Session 39 - Temple and Tombs

22 Klarmont 1010 - 23 Klarmont 1010

General Summary

The party starts a long rest at the head of the valley of the Yuan-Ti, and Kai, being a professional "entertainer"m begins to tease out information from his guests, starting with Stavos, and eventually asking all of the party about where they come from.
Stavos explains that he was from the main island of Alphatia, and a member of the military during the war, and therefore far from home at the time of the calamity that sank Alphatia.
Seraphina hails from the Achelos Woods north of Saltmarsh, and had been "adventuring" for years seeking knowledge of the various immortals, before finding a strong match with her patron, Ilsundal the Wise, whose domain is protecting of elves and nature, wisdom, scholarship, magic, traditions, serenity and peace.
Tork, whose people are born "spear in hand", hails from the Cruth Lowlands - the intersection of the rivers, mountains, and forests containing many dangers and good game.
Elincia dodges the queries on her origins, and Kai moves on.
Leo hails from Highforge, a city predominantly Gnomish, and was raised from a young age by the Tinker's Guild. He only began adventuring recently after selling his Tinker's business after meeting his patron, Elezar. Throughout his life he had dreamed of the adventurer's life after reading epic stories.
Kai has a way to contact the party, and will reach out if anything should happen to cause a disruption of their plans to remain at the campsite. Leo also asks hims to drop a message each night to check in on their status, if he can, as they do not know how long this investigation will take.
The party heads down the valley, which has signs of old Thyatian-style buildings - i.e. more 'recent history' in the hundreds of years. There is an old toppled tower near the head of the valley that may have provided a lookout, and signs of an old road with slightly lighter vegetation/overgrowth, and as they progress they begin to see crumbled ruins, basically nothing but foundations of old buildings lining the former main road. They do find one mostly intact building that looks to be some form of temple. Since this seems to have most of a roof, they decide to investigate the building. There are rows of columns with text that strangely Tork seems able to understand. The statues at the North wall of the temple are of snake-like creatures with arms and legs, and after Tork has read the columns he is able to determine that this is a temple dedicated to Alphaks. Stavos notices that the central altar appears to be free of any debris, suggesting it has been maintained. As the party is considering what to do, a giant chameleon-like creature with some sort of long-tongued, scaly rider enters the temple and shouts something that only Tork understands as a war-cry, and attacks "the defilers".
The party enters combat with Seraphina granting the front line Bless, Elincia bringing forth the Bear Totem, and Tork leading the attack by closing into range of spear throw with the creature. As he does, the giant lizard's tongue flicks out and grasps him, pulling Tork in. It seems Tork is more prepared for such uncomfortable situations than the average fighter, and successfully lands a great many powerful blows on both the rider and the Salamander while adhered to the long tongue! With some help from the rest of the party, and the benefits of Seraphina's auras, and Elincia's bear totem, the fight is not long. They spend more time investigating the temple and the possessions of the Salamander and strange rider; finding some gold and a bone-handled hunting knife that Stavos has a use for. Stavos sews coins into the mouths of both creatures.
They decide to move on westward down the road some more, and after a few miles find a more ancient set of stone structures built into the cliff face. There are 3 separate structures that appear to be entrances, with ancient text and glyphs around them. It turns out Tork can not read this language, so he has not acquired some new ability to read all languages, so Leo casts comprehend languages. This allows him to read what appears to be three separate riddles. The first two appear to be pattern matching, and the third simply states "Dancer". As Seraphina and Leo are puzzling over the meaning of the central riddle, Elincia attempts to perform the dance moves depicted on the third entrance, and a doorway materializes in the stone! She calls out and the party checks out the cave that has shown up. Inside they find a passage that opens up to a chamber. After some debate about whether they should go in or not, they decide that looking would do no harm. Inside the chamber there are two statues of boar-headed humanoids, and a stone slab. Leo looks for any sign of text, but eventually they decide to leave. At one point the outside light goes away, but before anyone notices, Tork has re-activated the door by touching a yellow circle painted on the wall that reappeared.
Moving back outside, they make several attempts at opening the center doorway, but each time they do, the slab before the doorway drops; the first time this happens Seraphina tumbles into a pit, getting a bit bruised in the process. Thereafter, they are sure to stay away from the slab as they try different combinations of glyph pressing.
Eventually tiring of this process, they move over to the left-hand door, which seems a simpler riddle. It's text simply states "the twin". Leo walks up and touches the glyph matching the face of the person depicted on the door, and it opens right up.
This time, instead of an empty chamber, the revealed hallway leads to a door, which precedes a chamber filled with Ghouls! The party finds itself in combat, with Stavos and Leo up front quickly surrounded by the Ghouls. Two of them are slightly different, and make a screaming attack that affects Leo, Stavos, and Seraphina, draining their vitality. As the Party responds to the attack, and repositions, the tide naturally turns. Leo casts shatter on three of the creatures, softening them substantially, and they are quickly taken down by Seraphina and Tork culling the ghouls. This gives the party their normal numerical superiority, and they are able to overwhelm the remaining ghouls before too many more weakening screams are let out.
They find a coral and bone amulet on the ghoul that had initially been laying on a slab in the center of the room. They pause to sew the mouth shut (with another coin) of one the screaming ghouls. As they investigate the room, in addition to the slab and the obvious door on the southwest wall, Tork notices hidden doorways in the west and east walls. The party prepares to explore the revealed passage west.

Report Date

05 Feb 2021