Session 19 - Curses!

22 Flaurmont 1010 - 24 Flaurmont 1010

General Summary

Having returned to the cat room, the party decides to explore the Southwestern passage first, this takes them to a hallway that works around to the south and has another door that faces east, just south of the cat room. In this door they find a room full of ash, and as the ash is disturbed they see ghostly figures materialize and then dissipate as the ash settles. Around the room are shelves with broken bits of pottery, but nothing that appears valuable or magical. they give the room a cursory search, but do not find anything of interest in this ashy room, and move on to the eastern exit from the room.
This door opens up on a much larger room with collapsed sections in laying in piles of rubble. There is a high opening in the wall to the east and the air is much fresher than the other rooms the party has been in so far. As they fan out to explore the room, Stavos is attacked by a two-headed, large, snake-like creature that was in one of the rubble piles. Meanwhile, baboons are making a ruckus at the open air exit on the eastern end of the room. The party engages the two-headed snake, and is able to take it out relatively easily. However, once the snake is killed, the baboons come down the slope - apparently, they were afraid of the snake, but not smart enough to be scared of the people that killed the snake. Anyhow, the party quickly deals with the relatively lowly creatures.
Further searching the room, they find the eastern collapse is large enough to create a ramp of rubble up to the opening the baboons came in. They find some unfortunate explorer that appears to have been killed by the two headed snake at some point. On his corpse they find various valuable bits. There are also 3 other doorways out of this room, one headed north on the eastern end, a Northwestern door that appears to connect up to the plant pit room, and a doorway to the south that seems a bit grander with a jade plaque with a double-headed snake above the doorway (which the party takes). The party decides that a long rest, now that they have some fresh air would be good. Before resting, they pile rubble at the various doors to prevent unexpected visitors; Elincia summons two brown bears to help move the rubble to block the doorways.
After their rest, the party feels quite refreshed. They decide perhaps the other doorways off of the cat room should be explored first, and they start with the passage to the Northwest, behind the calendar. This downward sloping passage leads to a door that opens onto a small hallway oriented North/South. There are three doorways out of this room: one double-door to the west, that has a gold seal on it, a barred door to the north, and a plain door to the south. There are words above the western door, which say something to the effect of death lies beyond this doorway. Seraphina starts with the northern door, which she attempts to force open, however, upon pulling on the door, the snake iron-work above the doorway turn into traps and pin her in place, and the floor opens beneath her. The party works to free her from the trap, and are successful just before it would release her to drop her into the pit with spikes. The doorway itself is a real fake door, so the party moves on. The southern door seems like it can't go far, since the cat room is not far to the south, so the party moves to this door next.
As Seraphina opens the door, the small closet like space appears to be empty. When she steps into the room however, she disappears! The party, uncertain what they should do, decides that perhaps they should follow, as Seraphina could be in danger. Belfur pokes his halberd around in the room, but everything seems normal and empty. He steps forward into the room, and also disappears with no trace. The remaining party members tie Leo to a rope with the idea that if it is OK to follow he would tug once, if they should not follow he would tug twice, and if the rope falls to the ground, they should follow. He enters the room, and the rope goes limp, so the remaining party members follow him into the portal. As it turns out, there is no imminent danger, but it has brought them magically to the end of the grand hallway with the trapped wall and the sun passage leading to the animal bust room. Seraphina breaks up the trap wall with Shatterspike, and they work their way back north to the passage they were just in.
They decide to start on the Western door by removing the gold seal (gold being valuable and all). This doesn't seem to do anything, so Seraphina gives the door a big push. Bolts shoot from the ceiling, slightly wouding the half-elf, but Tork catches the one that shot towards him. Beyond the doors is an impressive scene. A relatively large scale model of an ancient city is laid out before them in a perhaps 20x30 foot area. There is a river flowing through the western part of the city, and this has a lake-like wide portion. The lake appears to be made of liquid metal of some sort and the room is fairly warm. Closer to the doors, there are warriors arrayed along a pillared area. After a moment, Seraphina steps into the room. Immediately flames fill the doorway, scorching the folks within 10 feet. Seraphina is on the other side of this wall of flames, but when the party calls out, she seems to be OK. The party pulls away from the doorway, but in a few moments, sounds of combat come from the other room. Stavos decides to try to plunge through the flames, and is able to do so, though there are some yelps as he crosses through it. Belfur follows not too far behind, but Tork, who had been badly singed by the initial emergence of the flames, Leo, and Elincia stay behind. Later Leo also enters the room with the intent of finding a way to get rid of the fiery wall, and tells Tork and Elincia to stay behind, which they do.
On the inside of the room, It seems that there are two Seraphinas fighting each other, one with the battle axe recently found, but the other unarmed. Stavos and Belfur both attack the unarmed version, and Leo examines the area around the backside of the fiery wall looking for a switch or something that would possibly disable the flames. With the three of them fighting together, the fake Seraphina really doesn't stand a chance, and is soon killed. Stavos and Belfur are relieved to see that the corpse no longer looks like Seraphina, so it seems they have been fighting the correct one. However, Seraphina immediately starts attacking Stavos, a crazed look in her eyes. Stavos exclaims in surprise, and disengages. Belfur, likewise backs away from her and helps Leo search for a way to open the door. Seraphina attacks Belfur again, and upon discussing it across the flaming wall, Tork suggests that the only way to stop a berserker is to knock her out. This soon becomes clear to the group on the inside of the room, and Leo, unwilling to accidentally kill Seraphina, does not use his spells against her. Stavos and Belfur though, being of sound mind, are able to subdue her in time. With her unconscious they take her weapons away from her, bind her hands and legs, and tie her to a pillar. They heal her a little bit to see if she is okay, but she immediately is asking for her axe back, and is clearly not herself. They decide to keep her tied up for the moment and they search the room. They find several valuable items throughout the room including over 1000g worth of silver coins in the form of necklaces, the various major buildings throughout the miniature city have valuables inside them, which the party is able to take. There is also a magic mask in the floating tomb on the "river." They decide the only way to deal with Seraphina's condition is to go back to town, and have the priest remove whatever is causing this madness.
The trip to town is uneventful (after struggling to get up the sloping rubble to the hole in the wall). Seraphina of course is still trying to get her axe back from the party, raving, but nothing major happens. The party immediately stops at the temple on the way into town, and explains Seraphina's actions. However upon closer examination, the priest determines that almost everyone in the party has been cursed, less obviously than Seraphina. For a 450g donation to cover the costs, the priest is able to restore the party to normal. They rest overnight, and go back to the temple to continue exploring. Being in town has allowed them to stock up on a few items, and sell much of the valuables that have been gathered thus far, and leaving some other heavy items they won't sell behind on the Everlasting Light. The next day they head back out to return to the ancient temple. The going is smoother and quieter with Seraphina restored to her much friendlier normal state.
At the temple they resume their search, starting with the northern passage from the cat room. They find themselves (after a passageway) in a room with human skins hanging from the northern wall, along with various weapons. On the west end of the steamy hot room is a large statue of a menacing ogre with a stuffed panther. To the east, there is a well with light emanating from it, and a dark mirror on the wall. Above the well is a hole in the ceiling. Tork, Seraphina and Leo examine the liquid in the well, which glows, and they bottle a "dose" of the fluid for later examination. When Tork first dips his spear into the glowing liquid, a voice booms in Thyatian declaring the party defilers and telling them of their impending doom. The party searches everything in the room, but does not find anything particularly interesting, but when Leo sends Flametalon up the hole in the ceiling to examine the room above, he sees a large space and is just starting to take in some details when a large, ogre-like creature, reminiscent of the statue in the lower room, swings its glaive and destroys Flametalon, who has been having a bad couple of days!
Elincia transforms into a spider to similarly scout out the space upstairs, but is not able to gather much more information than Flametalon, as she very reasonably does not want to be attacked by the ogre. In the end, the party decides they should explore the other door off of the cat room before trying to go up the chimney of the room. Heading back to the cat room, the party stops for the time being.

Report Date

15 May 2020

Secondary Location

Saltmarsh