Session the Fourth

Having received the blessing of Athena, the heroes began their search through the temple for the other altars, hoping to gain the Goddesses' blessings to repair the earth weird's keystone. Searching down corridors previously unexplored, the rogues found a lasciviously decorated shrine to Aphrodite. The Mistress of Mistresses found none of the brash adventurers to her liking in terms of their looks or charisma, and so they were forced to supplicate Her with offerings of silver. Declining for now to offer up their wealth, they explored further and located an altar to Demeter. The harvest goddess was appeased by an offering of the strange fruit of the Mallaroomba tree, and her blessing was secured. Further on, the heroes discovered a shrine to Artemis. They surmised that the Goddess of the Hunt required proof of their prowess in slaying dangerous beasts, but they had no such tokens handy. They decided to venture on and return later. North of the fresco hall, they discovered a shrine with a peacock feather emblazoned altar to Hera, queen of the gods. Placing the keystone upon the altar, the party was attacked by an albino minotaur which appeared from a rift in nature to test the mettle of those who sought his mistress's aid. When the beast was slain, the keystone was repaired a bit more, and Dermot the hireling severed the beast's head as an offering to the moon Goddess.

As the party made their way back to Artemis' shrine, they spotted two diminutive figures in the darkness ahead. These were pech, strange folk of the deep earth, with the stature of children and a great affinity for living rock. Cruum, perhaps still under the pernicious influence of the devil-fruit, misidentified the wee folk as Hungarians "probably hopped up on paprika and spoiled mare's milk!" and attacked them. The earth children responded by calling upon their magic to create a set of stone bars blocking the passage. The party sent many arrows after the pech, but the little fellows merely linked arms and skipped off into the darkness, chortling all the way. Their progress blocked for now, the warriors were forced to consider what their surfeit of aggression had cost them. Returning to the surface, they repurposed a fallen column as a battering ram and used it to knock out the stone bars, swearing revenge upon their makers should they ever meet again.

After gaining the blessings of Artemis with the offering of the minotaur's head, the adventurers made for Aphrodite's chamber, but they were in for a horrible surprise. Turning a corner, they came upon a fearsome arachnid of great size, with great pinching claws and a deadly poison tail-sting. Cruum identified the beast as a "Turkish Sting-Wolf". The dwarf and his hired man Zoltan were first in line to face the beast. The dwarf was able to take a pinch from the foreclaw without falling, but Zoltan was not so lucky; pinched in place by the claw, he was helpless to avoid the descent of the great tail and its deadly barb, and the doomed warrior "rode the Sting-Wolf". Dermot, wielder of the magic blade dropped in the forest, stepped forward to defend his thane and avenge his shield-mate, but within a minutes time, he too rode the sting-wolf. Cruum, screaming vengeance for his fallen comrades, dealt the death-blow to the foul creature, and took one of its eight eyes as a trophy.

In the shrine to Aphrodite, the warriors dug deep into their purses until the Goddess was appeased with an offering of 2,000 silver pieces. Having received five of the six necessary blessings, the party headed down the last corridor they had not explored. They found a cavern containing a shore lapped by black subterranean water of unknown depth. By this forlorn pond sat a mermaid statue set in a contemplative attitude, and a strange hedge hog like beast with stony spines and a skull-like visage prowled nearby. The creature seemed aggressive, so the warriors joined battle. The beast got its claw into Cruum and did great damage to the dwarf, but ultimately it was slain.