010 - Room: The Temple of the River Goddess - Sanctuary

Temple Layout Temple VTT Maps

When the earth began to shake, and the temple of the river goddess threatened to collapse around her, High Priestess Elle was not exactly surprised, because she had some warning the day before. Indeed, she had known for years the approximate time that something momentous would occur because of the coins in the courtyard's fountain. (See entry 014 for more detail on this.)

In truth, the River Goddess is not a minor goddess at all, but is in fact one of the Prime Deities. She holds the safekeeping of the River of Time, that guides all things to their downstream destiny. This isn't exactly a deadly secret, but the church encourages all but the most devout to worship the god only in connection with more mundane waters. For while, like most non-evil churches, the clergy perform good deeds, like healings and blessings, there wouldn't be much they can do for anyone who asked to alter the flow of time itself. Destiny can not be hastened, and the past cannot be changed -- at least not without great cost.

So, when the end approached, the Priestess began casting a powerful spell, not to turn the river back, but to create a small eddy in the currents of time. An extended pause in the flow of the waters. In truth, the temple is already destroyed and collapsed, its clergy and the high priestess herself all dead, but simultaneously, the last echoes of them all continue to exist and stretch forward in the physical world, and they will continue to do so as long as Elle ceaselessly maintains the casting of her spell.

She undertakes this incredible effort in hopes that someone will come and take one of the temple's treasures from its basement vault -- one of the three keys that are needed to deactivate the Nexus.

Findings

Easy Perception - High Priestess Elle is reading from the tome on the lectern, and the words she is speaking in a low ethereal voice are the ones written on the page before her. She is transparent and incorporeal, and putting a hand or non-magical weapon through her space has no effect.

Easy Spell Knowledge - The words in the tome are the words to a ritual that is a very powerful spell. The human mind is not made to contain such, and if the book were taken, damaged, or obscured, she would be prevented from continuing the ritual.

Medium Spell Knowledge - From the illuminated illustrations on the pages that are exposed, and the words of the incantation, the spell has something to do with time.

Hard Spell Knowledge - The temple and its remaining inhabitants (except for the water elemental in the Narthex) are temporal echoes of the past, and the ritual is all that maintains them. Were the spell interrupted, the temple would rapidly return to its natural destroyed state, with unknown consequences for anyone within.

Easy Appraise - As an active and popular church, there is quite a bit of value in the Sanctuary. Brass candelabras, gold candlesticks, various gold and silver iconography, and even the altar cloth is made of particularly fine white silk. All of it together appears to be worth about the price of four master crafted weapons, but when Elle's spell ceases, all of these items will suddenly be as damaged as if they had been dug out of a collapsed building, making their true value worth about the price of a single such weapon.

Medium Empathy - High Priestess Elle is worried, and weakening. There is an undertone of desperation in her spellcasting.

Outcomes

High Priestess Elle will continue casting her spell until the Key of Time is taken outside the courtyard, at which point she will allow her spell to finally cease. Anyone still in the temple at that time will need to move very quickly indeed to escape death under a ton of collapsing rubble. (easy agility check to halve damage as if from a 50' fall, medium agility check to take one quarter such damage, and a difficult agility check to avoid damage completely.)

Elle is aware of the party's presence, but cannot take time or attention away from her spell to speak. Even her hands are busy with magical gestures and the turning of pages. She can communicate only with her eyes and facial expressions. If the PCs ask where they should go, she will consistently flick her gaze in the direction of the wall between her and the basement stairway in the storeroom. (Entry 015)

The priestess does not want the temple to collapse before the Key is retrieved, but there are limits. If her book is closed, taken, covered, or she is prevented from turning pages, her spell will falter and the natural flow of time will reassert itself. If she is injured by a magical effect that can affect incorporeal beings, she will attempt to maintain her concentration to a point, but if she falters, or the party makes repeated attacks the spell will be disrupted. Finally, if the party spends more than three days in or around the temple, her dwindling energies will fail, and the spell will collapse under the weight of the backed-up time that has accumulated behind her dam.