How long before we run out of air?
General Summary
You know, you would think fighting an evil zephyr would rank high on the weirdness factor, but after the day we’ve had, it really doesn’t.
After a brief crazy fight with some fairy fire being thrown, a few daggers from Devan flying through the air, and Cap’n casting protection from evil, we finish off the strange creature.
That is when Lili noticed both Devan and Cap’n’s wounds are black, and nothing is healing them. Milli tries lesser restoration, and it does nothing. Then Cap’n tried to remove the curse, and the strange black wound goes away.
We split up, because that always goes well, and examine the room. I notice the back mural is a fresco, not a painting, and there’s some amount of difference in the surface. Lili and Devan are looking over the statues in the alcoves. Lili moves the arm of one of the statues and the wall moves and pushes a door open.
THIS ROOM LOOKS CRAZY
You know, there are some times I think rich people must just be insane. Each of the four walls has a mural on it. One shows people building a temple on a lake and a man with a gold tablet. Another shows the birth of a king, and his rise to the throne, and the people’s journey to a city on a hill. The next has the king vanquishing a horde of foes. The final one shows a king leading a group into the tomb with Anu-Akma. In the middle of the room is a statue of a king in one hand he holds a tablet and in the outstretched hand a brazier on fire. Each corner of the room has huge fire braziers. Around the edges of the room are five dead bodies. The door we came in has a woman in her mid-thirties and looks like an adventurer, she has scorch marks on her body. Next to her is a warrior with a messenger bag full of various knick-knacks, he has some scorch marks on his body, but his face is blue from lack of oxygen. Across the way is a man stripped to his underclothes with a blue face and a rope tied around his waist. Near the wall between them are two warriors with claw wounds on them, both of their pouches have been emptied. One of them holds a scrap of parchment saying “He is ever the master of all. Menet-Ka is life, Menet-Ka is death. Life begins with breath Flow in the wake of Menet-Ka’s glory Mark the fate of the infidel and tremble Turn your eyes as one towards the divine temple The wisest follow in the footsteps of Menet-Ka, King of kings.” Lili turns the statue to the South door and it opens, and the door we came through closed. The hallways have claw marks and lots of doors. Cap’n turns the statue East and the door opens into a water room. Lili turns the statue the final time and the door opens blasting us with a burst of fire. The hallway is all fire. I turn it back to the South, and hold open the South door saying, “Let’s go this way and see what we find.”WE FIND A LONG HALLWAY
Yep, a long hallway with niches and cross-passages, and lots and lots of sarcophagi. They might have once had a gold leaf, but it has long since worn away. Devan peeks into one sarcophagi, and says “There’s more of this fancy armor, but I think we don’t need the extra weight while we search, we can come back and find it later.” After a few short twists and turns, we opt to go back, maybe the fire hall will have a clue for how we should solve this problem. Devan fiddles with some stuff and disarms the fire trap. We all notice it’s getting a little hard to breathe in this center room.FIRE HALL
After a little bit of discussion, we decide the hallways must each represent a different thing, and this hall is obviously fire. We go down the hallway about 100 yards and turn left, there are niches filled with very hot ash. About halfway down our second hallway, Cap’n notices another dead man’s drop, and he jams the trap so it can’t fall on us. “Hey did you guys just feel a breeze?” Devan asked, and that was when he got hit by the giant ball of fire. It was just the start though, instead of a breeze, we now had a full-on gale (maybe Lili was playing with her crazy wind stick again). As we try to walk forward against the wind, Devan is hit by a huge flame. I push forward through the wind, get hit by another burst of flame, but I manage to get to the door and push it open. Of course, then the wind stops, and everyone else follows. We go into the room and there are several big clay urns covered in hieroglyphics about 8 feet tall. In the middle of the room is a well with no apparent bottom, and the top two feet are scorched. At the front of the room is a ginormous statue of Menet-Ka with an old desiccated body in front of it. Devan goes up to the desiccated body and moves it from the kneeling position in front of the statue. As he does, the skull bursts into flames and begins to float about 5 feet off the floor. Skeletons rise up from the floor because we hadn’t fought often enough yet. I am absolutely positive this skull is about to hurt us, so I cast a tidal wave on the thing, hoping to put its fire out. It does hurt it, but it casts a fireball on my friends who for whatever Creator-forsaken reason decided to group up. Maybe they wanted to make it easier for them to be hit by the fireball. Devan tries to jump on the skull and bag it but misses. Cap’n pulls out his orb and summons a chrono-elemental, but fails to control it (when are people going to learn to stop pulling out elementals, it never goes well), so he casts a spiritual weapon and starts whaling on the skull. Devan tries again and successfully bags the skull, and chains come out of the ground and pull two skeletons into some strange hell hole. The chrono-elemental isn’t hurt by any of this but starts after Cap’n knocks him down. I grab the orb and send the chrono-elemental back into the orb, and throw the orb into the hell-hole. After some amount of work, we get all of the skeletons down while Devan holds on for dear life with the crazy skull of death. Cap’n pries the tablet out of the statue and a booming voice says, “Who is master now and always?” We all promptly respond, “Menet-Ka,” and the statue starts moving. Lili looks up and says, “Menet-Ka is life, Menet-Ka is death.” We have half a tablet, but where is the other half?
Report Date
21 Dec 2021
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