The Danger Gang Finds Killing A God To Be Quite A Challenge
After a little more rest, the Danger Gang is ready to to give this another shot. Just when they feel like nothing could surprise them, however, something does. They're about to pack up and leave when somebody gets cuaght in Martialis' Snare. It's Karl Shinyhands, the little Gnome with the big spirit. He seems very excited to see these guys and offers his services as a proffesional treasure hunter to them. They eye him warily and explain that they're about to go try to kill a god. If there was ever a bad time to arbitrarily try to join ranks with the Danger Gang, this was it. Karl says he's up for it. Can says he knows the little gentleman and after a brief pow-wow, they agree to let him tag along as long as he stays out of the way and doesn't get himself killed.
Martialis enlarges some beetles and Arben summons a few Hobgoblins and they send those guys into the frey, with the help of a prayer from Gershom. This cowardly god isn't alone, though. She's spitted out another Minotaur and Sphynx. The beetles go after the monsters while the Hobgoblins focus on the god. Soon everyone rushes into battle. The monsters do more than their part, but are soon gobbled up by Auxieros. Everyone seems fairly confident, despite Auxieros's copious Magic Resistance, until, all of a sudden, all the damage they had done to ol' Auxieros is gone. Thing seems as good as new. They retreat again and Can sets up another Secure Shelter. Once inside they rest and rest. All the while, Marty formulates a plan.
"We're gonna have this god keep puking up monsters till it can't puke no more, then we polish it off," he explains. Gershom is to Animate the corpse of a Leucrotta and cast Putrify Food on it to make it good and stinky. This will lure the monsters out. Then we ambush them. Sounds great to all involved. They hide in their little hidey room and Gershom sheepishly makes his little abomination dance around to draw the attention of any nearby monsters. Nobody is coming. They listen closely and hear the faint sound of a claw scraping a wall. Marty and Arben go to investigate, but as soon as the enter the room from whence the sound came, they are overcome with pain. They turn around and crawl back to the hidey hole and wait for it to stop. It takes almost two hours. They decide to change tactics. Karl and Kotrag knock down the petrified Cyclops and they carry the biggest chunk over to Auxieros's room. They block the entrace with it (the thing is, like, 8 feet wide) and Gershom puts a Glyph on it after Martialis stone shapes it in place. Problem solved. They check out the only hallway they hadn't checked out yet, leading to an empty room. With that, they head to the surface to see what else is in the valley.
Outside, they find the sun has set. This makes it all the more easier to hide from bees. They leave Hush, Can and Zahrah with the Pegasus and begin exploring the rest of the valley. They find a huge alter shaped like a piano which Karl smashes on Gershom's urgings. There are runes dedicating to the altar to someone, not a god, just some dude. They check out the ampitheater, but nothing much exciting is going on there. They head into another building across a stream and find a fountain bubbling water from the river and a statue or a winged woman missing it's arms. In another building they find a huge mural of a landscape. This seems strange as there is a beautiful landscape just on the other side of the wall the mural is on. In another building they find the rotting remains of a few boats, and one boat with a flat bottom made of metal. Kotrag insists that this boat is not sea worthy. Arben recalls that he once heard of such a boat designed to sail across of sea of glass. Everyone agrees that that is pretty boss, but they have no means to move the boat, so it remains where they found it. The next building they find is a fort that was probably abandoned in the last century. It is not part of the original valley temple complex. They find some Byzantine documents implying that there were orders to stay out of the valley and some creepy voices. One voice was louder and coming from a different location. Eventually the army probably got creeped out and left. They figure this fort is as good a place to bed down for the night and try to catch some z's.
Kotrag is on watch when he spies a few men mounted on Gryphons flying out of the sky. He wakes the rest of the gang and ducks into the barracks. The men are Cyclopskin. They try to bait the the dudes outside with cruel teasing. The Cyclopskin try to break down the door while everyone casts preperatory spells. There are Giant Bats and Giant Beatles, all types of crazy shit. The Cyclopskin decide to let a gryphon kick the door down, which it does easily. The gang tries to fight them one at a time, but they soon barrel in; three cyclopskin and three gryphons. The cyclopskin fall before the gryphons do, but the gang takes their fair share of knocks as well. Arben gets especially wounded, earning a nasty scar from a gryphon's rake. None the less, our boys win the gay. Everyone is very happy to be alive. Marty leaves the giant beetles to guard the barracks. They get attacked by one soldier bee before dawn, but survive.
