ooc: Jynxx can let me know how many surges to spend as soon as he checks in.
After the breather, the group cautiously approaches the stone pyramid. The second eye which was floating in front of it has vanished; it's not clear when or where it went awy.
Weapons ready, the party enters the passageway into the pyramid. It's a wide passage, fifteen feet at least, with torches set into sconces every twenty feet. Inlays of jade and obsidian form geometric patterns on the walls and ceilings. The temperature drops significantly as you pass out of the sunlight. The tunnel slants up slightly.
A hundred feet in, the passageway ends in a large, triangular-shaped chamber. More torches blaze away brightly, filling the chamber with light, and censures burning incense in the opposite corners fill the air with a pleasant aroma. The passageway enters at a point of the triangle. On the far wall is a huge golden door. Wrought into it is a sizable sculpture of a reptilian head surrounded by feathers.
[sblock=Door Sculpture](Except, imagine it's gold instead of stone!)
[sblock=Religion DC 15 (active or passive)]It's a feathered serpent, an image of Quetzalcoatl, the Bonite equivalent of Joven... and the deity worshipped by the
zocaltipapatlaca...[/sblock]
[/sblock]
Eight humanoids are in the room. Two stand next to the golden door; three stand against of the side walls. Their features have the cast of natives of the Valley of Bone, but their skin is shockingly pale, as white as alabaster. Half look human; the rest, dwarven. They aren't wearing much in the way of clothes - a short skirt, sandals and a leather harness, and most prominently, a large, elaborately carved headdress. The headdresses depict a stylized face, with vertical grooves in the cheeks and long, drooping oblong ears. Coarse hairs sprout from the mask's ears. They are empty handed, but their fingers are quite long, with sharp looking nails... perhaps they would better be called claws than hands.
[sblock=Religion DC 15 (active)]They are wights, savage undead creatures which normally attack living creatures on sight. These seem more... disciplined. It's possible that they are under the control of a more powerful undead creature or an enchantment of some kind.[/sblock]
[sblock=Religion DC 20 (active)]The masks depict Xilonen, the Bonite equivalent of Peresefa. Xilonen is also called "the Hairy One", which refers to the hairs found on the husks of a crop grown in the Valley. The ears on this mask depict the plant.[/sblock]
The creatures along the side walls stare straight ahead, unnaturally still, not reacting to your presence. The two by the door, one male and one female, both dwarf-sized, seem more lively. Though they are clad similarly and share the pale skin of the others, their hands look normal. Each grasps a staff which appears more ceremonial than weaponlike.
[sblock=Perception DC 15 (active or passive)]These two are wearing some kind of makeup to give their skin the white color. You can see a more natural brown color around their eyes and mouths. Also, the male seems to have missed a large spot on his forearm.[/sblock]
The male steps forward and bows.
"Welcome, travellers," he says in passable though accented Allarian.
"Honored Ancestor Hulgrimi bids you welcome to his home. He asks that you wait in the audience chamber while he prepares to speak with you himself."
