Confronting the White Wizard

With the masters in tow we descend down the Udarava’s Stair, heading back to the point where we first arrived. As we go we see more of the white roaches which have tweaked Ye Sing’s interest.

The masters warn that this roaches are actually scattered pieces of the White Wizard’s consciousness. Gogrun immediately thinks that killing them is a good way to weaken the wizard but the wizard has cast a charm that makes people want to avoid killing the roaches by influencing their mind. It even affects Ye Sing who cares nothing for the suffering of others.

At the bottom of the stair we hear voices, roaches squabbling, again. We take up positions to try and gain some intelligence on what the enemy attends and also put up with their inanity.

There are three roach wizards having a discussion, the wizards carry magical staves made of roach parts. It seems that the roaches have summoned a great monster or hero to try and recover the situation in the temple and it sounds like time is of the essence as even with the masters it would be hard to defeat such a creature.

We take advantage of our close position to ambush the wizards and almost bring down two of them quite quickly. However the Spider and Deer master need time to cast some kind of spell and therefore we cannot quite take full advantage of our surprise.

When the roach wizards respond they use powerful magic and turn Master Atta’s leg into a roach leg which causes him to be off-balance with his attacks. It seems that the White Wizard has the ability to literally turn people into roaches rather than just corrupting their minds. This makes the fight seem much more dangerous as the master’s devastating attacks might be neutralised.

Magic is zipping off on both sides and the white roaches bite Ye Sing and cause him to go blind but he responds by throwing off his clothes and using magic to set them on fire. While naked it is easier to pick the white roaches off him, restoring his vision.

A mass of white roaches swarms on a nearby wall, forming a huge outline of a roach. This is apparently the manifest wizard.

The last of the wizard roaches fall but in the battle the Deer master has fallen and returns to their leech form.

There is no place for sophistication it now comes down to trying to overcome the wizard’s psychic defenses and trying to kill as many roaches as well can. The battle is confused but ultimately the remaining numbers tell and the wizard is disincorporated.

After the battle we find some roach jelly that can apparently restore missing limbs so we propose amputating Atta’s roach leg and hoping that his normal leg will grow back.

The temple has lost another master but at least it was the imposter.