In Dreams - Session 03
General Summary
The party decides to move their camp closer to the ruins yet that day, and they find a good spot some 400 metres downhill. Karsus is tasked with collecting firewood from the surrounding trees. As he works, he suddenly hears a voice: "There you are!" The speaker is a young boy sitting on a nearby rock. Though dressed in typical peasant clothes, he has the glowing blue eyes of one touched by the Black Wind, and Karsus hears an unnatural echo or undertone in his speech. "It was almost time for me to go," the boy says. "I thought I wouldn't find you." "Were you waiting for me?" Karsus asks. The boy shrugs. "I could feel you out here." As they talk, Karsus notices that it is perceptibly colder in the boy's vicinity.
The boy asks why Karsus has disguised himself, but seems disinterested in his explanation of the prejudices faced by warlocks. "All you dreams are the same to me," he says. He shows more interest when Karsus explains the search for Sinzil's tomb, and asks to be shown to the ruins.
Karsus leaves his gathered firewood behind and leads the boy up the slope. Mungo marks Karsus passing through the woods at a distance and speaks of it to Sylman, who decides to follow.
Arriving at the tomb, the boy examines the carved stucco which partially covers the rocks sealing the tomb entrance. It shows kneeling lizardfolk, their arms outstretched in worship or supplication towards an empty spot where the stucco has fallen off. The boy traces the carved shapes with his finger, outlining a non-humanoid shape of some kind in the empty spot. "I remember this one," he says. "This one was a dream that kept a part of me. He refused to help his brothers when they told him they wanted to call up the one that first held it. They didn't like that."
"Is that part of you still here?" Karsus asks. The boy turns his head to look into Karsus's eyes. "I hope so," he says.
The boy starts to flicker in and out of Karsus's view, saying that soon he will have to go back to sleep "out there." He waves his hand in the general direction of the valley. Karsus asks him his name. "Abel," he says, and vanishes.
Watching from a distance, Sylman sees nothing of the boy, though he hears Karsus apparently speaking to himself and asking questions of the empty air, and feels an unnatural cold that abruptly ends. Karsus does not notice his presence, and Sylman returns quietly to the camp. He advises Mungo that they should both wear the jade amulets they purchased some time ago for protection from dark forces. Meanwhile Karsus finishes collecting firewood and returns to camp, saying nothing of his encounter to the others.
Early the following morning the party members carry their pickaxes, shovels, rope, and other tools to the ruins, where Karsus takes a rubbing of the image carved on the stucco. Mungo then attacks the stone with a pickaxe, but after fragments of earth and stone start to fall from the ceiling, the pickaxe is set aside and Mungo and Eric set to work using crowbars instead, focusing on the spots where roots from the trees above have already pierced the stonework.
After an hour, they break through to the chamber beyond. It takes another hour and a half or so to enlarge the hole enough for a large armoured man to pass through. The air from the tomb smells dry and musty. Past the formerly sealed entrance, a short landing extends for five or six feet and then a flight of stairs leads down into darkness.
Donning their weapons and armour and lighting their lanterns against the dark, the party descends. Mungo and Eric are in front and Karsus and Sylman bring up the rear. At the bottom of the stairs they find themselves in a long passage, 10' wide and some 50' long. Lining the passage are 10 alcoves, five per side, each containing an empty suit of lizardfolk armour holding an obsidian-tipped spear. As they approach, they hear a voice speaking in a tongue unknown to all save Mungo, who recognizes the language of the lizardfolk: "Offer your respects or be gone from this place." Uncertain of how to proceed, they each kneel briefly, and Sylman places a copper piece at the foot of one of the statues. Despite Karsus's misgivings, they decide to move on. As they pass the third set of alcoves, the four armours directly ahead and behind them suddenly step into the passage and level their spears, surrounding the party.
The ensuing combat is brutal. With a mighty blow, Mungo shatters the foe in front of him, but the remaining enemies wound Eric, Karsus, and Sylman in quick succession. Karsus summons tendrils of dark energy, which batter all three armours, and Sylman uses his superior agility to get behind his foe, but then Eric is stabbed in the gut ("not... like this," he groans) and goes down. Karsus soon takes a wound in the shoulder and follows him into oblivion. Mungo and Sylman fight on. "Come on, you clanking collection of empty plates!" Sylman yells as he duels. Mungo chops off the arm of one and batters it until it collapses; the next stabs him in the thigh before he cuts it into two pieces; and Sylman finally overcomes the last. The other armours remain in their alcoves.
With two of the party more dead than alive, they decide to retreat back to camp for a long rest. Sylman takes one of the intact helmets and a few of the obsidian spears as artifacts for Lord Ashwood.
Eric's and Karsus's wounds are not as serious as might have been feared, and by early evening the group is fully recovered. They decide to return to the tomb and continue their explorations. There is still some light in the sky as they descend into the dark once more.
The remaining suits of armour do not trouble them, and they traverse the corridor to find themselves in an octagonal room carved out of the rock, some 30' across with a high ceiling. At the centre of the room is an 8' sandstone statue of a lizardman shaman in a feathered headdress, gazing at the ceiling with his arms raised to the heavens. Three portals lead from the room, a double-width one straight ahead and smaller ones to the left and right, each sealed with a vertical slab of stone. Ropes hang next to each portal, and Karsus surmises that the ropes are attached to counterweights for raising the stone slabs. Short outcroppings of stone carved next to each portal provide a location to tie the ropes.
They first explore the left portal. The stone slab lifts to release a terrible stench of rot. When they can breathe easy again, they see an octagonal room, some 20' across. Across the floor are a variety of sealed stone urns, about 90 cm tall and decoratively painted, as well as the remnants of wicker baskets and other decomposing organic matter. They search the muck and find three onyx statuettes of lizardfolk warriors, each about 5" tall. Karsus cautiously opens one of the urns, releasing a noxious smell that briefly knocks Sylman unconscious. The urn appears to contain nothing more than a desiccated organ.
The right portal opens to reveal the mirror image of the room they had just explored. Here there is no stench, nor urns or baskets; only a low dais or platform atop which stands a stone disc, about 4' across and 6" thick. The disc is inlaid with red and black gemstones—sunstone and onyx—and depicts a scene similar to what they saw on the stucco at the tomb entrance: kneeling lizardfolk, their arms outstretched to the heavens. The disc shows more clearly that they are raising their arms to a dragon, flying high above them. Between the lizardfolk and the dragon is a flamelike object, like a falling star; Karsus notes to himself that this was the shape Abel traced against the stucco. There is writing inscribed around the outside of the disc, but they are not able to read it.
They turn their attention to the last portal, which is flanked by two stone statues of lizardfolk warriors. As Mungo grasps the rope, the statues turn their heads to look at him; Karsus unleashes an eldritch blast at the closest one, and battle is joined.
Mungo goes toe-to-toe with one of the statues, assisted by Eric as best he can. Even Mungo's mighty blows have limited effect against the statue's magical nature. He is clawed repeatedly and falls unconscious at one point, but is quickly revived by a healing word from Eric.
Sylman has better success. Seeking to lasso the other statue with his rope, he hooks onto the outstretched arm of the huge sandstone statue instead, then swings from the rope and succeeds in knocking the statue flat on the ground. He attacks it with a crowbar, cracking the stone, then concentrates on immobilizing it with the rope while Karsus blasts away at it. After a desperate struggle, the statue finally goes still. Sylman and Karsus then turn to help their fellows, and another blast from Karsus finally knocks off its head.