Session 20: Blood and Gargoyles

"This robe is no good for these close quarters." I scoffed tossing it aside. "Do more harm to me mates than enemies."
 
We decided the entrance with the two fanged serpents might be the tomb for Shagambi.
 
Blood was required to open the door. "I am accustomed to a little blood loss." I offered. I sliced my hand and dripped into a glass vial.
We poured the vials in to the hungry mouths of the serpents and with a grinding sound and chains clinking, the door rose up from
the floor.
 
We walked into the chamber and saw three corpses shuffling around below painting on the walls. Scenes of death that seemed to have recently transpired in the crypt itself.
 
"We should jam the entrance door open." Nhile suggested.
 
"Feel free mate." I said walking to examine the four pillars on the other side of the sunken art gallery. I found nothing on them, but noticed a half opened secret door at the back of the chamber.
Nhile also spotted a concealed door on the side that led to a stairway going up and down.
 
Looking through the open door in back, was indeed a tomb. A gold sun hung over a black coffin with a multicolored cockroach box on top. Inscribed on the coffin was the name "NAPAKA".
 
"So not Shagambi." I mused. "And I'll warrant that there sun will fry us if we try to open the coffin. It's seal with lead and I bet it will melt that as well."
 
"I can absorb the heat." Halveer offered. We all turned and looked at him. "You're hired."
 
We returned to the first chamber and saw the door had closed. "Told you." Nhile muttered.
 
On the throne before the columns rested an iron scepter.
I nodded to the scepter and told Halveer. "Carry that into the chamber and you'll be safe from any harm. Remember find the twin."
 
He lifted the item and I winced not knowing if it would emit any necrotic damage. My detect magic had only revealed the Sun and cockroach box to be magical in nature. Both
emanating powerful evocation magic.
 
We watched the young ranger walk into the crypt. He tapped the sun with the scepter and bright light filled the chamber we could feel the heat from the entrance.
He grabbed the colored bug box and fled the room. "Whoa that was hot." he said. Avery healed him.
 
"Let's see what's in this little box!" he said excitedly. He pulled out a jade key in the shape of an gator and stuffed it in a pouch.
 
I glanced into the chamber and saw rivulets of lead running down the sides of the black coffin.
 
I turned back as Halveer lifted a golden necklace with large beads on it out of the box.
 
"Careful mate, that thing radiates strong evo....."
 
There was a blinding flash and intense heat and....pain. I woke up on one of the lower tiers of the sunken room. My head turned to the side and my face red hot. I opened my eyes and saw a mummified face with its eyes and mouth sewed shut looking at me. Well looking in my direction as it began to furiously paint on the walls.
 
"Fuck." I groaned. Avery kneeled next to me and heal me and the others with the staff. "My thanks." I croaked and stood up.
 
"I had no idea!" Halveer whined. "How could I know!"
 
Nhile shook head. "Just go open the coffin and see what's inside" he said seeing that the sun had returned to normal.
 
Halveer shrugged and walked back inside and opened the sarcophagus. Inside was a well preserved female holding an iron scepter. "There's the other scepter!" Halveer called back.
 
"Swap it." Nhile said.
 
"He knows to exchange them right?" I asked the others. Avery just shrugged.
 
"No. No he doesn't." Nhile said watching the chamber fill with black gas.
 
Halveer came stumbling out of the room carrying both scepters and coughing.
 
"Ya take one. Ya leave one mate." I told him.
 
He gasped for air. "How was I to know?"
 
"Not your lucky day is it?" I replied. "Sun brunt. Fire balled. Gassed. All within three minutes."
 
We spent the night in there while the corpses painted a beautiful mural of our party being engulfed in flames.
 
The DAO Keshma, still awaiting our final two requests, smirked. I looked over at her. "Rather life like!" she smiled with a wink.
She saw me holding the scepter trying to identify it. "You won't be able to tell what that it." she confirmed.
"Can you?" I asked. She shrugged and said nothing.
 
The next morning I handed it back to Halveer. "It's powerful magic, but I can't tell what it does."
 
"It is likely legendary." Avery claimed, holding her hand out. Halveer handed it to her.
"I think she was a ruler of some kind." Halveer stated trying to remember Omu history.
 
"I may be able to divine its nature." Avery said. "But we'll have to wait until the next day when we rest again for me to pray about it.
 
With the chamber door shut, we chose to descend the stairway. We followed a tunnel with spots of gray ooze resting on the floor.
I destroyed with blasts of frost rays. We entered a chamber with a lake and towers siting atop massive cogs.
 
Nhile swapped to one for a closer look.
 
"What madness is this?" I wondered.
A small girl's in my head whispered. "This is what makes the soul monger work. Is it not magnificent? Are you here to see Acererak bring forth the destruction of the world?"
"Aye that's why I'm here." I said aloud.
Avery looked over to me. "I might could stone shape the cogs."
She and Halveer discussed the idea while I continued to talk to the girl.
 
Nhile retuned and pointed at me. "Who the hells is he talking to?"
They all looked at me and Halveer and the Aasimar shrugged.
 
"You had better behave!" the girl warned me and faded from my mind.
"Let's move on." I said.
 
The other tunnel led to a hall lit with candles. A lone skeleton and a black curtain were all we saw from the side tunnel.
I destroyed the skeleton with frost and mage handed another bone Key (Octagon). Also clean the floor of ooze.
 
I turned and burnt the black curtain off revealing a three armed gargoyle.
 
"Damn. There's one of those bastards that shredded the Yellow Banner." I reported. "He's missing an arm." I spotted it on the floor.
 
I walked into the hall. It had a slight slant to the floor. "This feels like a trap."
"Everything's a trap now." Nhile confirmed.
 
The other's followed me as I read the riddle over the gargoyle.
 
"Good thing we brought plenty of gems." I sighed. I paid the three hands which crushed them and the claw on the floor opened revealing
a large red spiked ruby, the size of a fist. The Eye of Zaltec. "Tell your elven princess we found her pretty key." I said to Nhile.
 
Before he could reply we heard a loud crash at the opposite end of the hall. The back wall had vanished and a massive 15 foot high stone horse on
thick stone wheels barreled down on us all.
 
"Called it I did." I Misty Stepped back to the side hall, followed by Nhile and Avery and the DAO of course.
 
Halveer was not as fast. "His bad luck continues, yet he manages to stay alive somehow." I remark as the crushed ranger drags himself out of the hall.
The juggernaut slowly rocks to a stop outside the hall.
 
A final passage leads to an odd control chamber with a map on the wall. "This must make the Soul Monger work." Halveer said.
 
"We are nearing the end of this quest." I said.
 
"One way or another." Keshma said with a sarcastic smile.
 
END