The Danger Gang hacks Phillipi's Egyptian Temple dungeon
Anxious for some the danger that lends them their name, the Danger Gang heads to the basilica of St. Paul in Phillipi to investigate the mysterious Egyptian temple dedicated to Nectanabus there in. At Martialis's suggestion, they dispatch Brother Peter to distract the clergy with tales of the great Saint Maximus. Once they are distracted thusly, the rest of the gang sneak down into the crypts. They pass rows of interred christians and soon find a barred double door. A quick inspection by Ramble reveals no traps, and so Lleryn lifts the bar and opens the room.
On the otherside of the door is a small antechamber. There's another set of double doors on the farside. A small piece of velum parchment is afixed to the door with a curved dagger. Arben snags the parchment and gives it the once over. It's in Arabic, and with his knowledge of Persian combined with his unique bardic abilities, he's able to piece together bits and pieces of the parchment. Dated A.H. 22, it was written sometime in the 8th century and says something about how they could not slay the great beast and that Allah has rewarded them with great wealth from the ground. "Great beast, eh?" Ramble snags the dagger.
Lleryn pops open the other door. It opens to a huge room with two rows of greek columns running out from the door. They begin navigating along the side. Though the columns are greek, the walls are covered in defaced Egyptian iconography. They soon encounter a pair of defaced Egyptian statues flanking a door on the south wall. Directly across the room they find another door that has been smashed outward, with two statues toppled around it. It's then that Ramble hears a noise. Lleryn chucks a light stone across the room, and a crocodilian tale is just slides out of view. They start making their way back to the entrance, for fear of having their escape blocked. It's then that they see the great crocopotomus-lion. They start fighting the big bastard with all due haste. Ramble lets an arrow fly into melee, inadvertantly hitting Lleryn, much to his chagrin. Arben leaps onto it's back and Can starts whomping on it with his hitting stick. Despite everyone's menacing posturings, nobody seems to be able to hit anybody else. Finally they manage to slay the beast. Martialis suggests slicing open the creature's guts to check if it ate anything valuable. No such luck, but they did find out the curious fact that the creature had no anus.
The Danger Gang finishes checking out the room. It's T-shaped and contains two more smashed altars and another, larger smashed statue at the head of the T. That room checked, they head over to the room on north side. Inside, a skeleton grasping a scimitar lies on the floor. A red tiled trough sits in the north part of the room. Along the walls are Greek inscriptions telling the tale of Nectanabus. There's also a golden brazier, and a bronze statue of a cat with some heiroglyphics around the base. Arben pieces together that it's a god with the power to destroy snakes and scorpions. "I told you they worship cats", says Arben. Still, the statue itself seems mundane. Nonetheless, they wheel it out to the antechamber, along with the gold brazier. They camp out there for a little while, when a little busybody of a monk comes in. "What are you doing here? It's dangerous! We really need to go." the flustered monk sputters. Arben tells him he thought Brother Peter had already cleared this all up and asks to speak to the abbot.
The abbot of the basilica tells them it's very dangerous, there's a great beast, this that and the other. Arben forks over the golden brazier (figuring there's plenty more rich stuff where that came from), telling him it's a gift from the government of Chrysopolis, this that and the other. He just wants to finish checking out the temple, and then they'll be on their way. The abbot agrees, but tells them that if they're not out in an hour, the monks will be forced to assume that they've been killed and they'll bar the doors behind them.
They scuttle back down into the dungeon and make a bee line for the south room. The room is the same size as the one on the north, with a small door in the corner. There are more defaced writings on the wall here, but some of it remains legible. It claims that the Egyptian gods are just the Greek gods in disguise, although it does not explain why the gods need to hide themselves. They head through the door to a small, downward sloping corridor. They right and had past a large axe/pendulum trap that has fallen into disrepair. They soon find a room lined with wooden shelves. The room has been picked clean. Scouring the room, they find a few gold coins bearing the image of Alexander, but nothing else of interest. They decide to give the dungeon another quick once over, but finding nothing, they leave. On the way out, the abbot stops them again. "Everything OK?" he asks.
"Everything's fine", says Arben. "That temples all cleared out, no more evil. Here, have a cat statue". They leave the Basilica. Before hitting the sack, they decide to try to track down Norro. Arben gives him the Alexandrian coin he found, and Norro tells him he's going to head out to Constantinople to look into that librarian position. Arben mentions that his good friend Leo might also have a position for him in his upcoming Promethean think tank. Norro gives them a quick tour of the town, showing them the Font of Lydia. He explains that gold mines that Phillipi was founded to exploit have entirely collapsed, and are possibly filled with vampires. With that, they part ways and the Danger Gang hits the sack to prepare for the ride to Thessaloniki the next day.
