What happened during the gamedays of September 1st and 4th, 2003
"The Shadow-Walkers"
Monday started off with the group just having left the Righteous Man and beginning to gear up to assault the Temple of Pholtus and retrieve the Mirror of the Ages. They decided to wait a night and got together to plan their assault, the monk the Righteous Man assigned them giving them the general layout of the grounds and the rules that one must abide by within the temple. Apparently only Defenders of the Faith, Paladins, Clerics, and members of the Intolerant Hand were allowed entrance to this holy place. The Cleric with no name would start things off as he, with Pelias in his robes, would make the first move, going for the room behind the main altar. He was followed by a inquisitive cleric of Pholtus who wondered why he was going back there, and the one without name was able to bluff that he was merely returning an offering plate he had borrowed. After the cleric of Pholtus left the one without name followed suit, leaving Pelias to explore back here. Unfortunately for Pelias the door to the next room was locked, and he has no training whatsoever in that field.
Pelias finally hit upon an idea, though, and placed a pair of his shoes in a way so that they stuck out from under some hanging robes, and then spiderclimbing above the door he knocked loudly till a cleric came in. The cleric, seeing the shoes, got some paladins to come help him and then began to move to pull the robes apart to reveal the "hidden intruder". Pelias meanwhile jumps out the door and tries to hide in a crevase by the altar, however, he is spotted by a monk and is forced to flee the temple, with most the temple guard in hot pursuit. He loses them at the bridge going over the pond at the entrance, spiderclimbing under the bridge and dropping his quiver of arrows making it appear he had jumped into the water. This, however, caused most the guards to leave the building, leaving it nearly wide open for the rest of the group to move about and get the mirror. The monk whom had given them the layout to the temple, however, had a mishap trying to get into the room behind the altar, triggering a glyph of warding. He was drug back to the Town Hall to be interrogated by one of the Paladins, at the behest of a cleric of Pholtus. Meanwhile Quintas and the One without Name made their way towards where they believed the mirror was kept, telling guards along the way that there was problems at the entrance and they should go help
Towards the very back, however, the guards would no longer go, fearing a move might be made on the mirror. Then the loud boom of the front doors being shut and locked could be heard throughout the temple, and the Crimson Highwaymen announced their presence to all within. After some time disguised as guards the Highwaymen, the Cleric with No Name, Quintas, and Tarn of the Intolerant Hand went at it, the Highwaymen killing Tarn and holding off the fight with Quintas and the Cleric until there were less guards. (They were virtually beating down the door) The highwaymen grabbed the Mirror of the Ages, cast some spells making them and the other two invisible and silent, and then opened the door and left the temple swiftly, avoiding guards wherever they could.
The Highwaymen lead the two back to their temporary base where they challenged and then were challenged to a contest, which eventually was decided to be who could stay still the longest. The Cleric with No Name won this test of concentration, and the Highwaymen turned over the mirror honorably. They returned to the Righteous Man who learned the location of the Temple of Mask he had been searching for, the one which held a piece of the Staff of Ascension within it. He informed the group of what the Staff was, and that he would greatly reward them if they performed the task of retrieving the staff piece for him. Also, he would grant them a gift few ever recieved, the status of a Shadow-Walker. They agreed, and he would perform the ritual the next day. The beginning of the Thursday game was the ritual itself, and applying the Shadow-Walker template to the characters. This was needed so they could actually survive the Temple of Mask without any...mishaps. At any rate, they hiked the 3 day trail to the Temple and entered the first hallway, finding it riddled with traps. (Mask is the god of Thieves after all) Pelias, after working his way down most the hallway, was grieviously injured by a glyph of warding and needed help, so the Cleric with No Name used one of his new found abilities and Dimension Doored out to his location. Pelias, now realizing he could do the same, dimensioned doored back to the start of the hallway, stranding the cleric. (he and Pelias had a rocky relationship at this point) After attempting to go back the way Pelias had come, and nearly killing himself, the Cleric decided to rest where he was until he could dimension door again, and so the group settled down for the night. All, but the monk who dimension doored down the hallway, and after fiddling with magical orbs stuck to the symbol of Mask on the wall, jumped into one of the portals alongside the symbol. He would later be killed by an Assassin Vine after investigating too closely to a pool of water. That would not be the only event of the evening, however. A wraith attacked that night as well, coming right out of the symbol of Mask. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the Cleric had drained himself to 1 hitpoint during the day and thus was killed outright due to damage caused by the Wraith, not Con loss, so he didn't become undead. The group would hear the wraith and try to save him, but to no avail, they were forced to flee back outside and rest till the next day.
Early the next morning Pelias would come back to where the Cleric's body lay. He looted it, dropped it down a shaft, and came back to the group, bribing any of those that disagreed with his course of action. Then he and Quintas went back to the Righteous Man for more assistance which they will soon get...
