2023-08-19 The Haunted Pyramid
Player Characters
- Wiznt
- Balasar
- Tarhun
- Malivette
- Amartherui
Summary
The party traveled from the Forlorn Watchtower to the pyramid city on the north edge of the Haunted Realm, avoiding ghosts on the way.
The entry gate was decorated with mazes that translated to "Behold Ghaztyut, Great Capital of Archestria".
While Amar and Tarhun scaled the wall, the others traveled around to the east entrance of the rectangular walled city.
The party found a tall, worn down stone statue in the central street. The statue appeared to be pouring water from a pot into a pool, but there was no water present. The dais maze said "Lord Phiramet, our glorious leader, gives us life".
They sifted through some of the suburbs, finding a commoner's journal. The shops and army barracks were empty save for dust and stone debris. Many houses had doorless side sheds with rusted shackles.
The PCs entered the courtyard in front of the huge pyramid. Five dials with 6 positions each were set next to a threshold built into the solid rock pyramid face. Changing a dial caused a portal to materialize. Wiznt tried passing through it, but was pushed back and took force damage.
Balasar found a longsword +2 in the gatehouse. Amar avoided a dart trap to find a red primal crystals, which flashed a series of images in his mind when he touched it. While the group began to enter this code with the dials, they were interrupted by a squad of undead: a devourer and several wights.
After defeating the undead, the PCs followed the devourer's footprints, and found that it had wandered into the city from outside.
They finished entering the code and stepped through the portal, which placed them in a stone chamber within the pyramid. The first room contained an empty basin.
The room was lit by continual flame torches, which Wiznt began to collect. Detect magic revealed a magic field around the entire pyramid. Mazes carved into the walls of most chambers told the story of Lord Phiramet and the nation of Ghaztiwoil (see documents below), and bas reliefs depicted moments from its history.
Amar led the way to the armory, which was full of rusted metal weapons. Bas reliefs showed farmers sowing and harvesting crops.
As the party searched in more depth, Amar charged down the other path into the office. After avoiding a swinging boulder trap, he searched and found a set of symbols matched to arrows, like a kind of code.
The party grouped and traveled forward through the double doors in the first room. Upon opening the doors, they slammed back into Mal. The party roped the doors open to break the trap.
The next room contained a huge statue of an ancient vinefolk person. They carried a pyramid-topped scepter and wore a crown with a scarab ornament.
The party visited a side room, which was lined with sarcophagi. Each had a symbol above it, and wall text and the scent of rot indicated that it was a resting place for some of the mightiest warriors of the nation of Ghaztiwoil.
The sarcophagus symbols matched the symbols from the five portal dials, except for one. Behind that sarcophagus, Tarhun discovered a secret door. The room beyond contained a pile of gold bars. Balasar was zapped by it when he touched it, so he braced himself against lightning and collected it all. Underneath were two metal nodes that caused the electrocution trap.
The room across from the sarcophagus room was a morgue that stank of death. A purple primal crystal in the center of the room sprouted ghostly wings and tried to fly away from the PCs. Canopic jars, rotted wraps, and an opened corpse were found within the room. Deteriorated charts around the walls of the room told about the anatomy of the vinefolk: the main four organs they removed for canopic jars were the heart, lungs, stomach, and watersac. Runes on non-empty jars made a sound effect when opened.
Tarhun used a blue crystal to disable the ghostly wings of the purple crystal and nabbed it.
The path forward led around a couple turns. The middle hallway had a blade trap that popped from the wall. Mal jammed it with the immovable rod, then broke the blade.
The path forked. Just before the fork was a poison trap. After avoiding it, the party recalled the code from the office and figured out which direction to take. After a series of different types of traps, and taking the correct direction from each one, they arrived in a new chamber.
The next chamber had a sealed door and a large pyramid made of smaller pyramids (three layers tall, with 1 on the top, 4 in the middle, and 8 around the bottom). The pyramids came in four different colors, and eight levers each rotated a different set of them. Text hinted that "Lord Phiramet held the truth in ice". The party brute-forced different combinations of pyramids until the door opened.
The next room contained a 5x5 grid of small chambers separated by impenetrable glass. Each chamber had a blue orb and a red orb and eight pedestals to place them in. Traps were set in the corner rooms, and the party spotted a hidden door from one side room.
Placing the two orbs in different pedestals caused anyone in the chamber to teleport. They easily found a way to get around safely, but Tarhun and Malivette spent extra time studying the behavior of the teleportation sequence.
Balasar and Tarhun entered the secret side room, which contained a trapped chest. They found a secret door within, which led to a deeper chamber with hidden maze text and lots of gold bars. The bas relief showed Phiramet shaking hands with a spiky sharded devil.
The next main room was another grid, this time 4x7, and with significantly more traps. Amar and Balasar played around and made it to the exit with some spike damage. Mal and Tarhun figured out how
the orbs worked and found a safe way through. Wiznt continued to gather every torch in the entire dungeon, including ones that were placed in trapped rooms.
Climbing up a ladder to a higher floor, the party rested, then opened the double doors at the end of the hall. The room beyond was square with four large central pillars, and spikes along many of the walls. A sarcophagus sat in the center of the room. Wiznt's ethereal sight revealed the mummified ghost of Lord Phiramet watching them from above the sarcophagus. Phiramet materialized in front of them when addressed.
Amar spoke to Phiramet, asking for the @Howl key. Phiramet refused and began to speak of his endless power and the world-dominating might of his nation. Amar pointed out that the nation was faded and forgotten by time and trash talked the arrogant emperor, which provoked a battle.
Lord Phiramet remained partially ethereal and was immune to damage. The party began looking around the room to figure out what to do as four angatra assassins lept from the bas reliefs in the pillars.
The PCs figured out that the organs in canopic jars around the corners of the room had to be correctly placed in Phiramet's mummified remains in the sarcophagus. This made him tangible, and they successfully destroyed him.
The party claimed powerful magic items, lots of gold, Phiramet's crown, the howlpeak key, and 62 magic torches.
Documents found
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