - is the mysterious Chang Kai Eel here as well?

This opportunity was too good to pass up.

Xeno and Kobayashi waited until the last of the orcish crew had carried their load into the stockade before emerging from under the docks. Xeno had finally returned to his old, gnomish self.

"What we do now? You have plan?" asked Kobayashi, a little tentatively and with more than a little fear.

Xeno was still wielding two of the orcs' trembling sausages. Kobayashi stared in horror as, with a blood-curdling scream, he lifted them high above his head and charged the front gate.

"With Tahksha, Tsun Shi and Jae Hoon Suk as my witnesses, I will never be left alone with this lunatic again," muttered the monk.

Captain Nemo Had Nothing On This...

Iryien and Xeno shuffled up towards the ship, crate held at an awkward angle between them.

"You could lower your end a bit," Xeno whispered and he struggled, backwards, across the slippery cavern floor.

"And you could be taller," Iryien hissed in irritation. She was busy scanning the scene. Large humanoids, bundled in layers of fur, were busy shuttling crates up the gangplank to the bizarre, skeletal ship. Xeno glanced over his shoulder and noticed them, too. They were everywhere. He suddenly realized the three of them looked horribly out of place.

Then he heard Iryien whispering quietly to herself, and his whole world started to change...

The ground flew away from his feet as he grew, up, up, up to over six feet tall. Barely able to keep his feet going as he grew, he turned to see the last change overtake Iryien's shape, and he had to admit, it wasn't for the better.

She was now an orc.

And so too was Kobayashi, struggling down the icy steps alone with his crate as he morphed. The culmination of variables was too much for him, though, as his new feet slipped off the final step and he fell forward, landing on his crate as it burst open, spilling its contents over the icy floor...

The objects were foreign-looking, and unlike anything that Xeno had seen before. But even with their foreignness, they managed to communicate one simple fact: they were built to kill stuff. They were black. They were replete with barbs, tips, handles and triggers.

And they looked like fun.

As he reached his own, newly-orcish hand down to pick one up, a harsh voice echoed out in the cavern.

"You son of a promiscuous she-dog! Watch what you're doing! Remember what happened to Grazshnak when he dropped one of those back at White Plume Mountain?!? You'll be the death of us all!" A larger, uglier orc lumbered over to the transmogrified Kobayashi and thumped him one on the ear. "Now pick those up! Carefully! If but one of those is damaged I'll have you thrown out to sea!" The overseer turned on his heel and returned to the ship to vent his spleen on another hapless laborer.

A befuddled Kobayashi started to put the things carefully back in the box as he glanced up to Iryien and then himself.

"So this is the plan?" he whispered to the orc he assumed was Iryien.

"It all I could come up with on short notice. What has passed for your 'plans' has nearly gotten us killed. From now on you listen to me."

Iryien strengthened her grip on the crate she and Xeno had been carrying and almost knocked him over as she began pushing it towards the ship. Kobayashi hurried to catch up, but didn't encounter any more resistance as they brought the crates up the ramp and lowered them into the belly of...

The Ship.

It looked like a large sea creature with fins and a long neck. Its skin was a translucent red, and lights from within revealed a massive skeleton which held up the dried, rubbery flesh. As Xeno climbed down a ladder through a hole in the center of its back, he could see that it seemed to have two decks. The interior walls were also flesh and bone, but hideously re-grown into a more serviceable configuration. Smaller crawl-throughs were cut through these walls, and Xeno was directed to pass his crate through one of these walls to a waiting orc.

Iryien followed him down the ladder. She took Kobayashi's crate and looked around quickly before handing it to Xeno.

"Over there. Stack it on the others and hide behind it. We'll be over here. Don't move until you hear from me." She shoved him in the direction of a corner filled with crates. Reluctantly, he worked his way into a small corner and pulled the crate up to hide himself. He could just peer over the top and see the exit ladder and behind it, two orcs hiding themselves among the crates.

He was uncomfortable in his new skin, and with the fact that he couldn't seem locate his weapons. His backpack seemed to have disappeared in the change as well, as his fingers were gnarly, green and completely devoid of his special Glove of Fiery/Frozen/Acidic Death.

Xeno peered out at to where Iryien was hiding. He tried to fix her with his Very Peeved Look.

"Next time we split up, I'm going with Xoe," he mumbled.

Episode 24: How To Implode a Space-Time Continuum

Iryien sits at a spinning wheel in the small seaside cottage where she and Gaius have managed to raise three beautiful daughters. But things have taken a turn for the weird as of late: she's being visited by a disembodied voice which claims to be Takemiya Jones - a monk she once associated with many years ago while working for an outfit called, what was it again? Oh, yes - DCM Enterprises... She remembers him being somewhat level-headed, (well, until that thing with the helmet) so she wonders why he's spitting and sputtering, in and out of the back door of the cottage muttering about some sheriff from back in her adventuring days. Maybe she's been working too hard. I know it's not yet autumn, but the nights are getting cooler and it would be nice if the girls had their new sweaters before the frost...

Iryien is also eyeing Saladin and Xoe in the dim light of the dual moons. For some reason, (other than his recently-acquired deathly aura) Saladin seems to be flickering a bit. As if his body was a pool of water that had just had a pebble thrown in it. As they debate whether to head down the mountain and find their former selves, she listens as Xoe explains some of the pitfalls of tinkering too lightly with the Trousers of Time. Together they convince Saladin that the Temple is a better option - not to Raze it to the Ground with Cleansing Fire, as was his wont, but to play it cool and try to seek answers. The three of them proceed to the Temple as Saladin ceases to flicker.

There they are ushered in to the rear of the Temple where Xoe discovers, hidden away in a closet for a number of years, Object. He is covered in a layer of rust and dust, and has also acquired a new accent. He then proceeds to decapitate the Matron and a High Priestess, leaving the three heroes to meet yet another Iryien in circumstances of high drama.

Iryien is also freezing in an ice cavern, and is bewildered as to why she's there. Teleported from somewhere under Eldritch Mountain, she now finds herself with Kobayashi and Xeno, poorly bluffing their way past a frost giant and not particularly enjoying a cup of tea. Of course Kobayashi mutters the wrong thing, of course the tea makes Xeno go blind. But once the die rolls start to leave the realm of probability, the Gods (bless their twisted little hearts) find a way for everything to work out in the end. That's unless, of course, you're a frost giant that had entertained thoughts of having children one day...

So now she finds herself stowed away on a ship. Well, not a real ship, anyway, more like a hollowed-out sea creature's corpse. It appears these Ice Elves are packing up and heading off to rendezvous with Count Fundus, and if that's the case, she could be back under Eldritch Mountain in no time at all...

Episode 23: "I Think The DM Has A Drinking Problem."

Saladin looked up at the temple. All that was wood or wicker had burned away. What was left was a stone structure that looked... eldritch by comparison.

"We can all get in through this side window," he told the Holth and the Death Commandos. "Follow me."

They hurried over to the side of the temple and listened. The piteous moans of burned and glass-riddled acolytes had died down considerably. Saladin went in.

Li'l Sauron was next, followed by Object. Holth did not come next. Neither did Velva. The fact that Aaa'ooo'aaa failed to bring up the rear struck Saladin as particularly annoying. Demanding answers, he got a shrug from Li'l Sauron and a series of whines and clicks from Object. Not reassuring.

The three crept towards the back of the temple. Soft, lilting feminine voices could be heard debating some topic in Muralian. Saladin ears pricked up, while other parts of him grew ears. Gripping his club and ready for battle, he sprung around the painted screen that sectioned off the back of the temple to find... no one.

All that was there was an evilly bubbling throne on a gem-encrusted base, five stained glass windows depicting the 4 elements, the downfall of humanity and a pregnant Iryien, and a hole through the Earth window that was about the size of a berserking gnome. the feminine voices came from without.

Suddenly, in a fit of inspired madness that caused the DM to take a heavier-than-usual pull on his maple porter, Saladin leaped through the bottom of the center stained glass window, only to land with a resounding thud on top of...

Iryien.
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The slowly-thawing corpses of the two guards had been set up in the crypt. "The next person who enters therein will get surely stain themselves," thought Xeno.

"Next time we split up, I go with Xoe," thought Kobayashi.

The two then headed up the hallway to an intersection. After some debate, the two decided that the passage ahead, which was wide and well-lit, could only lead to trouble, and instead chose to turn down a dark side corridor, redolent with sinister echoes and paved top to bottom with black obsidian.

"Next time we split up, I go with Xoe," thought Kobayashi.

Sure enough, they soon came to a dark and sinister chamber. So dark and so sinister, it sucked the light out of Xeno's light spell.

"Perhaps other way is better?" hazarded Kobayashi.

On cue, other way started to go boom, boom, boom with the sound of drums.

"Perhaps not," sighed Xeno. "I think we should- SWEET PICKLED EGGS WHAT'S THAT?"

Quick as a flash, Xeno's Cube of Force was activated, and just beyond it's protective walls, two vile, stinky undead appeared from within the chamber. The cube's walls seemed to keep them out. But as the drum section grew louder (and was soon joined by a cacophonous brass section) the duo decided that these two fiends were the lesser of two evils.

Kobayashi readied his Staff of Thunder and Lightning, aiming it into the chamber and over the heads of the two slavering fiends. He then discharged what would have been, outdoors, a very loud thunderclap...

Inside the small obsidian-lined chamber, however, it was destructively, titanically and... what was the term?

Oh, yes. It was ear-shatteringly loud.

While the cube protected the two from the bone-stripping cloud of supersonic pulverized obsidian, it did knock them flat on their asses. Lying there, stunned, Kobayashi thought of retiring from adventuring and becoming Port Harbor's official Drunk Munk.

Xeno wondered why everything had gone so quiet.

As he tilted his head back to see the five figures hurrying towards him (upside-down, from his point of view) he wondered if they were wearing slippers, for how else could they travel so noiselessly down this hallway?

Rough hands pulled him silently to his feet, them noiselessly lifted him up to face a woman wearing dark robes. She was mouthing words at him in a very agitated manner... Was she expecting him to read lips? Why wasn't she making any sound? Why does she look sort of familiar?

As she turned her attentions to Kobayashi, Xeno's memory started to clear... Iryien! She's come here to take us out of here! Yes, she's now leading us away from here, down this hallway, around a corner, up a little slopey bit here, yes, yes...up to this weird doorway and being thrown in - what the Hades? Why are we being tossed in here? What's up with Iryien? And how DID she manage to slam that door so silently?
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Takemiya looked around the cell block. No keys hanging on a hook. Of course it couldn't be easy. But there were a couple more doors ahead...

He stopped to listen at the first. Nothing. He crept up to the second, and barely audible above the fish-slapping in the adjacent cell, he thought he could hear a high-pitched wooden sound.

He tried the door. Unlocked. He slowly pushed the door open and peered into the room...

A shabbily appointed room contained dirty dishes, piles of laundry and some poor creature's attempt at 'decorating'. Homel figurines and a painting by Thimmaus Kink-aid adorned what looked to be (and smelled to be) a studio apartment. In the middle of the room, spinning wool on a large wooden wheel, was Iryien.

"Iryien!" Takemiya whispered in her ear. Quick as a flash, Iryien picked up a wooden spindle and wheeled it about her head. Only Takemiya's incredible monkish training prevented him from losing an invisible eye.

"Who's there?!?" Wild-eyed and shaken, Iryien looked disheveled and a bit worn. Her plain gingham dress looked ancient and her hair had a sheen of what looked like chicken grease.

"It is me, Takemiya! I've found Longbottom! Do you know where the keys are kept?"

Iryien still held the spindle high and with a threatening air, turning to and fro in an attempt to keep the disembodied voice at bay.

"Longbottom? That was so long ago... Keys? What keys? How did you get into my cottage?" Takemiya looked around the room. He'd never have used the term "cottage" to describe what he saw.

Iryien was obviously under some sort of delusion, probably magical in nature.

He returned to the hallway outside. The imp was still lazily thudding away. Perhaps this would shake things up... Takemiya detached his floating head and rammed it into the cell door.

The bars clanged, but did not break. The imp disappeared with a POP! And he could now hear footsteps running towards him, from the direction of the angry priestess...

"Next time we split up, I go with Xoe," thought Takemiya.

Iryien opened her eyes. It was still dark. Her head hurt, her back hurt and her plate mail was probably dented. She got to her feet in time to see Saladin slowly get up on one knee. Glass tinkled to the ground.

"Mind explaining what this is about?" she whispered. She looked around for the Gardener, but he was nowhere to be seen.

"Iryien! Is that you? Where did you disappear to?" Saladin rushed forward, groping in the dim gray light towards the half-elf.

"Disappear? I wandered into this garden two minutes ago. It hardly constitutes 'disappearing'. Why aren't you down at Elof's? How did you fall out of the sky on me?"

Saladin started by explaining her going AWOL, Xoe returning and the ensuing rescue party. When he got to the part about Iryien being pregnant, she stopped him.

"WAIT, WHAT? I've only been gone two minutes! How could anything have happened in that amount of time???"

She suddenly heard Ben's voice in the back of her head: "Eldritch Mountain is practically build on a junkyard of Time..."

Saladin must've heard it too, for they both turned to look up towards the top where the temple lay waiting.

"I've got a bad feeling about this," she whispered.

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Xeno watched as Iryien returned, silently sliding the door open and entering by herself. While he was hoping that she came with an ear-wax kit, instead she was wielding what looked like a Very Hurty Wand.

She flourished it in his direction, but after failing to comprehend her demands, he was ignored and she turned on Kobayashi.

Xeno couldn't read lips, but he could read the situation. Iryien was MAD, and probably under a geas or something.

Time to make like Gloobian Jelly Spider and Exeunt via its Superlative Nesting Sac.

Xeno carefully flipped open the mouth of his Bag of Holding and, while Iryien's back was turned, procured a teleport scroll. Catching Kobayashi's eye, he began to whisper...

A circle of flickering blue light opened in the floor, and without hesitation, Xeno leaped. "QUICK KOBAYASHI FOLLOW MEEEEEeeeeee...." The monk followed suit, and as he headed down the rabbit hole to Quietly Attentive Nature Spirits know where, he had one thing in his mind:

"Next time we split up, I go with Xoe."

Episode 22, Part 2: "Hey Guys, Let's Split Up!"

Xeno came to, on his back, Kobayashi slapping him back and forth.

"Be silent!" he hissed. "Not sure where we are, but I have feeling it not good."

Xeno looked around the dim room. Low niches in the wall, the damp smell of decay, what looked to be a dim outline of a skeleton...

"Oh, it's just a crypt." Xeno rolled free and examined the situation. 18 alcoves, all occupied. One door out. And no window from whence they came. Some weird sort of teleportation was involved, and he didn't like it.

Kobayashi found one of the interred was wearing a robe embroidered with yellow triangles. After some lengthy debate on the Nature of Grave Robbing, the Usefulness of Disguise in an Enemy Encampment and the likelihood of the corpse being infected with some sort of flesh-eating spores, one of them (I'm not saying who) decided to heave the corpse onto the floor in order to strip it of its vestments.

It hit the ground with a sickening plop and exploded into a million black, flesh-eating spores.

Kobayashi's lungs filled with the stuff. Xeno's nose and ears were overwhelmed with the rancid-smelling dust of mouldering decay. They coughed and hacked and made their way to the door, but stopped short as they heard voices and saw shadows under the door. They both kneeled, filling their lungs with what air seeped under the door. The smell of the grave was closing in and threatening to suffocate them both. Something had to be done.

Xeno threw open the door and fell onto the ground at the feet of two burly guards.

"THEY...BURIED... ME... ALIIIIIIVE!!!!!!"

The two guards, who had incidentally just been discussing the fact that their wages had not, of late, realistically reflected the recent increase in risk and danger to their persons and who were, in fact, giving serious consideration to dropping the whole guard business like a hot rock and getting into the collectibles business, looked down to see a writhing black midget covered in death-smelling soot screaming at them and decided it wasn't even worth a moral check. They legged it.

Xeno chuckled to himself before extending the Middle Finger of Icy Doom. A Cone of Cold, flush with fives and sixes, left the two hapless guards cold and lifeless in the middle of a long, stone corridor.

Kobayashi immediately stripped off one of the guard's armor - it was brown and covered with small yellow triangles.

"Ever see Wizard of Oz?" said the monk to the gnome. Xeno just scratched his head. This guy just may be as crazy as I am, he thought...

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Takemiya followed Longbottom's thoughts out the door and into a long corridor. He saw two figures appear from around a turn ion the hall some 20 yards distant. A female, stern and in flowing robes, walked with a quick agitation that told Takemiya she wielded power and was looking forward to using it on some hapless intruder. Behind her was Jordj. Takemiya, still invisible, backed himself into a corner and allowed them to pass. She wasn't going to be happy to find the guard in the pit, so he had just a few moments to move on and locate Longbottom.

Soon, after a few turnings, he located a row of cells.

He could hear a slow, steady series of sickening thuds. Combined with a high-pitched creaking sound, it sounded as someone was being repeatedly drubbed by a number of carp attached to a small metal wheel...

Takemiya crept up to the first cell and peered in. A humanoid lay curled up in a small dingy cot, facing the wall, unmoving. The second cell contained a large burly man with a booshy beard. He was unconscious and chained to the wall, and looked like he'd been there a while. The third cell contained the jackpot. Longbottom, stripped to the waist, was chained to a low bench. On the cell floor by his head was a small, three-spoked wheel. The wheel was being turned via a small crank by a tiny imp. The imp looked bored and on the verge of falling asleep. At the end of each of the three spokes was a fish. A dead fish. As the imp turned the wheel, the fish would, in turn, smack Longbottom in the forehead. His head was silvery with scales. Takemiya recognized the fish. They were indeed carp.

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Xoe turned to look down at Ben.

"So what the hell's going on here? And why am I heading out this window?"

"This place is built on a mountain of temporal instability. I noticed a shift when we came in this way. You need to just pop out for a moment to see if we're still in the past. If we are, come back in and we'll try Plan B."

"And if we aren't?"

"Then hopefully we'll meet in the past when I'm a bit younger." Ben winked and gave Xoe a wave as she headed out into the night air.

Night air that was suspiciously devoid of smoke.

She listened and heard nothing. She looked at the hedge. It was three feet tall.

Quickly she turned and went through the window. Ben wasn't there. The trunks and banners and polearms weren't there. And where the alcove was, was...

A statue.

Or, half of one, actually. A kneeling figure, in monkly robes, lay half-constructed in the space where he alcove had been. Around it, workmen had left trowels ans loose stonework. They seemed to be constructing some sort of pool in front of it.

Xoe heard someone entering a door at the far end of the room. Two men entered, carrying a large painting draped in velvet. Xoe hopped down and piked her way through the workman's leavings in order to get a better look. They were talking to each other.

"Where'd they want it?"

Oh, I dunno. Anywhere safe, t'be sure. Wouldn't want to see it get damaged."

"Cor - hell's to pay if we nicked up her ladyship, hehe."

The two chuckled at what appeared to be an inside joke, and carefully left the painting leaning up against the far wall. The two stopped, lit their cigarettes, and ambled slowly out of the room.

Xoe couldn't resist. Making sure the two were long gone, she slipped over to the painting and lifted the cover...

A tall, radiant goddess in a mandorla gazed beatifically down at her. The artist had obviously been so taken by his subject that he imbued it with a special glowing power. The goddess was clad in sparse bits of chain mail - so sparse that it didn't quite cover her obviously swollen belly. Xoe looked up into the goddess' eyes and saw a look she recognized.

She blinked.

She took a few steps back and looked again.

It was Iryien.

Episode 22, Part 1: "Hey Guys, Let's Split Up!"

"What're you after? Obviously some wires got crossed here."

"Ah, well if you could help me, perhapsss I can exsssplain."

Xoe hopped into the room, albiet cautiously. The figure gestured towards Ben.

"I recognissse your friend, but he isss much changed. I do not think he will be helpful right now." With a wave of his hand, Ben was trapped behind a crystalline wall. The figure assured Xoe that he was fine. He then proceeded to roll an iridescent layer of skin off of one of his fingers and place it into the large trunk behind him before asking Xoe to assist him.

She noticed 4 smaller chests inside the larger one - each with a curious hexagonal keyhole in the top. One chest still had a key in it - a crystalline key, amber in color and triangular in shape. The lizard wizard had her remove the key and place it in a pouch he was wearing. He then had her help him drag the large chest into a curtained alcove. The curtain then shimmered - and Xoe realized she wasn't in Kansas anymore...
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Meanwhile, Kobayashi emerged from his 'ordeal', none the worse for wear, if not a little confused. As Saladin and Xeno tried to decide where to head next, angry female monks could be heard in the main body of the temple. Saladin melded with stone and headed out to round up the Death Commandos. Xeno and Kobayashi moved quickly to an alcove in the rear of the temple where they found a throne, mounted on a gem-encrusted base. The body of the throne seemed to be made of a clear, crystalline material that was filled with a bubbling fluid. Two flaming sconces topped off the throne.

Xeno quickly scanned the alcove and found that the only way out lay through one of the five stained-glass windows at the back. Looking for something to break out a pane of glass, he found a golden censer and immediately picked it up. "Does it feel evil?" he asked himself.

The next thing Kobayashi knew, an enraged, bespittled gnome was hurling the censer then himself through the first window. Kobayashi followed suit in order to flee the acolytes who were now entering the back of the temple...
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Somewhere deep underground, Takemiya sat up and scanned the hallway. Exits in both directions, but as he scanned around with the Helm of Telepathy, he found one direction alone led towards Longbottom, and that's the way he went. A door barred his way, and as he snuck up to it, he could hear voices, low and argumentative...

...then the floor gave way and he fell with a thud.

The pit trap had been clever, and quite luckily, not designed to maim. Bruised and flustered, Takemiya looked up into tines of two very long and very pointy tridents.

"Hey! Who're you? And what you doin' down 'ere? You're not even wearin' the right robes!"

Ah, Takemiya thought. First level guards, the staple of every great dungeon crawl.

"Many apologies. I have become lost whilst looking for most elusive exit. I shall await the arrival of your superior, and I assure you she shall not be in felicitous mood."

"Oi, whas he sayin' Karl?"

"Dunno, Jordj. Some sort of foreigner, I reckon. You better go get the Mistress. She ain't gonna be happy when she finds him 'ere."

One guard took off to fetch the Mistress while the remaining guard lit up a cigarette and relaxed in the door frame that overlooked the pit. Takemiya then detatched his head and sent it upwards to engage the guard in one of the more unfortunate bits of hand-to-head combat he'd experienced in his career. This allowed Takemiya's body to invisibly clamber up the walls of the pit and nimbly dump the guard into the pit. He then turned to the door at the back of the guardroom and, homing in on Longbottom's voice, dove deeper into the dungeon.
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The wizard lizard pulled the curtain aside, revealing a different room entirely. A great storehouse of art objects were here, including one statue that seemed to be concealing an assassin. As the wizard backed into the room, dragging the chest, Xoe pushed from behind (keeping low, behind the chest) and kept one eye on the lurker. As he pulled the chest into the room the wizard thanked Xoe for her help, then the curtain fell back in place. Xoe heard the familiar chink-THUD of a crossbow bolt hitting home. The wizard gasped, uttered some famous last words, then ~

Xoe was back in the room with Ben. The wall was gone, and he was white with worry.

"Do you have any idea who that is you were with?" he gasped.

"Who that was, you mean. I believe he just expired." Xoe explained what she had seen and heard in the alcove below, then stopped as the facts marched by for her. Wizard. Killed. Painting. Past. Lizard...

"Oh."

"Yes. I believe you just witnessed the death of Loca'Luongo. And, I might add, you may have contributed to it indirectly having previously discharged his protection spell with your earlier attempt at a backstab."

"Oh."

"And now that we find ourselves back in the past, the only way we can reunite with the others is to either attempt a risky, draining attempt at time travel or try and head out the way we came in..."

Xoe looked at the window.

"Let's roll," she said, as she clambered up the wall...

Episode 21: Assault on the Temple of Perpetual Dawn, Part 3

Saladin raced into the back room of the temple, and much to his surprise he found a large, reptilian statue set against the back wall and dominating the center of the room. A large, eelike head sat on a humanoid body, kneeling in a meditative pose. Arms were tucked into its sleeves, while on the ground at its knees an inky pool of water sat malevolently still. Horrified yet fascinated, Saladin took a step towards the monstrosity, only to pause as he heard something. From behind a door set in the wall behind him, he heard noises - cries of someone, apparently in a great amount of pain. This person also seemed to be invoking the names of a great number of local deities. He strode forward resolutely to help.

Takemiya, while grateful for the confusion and chaos that provided excellent cover, decided that a little more caution was called for, and quietly shifted planes into the Ethereal. Sounds became muffled and shapes dimmed as he crossed the boundary of this reality and entered the next. But he could now see into the back room, see Saladin’s look of horror as he discovered the statue, and as he entered the back chamber through the wall, he could also see through the door the source of the strange, plaintiff cries issuing from the side room.

He had to admit, there were worse ways for someone to suffer…

Cold, damp and thoroughly annoyed, Xeno decided he’d had enough. Spying a window to the back of the temple, he decided to sneak in. Aaa’ooo’aaa had been dispatched to the top of the building to see what he could see, so Xeno took advantage of the chaos and clambered up and into…

A small, dark room.

He could see some sort of tabletop. He hopped down onto it and found himself tumbling amongst a number of objects. Fortunately for him, they seemed to be mostly made of rubber, so no suspicious noises were made to alert and of the guards. He managed to make his way to the floor, and after tripping over a few more rubbery items, he finally cast a light spell to see exactly what it was that had been giving him so much trouble.

Yipes.

It looked like the Spanish Inquisition had set up a special branch for bachelorette parties in here. Xeno didn’t know much about medieval rubber manufacture and molding, but he had a pretty good idea that this was a real good sampling of some of the best that the trade’s most clever and devious minds had to offer, and quite frankly it gave him the willies. LOTS of willies, to be exact.

He quickly slipped through the door opposite and into a large room containing Saladin, an large eel and a slowly apparating Takemiya.

“Don’t open that door.” Takemiya’s voice was cold, clear and full of authority. It froze Saladin with his hand on the knob.

“But someone sounds like they’re in pain! It could be Kobayashi! Oh, hi Xeno.”

Xeno shut the door behind him and eyed the room, and his eyes stopped on a pair of large, glinty eyes.

“Are those gems?” he asked, pointing to the statue’s large, green peepers.

“Yes,” sighed Takemiya wearily. “Those are indeed emeralds the size of my fist, and that is indeed Kobayashi,” he turned to face Saladin again, “but I can tell you that while he is indeed ‘in’ something, it is most definitely not pain.”

It's called 'Monkey Escapes Naughty Treehouse', actually, he thought to himself. And the lad's quite good at it.

“Still, don’t you think we should help him?” Saladin cried. “Who knows what’s going on in there? Xeno, should you really be climbing up there?” He was halfway up the eel’s head before Takemiya turned to gaze into the pool of black water.

“Xeno, shouldn’t you be detecting traps or something before you go prying gems from a statue’s eyes?” He thought he could see something in the water. The outline of a door.

“That’s Xoe. She’s the thief. I’m more of a sticky, stabby kind of guy.” Pling! The statue’s right eye popped out of its socket and into Xeno’s hand. He quickly pocketed it and moved over to the other eye and started prying it out with his knife.

Yes, thought Takemiya, there is a door at the bottom of the pool. A small trapdoor about the size of a-

Pling!

WHOOSH!

Suddenly, Takemiya was sucked down, down, down into the noise and the black. Falling faster and faster he felt exploded apart only to be rammed back together again and find himself lying heaving and panting on the bottom of a passage floor. Water oozed out from his clothes. He could see an old, ancient stone ceiling above him, but he heard nothing but the trickle of water from his boots. He closed his eyes and turned on his telepathy, searching for minds that could tell him where he was.

He found one.

It was small, and it was weak, and it repeated over and over:

“My name is Ryan Longbottom. My name… is Ryan… Longbottom…”

Perhaps he was on the right track, after all.