From the journal of Truck of the Deep Servos, Windling Warrior.
The last two times I passed through Clear Creek Crossing I saw that they were (very poorly for a town with such magnificent buildings) building a wooden palisade. They told me that Elder Miriam has visions of the future, and that lately she had been having repeated and vivid visions of the settlement coming under vicious attack. These visions were apparently also brought to the attention of Strorbrout Cragbringer, the wealthy Throalish merchant and Questor of Chorrolis who funded the restoration and expansion of the shrine of Chorrolis there. He sent out a number of invitations to various adventurers to investigate these visions and to make Clear Creek Crossing safe.
On the way to CCC I passed or was passed by a number of other Adepts who were also traveling there. Upon arrival I quickly ran into Elisen, Orlam, R'edtarian and Strata all of whom I had adventures with before. After talking to Questor Craigbringer we teamed up and decided to guard the center of the town. Some 20 or 25 other Adepts also formed themselves into teams and guarded the town outskirts.
We talked to Elder Mirium, she was way too vague, but Strats did Psychometry upon an item she was holding when she had her most recent vision and learned a lot more. From Strats description we knew that multiple things would be attacking. He saw something with tentacles emerging from every dark corner (but with horrors and horror constructs that did not narrow it down near enough), and also something that looked like a tornado of flying teeth. I thought that sounded like wingflayers, but some others thought it might be flying gnashers. As it turned out we were all right. Mirium told us that she had insisted that the Palisade be built to lean inward to keep the horrors in. I decided she was both a pessimist and very bad at tactics. Of course if I had been having the visions she has been having for months, I might have become a pessimist also. We quickly detected an Astral Corruption inside the village. It covered much of the village but not the surrounding area. We tried to measure and find the exact epicenter of the corruption, but were unable to localize it beyond the central village area. We noted with interest that the corruption included the shrine of Chorrolis, which we felt was of note because we have previously seen that elsewhere a different corruption had been unable to penetrate (let alone overwhelm) a shrine to Upendal. We talked Craigbringer to convince the town populous to sleep outside the town, some went to nearby farmhouses and barns, but many just made a party of it in the nearby pastures.
As dusk fell, we adepts split the town into 5 sections and each party organized a night watch. Our party took the center of the town that included the Shrine and Market Square. Practically at full dark, before any of the off-watch had gone to bed, waves of horrors started to attack. First there were 6 Qural'lotectica that stepped out of piles of rubbish that seem to have appeared out of nowhere. I don't know if we simply did not notice the rubbish prior to the horrors appearing (it was the end of a market day) or if the rubbish appeared along with the horrors). We noticed something apparently coming out of a well, and were well prepared when 3 Gyre Gnasher and a Wing flayer flew out of it. Moments later, two Entrancher appeared, I don't know from where.
A spell was cast that sent Elisen and his Zoak mount asleep. Elisen fell off his mount and onto the roof of the shrine, which woke him up. You could have knocked any of us over with a feather when it became clear that the entire shrine was a gigantic Crystal Entity (casting sleep spells and other nefarious stuff). Earlier I had been standing my watch upon the chimney of that shrine! Strata with his fists, and me with my mace quickly attacked the Crystal Entity and shattered it (subjecting Elisen to still more falling damage as the shrine collapsed beneath him).
With the Crystal Entity masquerading as a shrine to Chorrolis destroyed, we quickly mopped up the last remaining Entrancher and hurried off to help the other parties clear up their own attackers, and to resuscitate those who had temporarily fallen. There was one we were unable to resuscitate, one Duouquirai Svlaniculcor elf Elementalist and Quester of Astendar. In the morning, when Questor Craigbringer returned with the rest of the townsfolk, he was really pissed that the shrine had been destroyed. When we showed him the crystal remnants he was shocked and could scarcely believe that a horror had taken over the shrine. When we talked to Elder Miriam how she felt about the future, she said something like "How can the future be bright if we need to destroy all that we built in order to survive" or something like that.
I don't think the problems in Clear Creek Crossing are nearly over. For starters I don't trust the leadership. Elder Miriam somehow, and for some reason convinced the town to build the palisade leaning inwards, for the express purpose that if the town was attacked, the inhabitants could not climb over the palisade to escape. Is she horror touched or simply senile? Are the townsfolk and other leaders simple minded to allow this? Or were subtle magics used to make them do something so stupid? Was it the CE that was manipulating their minds? Has the manipulations stopped?
Note: The following section is NOT turned over to Strorbrout Cragbringer as he requested that we do. It IS included in the version turned into the Great Library of Throal. It is also shown to several (other) Questors of Chorrolis in Throal.
And how long has the Crystal Entity been growing inside the shrine to Chorrolis? Since the beginning 9 years ago? How long does it take a Crystal Entity to grow that large? How could nobody notice that the walls were changing from Granite to Crystal? And Strorbrout Cragbringer? Was the shrine ever rededicated to Chorrolis at all? Or has it been dedicated to a Horror all these years? If he is a loyal Questor of Chorrolis, how can Craigbringer have failed to notice the CE? For that matter Chorrolis himself? Has he gone Mad like some of the other Passions? Has everybody simply failed to notice? Did Chorrolis fail to notice that a shrine supposedly dedicated to himself was being taken over by a Horror? Do none of his Questors ever bother to commune with him any more? Did Chorrolis think the matter was not worth mentioning? Things are very, very wrong on several levels.
Note: There could be some great follow-up rumors to this adventure, and/or several epic unlocks. Statistics:Posted by ChrisDDickey — Wed Feb 16, 2022 12:47 pm
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