"Get word to the rest of the Order, get them here NOW. And..." The knight with gleaming armor and fiery swords picked up a spear and threw it through the cracks in the closing doors and killed the share warrior trying to get in. "And close that damn door, we are NOT losing this Temple to these demons."
Slowly the whole temple was turned into an army barracks. They took up positions and the magic users began teleporting to the roof of the temple and hurling balls of fire down on the shadowy battlefield. After helping bring in some of the wounded and even spending a round on the roof that harmed enough of them to get them to back off the Temple for a moment, I looked around for Inigo. He was nursing his bears wounds, a large gash across the shoulder blades had been dressed and bandaged already but the large beast wasn't going to take it lying down. The bear sat up and gave a goofy tongue lolling grin as it saw me.
"Bell! There ya are, whatever happened in there!" He rushed to me and hugged me around the waist.
"You act like you haven't seen me in a week!" I exclaimed. "Well yeah, about a week since you disappeared in there. All hell has broken loose since you left, as you can see." He gestured around.
" I've only been there for a few hours... Ok maybe a whole day... How could.. Maybe time doesn't mean anything in the Nexus Temple. " I thought hard about everything and before long I saw one of the children that had been forced to spend their youth in this Temple pull my robes. "You're not supposed to be here! Go back to where you were! Through there!" The little child pointed behind the spirit of Karsus and although all I saw were the murals of Insanity etched into the walls, as I got closer, I felt that I could walk through it. I grabbed Inigo, and we came out at the nexus monk. We were inside the circle of stones and the Warriors, although completely surrounding the circle, didn't dare cross it.
We entered the temple again, with the decaying fragments of the Rose. It wasn't long before the we coaxed the Librarian to let us proceed. He still complained that we were meddling but said he wasn't the one to stop us if we had to continue. I wondered how the battle went outside. From what I knew of Shar and Mask, they were Mother and Son, and sworn enemies. What would cause such a clash in this place, I couldn't begin to understand yet. After providing a book, and a card, the librarian told us that the High Priest of Mask was the only one who could help us. The High Priest was a daunting figure, cloaked in shadow and temperamental. He asked us for our most valuable trinkets and in the end I gave up the Orb of Power that I had forged after years of study just to see what he had to offer.
It was then, that the shadowy figure appeared again.
