Tomb of Annihilation - Session 35
General Summary
Ixtli strikes Caprakan in the chest with an open palm, incapacitating the Aldani, then whirls to do the same to the guard. "Seize the pendant—destroy it!" he tells Dunch. When the half-orc grabs the amulet Caprakan wears around his neck, he finds the black stone covered in an acidic slime that burns at the touch. When he pulls at it, it resists, and he sees slimy tendrils stretching from the stone back into Caprakan's flesh. Dunch yanks harder.
The other Aldani all double over in pain. Glyphs carved into their skins shine blood-red, and their eyes gleam with an unnatural crimson light. When they straighten up, the lizardfolk downstairs turn to Dolan, Chibuzo, and Yollotl, reaching for their weapons. The Aldani all speak as one in a hollow, alien voice that Ixtli recognizes at once. "No," says the voice, "these ones are mine. They belong to me. Their entire species belongs to me."
In the upper room, Rawa casts a spell, and the room fills with an unnatural fog, effectively blinding Dunch and Ixtli. Below, the Aldani start to converge on the adventurers, but Dolan casts Slow on them before they can attack. A guard stabs ineffectually at Chibuzo; another charges at him down the staircase, swinging his mace, but the wooden step breaks under his weight. One of the scouts fires a poison dart into Dolan, but the sorcerer maintains concentration on his spell. The Aldani shaman Anku casts a spell in turn, and Chibuzo feels the lance strapped to his back warming until it glows red-hot. In answer he punches Anku in the face, causing her to lose focus on her spell, then shoulder-checks a guard and knocks him prone. He punches Anku again hoping to prevent her from casting another spell.
Up above, Dunch rages as the acid burns his hand, and yanks at the pendant with all of his strength until it finally comes free, tearing off some of Caprakan's scales in the process. The Aldani clutches the wound with one hand and clasps his head with the other. Then the pendant emits a sharp, ear-piercing sound that shakes the entire building. The thunderous sounds injure everyone, and Yollotl, Ixtli, and Chibuzo are deafened.
But then the red glare in the eyes of the Aldani fades, as do the glowing glyphs on their bodies. Caprakan collapses in exhaustion. Still holding the pendant, Dunch climbs out the window onto the slate roof atop the floor below. He tosses the black stone onto the tiles and brings the Maul of Disruption down on it with an overhead swing. Stone chips fly from the impact but the pendant remains intact. He strikes it once more, then again, but pauses his next blow when he hears a mighty roar from the north that can only be the King of Feathers.
Inside, Rawa drops her fog spell and kneels next to Caprakan, speaking to him in Aldani. Ixtli cures his own deafness using his Physician's Touch, then does the same to Caprakan and Rawa. "Thank you," the weakened Caprakan tells him. "I wasn't myself."
"I understand," Ixtli replies. "I too have felt Taloc's influence."
"The pendant is evil," Caprakan warns him. "Do not touch it."
Out on the roof, Dunch sees the trees shaking and parting in the direction of the amphitheatre to the north. Something is coming. He picks up the pendant by its leather thong and tucks it into his Bag of Holding, then retreats back inside the building.
Down below, Dolan turns and climbs up the stairs, while Chibuzo helps up the guard he just knocked down. The ringing in his ears gradually fades, and he starts to hear scratching sounds all around him, like nails or talons against wood. A moment later, one of the guards outside yells at Anku through the window. "Raptors in the courtyard," Anku translates. The outside guards retreat inside the house, closing and barring the door behind them, then taking a defensive stance next to their fellows. Chibuzo and Yollotl stand ready at the windows, while Kuri takes a position on the inner balcony, looking down at the courtyard through a window.
But the dinosaurs are already inside the house. From around the corner to the rear of the building appear four deinonychuses. Two more crash through a window in the side room to the left of the entrance hall, and another can be seen in the courtyard outside.
On the floor above, Dolan steps out of the window onto the slate roof, just as the King of Feathers, a gargantuan tyrannosaur feathered in orange and green, enters the compound through a gap in the wall. Raising the Staff of Swarming Insects, the sorcerer summons a cloud of wasps to swarm and sting the dinosaur.
Inside, Dunch snarls with rage. Running like a madman, he exits the upper room and vaults over the balcony railing, landing with a crash on the floor below. The wooden floorboards shatter under his weight, partially embedding him in the floor. Pulling himself out, he hammers a dinosaur twice, then zaps it dead with a bolt of electricity from the stormy aura that surrounds Nyemba's Might.
Chibuzo moves into the side room, spearing one of the reptiles twice before killing it with his warhammer. Ixtli descends the side staircase from the room above to join him, and he and Yollotl finish the next of their foes.
But only a moment later, the three just-killed dinosaurs twitch, spasm, and rise again to an unnatural semblance of life. Chibuzo dispatches his opponent a second time using Atsu's Lance, while Dunch disintegrates his with a blow from the Maul of Disruption. As Yollotl goes hand-to-hand with the third undead creature, Ixtli moves into the courtyard to battle the next living enemy. In the main hall, the lizards bite and claw at the lizardfolk, who fight back with their clubs.
Behind the house, the King of Feathers is momentarily surrounded by a silvery mist before it reappears right next to the building, its massive jaws reaching for Dolan. Despite his inexplicable luck, the sorcerer is seized between the tyrannosaur's sawlike teeth and savagely bitten. At the same time the creature whips its tail around and smashes the side of the building. The whole structure shakes, and a corner of Caprakan's room collapses into rubble. Dolan casts a spell to grant himself freedom of movement, wriggling free of the creature's maw and retreating into Caprakan's room.
Chibuzo runs up the side staircase, then into a room overlooking the slate roof. Retrieving from his pack the ripe monkey fruit he harvested a few days ago in the pool-filled jungle clearing, he hurls it through a window into the tyrannosaur's gaping jaws. It swallows the fruit to no apparent effect, but focuses its gaze on the ranger. Chibuzo hurls Atsu's Lance into its face, then backs away from the window once his weapon returns to his hand.
Flinging back its head, the King of Feathers utters a mighty roar that shakes the building. In the front courtyard, the sound fills Ixtli with an unnatural fear of the beast, but he overcomes it with his monastic discipline. He and Yollotl finish an undead raptor; when a living one comes around the house and attacks, Kuri supports them from above with a poisoned dart.
Inside the house, a living raptor comes around the corner and pounces on Dunch, raking him with its teeth and claws. Fighting side-by-side, he and the Aldani kill two more of the beasts. One of them rises again, but Dunch crushes it with the Maul of Disruption. The guards club to death the last living raptor inside the house; when it rises again, Dunch disintegrates it before moving towards the rear courtyard.
Yollotl slays the last raptor in the front courtyard. He and Ixtli move into the house towards the King of Feathers, as Ixtli applies wyvern poison to the tip of the Blood Spear.
Upstairs, Caprakan and Rawa retreat from the ruined upper room. Dolan blasts the King of Feathers with a lightning bolt, but the horn on the tip of its nose pulses with light, absorbing the brunt of the electrical discharge. The sorcerer follows up with a firebolt attack. Chibuzo climbs onto the slate roof, then scrambles up the side of the house until he stands on the rooftop, looking down on the tyrannosaur. But he is shocked when the King of Feathers disappears in a cloud of silvery mist, then reappears on the roof next to him.
As it seizes Chibuzo in its enormous maw, the whole structure groans under its massive bulk before the roof abruptly collapses. The tyrannosaur plunges to the floor below and then to the ground floor. Yollotl and Ixtli are nearly directly underneath and scramble out of its way, though not before Yollotl is hit by a falling beam. A cloud of dust and debris rises from the house.
Though injured by the fall, the tyrannosaur manages to keep Chibuzo in its jaws, even as the ranger stabs it repeatedly with Atsu's Lance. Struggling back to its feet, the King of Feathers smashes through what's left of the walls into the rear courtyard, where it bludgeons Dunch with its tail. Then, dashing out of the ruined building, Ixtli spears the dinosaur in the chest. The poisoned spearhead pierces its heart, and the King of Feathers gives a gasping roar and topples over dead.
Above, Anku and Kuri join Dolan in what remains of Caprakan's room, gazing down through the shattered wall on the corpse of the tyrannosaur. They look at each other in awe. Dolan asks them, "can we have the cube now?"
"You've more than earned it," Anku responds, "but we should leave this place. The sound of the battle will attract attention."
The Aldani quickly gather their belongings, while the adventurers take some feathers from the tyrannosaur's corpse as souvenirs. More of the house collapses behind them as the group heads north, Rawa still helping the weakened Caprakan. As they make their way through the trees, along the path trampled by the King of Feathers on his charge towards the Aldani camp, the adventurers are struck by the unnatural silence. There is no birdsong or hum of insects, and dead birds litter the jungle floor—killed by the psychic pulse released by the pendant when it was separated from Caprakan.
They avoid the amphitheatre, passing between it and the cliff that surrounds Omu. By now it is late afternoon. After twenty or thirty minutes, they approach the cluster of buildings against the northwestern cliff face, and decide to investigate a large, two-story stone building near the edge of the causeway. Ixtli and Yollotl enter the building through its main doors to the south, while Anku has the two Aldani scouts check the rear of the building.
Inside they find a warehouse, filled with shelves that still hold a few mouldering rolled-up carpets or other merchandise. Though mostly intact, the roof has a few holes, with clumps of grass and shrubs growing in the sunlit spaces beneath. On the east side of the interior is a staircase to a balcony, where a few doors lead to smaller rooms that line the outer walls. They see and hear no sign of danger, and give the all-clear for the others to enter.
The group quickly sets up camp, and a few of the Aldani take up watch at the doors. Approaching the adventurers, Caprakan reaches into a carrying pouch and hands them a puzzle cube marked with the image of an eblis: the cube of Papazotl. "I think we have lots to discuss," he says.
He asks to sit while they talk, and the adventurers speak to him of his village, his mother Koya, and Akachi—an acquaintance of his. His exhaustion is obvious, and he speaks more humbly than before. Ixtli senses that he is ashamed of what's happened to him and his people.
He asks what became of the pendant; it's very dangerous. Dunch explains that it's in the Bag of Holding until they can find a way to destroy it. "Very wise." The pendant is the focal point that allowed him to control his companions, he explains, after he secretly inscribed glyphs on them while they slept—as Taloc instructed. He expects that Nayarak similarly carved glyphs on the pendant before gifting it to Caprakan, enabling Taloc to control him.
Initially Taloc told him that Nayarak would join them in Omu, bringing a weapon that required part of Kurat's essence, with the ability to damage the Soulmonger. But later Taloc instructed him to acquire the puzzle cubes instead. Since then the Aldani have been busy seeking the cubes, Caprakan continues. They were unaware of the presence of Saja N'baza's shrine in the city.
In his visions, Taloc told him that the key to using the cubes is the animosity between the nine gods. In the case of Papazotl's shrine, the Aldani found a mural showing the eblis battling a monstrous froglike creature with tentacles. But Caprakan does not know how that enmity would help open the tomb; Taloc said he would explain the use of the cubes only once they had all been acquired. Caprakan's party did explore the entrance to the tomb, and found a great door with eight slots—sized to hold the cubes—in a square pattern.
In Caprakan's visions, he learned more of Taloc's history with Lar'lenek, and the secrets he shared with the Marakuran. But, he says, he does not think Taloc expected Lar'lenek to be quite so clever. The Soulmonger is an engine that powers the resurrection of Ubtao, but it also powers the tomb and its enchantments, which prevent extradimensional travel. Now Taloc is trapped in the tomb, in a flooded area of the tomb he calls the Gears of Hate, unable to travel between dimensions to escape.
Caprakan suggests that the only reason Taloc has not dominated Lar'lenek's will is that the former bara is no longer human. He has become an undead creature, preserved forever after striking a deal with the three hags he calls the Sewn Sisters, who watch over the cradle of Ubtao. The way to the cradle is locked by five skeleton keys found within the tomb.
"We will obey Kurat's commands," Caprakan concludes, "and return to Tal'mayu. Only Taloc's visions deluded me into thinking that we could triumph over the evils in this city. But after we make it home, clearly we need to visit Saja N'baza. We've been negligent of the one who first set us on the right path. After we return home, I will gather others, and make a pilgrimage to Orolunga."
Night is falling, and the adventurers and the Aldani take a well-earned rest. But even when morning dawns, Caprakan is still tired from his ordeal, and will need to rest for another day before starting the long trip through the jungle back to Tal'mayu. He expects they will exit the city the same way as they entered, through the grand staircase to the south. The adventurers warn them of hazards they might encounter on their journey: the yuan-ti encampment of Fenthaza and her followers (as Caprakan tells them, the Aldani were once based in that very spot, but were chased away by the yuan-ti), the sentinel gargoyles, and the skull with flickering green eyes that they saw on the old road through the jungle.
The groups say their farewells. Both Caprakan and Anku offer their deep gratitude for the adventurers' help, and express the hope that they will see them again.
The party leaves the warehouse, heading south past the amphitheatre, where the tracks of the King of Feathers and the deinonychuses are still visible between the decorative animal statues that surround the theatre. At the building's rear are three tunnels leading to the interior; exploring one of them, they find an assortment of dressing rooms, prop storage chambers, and closets of mouldering costumes. Using the Sceptre of the Honored Voice to detect magic, Dolan recovers from one of the dressing rooms a helmet decorated with goggles, a nosepiece, and a brain-like pattern on the skullpiece. The others find a few items of value which go into the Bag of Holding: an electrum platter with images of Marakuran feasting rituals, and an Omuan death mask of painted gold.
Departing the theatre, the party moves south next to the causeway. They cross to the other side at the staircases near I'jin's shrine, then head to the river, where Chibuzo and Dolan wash themselves clean of the remaining blood and mucus from their sojourn in the King of Feathers' jaws. Travelling further south, they cross the river at the same fallen tree that they used before, then follow the river's edge to the lip of the chasm. Heat rises from the lava below, and a great plume of steam from the water that pours over the edge of the abyss.
Being careful to hold it by its leather thong, Dunch takes the pendant out of the Bag of Holding. It had seemed like it was made of black stone, but looking at it more closely now, he sees that it shimmers, like insect chitin, and is inscribed with tiny glyphs. Using his Mage Hand, Dolan takes the pendant from Dunch, holds it over the lava, and drops it. It disappears into the steam.
The party heads north and east. As they come closer to the royal palace, Dunch spots a seemingly human sentinel patrolling atop the walls. Chibuzo casts Pass Without Trace, and they cautiously approach the next shrine, nestled right up against the walls of the palace.
Two needle-like columns flank the entrance to the walled shrine compound. Unlike most of the others they've visited, this shrine has no courtyard; only a narrow five-foot gap separates the squat building from its outer wall. Banyan roots climb up and around the walls. Scattered in the street around the shrine are half a dozen yuan-ti corpses covered with flies.
A plaque above the shrine entrance reads in Old Marakuran: "Obo'laka teaches us to tread warily and stay in the light." Below are two double doors, engraved with images of snarling bears with sharp claws. The doors are slightly ajar, and flickering firelight can be seen inside. Dunch also spots footprints leading into the shrine.
Entering, they find the inner walls covered with reliefs of people feasting, picking fruit, hunting, and performing other day-to-day activities. Four pairs of magically burning torches in sconces line the hall, which follows the exterior wall of the shrine to the right and then forward.
Dolan and Dunch proceed down the hall, which ends in an open door. Inside is a rectangular room with an image of the sun carved on the ceiling above a pool of water—but the reflection in the pool shows an image of a moon instead. Dolan steps in the pool, but nothing happens.
Back at the entrance, Ixtli notices the faintest outline of a door on the wall to the left. He prods and pokes, but there seems no way to open the door from this side. Invoking the power of the Ring of Earth Elemental Command, he passes through the stone wall into a pitch black space. After returning to obtain the Gem of Brightness from Chibuzo, he walks through the wall again, finding himself in a cobwebbed hallway that is the mirror image of the torchlit hall. The door to the entrance hall has been triply barred from this side, and he removes the bars and opens the door.
The dusty hallway ends in another wall. Searching, he finds the outline of another door, but no obvious mechanism to open it, so he walks through the stone again. He enters a room that is the mirror image of the one on the opposite side of the shrine. Here too a carving on the ceiling looks down on a reflecting pool, but in this room the carving is of a moon, and the pool reflects the sun. Like its counterpart, the walls are carved with reliefs of people carrying out daily chores. One is making a key; when Ixtli presses it, the door to the cobwebbed corridor opens, and he summons the others to follow this path.
A second door leads out of this room. Opening it, they find a short hall leading to a large rectangular room at the centre of the shrine. A floor mosaic depicts a bear fighting a horned rabbit: Obo'laka in battle with I'jin. Eight empty torch sconces line the walls of the room, and on a short pillar in the centre rests a puzzle cube. Next to the pillar, its hand resting on the cube, stands a robed figure that turns out to be an extraordinarily lifelike statue. Ixtli mistakes it for a human at first, but when he looks at it closely, he sees it bears the serpentine features of a yuan-ti.
The adventurers bring the eight torches from the hallway into the room, so that all eight sconces hold a torch. In the well-lit room, Dolan uses his Mage Hand to pluck the cube from the pillar. Stashing it with the others in the Bag of Holding, they walk out of the shrine.