We awoke in what we believed was the next morning in �Black Dog�s cave. It was cold and damp. We dressed, and paddled our boat to the large door to the Serpent Temple.
All those who would enter the temple must pass the temple of the fangs. Reach into the mouth of Yig and your courage will be rewarded.
I reached in, and the jaws crushed my hand immediately. It hurt an incredible amount. When I withdrew my hand, I was bathed head to foot in some toxic venom which totally crippled my muscles.
Rhia reached into the mouth of the serpent, and the door opened within moments. Bitch. We paddled back to the healing font we discovered the previous day, and it healed my grievous ills.
Back to the serpent door. Inside was a tremendous mural, with �Beware, Brethren, for Yig will abandon us� written again and again around the wall. There were stairs leading down into murky water. It was very cold as I crept into it. I swam towards the light. I found a room, in which the water flowed above the floor � I dropped out of the water and looked up at the shimmering wall of water above me.
I was in a 50 foot wide circular room. Spaced around the room were carved serpent heads with glowing balls of light illuminating the room. There was also an altar and a ramp leading down.
In front of the altar, there was a serpent, gesturing at a large jade bowl on the altar. As I sensed that it was not evil, I waited for the others.
�Gee. I sense there�s magic afoot,� said Rhia as she fell from the water suspended overhead. On closer inspection, the serpent was made of shadowy material.
I coughed, and the serpent turned and spoke to us in common. It said that it was waiting to have help, and called itself Alistarr, the high priest of the temple we were in. They were doomed to exist in the temple with their failure, as Yig had abandoned them. He said that he would give us what we sought if we would help him. He correctly identified what we were looking for.
He wanted 4 items from within the temple to complete a ritual of absolution to free himself and his brethren.
Veit and I went into the water first. It was still cold, and rather murky. We could just see a statue of a serpent-person, with an amulet around its neck. As we closed and grabbed the amulet, a shadowy serpent person leapt out at Veit (who had taken the amulet).
We pulled on the ropes we had tied around ourselves, and were hauled back through the water. We were clear, and had the amulet. (+2 AC, +4 vs Poison).
We headed down into the musty room below. Through the stone door, we saw 4 dark serpent shapes, which headed towards us wailing loudly. The Orc was in the doorway, and they all attacked him.
A dreadful fight then occurred, as the shade-snakemen dealt us terrible, sickening blows. The orc was nearly brought to his knees, and I felt quite faint after the fight. Still, we advanced.
The next room was some sort of temple preparation room, with yet another snake along the wall, but with a book on a pedestal. The halfling became obsessed with the book, whilst Veit was drawn inexorably towards the eyes of the mural, which were huge glowing gems.
And he immediately attacked me. It hurt a lot. His eyes were glazed over with a bright green serpent scales pattern. And they then disappeared from his head, as the quick-witted halfling cast a spell at him. My first attack smashed his spiked chain from his now blind grasp. Shouts and spellcasting echoed up the corridor from behind me, as the bard and Hodash began to spar.
As he reached down to pick his chain weapon up, both Rhia and I started to systematically bludgeon him into unconsciousness. Meanwhile, the orc appeared to be trying to actively kill the poor bard, who was shouting �you can�t have it, it�s mine� at him. Spells flew, and blades flashed. And flailed aimlessly�
It took a phenomenally long time to knock Veit to the floor, before Rhia and I managed it.
Then Rhia and I shot into the corridor to confront the Orc and the Huey who were screaming in the corridor and trading genuine blows with their edged weapons. As we shot around the corner, the orc fell to the ground snoring. And Huey�s cries of �I�ll kill you, I�ll kill you all!� So I knocked him out, and the glow on the sabre in his hand suddenly dimmed.
We tied up both of the rogue group members and moved them into the room where the shadows had attacked us. The ghostly serpent said that he could free Veit from the enchantment over the course of a few hours.
The orc and I fled back to the font to hope for restoration, which restored us both (although Hodash was attacked by the evil amulet guardian on the way up), and then we both swam back to the temple.
When I got back, I noticed that Rhia was waving Huey�s glowing sword and was ready to go back down. So Hodash, Rhia, Roscoe and I headed back down.
We opened another door to a messy smashed up room, which contained yet another incorporeal evil serpent. I leapt to the attack, followed by Rhia and her glowing sword. It hit both Rhia and Hodash, and they began to sweat again. We had found a ramp headed further down into the temple.
Behind us, the halfling had opened another door, but with the typical luck of his race, he had not been torn limb from limb by a concealed monster.
The next room held rotting sedan chairs. And two more Velossan serpent priests. They begged me to kill them, and I obliged. They were in an infirmary, and had spent the last three millennia critically wounded. They told me that the armour was worn by Vellosh, the warrior priest, who was immune to attack unless hit on the �bad� scale. The avatar of the serpent priest was 2 levels below us.
The last room was a training room, containing a serpent priest with a crackling spear wearing scale mail armour. He challenged us to a duel, so I obliged. Whilst I positioned myself perfectly for another attack and bellowed at the others not to move forwards, the elf of all things leapt past me to engage the serpent in hand to hand combat. I was most irritated.
Hodash�s best blow smashed into the creature, and had virtually no effect. However, as mentioned by the two legless serpents, blows to the discoloured part of the creature�s chest had practically no effect. Attacks bounced off it a huge amount before I managed to kill it.
By the time we had returned upstairs, Alissstar the serpent-priest had managed to restore Veit and Huey, and we untied them so that they might rejoin us.
Further down, we spotted a box, with a huge 15 foot box of a coiled serpent on a tiny altar. Veit managed to find that the tail of the statue unscrewed, to reveal a small phial of green liquid. Veit took it upstairs, and we headed down to the next level where we expected to encounter some sort of giant snake, which accorting to Alissstair was not poisonous, but constricted its victims.
Down on the bottom lair, there was a giant statue of a snake, whose eyes shone a golden light onto a large set of double doors. This light shone straight through Hodash, showing no shadow of him.
We couldn�t open the double door, but opened another trying to find some sort of key to shut off the light. The first room was warm, and filled with cracked eggs and mouldy cushions.
Another door stank of decay. We could hear movement and shuffling within the room, and slowly creatures moved towards us. Halfling, gnome and human zombies moved towards us. Interestingly, their arms could not reach beyond the door to the room, so we left them and moved on.
We found another set of double doors which were closed and warped. A final single door was found. Upon opening it, we found a serpent of jade on a pedestal.
Meanwhile, Roscoe the halfling somehow managed to close the statue�s eyes. The double doors immediately opened, revealing a small amphitheatre, containing a huge zombified snake with massive fangs.
It surged forwards, and grabbed, tore and crushed Hodash, who lapsed almost instantly into unconsciousness. Seconds later, his head popped off and he was dead.
Arrows and blades surged, before the creature fell to the ground. Veit decided to hack its body open as well as taking its teeth.
We reluctantly took the equipment from the body of our fallen comrade.
Returning to the serpent priest Alassstar, he collected the 40 items and began his ritual. I volunteered to sacrifice a portion of myself to power the sorceries, as my colleagues were understandably reluctant to do so.
I donned the amulet, and used the serpent fangs to slit my own wrists, mixing my blood with the serpent�s venom in the jade bowl on the altar. I felt myself being dirtied as I was doing so, and even worse as I poured the mixture over the Scales of the Serpent. Somehow, I knew that the wounds on my wrists would never be truly healed.
The Jade Serpent rose from the altar, and we fled, hearing the unpleasant sound of rumbling below us. We fled like a big bunch of fleeing things.
When we reached the surface, there was a storm raging, and we rowed towards the port. It was nighttime, despite all out instincts screaming at us that it should be otherwise.