Session 18 - Tomb Raiding

22 Flaurmont 1010

General Summary

The party, having recovered from their valiant battle with the plant trap, begins taking a closer look at the items in the "cat room." The spear of the cat-man statue seems almost real, so Leo decides to see if it can be removed from the statue's hands. Upon doing this, the statue seems to come to life and, naturally, is hostile. The party immediately engages, and finds that normal non-magical attacks seem to have no effect on the stone skin of this creature. However, magical weapons and magic attacks seem to have full effect, so the party soon whittles it down, and it eventually turns to "flesh" and shortly thereafter, is neutralized. They continue examining more things in the room, and keep finding more doors and tricks! It turns out the tail of one cat is a scroll, the calendar on the wall is another doorway that Seraphina notices and opens up (to another hall, with another doorway!). Inside the head of the stuffed tiger, they find the missing piece of the cat-man though it seems too late to use on it. They take the jade statue of a cat, and the knife, but seeing as the party has been working steadily northward through the temple, they decide that if they are going to go back to the burial chamber (at the far south), they should just go back and do it now, before proceeding. They head back, and when they get to the hallway before the Nereid's room, they take a closer look at the traps at the end of the hallway. They decide to block the lower portion of what appears to be a "dart trap?" and then drop a rock, or at least attempt to drop a rock onto the pressure plate. After a couple failed attempts, Tork succeeds in triggering the trap, and bars shoot across the opening. Nothing else seems to happen, so the party moves on. Returning to the Nereid's room, she seems upset, and scowls at the party. They pleasantly wave, and go on about their business, and deliver another meal to Kalka-Kylla and his side kick, who appreciate the meal. They decide it would be wise to remove the jars of flammable liquids from the hallway approach to the burial chamber, in case of fire, so they haul the six jars to the side hallway, then boldly cross the threshold into the chamber, and nothing happens.
They start to explore the room, looking more closely at the strange axe embedded in the far wall, and it's very bizarre shadow that looks like an arm. They decide for now that they should leave that axe alone. Meanwhile, Leo has cast comprehend languages and they lift him up onto the large "table" to read the inscription, and it says "Tloques-Popolocas" and some digits: 54-3-9. On the North end of the table are listed the numbers 0-9. So naturally, they press on the 5, and it sinks into the platform. They go ahead and press the 4, and it also sinks in, pressing the 3 does the same, and Leo asks, should I press the 9? The party agrees that he should. Upon Pressing the 9, the top of the platform shifts, and the top raises up a few inches; now it appears that they should be able to push aside the lid of what they now believe to be a sarcophagus. Inside, theres is an ancient corpse, along with a large array of treasures! Leo starts casting detect magic, to understand what may be of varying value. It turns out there are several items that appear to be magic. The corpse is wearing 2 rings that are magical. At the foot of the sarcophagus there are two glowing objects, one a mother of pearl container of what appears to be another dried potion of sorts. The other is a jade statuette, which upon closer examination proves to be a container with liquid inside. Unsurprisingly, the axe on the wall also is glowing magical. The party starts taking the rings, and various other items, but when amulet is removed, things start to happen, and the corpse begins to look more and more alive. Eventually it sits up, seeming to be "healthy." It says something in the ancient language, but Leo has switched to Detect magic, so they can not understand his words. He gets up, and after saying some other phrases, walks to the south end of the room, and pulls the axe out of the wall, and swings at Seraphina. This, of course leads to combat. The creature seems strong, but not compared to this collective group, who are able to quickly wear him down. He casts a spell, but no apparent effect takes place. They seem to kill him, but it soon stirs back to life and continues the assault. The party tries various magical attacks, including fire and radiant damage (a-la the encounter with the troll), and in the end, it appears to be dead for good (it seems like the radiant damage did the trick!). They continue looting the corpse and the sarcophagus, during which swarms of bats appear. After finishing off the bats and their looting, the party decides they are done here.
They head back to the Nereid's room, and this time she seems downright angry! When Seraphina offers her some more shiny bits (this time seven of the jade beads they found in the Sarcophagus, she storms off into the pond. As the party is working their way to the exit door, she emerges from the water, and yells again in Elvish, and the party prepares to fight her if she attacks (which of course she does). She summons some sort of water attack that strikes Stavos, and sends him flying into the adjacent hallway, which of course triggers everyone's reserved attacks at her. She then disappears and dives back into the water. A giant eel emerges from the water, and attacks Leo, but the party quickly takes it down as well. The Nereid returns and attacks again, triggering more reserved attacks, and this time she yells at them all to get out of here, and dives back into the pond. The party grabs their items, and complies, happy to leave the situation behind.
They head back to the Cat room, and once again, decide to take another short rest, and only time will tell what they find behind all these hidden doorways!

Report Date

03 May 2020