Session 104 Report

General Summary

Mogi Delvin cast Mass Snake’s Swiftness on Auren Sylynn and Pyzar Zim, allowing them to strike out at the mummy first. Pyzar’s strike drew the mummy’s attention. It retaliated by casting Slay Living and touching Pyzar. He survived as the dark magic left him wounded but not dead. When Pyzar stepped back, Titta Morco stepped in with a flurry of scimitar strikes. Then the mummy’s lifeless corpse slunk back down into its sarcophagus. The party took its treasures and moved to the next door along the north wall. It opened into another small room. This one had eight shields on the wall, each set with a pair of crossed swords overtop. There was a door on the opposite side of the room. Warning everyone of what he was going to do, Auren hurried across the room to the other door. As expected, the swords and shields began to animate, hovering off the walls to attack. Auren was quickly surrounded so he opened the door and tumbled past the swords and shields in front of him. Titta and Pyzar attacked the floating armaments from the other side, while the rest of the party supported them with spells. The battle did not last long, but Titta was significantly bruised as a few sets had surrounded her as well. Kyrie Eleison Thatcher-Stone healed Titta, Auren, and Pyzar and the party then began to search the room beyond. There was a fountain against the east wall that was pouring water onto the floor. There were the skeletal remains of past adventurers in this room. They searched them and gathered some coins and a flail that was somehow not rusted. They presumed it was magically enchanted. After checking the final door and finding nothing, they turned their attention back to the throne at the southern end of the room. Selia Roselyn Maxwell used Detect Magic and her Artificer’s Monocle to identify the magical properties of everything they had found so far, as well as the crown and scepter resting upon the throne. She learned that the crown could never leave this room, so they ignored it from then on. However, she learned that the scepter was a key. Connecting this to the riddle that mentioned the “throne that’s key and keyed,” they decided to touch the silver end of the scepter to the silver inlay of the crown at the bottom of the throne. This caused the throne to slide back, uncovering the secret passage beneath it. They party descended down into the corridor. This led to a set of stairs, each step made from a different material. Upon the fourth step was a bronze key. Auren picked it up and was immediately repulsed by it. He dropped it and ran from the room, back up the secret door to the throne room. Mogi then picked up the key and felt the foul magic upon it, but was able to resist its enchantment. He then tried the bronze key in the large door at the top of the stairs. When this did not work, he hid the key in a pocket and called back to Auren, letting him know that they needed him and that the key was now gone. Auren returned and examined the door. They keyhole was set into a large round valve set into the door. Titta compared the size of the round opening to the spheres on the scepter. It appeared that one of the spheres would fit inside. Auren then took the scepter and inserted the gold end into the valve. When he did so, the great doors opened. The next room contained a granite sarcophagus, four metal statues of demonic warriors, two large chests, and an urn from which spewed a continuous stream of smoke. Selia could read the inscription on the sarcophagus from the doorway. It said “ACERERAK” in Abyssal lettering. However, when she entered the room, she noted that she could no longer make it out. All the spellcasters felt uncomfortable in the room, and they realized it was covered in an anti-magic field. Auren opened the chests and found them filled with thousands of gems. Ladigo Farthon then grabbed some and brought them outside the room where Selia and Kyrie were waiting. As soon as he crossed the doorway, the gems became worthless crystal flints. They searched through the chests anyway, but only found more of the gems, which they ignored, assuming they were all fake. Titta then pulled the stopper from the urn and the smoke intensified into a large fountain that quickly took the shape of a female efreeti. Titta greeted her and the efreeti responded in an accented Andarian. The party learned her name was Amnali yr Kajara el Drovaan. She had been captured by a lich and imprisoned in the urn. He did not tell her much or force her to do anything in particular, only that she would one day be freed by a group of adventurers. After she briefly conversed with the party, she told them to come see her in Forgaja if they were ever in Varoud. She walked out of the room and then teleported away. They then searched the walls and statues for any secrets. At first, they found nothing. Then Titta thought perhaps the statues had to look at each other because the riddle mentioned they “do more than meet the viewer’s eye.” So she spun one of the statues so that it looked across to another one. When she did the same to the one in the northwest corner of the room, she noticed something underneath it. With Pyzar’s help, they pushed the statue out of the way entirely and found a pull ring set into the floor. This opened a trap door and a set of stairs leading down into a hallway heading west. Though Ladigo suggested they begin searching the walls for secret doors, they followed the hallway around until it led to two doors. Based on their interpretation of the riddle, they tried the left door first. It opened into a small corridor with a door, which led to another small corridor with a door. The final door opened into the corridor that led to the cavern that contained the banshee. They did not enter this passage, instead trying the right side door. Predictably, this opened to the corridor containing a pit trap, just before the door leading to the banshee cave. Again, they did not pass the doorway. However, they discussed why they could not see the doors from the other side when they originally passed them, especially with Selia’s True Seeing. They speculated that they were possibly one way portals, similar to the ones found in Beus Pran’s tower. They went back to the winding corridor and began to search the walls. Titta started at the entrance from the stairs, searching the left wall first like Ladigo had previously suggested. This proved the correct path as she found a keyhole hidden in the wall before long. She called the party over and pulled out the golden key they had found the day before. When she stuck it in, it immediately pushed back out and a large block of adamantine lowered before her revealing a hidden room. On the floor of this new room was a keyhole on the floor set in a shallow depression. Mogi distracted Auren and had him leave the room. Only Titta and Mogi remained inside as they inspected the keyhole. The others waited in the hallway. Mogi pulled out the bronze key and inserted it into the keyhole. He turned it and found that he could spin it all the way around. He continued to turn it, a total of three times. Then the floor beneath Titta and him rose up abruptly. They jumped out of the way just in time before they were crushed against the ceiling. A new chamber, walled in mithral, was revealed. It contained a stone bier at the end with a skull on top. The skull had rubies for eyes and diamonds for teeth. A scattering of coins and gems were strewn about the bier and on the floor. Then the skull rose up off the bier and said, “And now your soul will die!” Ladigo immediately cast Death Ward on Kyrie and then on Titta. Pyzar rushed forward to attack and slammed the skull with his greatsword. The floating skull barely moved from the impact and was left with only the faintest scratch. Auren ran up and jumped onto the bier then he used his Transposer Cloak to switch places with Titta while spells from Selia and Mogi bounced off the skull harmlessly. Titta then attacked the skull with her scimitars. The scimitar with the Truedeath Crystal barely made a scratch, but the one with the Demolition Crystal caused significant damage. That was when she realized the skull was not undead, but a construct. She called out to the party to inform them of this. They chipped away at the skull while Titta’s one blade did significant damage. Then Pyzar’s greatsword eventually smashed through it and it fell to the floor in pieces. The party knew this could not be the real Acererak and would have to continue their search. But according to the riddle, they had reached the end. They gathered up all the treasure and then began searching the walls in the hallway. That’s when Titta realized there was a crowned lich standing behind her. He looked similar to the crowned skull they saw on the holy symbol the mummy possessed. Titta called out to the others when she saw him and the lich greeted her. His name was Rotharo and he was the god of undeath on another world. This Tomb of Horrors was his, a faithful recreation of the original created by Acererak. Rotharo had created these on numerous worlds for his on macabre sense of entertainment. The lich god was from a world Titta had red about in one of the storybooks in the library at Heroes for Hire. Rotharo claimed to have known the heroes in the tale and accidentally spoiled the ending of the series for her, apologizing after realizing she had not yet completed reading it in its entirety. The party spoke for a time with him and learned some things. Brother Lu was the first angel, made by the Creator, effectively a brother of the over-god, Ao. The demon infestation to the south was not his creation. In fact, they were not demons at all, but creatures known as Xenomorphs, brought here by a species known as Yautja. The Xenomorphs were creatures with acid for blood and the Yautja were headhunters. When asked about the sword of Eridus, the Righteous, Rotharo went to the bier and cast Stone Shape, pulling the sword from its hiding place within the stone. He reshaped the bier and handed the sword to Haymin’s Heroes. After they finished conversing, Rotharo teleported the party out of the dungeon so they could reunite with Fisher and Pennig. They said their goodbyes, then Rotharo walked back inside, skipping down the red path of the first great hall. Selia then teleported the party back to the druid grove to the south. Those who remained in the grove had not heard from Romulus and the others and were not aware of their fate. Haymin’s Heroes were allowed to stay the night in the grove and made camp. Their plan was to set out the next day to look for these “demons” and “headhunters.”

Campaign

The Heart of Embril

Protagonists