Session 14: Tomb of Annihilation

I was unable to persuade Oloma to return to the Yuan-ti palace with us to help put an end to the snakefolk's reign of sacrifice to the Night Serpent.
 
We returned to the temple's rear entrance expecting to find it heavily guarded. It was quiet.
 
"Too quiet for my liking." I stated. "Definitely is a trap of some sort."
Halveer confirmed the snakefolk had indeed been here recently.
 
The trap is sprung as we near the dock where the boats are tied up. Halveer comes face to face with a basilisk and has to fight off the effects of its petrifying gaze.
 
Several Yuan-ti appear as well while we are lined up in the hall trying to get to them.
A terse battle ensues as we spill out onto the landing beside the underground river. We manage to kill the big lizard and its sad owner drags it to him and starts to return to the complex. Not wanting him to alert the
rest of the Temple, I misty step to cut off his path. At that moment, Cimber, who was still in the tunnel is attacked by the other basilisk from behind. Along with his handler.
 
Cimber blasts the hall with a cone of cold, killing the handler and near freezing the Baskilisk. He moves up and dispatches it. Kneeling down to make sure it's dead, he hears another approaching.
 
[Queue O Fortuna music from Excalibur]
 
As if in slow motion, Slithering slowly down the passage as he passes through the swirling fog of mist left by the dissipating cold in the dimly lit corridor, comes a massive Yuan-ti wrapped in bandages. Raz Nsi.
The humanoid torso wields a flaming. longsword....no wait, a scimitar? Ah...no it's a flaming rapier.
 
"You!" Artus Cimber shouts. "Foul abomination! Bringer of undeath and loss beyond the veil of humanity! I shall end you!"
Raz Nsi pauses at the challenge and laughs. "Mortal fool! I will soon be a demi-god as I bring the Night Serpent to cover this world in eternal night!"
 
Their blades clash sending fiery sparks showering around them.
 
 
Out in the main hall I finish off the other basilisk handler and move to come up behind the remaining large Yuan-ti the rest of the party is contending with. Halveer fires arrows
as Kasimir blesses us and Nhile swaps with his Echo to surround the enemy.
 
Suddenly with a "pop" Cimber appears next to me. Quite bloodied.
"What are ye about mate?" I ask surprised.
 
"Nsi......" He gasps. "He's there in the passage. Too powerful. Raz Nsi is coming."
 
As the party kills one of the Yuan-ti, I slip past and down the in time to confront the evil snake fiend. Halveer calls forth the air elemental and send it in to fight as well followed by Nhile's Echo.
We surround him. But he soon misty steps away and into the main chamber.
 
Raz Nsi roars in anger, not expecting to see his allies already dead. He had planned this pincer attack and now it was us that had him in our clutches. Kasimir healed us and we laid into the snake lord
until he fell.
 
We searched the rest of the complex and found his chambers. We took his fancy cloak, the flaming sword of course, his magical bracers, the final puzzle cube, and I found his spellbook and personal Journal that
mentioned Acererak the Lich Lord and the location of the Tomb of the Annihilation, to which we now had all the keys.
 
RAZ NSI SPELL BOOK:
 
1 - Expeditious Retreat, False Life, Shield, Magic Missile
2 - Blindness / Deafness, Hold Person, Misty Step
3 - Animate Dead, Counterspell, Fireball
4 - Blight, Polymorph
5 - Contact Other Plane
6 - Create Undead
 
I had no use for any spells dealing with necromancy, but believed with a little study I could manage some of the first level spells.
We returned to our hidden camp in the ruins to recover from the battle and I studied the spellbooks I has acquired long into the night.
 
Artus Cimber announced he was leaving in the morning to discover if the missing city of Mezro, holding his wife, had returned to the Prime Material plane.
 
I was confident I could cast some simple cantrips like Fire Bolt, a Magical Hand, and a ray of freezing ice. "Who needs Cimber. anyways?" I mumbled to myself.
Most of the party including myself was sore that the adventurer and his Ring of Winter were leaving us before the end of our own quest. Especially after we helped
him find his Nemesis and defeat him. On the other hand, having lost my own wife, I could see why his heart would pull him away for a chance to see her again.
 
The next morning we travelled North to the end of the city walls. I had a few spells ready to call on, including Magical Darts, Flaming Hands, and an invisible shield that
would appear to ward off a powerful attack.
 
As the cliff walls rose up before us, we could make out a black obelisk before us and a dark entrance beyond. We stopped to examine the stone plinth and noticed above the gaping entrance where perched three large
gargoyles. At the base of the obelisk was an inscription that read:

"Fear the night when the forsaken one seizes death's mantle and the seas dry up and the dead rise and I, Acererak the Eternal, reap the world of the living. Those who dare enter take heed: The enemies oppose. One stands between them. In darkness, it hides. Don the mask or be seen. Speak no truth to the doomed child. The keys turn on the inside only"
 
As we approached the cliff entrance, the gargoyle heads bent down to watch us. We also spotted a smaller opening into the cliff wall to the right.
 
Inside the tunnel at its end was a wall with places for eight cubes arranged in a star pattern with lines connect them. Above the ceiling was not natural, but worked stone. Our guess was that, if someone incorrectly inserted the puzzle keys, the stone would come down and seal them inside.
What is more, skulls with gaping mouths lined the walls on either side. "We have seen these before." Halveer remembers. Noxious gas likely escapes them, when the trap is sprung.
 
"I reckon, we examine the other tunnel before we start jamming cubes in these spots." I suggest.
 
We make our way to the other tunnel, the guardians overhead pay us no mind. Inside this smaller tunnel are eight statues, four on each side depicting the Chultan Pantheon. Opposite each other are the gods that fought each other as told by their respective shrines.
A statue for each cube except Unkh, the snail god. "Eight holes, linked together." I say.
 
Nhile points out a secret door at the end of the hall. We stand around it with our lights examining it. "Another way in perhaps?" Nhile wonders.
 
"Seems too easy to me mate. I don't trust it." I reply.
 
"Anyone with luck could stumble across this." Kasimir agrees. "Yet those cubes or keys, were painfully separated and carefully guarded. We went to great trouble to acquire them. I would think they would be the only true way to access the tomb."
 
"Well we need to try and disable the traps in the main hall." Nhile advises.
"You can use your echo to swap out of there, perhaps we can find a way to delay the traps." Kasimir says.
 
We pack the skull mouths, with dirt, rock, and strips of Raz Nsi's cloak. Kasimir and myself head out a bit from the entrance to find a small tree to fell. We plan to create a beam to prop against the stone in the ceiling.
"Most likely won't hold it," I remark as we pick out the sturdiest tree we can find. "But it may give Nhile just enough time to swap places with the Echo should the need arise."
 
I lop off the smaller branches and start hewing away at the base. I am about about half way though and stand up to stretch my backside. I walk towards Kaimir to hand him Faefa to have a go at the stubborn tree. Wiping
my brow of sweat, I see him staring at the cliff to the left of the main entrance.
 
"What is it mate?"
"Does that look like an opening behind the brush and scrub there?" he asks pointing.
I look to where he's pointing and squint. "I dunno. It's dark there on the rock face but could just be the shadows of the brush."
"I thought the same, but it has remained so since we came out here." he replies.
 
"Well lets get the others and take a look."
 
We do indeed find yet another entrance. It's mostly empty, except for a stone table laid out in a grid and nine cube sized hold are fixed upon it.
 
"Well...." I muse. "Nine puzzle cubes and nine holes. How convenient."
 
I recite the inscription again wondering what clue to the entrance it holds.
 
The gargoyles never attacked, even though we approached with means to enter. Perhaps they are faux guardians, of a false entrance and here lies the true way in. On the other hand, "One stands between them. In darkness, it hides" Could mean
the ninth hole is hidden in the middle of the main entrance wall and we need to "Don the mask" to see it?
 
There are too many questions and possibilities. We will need to search further and understand the inscription before we attempt to unlock this tomb.