Tomb of Annihilation - Session 38
General Summary
Before they continue their journey, Ixtli takes a moment to mention that I'jin's presence is affecting him, and that he might act more recklessly than usual under the loa's influence. He also asks the others, if he should die here in the tomb, to return the Blood Spear to Tal'Mayu if they can.
Before they leave I'jin's tomb, Ixtli, Chibuzo, and Dolan confer about the decorative motifs they have seen: scarabs, funeral barges, and chariots. Chibuzo confirms that they are not Marakuran in origin. They remind Dolan of an old human culture, the first according to legend. He recalls Elmar's letter, which related Rashaad's words that the Crown of Teotenocht "had come from an empire that had risen and fallen before the founding of Nizam. It was the first human empire, which was built on a foundation of sacrifice and blood magic." The discussion brings back to Ixtli visions from his past, where he saw men from (he assumes) that empire killing lizardfolk like himself and seizing the crown.
The adventurers resolve to follow the guidance of Dolan's Find the Path spell, which still leads them downwards. Returning to the central pit, they descend the next flight of stairs.
They find themselves on another balcony that runs along the western side of the pit. A narrow passage leads south from the balcony, and a larger one further west. On the opposite side of the pit is another flight of stairs leading down to the stone floor at the bottom, where four ten-foot-high cylindrical pedestals surround a ten-foot-square hole in the floor. A resonant mechanical sound echoes from the hole. On each of the pedestals squats a large statue of a gargoyle with four arms. Each pedestal is topped with tiles of a different metal: copper, silver, gold, and platinum. Interrupting the smooth exterior of each cylinder is a single slot, perhaps half an inch wide and two inches long.
The balcony and the corridors here are littered with bones, dust, and rubble. They make their way through the debris to another of the bronze plaques; it reads:
The sentinels of the great descent demand a toll.
The army sleeps in silence.
The mirror holds twelve with the caretaker's words.
Find the iron scepter's twin.
The maze holds the key.
Chibuzo angrily bashes the plaque with his warhammer, leaving a dent.
The party takes the narrow passage to the south, which runs some 40 feet before branching to the east and west. They follow it to the west, where lights glimmer in the distance.
After some thirty feet, they enter a small, fifteen-foot-square room. The lights that they saw were their own, reflected in a four-foot-tall mirror on the opposite wall with an ornate brass frame. Chibuzo picks up a small bone from the floor and tosses it lightly at the mirror. The bone bounces off, but as he watches, his reflection flickers, and the face of a young Marakuran man he doesn't recognize appears next to him for a moment. Dunch glimpses a female Marakuran in chitinous plate armour, while Ixtli briefly sees a troll hovering over Chibuzo's face.
They leave the room and head east instead. After 75 feet, the corridor ends in a stone slab painted with the image of a cloaked humanoid, its face a mask of stars and its left hand raised with the palm out. Dunch mirrors its gesture, and the slab sinks into the floor. The short corridor beyond is decorated with relief carvings that show humanoids fleeing a black sun in the sky. The sun emits rays that turn the people to dust.
The corridor then splits to the north and south. Exploring further, the adventurers find that both branches loop back to join another north-south corridor that leads to a small central room. The whole arrangement of corridors seems to be mirrored on the opposite side of the central room.
The room contains only a small pedestal, holding a crown of gold, bone, and obsidian adorned with a glittering black opal. It looks exactly and uncannily like the Crown of Teotenocht that Ixtli saw in his visions for so long. The Anasazi inspects the pedestal closely, but it doesn't seem to open or have any moving parts.
They leave the room and go north, finding a narrow corridor that descends a flight of stairs. It leads to a larger east-west corridor; looking west, they can see the bottom of the pit, with the four pedestals holding the gargoyle statues. To the east is a short corridor that ends in another painted carving of a six-foot-tall green devil face, its mouth agape. Painted murals on the surrounding walls show faceless humanoid figures doubled over in pain, clutching their heads and ears.
Unlike the similar carving near the tomb entrance, the mouth of this devil does not hold a gaping black void, but is simply carved into the stone. When Ixtli shines the Gem of Brightness inside, he hears a "meep!" sound, and a small green lizard scuttles up the inside of the mouth.
"Hello?" Dolan says.
In a small voice, the lizard answers in Marakuran: "Please don't eat me."
"No, we won't eat you," Ixtli answers. "Who are you?"
"My name is Bapoto."
"I am Ixtli. What are you doing here?"
Bapoto tells his tale. Once he lived in the city, where a nature priest cast a spell on him that made him smart. But then the priest drowned in the river. Later, some strange humans found him and brought him into the tomb to spring traps for them, but they ran into trouble with the giant gargoyle statues. They went into the room, then left, and then the gargoyles came alive and attacked them. Bapoto escaped, but didn't see what happened to the others. The strange humans spoke in a language he didn't understand. One was a dwarf with a turban, another a man carrying two swords. They all wore different kinds of yellow clothing, and the adventurers speculate that these were members of the Company of the Yellow Banner.
Bapoto wants to get out of the tomb. There are things wandering the halls in here, he tells them: weird men with armour bolted to them, and strange, dessicated dwarfs who make repairs.
"We will get you out," Chibuzo tells him, "but we're going deeper first."
"That doesn't sound good." But after Chibuzo offers him some salt pork, the lizard decides that he is better off accompanying them than staying here, and climbs up onto Chibuzo's shoulders.
They go back up the stairs to the south to the cluster of passages surrounding the crown, exploring the ones not yet taken. They confirm that the layout is symmetrical, except that on the eastern side of the cluster is a short corridor that ends in another carving of the green devil face. Unlike the one where they found Bapoto, though, this carving does have the same gaping black maw as the face on the first floor. Listening closely, they hear a faint whisper coming from it, but the words are in a language none of them recognize. Speculating that the void may be a portal of some kind, Chibuzo hurls a javelin into it, but the weapon only disappears soundlessly into the darkness.
They retrace their steps back to the pit, this time taking the large passage leading westwards from the balcony. After some forty feet, a narrow passage leads north; after another thirty feet, the corridor ends in a large stone door. Jutting from the corridor on each side of the door are bronze statues of the upper bodies of snakes, their fangs bared. The stench of rotting flesh emanates from the statues. On the lintel above the door is an inscription in Marakuran:
Warm like flame
Cold for the cruel
Still for the dead
Gruel for the ghoul
The party turns and takes the narrow passage to the north instead. After ten feet, stairs descend fifteen feet to another short corridor with a room beyond. At the bottom of the stairs rests a rusty treasure chest. Looking down the stairs, Dunch feels a slight draft from overhead; when he looks more closely, he sees the faint outline of a door or hatchway.
They head downstairs, avoiding the chest for now. But Dunch abruptly stops short when he smells something acrid. From here he can see the enormous room ahead: seventy-five feet wide and fifty-five feet deep, its roof supported by four circular marble pillars and its walls painted with murals of axe-wielding minotaurs. Between the pillars near the back of the room is a sarcophagus made of an opaque crystal that changes colours every few seconds: from blue to gold, purple, green, red, and black before the cycle repeats. Ahead to their left and right, twin staircases rise to an upper gallery that runs the length of the room's back wall, in the centre of which is a huge carving of a detailed maze.
Ixtli prods the floor directly in front of them with a spear, and determines that a fifteen by ten foot area around the room's entrance is composed of interlocking stone tiles that would probably collapse under someone's weight. Past this area, the floor looks to be of solid stone.
Dunch decides to investigate the chest in more detail. After he prods it with the Maul of Disruption, the others retreat up the stairs, Chibuzo holding a rope tied to Dunch. Dunch taps the chest again. When he hits it harder, it moves, but not as much as he would have expected. They speculate that the chest may be attached to the floor in some way as part of a trap. Leaving the chest, they each take a running jump over the weak floor tiles and enter the room.
Ixtli goes to examine the coruscating sarcophagus, finding a tiny keyhole carved in its lid. From inside him, the voice of I'jin says: "It reminds me of Unkh's shell. I think we should open it when it's gold. It's my favourite colour!"
The party heads up the stairs to the gallery to look at the maze. It's carved with intricate detail; when they examine it, they see tiny flickering torches lighting its halls, and corridors filled with fog. As they watch, the maze changes before their eyes, rearranging itself. There doesn't seem to be an exit or entrance.
Dolan reaches out to touch it, and disappears. Simultaneously, ten concealed doors open in the walls of the room, spilling out piles of bones that assemble themselves into large skeletal minotaurs wielding double-bladed axes. Chibuzo quickly deposits Bapoto on a nearby wall for his own safety.
Enraged, Dunch runs down the right staircase, bludgeoning the skeleton at the bottom with the Maul of Disruption, while Chibuzo summons grasping weeds and vines to entangle the skeletons around the half-orc. Ixtli takes the left staircase, spearing and kicking a skeleton, but he and Chibuzo are quickly swarmed from all sides. One skeleton climbs up onto the gallery between them, while others attack from below, chipping the stone railings with their axes.
Meanwhile, Dolan finds himself lost in a maze of torchlit corridors. Looking upwards, he sees a distorted vision of the room with the glowing sarcophagus. He explores the maze, but the labyrinth seems endless.
The others continue their battle against the skeletons. Chibuzo smashes a skeleton with his warhammer, then strikes a crushing blow with Deathbone, and the thing falls apart. Ixtli takes a savage blow from an enemy's axe before killing it with the Blood Spear, then destroys another skeleton on the stairs behind with him a roundhouse kick.
Dunch disintegrates a skeleton with the Maul of Disruption, the bone dust glittering in the pulsating light from the sarcophagus. Then he crushes another one into bone fragments. As more minotaur skeletons free themselves from Chibuzo's plants and close in on him, the half-orc retreats up the stairs, zapping his foes with electrical bolts from Nyemba's Might.
The skeletons press their attack. One slashes Chibuzo, while another charges up the stairs at Ixtli, goring him with its horns. While Ixtli retreats, Dunch disintegrates another skeleton with the Maul, then moves to aid the others. After Chibuzo bashes a skeleton twice with his warhammer, Dunch crushes with it with the Maul, and it collapses into a pile of bones.
Within the labyrinth, Dolan comes to a dead end, where a pedestal holds a small purple crystalline key. When he picks it up, he abruptly finds himself back in the pillared room, standing next to the currently black sarcophagus. He shoots a Fire Bolt at a skeleton that still hasn't freed itself from its entanglement; seemingly finding its motivation under his assault, the skeleton drags itself free of the clutching vines and moves to attack Dolan.
One of the three remaining skeletons charges at Chibuzo, goring him before he strikes it three crushing blows, sending its skull bouncing down the stairs. Another charges at Dolan but misses; Dunch jumps off the balcony to disintegrate it with the Maul of Disruption. Ixtli similarly leaps down to attack the last skeleton, spearing and kicking it before Dolan ends its existence with a Fire Bolt.
When the sarcophagus turns purple, Dolan inserts the key. The lid disappears, and Dolan finds that he has received a supernatural gift: a Charm of the Maimed, allowing him to regrow a lost limb or an eye. The interior of the sarcophagus is filled with salt. Rummaging through it, Dolan finds a set of ten linked opalescent shell bracelets, and a piece of fabric.
When he pulls the fabric free of the salt, slime pours from its folds, taking the appearance of waving pseudopods. He hears a female voice, speaking slowly: "I can help you. At least, I think that's what I'm supposed to do." Dolan does not resist the spirit he feels pressing upon him, and finds himself inhabited by the spirit of Unkh the flail snail, a self-obsessed and indecisive presence who nonetheless wants to kill Lar'lenek. Within Ixtli, I'jin tells him, "Unkh has always been a loyal companion. She needs lots of pushing, but she'll do the right thing eventually." Once the salt is shaken off the fabric, Dolan finds it to be a robe that radiates magic. The bracelets, however, are not magical.
After Chibuzo collects Bapoto again, they leave the room, vaulting themselves over the weak floor tiles near the entrance. They make their way back up to the third level, where they crawl through the tunnel that Dolan and Chibuzo explored earlier to reach the small isolated room between tunnels, where they take a short rest.
While they recover from their injuries, Ixtli learns that the horn he recovered from I'jin's tomb works as a Wand of Wonder, capable of many weird and whimsical effects. The robe from Unkh's tomb is a Robe of Scintillating Colours, which displays a shifting pattern of dazzling hues that can stun those around it and hinder attacking foes. Dolan quickly dons the Robe, attuning to it, while Dunch attunes to Rashaad's ring and Chibuzo attunes to the Ring of the Oracle, having received it from Dolan.
After their rest, they decide to return to the first level in search of the skeleton that they saw there. When they reach the green devil face, they find the doors leading out of the tomb closed. Chibuzo asks Bapoto if he would like to remain here—at least he would be closer to the way out—but the lizard thinks that he has a better chance of getting out by staying with the party. "Plus you feed me."
Chibuzo looks around, but sees no sign of the javelin that he threw into the devil face on the fourth level.
The party moves down the hall to examine the crystal window that opens onto what they suppose to be Obo'laka's burial vault. The window frame doesn't seem to contain any switches or levers, but through the window they see a skeleton with a triangle-shaped skull, presumably the same one they saw earlier. The skeleton is using a dagger to cut creepers from the wall and put them into a sack. When it turns and sees the adventurers through the window, it picks up its belongings, moves to one of the niches built into the north wall of the vault, and disappears behind the chair in the niche.
Hoping to intercept it, the adventurers return to the central pit and take the first narrow passage to the north. After some twenty-five feet, the passage turns left; after another fifty or sixty feet, the corridor widens into a long rectangular room with a statue at the far end. When Dunch steps into the room, he feels himself being pulled forward, as if everything metallic he wears or carries is being drawn towards the statue, but he manages to keep his feet. The others hold back from entering the room for the moment.
The skeleton is here. Summoning the power of Rashaad's ring, Dunch lassos it with a whip of electrical energy and yanks it toward him. It disintegrates into a pile of bones en route, and Dunch picks up its skull and places it in his Bag of Holding.
Continuing to resist the metallic pull, Dunch steps further into the room. The statue is a rusty metal statue of a knight gripping a large iron shield, surrounded by flakes of rusted metal. Narrow passages lead north and south; after a quick glance down the south passage, which looks to end after twenty feet, Dunch goes north, finding himself in a circular room twenty-five feet in diameter, with a fountain at the centre. Three marble figures of women stand in the fountain, holding pitchers from which water flows.
The others pass through the room in turn, also resisting the pull of the statue, though Chibuzo tosses a coin at it in passing. The coin flies towards the statue; he sees an arc of electricity when it hits, and then the coin corrodes into rusty fragments. The ranger joins Dunch in the fountain room; he tries throwing a silver coin into it, then standing in it. Nothing out of the ordinary happens, even though Dunch confirms with his Wand of Magic Detection that the fountain's waters are magical. The barbarian tries drinking the water flowing from one of the pitchers, but it has no apparent effect.
Ixtli and Dolan take the southern passage. Examining the apparent dead end closely, Ixtli finds a slightly open door at the end; peering through it, he sees the back of a chair, and the rest of Obo'laka's tomb beyond. But he also finds the faint outline of another secret door to the east. A block of stone pushed inwards opens the door, revealing stairs that descend some twenty-five feet. The room at the bottom is lit by flickering flames, and the jangling sounds of moving metal echo up from below.