Finally having found their way into the empty of halls of the lower city of Xen’Khel, the party stops, finding thier…

Finally having found their way into the empty of halls of the lower city of Xen’Khel, the party stops, finding thier path to the temple blocked by a party of dwarves. Knowing that the archaeologists have been lobbying to prevent adventurers entering, especially non-dwarves, we stop to weigh our options. Socrates did a quick fly-by, confirming that it is a research group with armed guards, currently examining a runic inscription on the wall.

One idea is to use Brice, citing we are her escorts down the temple where she can pay her respects, unfortunately, the group includes clerics from Xenilum’Khel, so she decides to hide within the party. A second fly-by reveals them to be talking about recording more inscriptions, following down into the temple, provided they meet with ‘no interlopers’.

We decide to just wing it and walk past, trusting on the dwarves in the party to be able to get us through. Naturally, they stop us, asking if we are there to loot. Axel starts to try and weave a tale of us merely coming to worship and see the temple as dwarves ourselves. The humans are merely our travelling companions, and we have no need of plunder due to our travels elsewhere.

A pair of older looking clerics step forward, and Thorfus recognises his uncle, Elder Brother Dolman. They hug and greet each other, Dolman asking after Thorfus’ mother, and what brings him to Xen’Khel. Thorfus continues the story, to some skepticism, and asks what his uncle is doing, which seems to be inventorying the remaining contents of Xen’Khel. It turns out that they are there as official representatives of the dwarven people, to which Axel and Chuq almost get themselves in trouble refuting.

The other dwarf, Thorri Carrow, Chief Ambassador to Xen’Khel, offers to accompany us down to the temple, and we begrudgingly accept. They ask for our leader, and we point towards Thorfus, much to Dolman’s pride. It’s at this point however, they notice Brice within our ranks, and they instantly take offence at they presence of someone they deem to be a heretic.

This instantly starts a large debate on Brice’s devoutness, potential heresy and religion in general. We don’t seem to make any headway however, the high-ranking clerics in our presence very sure of themselves. They cannot accept that the first person to ever directly speak to Xen’Tellar was a young acolyte, favoured by a rich man, over other dwarves who had devoted thier entire lives to the god’s service. It doesn’t go well, and the two elders stomp off, leaving Dolman to ‘talk sense into his nephew’ and telling us that they will not permit ‘that’, meaning Brice, to enter the temple.

Dolman tries to convince Thorfus of their views a little more, explaining Brice’s history with her order and their reasons for expelling her. Of how a rich merchant was looking to make some grandiose gesture to a temple, talking only to the younger acolytes in his tour of the temples, eventually favouring Brice and gifting her a holy symbol. His name was Silvas, a Silver Throne merchant from Curasor, and it was after this that Brice started hearing Xen’Tellar’s voice. The conversation ends in another stalemate however.

Brice approaches and requests a private audience with Father Thovo, which we allow with some warnings, even making sure Starchy accompanies her. Apparently she has seen some way for them to work through this spat, granted through a vision, whom she needs to relay a message to. After a brief conversation, they return, and Thovo has somehow been convinced to allow Brice through.

In the meantime, Dolman takes the time to hint heavily that Thorfus should write his mother more, using Axel as an unwitting example. He also discusses a bit of ours and Talon’s legends, and the state of Xen’Khel as a livable city.

Eventually, Brice and Thovo return to the group, and we move on towards the temple. The archeaological group take the lead, and we keep our distance some few dozen feet behind them. They stop at the end of the tunnel to examine another inscription, and we pass them by, entering the temple itself. Reading the inscription, we see that the room beyond is referred to as ‘The Hall of The Seat and the Path’.

The temple is a large open room, that is nonetheless oddly plain. Balconies flank the entrance, and a number of doors a set into the walls on either side, leading up to a dias in the centre. Two more doors are behind this, flanking a large arch. Upon the dias is a large, metallic throne, evidently the Silver Throne of this temple. The floor of the dias has a design set into it, made from the same metal, designed to represent The Path. We spend a long time trying to match this design to known astronomical signs, which it does indeed match the constellation, though we lack anything but astrological information on it. We also try to match it to locations, specifically those seen with the mask, but it takes some doing, without reference, though might work with the missing Crystal Tower. We notice the metal, which some enterprising adventurers have at some point tried to dig up, is made of the same material that comprises some of the automata cubes.

In the meantime, Brice prays for answers, but gets nothing but grandiose visions of the god. The dwarven group behind us continue thier exploration, disappearing into one of the side doors, eventually appearing on one of the balconies.

We also try fitting the key into the design, looking around for any other location it might fit, getting a vibrating reaction the closer we get to the throne, but not finding anything else. Thorfus also tries the mask, but outside it looks stormy, and zooming in shows only grey. Belroar gets the idea that Thorfus should sit on the throne, utilising the key like a ship’s wheel. After some more tests, he tries it, and gets a reaction!

The Path lights up, with glowing blue balls lifting out of the depressions to float in mid-air and linking. They link to the throne, and it spins around 180 degrees, one of the arm rests folding open and out, a flat section levelling out above his lap. In the centre of this is a square peg, marked with the letter ‘A’ and an arrow pointing down. Thorfus mounts the key on this, aligning the ‘A’s, and a humming noise permeates the area as the wall between the arch becomes a dark grey colour, crackling with electricity. It seems somewhat mirrored, with dark reflections of the room and our party in it.

Belroar touches it, and gets shocked naturally. Thorfus then twists the key in place, so the ‘D’ is now at the top, and the wall changes. The static leaves, and now we can see a room beyond the arch, smaller and octagonal with several doors and windows, though still blurry. When Belroar touches it with a gorilla hand, it passes through the wall and returns unharmed. Whilst he repeats the trick with a cloak-wrapped hand, Axel tosses a spike through, which lands on the other side. Belroar then walks through entirely, entering the octagonal room as the dwarven party returns and comes up behind us.

The room has four doors, and four windows on the walls between. The arch he passed through is in the centre, and to the side is a pedestal. There is a skeleton at it’s base. Ancient text adorns panels above the doors, and there are lights beside them, three green, one red.

Thorri asks what we are doing, to which Axel replies ‘exploring’ as the clerics push to the front, very curious as to how we acheived this. Unfortunately, we have no answers, and they are confused as the octagonal room is not the catacombs that should be behind the wall.

Axel also passes through at that point, collects his spike, and returns, asking after Finklemur and Brice to translate the text. The dwarves seem to want to stop us going any further, even when we offer for them to accompany us. We take Brice through regardless, as Belroar pops his head back through to call her. All we can tell them that it was pure luck that we found this place, being adventurers after all, it’s our job.

Slowly, one by one, the entire main party of the Starchy Boyz passes through, taking Sturloc and Kottar, but leaving Talon in charge of the cart and other hirelings, tasking him with keeping the portal clear for us.

Thorfus removes the key and gets off of the throne, and after several moments, the edges of the portal begin to grey out, evidently closing. To be sure it’s safe, we check the pedestal, and discover another square spoke, this one marked ‘D’, and think we can get back through just fine.

Finally on the other side, the portal finishes closing, and we explore the new area. Each door has a small, meshed window in it, and a panel to the left with blinking lights, north, east and west are green, and south is red. The signs read in a clockwork fashion; Humanoid Research, Housing and Recreation, Reptilian Research, Analysis and Administration.

We decide to look through arrow slits, starting at the northeast. Each window shows a trapezoid shaped room, with four lockers set into the opposite wall. There is a square section of material of floor in the middle, made of some unidentifiable material. The south-eastern room has rubble all over the floor emanating from the south, and the square section is instead a hole leading into blackness. There are bones in the rubble.

Thorfus then decides to check the pedestal, lining up the key before turning it to A. After the static filled grey, the wall becomes the image of the temple, a number of people setting up camp beyond. We confirm with Talon that everything is still ok, then switch to G. There is a different room beyond, this one a short hallway with a door at the end.

F shows a triangular room, with the portal at the point, with a door on the opposite wall. Finally, C shows a larger room with vine-covered pillars and another door.

We also check the skeleton by the pedestal. It looks to have been a plain robed dwarf, the robes being once white. Axel rolls it over, and we see that there was a gold threaded design on the front, representing helixes. He has several pouches and a necklace, holding a stone disc.

Before we can inspect further, it opens it’s eyes and reaches out to grab Axel.