Played on 2005/11/27

5th of Acrylis, 4927 (continued)

The group seemed a bit at a loss. Urdos was becoming more and more anxious about finding a way out, and as there seemed little else to do, Caitlin and Temari indulged him and attempted to find a way out. This proved more difficult than Temari had previously suspected. The construct seemed unable to venture beyond the door behind which it had been found wandering in circles. The icy descent proved neigh-on impossible to climb for Tasurn - even boosted by Temari's magic, the graceful cat only managed to climb for a measly five feet before skidding back to the floor.

Yriryn had taken it upon himself to discover the secrets of the pillar of swirling lights. His approach bordered on the ridiculous as far as Temari was concerned. Then again, she had no real viable alternative to offer, and so she kept the suspected futility of loading ice onto the altar to herself. Somehow the temperature was above freezing near the pillar, and before long the altarish table housed a pool of water.

Caitlin gave up on the impossible ascend and turned her attention once more upon the construct. As in her mind the idea formed to haul the anvil to the pillar room and try to charge it, Yriryn climbed upon the altar. He took the place where the double-bladed sword had rested, and spoke the ancient words. "Bjat Ryn Vemq Axef!".

The swirling lights in the central pillar activated, brightening the room. Across the ceiling crept green arcs of lightm towards the wall, then down the wall, to the altar and then striking Yriryn. He was surrounded by a green light for a moment, before the light vanished -- from him and from the pillar!

Yriryn climbed down and found that the spikes on his shield seemed ...different.
Urdos entered, and after hearing what had happened, the dwarf also climbed upon the altar. This time, a white light ventured forth from the column. The high-strung dwarf allowed the light to touch him, and the light seemed to flow into his quiver.

Upon examination, he found that his bow had acquired a frosty edge, which did not seem to interfere with his targeting. Both Yriryn and Urdos looked up to the suddenly silent corridor - the scraping of the anvil over the stone floor had ceased. Temari entered and saw both Urdos and Yriryn casting an expectant gaze at her. After they explained that they had been charged by standing on the altar and speaking the words, Temari smiled, laid down her scepter on the altar and spoke the words of power.

Multicoloured lines of light shot from the pillar, over ceiling and wall, into her scepter. As Temari lifted her scepter, whose orb was now glowing, it occurred to her that "Bjat Ryn Vemq Axef" was to be interpreted as "empower us with magic". "How appropriate," she thought to herself. She mentally commanded the light in the orb to brighten, to compensate for the loss of light in the chamber. Upon entering the chamber, Temari had already noted that the temperature had risen, but the effect seemed to increase with each use.

Conlae and Caitlin took turns to empower their weapons. Blue for Conlae and red for Caitlin. While the effect upon Conlae or his weapon was not immediately clear, the effect upon Caitlin's rapier was... abundantly so. Her rapier could burst into flame upon command, by far the most spectacular empowerment -- although not quite the most useful, Temari thought to herself.

Meanwhile, it seemed there had been a connection between the frost and the magical powers captured in the pillar. With the expenditure of the magic, the frost had receded and the temperature was steadily rising. As it was obvious this would take some time, the party elected to take this time to rest. Naturally, the high-strung dwarf found the entire situation threatening and so spent the time of rest perked on a chair in front of the ice that had brought the group down.

6th of Acrylis, 4927

Upon returning to Urdos, the group found that the rising temperature had caused the icy slide to have melted so far, that the contours of a stair had become visible beneath it. After a slight hesitation, Conlae made his way up the iced-over stair, kicking the ice from the steps. Caitlin drew her fiery rapier and burned the steps after him, clearing enough of a path so that the group could ascend without much difficulty.

At the top of the stairs, the climate had dramatically changed. The temperature had risen enormously, to about 30 degrees. The drawing that had been copied from the wall in the dungeon below was brought forth, and all peered intensely over it. Suddenly Temari noticed that there was an extra face peering over Conlae's shoulder.

It turned out that the group was surrounded by beings which bore a physical resemblance to their attackers. However, there seemed to be no hostile intent in this group. Their eyes had changed colours, and somehow their features were different.

It turned out that these were the same beings as as before. They had somehow changed. The beings were convinced that Conlae, Temari, Yriryn, Caitlin and Urdos had saved them -- from what did not become quite clear. The group was treated as though they were Messiah's. Conlae seemed to enjoy this, but Temari was a bit anxious. They were held responsible for changing the prevailing weather from -20 to 30 degrees... The impact such a change would have on a primitive people such as their newly found "friends" was staggering.

While enjoying the fruits of his status, Conlae made a remark about a bird. When one of the people demurely inquired what a bird was, Conlae explained and proceeded to explain hunting. Before long, Conlae was teaching rudimentary hunting Conlae-style to a group. At one point, the discussion turned to weapons, and Conlae inquired if anyone had use for the double-bladed sword. A few offered to try the weapon out.

Temari swallowed some curses as she slipped on the silky green glove and amended some of the inevitable disaster that had ensued. She was aware that miraculously healing someone who already regarded her as half a saint might not be a good way to deprive him of said notion, but Temari saw little alternative. She did stay long enough to see to it that no more accidents would happen.

In the mean while, Urdos and Yriryn had struck out on their own, surveying the area. Temari saw Conlae and about a hundred "friends" off on a ridiculously large and inept hunting party, and turned to find her group had scattered. Not caring for the onslaught of attention for her from the "freed ones" (as Temari resolved to call them), she joined Caitlin who had started to teach the villagers the use of a sling.

After a while, Urdos and Yriryn returned from their explorations. Soon afterwards Conlae returned as well and the entire group bowed themselves once more over the drawing. The dwarf and the gnome mentioned that there was a river flowing through the ruined city. Of course, with the rapid change in temperature, it had flooded its banks, but still this gave the group some idea of how to interpret this drawing. The consensus was, that the drawing was a map. This implied that the scale of the map was vast -- larger than any map Temari had previously seen or even heard of.

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