Episode 4: The Ringer

Summary
The group is where they left off, walking down the slimy sloped corridor, into the pit of Blood Oozes, which guards several objects, and a single tear of Selune. As the get a little closer to the slimes, the see an odd reflection to there left, as the light reveals a blackness. A large obsidian panel, roughly the size of a door. Smooth and featureless, but yet has a strange depth to the color of the glass.

Armoros suddenly becomes very confused, as strands of yellow and white light, lifts off of his skin, and he vanishes within a blink of an eye. The strands quickly reapear, spinning, and folding in position. They amount to a burst of light, as a translucent orange figure remains.

The figure is a oppressive half-orc, chiseled out of granite. Adorned in soldiers garb. On his helmet is a corintian plume of black and gold. He carries a sword and a shield, but more interesting around his waist is a prismatic chain.

The party suddenly recalls Selune talking about a way to ritually modify the scars left on thier hands, caused by the Sunfire needles. Doing so allows one to be summouned, or to summon, others for jolly cooperation. The realize this means Armaros was taken elsewhere, and they now are being aided by someone else, who has presumably been saved by Selune.

Aya and Enkara argue whether or not this new member will prove more useful than Aramaros, to which the half-orc, who greeted himself as Kiaros, recognized the name. Sarrek spastically looks around at everyone, mouth agape, clearly bewildered by the magical switch, and the ridiculous fact that it happened so close to the blood oozes, which still seem non-aggressive. Kiaros mentions he had believed Armaros to have been killed in a brawl, in D'torqa. The large ooze continues to say, "hungry" as the lesser oozes point to its mouth. Sarrek and Aya try and tell Kiaros that his aptitude to killing this ooze will be an audition of sorts, to which Kiaros objects, and states they should talk to the ooze instead, reason with it. He claims he and his friends already tried fighting it, and it did not go well. He tried feeding it the corpses of the shadow-touched, but he spits it up and says that they are empty. They mention the prisoner they released would be an option to feed the slime. Aya says Sarrek is the new de facto leader since Armaros left, and they both want to kill the ooze. They convince Enkara to make the first attack, so she thorn whips the large ooze, provoking the fight. Sarrek falls, and then Kiaros as he attempts to move to the hallway to create a choke point. Aya tries to plead for her life, telling the large slime that she will procure him various meats, with the oozes do not stop. Aya and Enkara are running away when an acid attack nearly disintegrates Aya. Enkara manages to reach the Sunfire brazier and is whisked away to the Gardens of the Moon, where the other companions materialize as well. Kairos notices Sarreks noble attire, and advises him to start acting like one, that true nobility does not come from one's blood, but their actions. He commends Sarrek for fighting well, but Sarrek quips back that his blood does matter, more than Kairos'. Trying to get past the tension, Kairos suggests they keep moving. Without speaking another word, Sarrek moves towards the reflecting pool, and returns to the room above the jail, Kairos and the others following behind. The half-orc begins to investigate the large stone fireplace with a draconic head carved over the mantle. Sarrek claims they already have done everything with the statue trying to activate the buttons. Kairos reaches into the mouth and feels a tongue-shaped lever. As the others are discussing what to do next, with the oozes, Kairos pulls the lever, while also pushing the eyes in, the fireplace swings inward revealing a black passageway behind. Even though Kairos figured it out, he congratulates Sarrek, giving him the credit, which Sarrek takes without a second thought. The stairs go twenty-five feet up, and they reach a wooden door on the right. In the room, there is a bright light coming from the back of the room, from the firelight that is coming from under the various cauldrons spread throughout. The party hears the crackling of the fire, the bubbling of liquid, the clanking of armors as people in the room shift. The smell is of an acrid scent of wood, smoke, and boiling oil. There are five cauldrons in the room, each of which is adjacent to a gutter, that leads to the portcullis room below. There stands four guards, and each of them is manning a cauldron. Kairos suggests they stay on the stairway to make for a good chokepoint, but Aya recommends otherwise, because she a spell that could prove dangerous for her companions. The fight is long, with Aya, Enkara, and Sarrek being taken out fairly quickly. Kairos manages to take out a few guards, and eventually faces down a single guard and a blood ooze that crawled out of a cauldron after Sarrek had hit it in the head with a torch, trying to ignite the oil. The blood ooze had killed one of the guards and is assisting Kairos with the other. Unfortunately, the guard eventually broke through Kairos' guard and struck him down. They all return to the Gardens of the Moon.

Main Cast

 * Kairos
 * Aya
 * Enkara
 * Sarrek Bashaa

Cumulative Statistics
Statistics that track across the entire series.