Khemia Occulta IV: The Tomb of the Djeti

After seeing Teleptyon's experience with an intense acidulant, Brother Theophilus came running to his rescue. Asbjørn found Brother Theophilus's feeble attempts to move the farmer-mage irritating and pushed the cleric aside to do it himself. Theo was able to patch up Teleptyon’s overt damage, but he continued to experience the after effects of inhaling the acid cloud. Brother Theophilus called upon the assistance of Lamos and his patron goddess, Maya, to lend him their divine power to heal Teleptyon of his wounds. Although Telepyton was able to rise to his feet after being prayed for by a cleric of his faith, he still felt a painful burning sensation with each breath. While Teleptyon underwent Theo's ministrations, Kegho approached the coffin to pick up anything that Teleptyon had been unable to grab, including a gold chain and a small amulet. Although, the amulet was not nearly as nice as the one Alexandru had given him months ago. Kegho also looted the Apophian sorcerer's ceremonial robes, which he and Alex were convinced Teleptyon would look great in (with some light tailoring).

Afterwards, Alex convinced the barbarians to lift the stone crossbar across the large door barring entrance to the main tomb, and against his objections, they lofted it down the hall in a show of brute strength. The company reassembled, Kegho and Asbjørn pushed open the doors to reveal a chamber with three lacquered wooden coffins on a raised dias. The coffins were decorated with the images of sleeping Djeti kings. Teleptyon closed his eyes and concentrated on the flow of the Ar as he scried for magic again. He detected a subtle diffusion of arcane energy, but mentioned to his colleagues that this sort of place would naturally be replete with magical auræ. Alex searched the floors around the central coffin for traps but was unable to find anything.

Bored with their meticulous search of the crypt, the lusty Rhenish barbarian, Asbjørn, wandered down a hallway the rest of the group hadn’t noticed and approached a grotesque statue of one of the Djeti's dark gods. Suddenly, Asbjørn heard in the back of his mind a voice not his own, in a language not his own, but whispered perfectly intelligibly - "Call Me 'Tim'!" A man less oppositional and defiant may have heeded this call of evil, but in the back of his mind, Asbjørn merely answered this intrusive voice back with “You can’t tell me what to do!” and he continued on. Having followed Asbjørn to learn what he was doing, Brother Theo scowled at this blasphemous god who was not one of his own deities. Looking beyond this horrible visage carved in sandstone, Theo noticed water dripping down from the ceiling had slowly worn a deep hole beneath the statue over many millennia.

Alex and Teleptyon, having detected no traps in the coffins, recommended the party search them (and repatriate their wealth) on their way out. Alex was called to search the statue and the ad-hoc passageway for traps. Mid-search he heard the barbarians giggling and tiptoeing away, but so focused on the search for traps he didn’t realize what they were doing until an 8 or 9 foot tall Djeti skeleton had sprung from a freshly opened coffin. Kegho struck out at it and Theo invoked his gods to turn these undead abominations back into the pits of Abuthos, but this also awoke the Djeti king from its repose and into a state of holy terror. Teleptyon blasted the first mummy with a missile of magical energy. Alex set aside his search for the moment and approached the melee while lighting his torch. Ükhilflin, Kegho's Aeriscan Wolf-Dog, attacked one of the reanimated skeletons but the Djeti was nimble even as a corpse - though not nimble enough to evade Asbjørn’s strike. The company was briefly relieved with one skeleton fleeing Ator's holy vengeance and the other re-dead, but a third skeleton rose from its coffin to strike Asbjørn. While its back was turned, Alex snuck up from behind and buried the lit torch deep into the mass of millennia old cloth, desiccated flesh, and bone. It burned like a wicker cabinet, and the charred bones became oh so frail. In response, it spun around and slashed at Alex, raking flaming claws across his chest. Teletpyon chose this moment of distraction to smash it into oblivion with his staff. Danger abated, Kegho set Ükhilflin as guard over the hallway the third skeleton had fled down as they searched the crypt a final time before descending down into the passage below the idol of Akhen-At-Im.

Theo tied a rope around the statue of the dread god and they lowered themselves down to a hallway lined with menacing statues of Djeti warriors. Asbjørn noticed that one was askew and pushed it, discovering that it could turn on its pedestal. He turn it aside to reveal a simple room that may have served as a guardpost. It was filled with broken wooden furniture and there were two polearms and a silver icon, presumably of a Djeti noble, hanging on the wall. Alex assessed the icon would sell for 80 Auron if he could find the right buyer, but he was unsure of the going rate for Djeti religious art and artefacts. Kegho and Asbjørn each grabbed a polearm and they headed out of the room and south toward an large octagonial room with a deep pit, filled with the foetid water draining down from around the idol above. The entire room smelled of mildew and licorice. Several doors were blocked with large stone slabs, but the first chamber widdershins from their entrance was open and they entered it, finding a room of 18 clay Djeti soldiers carrying weapons long rusted to uselessness. In addition to the clay and rust, there was the smell of deep cool cave air. Teleptyon and Alex were insistent that they search more closely after Teleptyon discovered the statues were simple, hollow clay by tapping them with his staff. Brother Theo, however, refused to spend more time searching this room, hoping to avoid any more trapped or hidden passages. Yet, in his haste to depart the uncanny and omnious room, he knocked over one of the statues, which knocked another and then another, finally exposing a hidden door.