Tomb of Annihilation - Session 40
General Summary
As the party surveys what they assume to be Wongo's tomb, the earth begins to shake. Dust filters down on them from the ceiling, then rocks fall as the shaking intensifies. A fragment of the ceiling slams into Dunch's shoulder. In the northeast corner of the room the floor collapses, and stones fall into the running water below.
After ten or fifteen seconds, the quake finally subsides. Examining the pit, they see that the water flows to the southeast, and has the same brackish look as the stream they've seen elsewhere on this level. There are only a few inches of clearance between the water's surface and the tunnel through which it runs, but the stream looks swimmable at least. Listening closely at the pit, Ixtli can just barely perceive a faint mechanical sound in the distance, like metal shearing, or stone grinding on stone.
As they are close to exhaustion, the party decides to attempt a long rest here in Wongo's tomb, spelling each other off for the watch. They rest in darkness; those without darkvision share Chibuzo's Goggles of Night when on guard. A few hours pass. During Dolan's watch, an aftershock hits, and more dust and small rocks fall from the ceiling. The others remain asleep, but a few minutes later, he sees three squat figures appear at the end of the hall leading to the central pit: undead dwarves, the tomb's "maintenance crew." Dolan hurriedly wakes the others as they approach. Dunch's transformation has continued during his rest: his fingers and toes have merged together, and the goat horns atop his head have grown to full length. As he readies himself for battle, he finds he can no longer wear the helmet of Nyemba's Might.
While Chibuzo and Ixtli ready themselves on either side of the door, Dunch invokes the power of Rashaad's ring and summons a three-foot-diameter ball of lightning in the entryway. Dolan unveils the eternal flame that now burns atop the Sceptre of the Honored Voice, fires a mote of flame at the lead dwarvish wight, then takes cover behind one of the room's treasure chests. The dwarves respond with a volley of crossbow bolts; one grazes Dolan's head, and he feels an unnatural chill along with the expected sharp pain.
A mental command from Dunch sends the ball of lightning into the lead dwarf; the barbarian follows up with a flurry of blows from the Maul of Disruption, ignoring the freezing pain he suffers from striking the wight, until the undead thing explodes into glittering motes of light. Chibuzo finishes another dwarf by hurtling Atsu's Lance past the barbarian.
The third foe retreats down the passage and out of sight. Dunch is first to pursue, but when he reaches the central pit, the dwarf is no longer visible. The corridor leading to what should be Moa's tomb is also empty, but one of the flaming eye sockets in the giant stone skull at the tomb entrance has gone dark. He looks in the skull-decorated tomb as well, but nothing seems amiss. Ixtli joins him and searches the passageway, but finds no hidden doors. Dolan investigates the corpses of the wights, but finds only mundane weapons and armour, as well as the tools they carried.
Perhaps inspired by the spirit of I'jin, Ixtli lights upon the idea of throwing one of the dwarvish corpses over the parapet and into the hole guarded by the four-armed gargoyles—just to see what would happen. Chibuzo lights a torch and tosses it into the darkness; after falling 100 feet, it lands just off to the side of the hole. Caught in the torchlight is another skeleton with an oddly-shaped head, seemingly just in the process of crawling down the hole. When the torch lands, it looks up briefly, then skitters downward out of sight.
Ixtli throws the dwarf over the side. The corpse sails downward and disappears down the hole, but nothing unusual occurs. A moment later, Chibuzo throws the second corpse, this time aiming at one of the four-armed gargoyles. The body bounces off its head. The gargoyle looks upwards, then leaps from the pedestal and starts flying towards them.
The party retreats in haste toward Wongo's tomb as the gargoyle lands on the parapet behind them. Once inside the room, Dunch plunges through the hole in the floor into the stream. The others follow, with Chibuzo supporting the non-swimming Dolan. Behind them, they hear stone grating on stone, as if the gargoyle is forcing its way down the narrow corridor towards the tomb.
They follow the current and leave the tomb behind. A short distance downstream the passage opens up, with more overhead space, and the water gets a bit shallower. The streams runs southeast for some forty feet, then turns east. The speed of the current increases as they go, and they can hear the sound of falling water ahead.
After a short distance, they come upon a staircase to their right climbing up from the water's edge. The stairs ascend ten feet to a fifteen-foot corridor ending in a stone door, which turns out to open on Moa's tomb.
Closing the door, they return to the water and continue downstream, tying themselves together with a rope to defend against getting swept away. The sound of rushing water grows louder until the stream broadens into a large pool, then plunges into a dark chasm. Cool air rises from the darkness below like the breath of some monstrous creature. On the far side of the chasm is a stone ledge holding a treasure chest.
Summoning the wings of Nyemba's Might, Dunch flies down the shaft carrying Ixtli, who now wears the Goggles of Night. They descend some 120 feet to a slimy grotto, where the waterfall plummets into a pool that reeks of decay. From here the water flows through a rough-hewn 20-foot-tall stone passage to the south. Then the passage turns westward, opening into a huge space whose distant walls are beyond the limits of their darkvision. The slimy lake below glows with specks of dim phosphorescence.
Something looms into view out of the shadows ahead, and Dunch hovers in place as they try to make it out. It looks like a giant cogwheel made of stone, perhaps 90 feet across, with another cog barely visible behind it. Both cogs are motionless. Atop the nearest cog is an enclosed pentagonal chamber ten feet high, its walls and roof impossibly smooth. A number of chains dangle over the cog from the ceiling; from some of the chains, dwarvish wights rappel down to the top of the chamber, which is littered with rubble and debris. A hissing sound rises from the gear, and occasionally clouds of steam. Two rusty conduits run between the cog and the cavern walls, one to the north, the other to the southeast. The conduits are large enough that a humanoid figure could walk inside them.
The dwarves seem engaged in repairs, with no sign that they have spotted the winged half-orc over the water. Dunch carries Ixtli downwards, leaving him clinging to the cavern wall just above the waterline not far from the southeast conduit. Then he flies back for the others.
After he leaves, Ixtli gradually loses his grip on the slippery wall, and slowly slides down into the murky water. One of the pinpricks of phosphorescent light is nearby, but it moves away from him. Through the gloom he observes the dwarves work atop the giant cog, and thinks to himself that Glyh'rul's influence must be behind this unnatural mechanism.
Dunch shortly returns with Chibuzo, leaving him next to Ixtli, then flies back for Dolan. When they arrive, he deposits Dolan atop the cog, landing next to him, while Ixtli and Chibuzo swim towards them.
Dolan uncovers the Sceptre of the Honored Voice, and blasts a nearby dwarf with a Fire Bolt as the cavern brightens. Invoking the Step of the Wind, Ixtli swiftly reaches the cog, hauls himself up the smooth wall of the pentagonal chamber, and stabs a dwarf twice in the back with the Blood Spear, despite the freezing pain he suffers from contact with the wight. Turning, the dwarf pulls a battleaxe from its belt and slashes him in return. Two more of the wights close on Dunch, swinging their axes, before the barbarian disintegrates one with the Maul of Disruption. The other takes a few more blows to finish. When two more dwarves appear overhead, rappelling down chains until they pause to ready light crossbows, Dolan hits one with another Fire Bolt.
Pulling himself up to the top of the pentagonal chamber, Chibuzo looks back to see a large dark shape in the water behind him. It passes close to the surface, then drops back out of sight. Turning and drawing his longbow, he fires two arrows into the same dwarf that Dolan attacked. One of the dwarves fires back, hitting him with a crossbow bolt.
The wight fighting Ixtli strikes him a mighty blow with its battleaxe before Ixtli finishes it with a kick, sending the corpse flying off the cog's surface. While Chibuzo fires more arrows into one of the hanging dwarves, Dolan launches a splash of acid at the other. The undead creature is struck square in the chest; when its leather harness dissolves, it drops downwards out of sight. Dunch bludgeons the remaining hanging dwarf, then zaps it with the electrical powers of Nyemba's Might. The motionless corpse dangles from its chain.
From above, Dunch spots the dwarf that fell as it makes its way across the teeth of the cog, heading towards the next gear. It moves out of sight, but Chibuzo hurries to the edge and detects it scurrying along the teeth on the gear's east side. He finishes it with a throw of Atsu's Lance.
With this latest group of caretakers dispatched, Dunch flies around the cavern to scout the overall layout. There are three of the interlocking gears in total, each topped with an enclosed pentagonal chamber with two doorways that should allow access to its interior. However none of the doorways are in a position to allow entry from the cavern. In the gears' current position, a slight gap is visible where one doorway lines up with another or with one of the rusty conduits attached to the cavern walls. From the easternmost cog run conduits to the north and southeast; from the central cog, a conduit to the south; and from the westernmost cog, a conduit to the west. The central cog has one other connection point (with the same small gap) to its north: what looks like a short hallway leading to a small pentagonal chamber, all enclosed and inaccessible from the outside. From the middle of the same gear, a ten-foot-square stone column rises up to the ceiling, and from the gaps to the doorways in this gear spills a green gas with the smell of rot.
To the southwest of the gears, a cylindrical stone tower rises from a rocky outcropping in the water to the roof of the cavern. Stone steps lead down from the tower to a pier with a boat tied to it, and another conduit, this one of stone, connects the tower to the cavern wall.
Dunch conveys the rest of the party to the pier. A rusty iron cage sits on the dock, attached to a winch-operated crane for lowering the cage into the water. Down in the depths they see more of the glowing phosphorescent lights.
When the adventurers climb the stairs, a monstrous mouth forms on the door. Speaking with a drawl, it says, "I'm so hungry I could eat you alive. But I'll settle for something else. Something living. Something light."
Chibuzo enters the iron cage, and Ixtli lowers him into the water. Relying on his Necklace of Adaptation to breathe, he reaches the bottom after about twenty feet, where numerous glowing crabs scuttle about. He places three of the crabs in a sack, then signals Ixtli to bring him back up. He has the sense that something else is down in the water with him, but surfaces without incident. Leaving the cage, he approaches the waiting mouth and shakes the crabs into it. The gigantic mouth closes, chews, spits out the shells, then vanishes, and the door opens.
The interior of the tower is lined with skull-filled niches. A spiral staircase climbs upward, and a hallway leads south through the stone conduit. The party travels a short distance southwards before encountering a large pool of greyish, viscous slime that covers almost the full width of the hallway. Something about it reminds Dunch of the acidic slime secreted by Caprakan's pendant when he tried to remove it from the ensorcelled Aldani. The pool of slime is some fifteen feet long; beyond it, they see the hallway extend another thirty feet south before turning to the east.
They climb the spiral staircase. After ascending twenty or twenty-five feet, they reach what should be the fourth level of the tomb. A hallway extends to the west some twenty feet before ending in a wall.
The staircase goes higher, and the adventurers keep climbing. After another twenty-five feet or so, they come to another level, where doors lead north and south.
Climbing further, they come to the top of the stairs on the second level. Visible to east and west are the scrying font and the office they explored previously on this level. As they examine their surroundings, a mild quake shakes the complex, doing no damage but leaving them covered in dust.
They climb back down to the third level, then open the door to the south, which leads to a ten-foot corridor ending in a wall. A concealed door opens to reveal an intersection. One corridor extends south fifteen feet, ending in a closed door, while the other leads east.
The party takes the eastern corridor. The purple mould they saw before is here too, and an occasional eye emerges to observe them as they pass by. After about forty feet, a crawlway branches off to the north; ten feet beyond that, the corridor ends, and a second crawlway leads south.
They take the south crawlway first, with Dolan leading the way. After ten feet, it opens into the room with the floating platforms that Dolan and Chibuzo saw earlier. The opening is in the middle of the northern wall, perhaps five feet east of the lit platform on the western edge of the room.
The group backs out of the crawlway and tries the northern one instead. After five feet, it curves to the east, but after another ten feet ends in a sheet of iron engraved with the face of a snarling minotaur. Its eyes are cut out, and when Dolan looks through them he sees that the crawlway continues beyond.
The sheet looks as if it could slide up into the ceiling. After the adventurers reposition themselves, Chibuzo is able to push it upwards until it clicks into place. The party quickly scurries past the choke point. After another ten feet east, the crawlway turns south, and they emerge into a hallway they recognize: south of the central pit, in the corridor leading to the room with the curtain of water. A moment later, they hear an echoing clang from behind them, and conclude that the iron sheet snapped back into place after about a minute.
They make their way east without incident and take another crawlway back to the isolated room where they rested before—this time, hoping for an uninterrupted sleep.
