Episode 14 - Oh My Goddess
Wu Sun, Kasimir and Dunbar found themselves at the gate of an unknown city. They entered, having told the gate guards that they had come to visit the temple. Inside the gate they followed the broad central avenue to what was obviously the temple building. Arriving at the temple they quickly realized that they could not be sure it was the place they sought for not even Wu Sun could read the writing on its walls.

The trio entered the temple and, after waiting for the priests to finish their chants, they approached a couple of them and asked if this was the monastery of the winged serpent. They were told that it is not and that there was no such place in this country. While they were talking with the priests they were approached from behind by a group of guards and some sort of official.

The official asked what they were doing and Dunbar said that they were seeking information about an artifact. With this, the official ordered our heroes to be detained. They were placed in shackles, which dampened to all supernatural abilities and drained all spells. The three were then taken to the town jail.

At the jail, they were again brought before the official that had ordered their arrest. He asked what they knew and Wu Sun began to recite his entire monkly education. The official did not take as well and ordered Wu Sun be taken to a cell immediately. He then continued with the interrogation of the two remaining heroes.

He wanted to know why the group had entered the country, what they were looking for, what it did, who they were working for and what their plans were. Dunbar told the official that he was a seeker of truth and that he and his companions were in the service on a council of seers with visions of an impending apocalypse they were investigating. He said that they had learned of an ancient artifact of that might play a part in all of this. They had discovered, he said, that there was information about this artifact in a place called the monastery of the winged serpent.

The official said he did not believe that Dunbar was telling the whole truth and so ordered that both Dunbar and Sir Kasimir be taken to cells in order to think over their answers. Each has taken to a separate cell where they were shackled to the sleeping pallet.

Later on, Casimir was taken from his cell and brought to the torture chamber. There, the official asked him the same questions as had been asked before. Casimir answered as truthfully and he could yet he was still placed on the rack. During his torture he experienced a vision in which a group of glowing beings passed through a portal. During the vision there was an abiding sense of sorrow.

After Casimir was returned to his cell, Rev. Dunbar was taken to the torture chamber and put to the question. While on the strappado, Dunbar experienced a vision of his own. It is also included the glowing beings entering the portal. His version also included the face of Tayna in her destroyer aspect. As well, he saw a bright flash of light as the portal was destroyed.

While the two dwarves were being “questioned”, Wu Sun was brought to the temple where he was provided with books and scrolls in order to revealed to him what his captors considered to be the truth. In these books, Wu Sun learned that in a time long ago, Tayna was not the only god. She had in fact tricked the other true gods of the world and made them pass through a portal into another plane beyond this sphere. Her greed, and her lust for power led her to destroy the proper order of things.

Now, the books said, instead of going to an afterlife non-human beings were consumed by Tayna. As in food. The dragons alone had held out against her and they were now trying to reassemble the portal so as to bring the other gods back into the world. The Shardstone the party is seeking is one part of the portal.

After a week of daily torture (for the dwarves) and reading (for Wu Sun), the dwarves were contacted by unknown potential beneficiaries who slipped notes to them under their cell doors. They were told that they could be helped, so long as they were willing to listen with an open mind. If they were amenable, they were to sing during their next session in torture. The tunes went out the next day.

That evening, Wu Sun returned to a note on his pallet, telling him to be ready for rescue that night. In the darkness later on, the prisoners' cell doors opened and they were unchained from their pallets by hooded human figures. They were taken through a maze of twisty passages to a storage room where they were fitted inside part-filled wine barrels. The lids were closed in such a way to allow air to enter. Hours later they were moved onto what turned out to be wagons and were carted some distance before they were finally freed. They found themselves in a barn-like building in the country, where more of the hooded figures saw to their care and feeding and told them that they would have their shackles removed later by one who was on his way.

Later in the evening, after the sun had gone down, that other person arrived. After the trio promised that they would take no action to harm these folk, they were magically released from their shackles. The new arrival then asked them some questions about what their captors had wanted to know, and about what had been learned.

When Wu Sun told him of what the books had contained and what the priests had said to him, the leader told them that this was only pat of the truth. The dragons, he told them, were not as long in the world as that, but that the story of the other gods and Tayna’s deceit was true. He said that she had tricked the other gods into passing through the gate and had them smashed it. She had hidden the pieces and loosed a great magic to cause all of the peoples to forget the other gods and the portal. In he hubris she had failed to realize that she too would forget.

The dragons, according to the leader, had no intention of allowing any gods but their own to enter the world. Several of the human kingdoms in the East are engaged in searching for the missing pieces of the portal. Many of these kingdoms have been convinced by the dragons that draconic assistance is in their best interest. Other kingdoms and groups do not agree. The people that rescued the trio are members of one of these groups.

The dragons and their allies have already accumulated many pieces of the portal. The rescuers and their allies are attempting to locate the remaining pieces before the dragons can find them. The leader asked if the party would be willing to assist in locating pieces that might be found in the west. There followed after this some considerable discussion between Dunbar and Kasimir as well as Wu Sun about whether or not there was any validity to this tale at all. Dunbar was of the firm opinion that even if the tale were true that whatever Tayna had done was for the greater good. He was also unwilling to disk the possibility of a war in heaven.

At the end of this discussion, the party members gave the indication that they would at least consider what they had been told and what had been asked of them. They also agreed not to do anything that would imperil their benefactors. This meant, of course, that they would not be able to return to the jail to recover their equipment. In the morning they teleported back across the continent.

When they arrived back in Han-Shar they sought out of the rest of the party, finding them in the nearby town. They related both the events of the preceding week as well as the revelations that had been given to them. This led to a discussion as to whether or not party members should fully informed their superiors about what had been discovered. In the end Sir Kasimir gave the most complete accounting while seeking advice. All three of the former prisoners requested replacement equipment from their governments or sponsors. Such was forthcoming.