"Whenever you think we're ready..." Cal murmurs. Where's the dragonborn cleric though? And who was going to open the door again? The zombies?

Suddenly, a sharp stab of pain knifes through his lower back. "Not my lumbago again!" Cal groans. He can't understand why he always had lumbago attacks, and always after a looting session. Must be getting old.

Briefly interrupting his readied attack, Cal does the jumping jacks to exercise the muscles and ease the pain. Unbeknownst to him, a hide armor that weighs 25 pounds leaps out of his pack, and landing on the ground in front of the door with a thud.

"Ahh, that feels much better!" Cal ejaculates, as he returns to his readied position.

Remove hide armor from pack. Drop it, and kick it in front of the door to help trip up zombies.
Return to readied action: Twin Strike on any hostile once the door is open.

Garrmondo shouts at whatever it is behind the door, and the pounding immediately ceases. A muffled, incoherent voice shouts something indignant-sounding, and the metal clattering sound diminishes. A few moments later, the pounding noise resumes, but less audibly: whatever it is must be trying its luck at another door.

Are you guys seriously waiting for the whatever to break down the door specifically barricaded to keep it inside?

The cleric tags along quietly, studying the underdark architecture and making note of its many fluted columns. He briefly wonders why the smell of burning flesh is in the air, but waves the thought away as another column catches his attention. Just look at that one! Man, it is so fluted.

He nearly walks into the rest of the party, but noticing the team's consternation with a blocked door, Gheth jogs quickly back to the northwestern alcove, and tests the eastern door there.

Glock stares at the door, and tries to determine it's locking mechanism, and if it's something any of us can pick, or if we've just got to bash the ever loving shit out of it until it falls down.

Using the SCIENTIFIC METHOD, Glock attempts to glean this information through physical violence, and begins to start assaulting the door.

Glock needs Gordok's help! Gordok curls up into a ball and rocks from side to side.

IT'S SUPER EFFECTIVE!

Cal hangs back with his bow, while Gheth decides to get well out of the way and investigate elsewhere. It takes some time, but eventually the three adventurers bash a hole in the doors large enough to jam Gordok's relatively compact body through. He lands in the adjacent room with a thump and quickly unlocks the door from inside.

The room is choked with a cold fog. It's like standing in someone's icebox, and Gordok begins to shiver. The chapel is scattered with the remnants of its long-ago faith: a massive statue of Bephomet stands scowling in the center of the room, and broken fragments of stone furniture are strewn all about.

Bound to the statue with a heavy chain is a creature seemingly made entirely of ice, though roughly humanoid in shape and size. Its hands are chained together behind its back, and a burlap sack covers its head. The sack is cinched tightly around the creature's neck.

Three duergar corpses lie near the creature. The bodies are wearing much lighter armor than the guards G-Unit fought on their way here — mostly tunics of rough hide. The bodies don't seem decayed in the slightest.

The sack-headed thing appears to turn in Gordok's direction, although who can tell really. It shakes the chain violently, muttering incoherently beneath the sack.

Gordok's fingers start getting a little numb.

On the other side of the fortress, Gheth cautiously pushes open another door and peeks out. In this case, things were exactly as the scout had described them: the door opened onto a small corridor, with closed double-doors to the east and to the north.

Beyond the east door Gheth can easily hear at least three different voices shouting at each other, but determining the topic is beyond his linguistic talents.

As his party mates know, Cal enjoys desecrating duergar corpses. He especially doesn't trust corpses that aren't decayed, with or without any refrigeration.

And so he does, all the while moving down as far south as physically possible.

Quarry on duergar corpse nearest to us
Move all the way south, young changeling.
Twin Strike on said corpse.
It's helpless right, so automatic crit? :D

Catching sight of Frosty the Snowman, Cal searches through his extensive travel memories on anything he might have picked up about it. Could it, perchance, regenerate each round when not damaged by fire?

Gheth quietly shuts the door, and beats a hasty retreat upon not finding an obviously adjacent door to the creature chamber.

Discovering that aside from idle target practice, the party has not yet entered into mortal combat with whatever lurks behind the door, he is curious what possible use a god could have for a guardian that cannot readily defend his temple.

Gheth thinks perhaps not all is what it seems, and makes an attempt to communicate with the creature by speaking through the doorway. He gives a knowing look at Gordok and the rest, in case the thing reacts poorly to conversation.

"Can you understand me, creature? Nod your head if so."

Diplomacy check?

Glock sticks his head in the door.

Not sure if the thing knows how to communicate properly, Glock makes a zombie-like face and proceeds to beep in a rudimentary Morse code. Everything understands beeps.

http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e7...cles/pike2.jpg

Words of Friendship

"Hey bro. I see you got a thing for dead dwarves. How fortunate. So do we. Your cold storage solution seems like a good change of pace to old fashioned slaughter to boot."

"We even like undead-zombie type things, there is this one we have as a pet. We have even trained it not to shit itself." he beeps, while further describing Cal, Cal's location, and his current actions of perforating more dwarves. If the ice creature was violent, it's best if was focused on someone who was not robotic.

"But nigga, we all about the merciless slaughter of these assholes, so how about you lemme know if you're up for more killin' of 'em."

Cal shoots a corpse for some reason. The sound of weapons being fired seems to agitate the ice creature somewhat, but it makes no hostile movements. The arrow slams into the frozen-solid duergar corpse and splinters instantly.

While pondering on this totally-unexpected event, Cal ponders on what sort of creature this might be. He determines that it is probably some sort of ice elemental.

Cal is very smart.

Gheth cautiously attempts to open a dialogue with the elemental, and the creature seems to understand — it nods its head, and mumbles agreeably beneath the sack.

Glock promptly turns the discussion to a proposal of violence, however, and the elemental seems to shy away, shuffling back a few feet and shaking its head vigorously.

Hmm, that didn't seem to work.

Cal ambles forward, takes out Rundarr's boiled heart and throws it next to the frozen corpse, near the ice elemental.

Something's not quite right here, and Cal's not feeling particularly comfortable with it. If the ice elemental is as peace-loving as it appears to be, then why the duergar corpses? And why are they wearing different armor from the Grimmerzhuls?

Perception Check on Corpses, Insight Check on Frosty.

Recalling his friends the ice zombies, Gordok throws out a question.

"Does Mr. Ice Guy want a hug? :)"

Gheth puts a warning hand on the gnome's shoulder.

"That's probably a bad idea, Gord. This whole room reeks of a trap, but it may not necessarily be a hidden one. If I had to take a guess, I'd say those duergar were killed just by being close to the thing."

Aid Perception check, specifically: do the duergar have their weapons drawn or signs of battle on them?

Cal throws the boiled heart down on the icy stones, where it goes "splut". Frost creeps up the sides of the soggy organ. It'll be quite difficult to pry it loose again — at least in one piece.

That inexplicable task completed, Cal kneels down carefully by the nearest dwarf corpse to examine it more carefully. This close to the elemental, the temperature rapidly becomes uncomfortable — Cal sees his fingertips slowly turning blue as he gingerly prods at the corpse.

While the dwarves did indeed evidently die with their weapons in hand, none of them have any evident wounds. Despite their poor-quality armor, the duergar here are apparently Grimmerzhul — a green snake stylized into a simple maze is etched on their upper arms, and Cal recalls seeing the same design on the bodies he tampered with earlier.

Insight does not work that way, the elemental hasn't made any claims beyond the self-evident "yes, I understand you".

Gordok approaches the elemental cautiously with his arms open, but the creature hastile backs away. Evidently it doesn't like hugs.

Though the elemental is already quite placid, G-Unit continues to address it as though it were a small, stupid child. It turns its head in Garrmondo's direction, seemingly attempting a shrug only to be cut short by the chains restricting the mobility of its arms.

Cal backpedals away quickly, cursing under his breath as very real frostbite begins to creep up over the faux decay on his "zombie" hands. No permanent harm done, but he won't be pulling any bowstrings for a few minutes.

Abandoning the beeping, Glock changes subjects. He knows how to make friends.

"Hold on a minute, bud."

In fact, he back tracks to some of the beds and grabs the comforters off them, and wraps himself in them. After several layers, he should be able to withstand the cold for a moment at least.

Returning to the room while still wrapped up, he produces Murray. Standing just far enough away to use the steel end of the tool as a hook, using it to remove the covering on the head of the elemental. Not touching something made out of ice was probably a good idea.

Afterwards, he returns to the door where it's not all that bad, and sheds the blankets.

Glock pulls the sack off of the elemental and steps back, revealing its smooth, featureless head. Though it appears to have no mouth (or a face of any sort, really), it looks over at the skull-wielding robot and his zombie companion and issues an audible sigh.

A long, awkward silence passes, and the elemental pipes up again.

"So, uh, if you'll just cut me loose and point me to the nearest exist I'll be out of your way.Then you can get back to looting or murdering or whatever you like to do on weekends. I'm sure you're all very busy... um, people?"

Not dissuaded by the lack of an icy hug Gordy takes a liking to the elemental.

"Oh! Oh! I like this idea. But who did this to you, mister? Was it the cow people?"

Temporarily unable to utilize his hands for archery, "Dead" Cal (Decal) goes on a circuitous route that completely avoids Frosty the Snowman, and tries to pick apart the door on the other side with his hands.

Don't quite think 10 will do the job, huh? :(

Unfortunately the frostbite ensures his inability to do fine motor movements. Perhaps he can bash the door open instead?

Nah, let the strong fighter do it. Though, Cal pauses to listen at the door before leaving.

Decal walks the same circuitous path back to his minions, and addressed the ice elemental.

"What frozen no-face man doing here? Frozen no-face man surely know the closest exist is big noisy tin man here!" Decal gestures to Glock.

"How can we trust frozen no-face man word if we set free? How we sure frozen no-face man won't attack us?"

Now, use active insight on his response :) 16+6=22

Glock deems Cal annoying in his cowardice.

He then smiles to himself. Cowardice. Oh ho ho ho ho ho. Reminds himself of an artist he once knew named Jonathon Harble the Gray. The artist was a terrible person, as he had a habit for shitty puns.

"Look you, no time for dilly dally. A friend in need is a friend indeed."

Glock wraps himself up again and approaches, and proceeds to bash on one of the chains.

"Hey Jack. (Can I call you Jack?) We'll have you out of here in no time. Spreading Christmas cheer to all the little dwarfsicles."

"Also there's a door in the back there somewheres. Sure it won't be hard to find."

Somewhere totally unrelated to the adventure at hand, an artist wanders through a pitch black cavern. It is a dark place, deep within the earth. As he continues his grand adventure, he grumbles to himself about forgetting to bring a flashlight. Suddenly, and without warning, he is eaten by a wandering grue.

What a GRUE-some development this adventure turned out to be! Oh ho ho ho ho ho ho ho!

________

Glock looks up for a brief moment from bashing the chain. He contorts his face into utter displeasure at the thought of the shitty pun making artist. He continues to bash the chain, pretending one of the links is the artisans head.

The elemental seems to take a liking to the little halfling.

"Why yes, little man. It was the cow people. Many, many years ago one of their terrible demon-summoning rituals went awry, opening a portal to the City of Brass rather than to the Abyss as they intended. There I was, minding my own business, when quick as a wink I fell through. Next thing I knew, I was surrounded by silly cows in robes. I was just so dazed and confused that they had me bound up before I could do anything!

Every now and again they'd send some cowpriest or other in here to try to send me back, but they could never figure out what had gone wrong! They refused to just release me, since as I have no horns they found me entirely distrustworthy.

Of course, since I was locked in here they could no longer use this temple to make their sacrifices to Baphomet. It wasn't long before the Horned Lord withdrew his favor, and Thunderspire fell to an incursion of duergar. They didn't know what to do with me either, but in true dwarven fashion they kept sending in idiots to "stand guard" over me. That practice stopped pretty quickly; you five are the first to step foot in here for decades!"

Meanwhile, Cal hikes over to the opposite side of the room, attempting to lockpick a door in an ice-cold room with his bare hands from the inside. He fails, and moreover now his hands are stuck together.

"I can't make any such guarantee, my rotten acquaintance. But, as you can see, if I wanted to kill you all I'd need to do is follow you around for a while. Surely you saw that I made no attempt to harm my erstwhile guardians. They simply lacked the sense of self-preservation. Honestly, what motive do I have to harm you? I bear no grudge against you, and your petty magic trinkets are hardly worth the bloodshed. I have more valuable enchantments on my teakettle at home."

Cal sees nothing suspicious in the elemental's words.

Glock sets to work smashing the elemental's chains. The chains are brittle from such long exposure to the bitter elemental cold, and within a few minutes the elemental is loosed from its bonds. It stands up and stretches.

"AFTER TEN THOUSAND MONTHS I'M FREE! TIME TO CONQUER DWARVES."

The elemental clears its throat.

That is, it's time for you to conquer the dwarves. I'm going home, I can't even imagine how the bills have piled up. I've heard about some dimensional portals in the labyrinth — in a place called the 'Tower Of Mysteries'. At least one of the gates should lead me back to the Chaos. Look me up if you're ever in the City and I'll see what I can do about repaying you properly. For now, though—"

The elemental brushes a hand over Murray, and the iron bar is coated with ice. Within seconds, tremendous pressure wrenches the bar back into form, and the ice flows up into the skull itself. The bone is coated with a crystalline glaze.

"That should hold, provided you don't throw it into a volcano or something. Best I can do for you at the moment. Good luck!"

The elemental sweeps through the doorway, and the three mercenaries standing there shiver violently in the wake of his passing.

Minor Quest complete
Achievement unlocked: Glock
Murray becomes a +2 Frost Mace

This guise was doing Cal no good. At all. Stupid zombie hands, always getting frozen. Time to change again, yes yes. Cal knows, he'll change shape into the guise of a supremely beautiful elfess . So beautiful that the ugly Grimmerzhul dwarves would never ever harm her!

Beautiful Cal warms up a bit on a lighted torch and starts to think. With the departure of Jack Frost, the room temperature should be just about back to normal. This should facilitate his examination of the dead duergar corpses for anything of value.

The changeling takes a torch to scour the room and strip the thawing corpses for anything of use, magic items and mundane weapons both. Gotta take that inventory of lootable items, bad back notwithstanding!

While keeping an eye on the shapeshifter, Glock tries to recall info about places of worship of cow gods, hopefully drawing on information that would allow them to find something that'd be minotaurish enough that they can pocket it and carry it back as proof of actually doing what they were here to do.

Maybe something in the rubble? Or something they can bust off of the big statue.

History Check
11 + 13 = 24