sniffles
First Post
Pyramid of Stone and Destiny
We have gained another member of our party, so to speak. A small orb of light now follows Nekaya. She tells us it is a creature of good sent to her by her gods, and it will not harm anyone not of an evil nature. She calls it 'Sunshine'. She is able to converse with it in her native tongue, though it does not seem capable of speech itself. It gives off no more light than a candle flame, but in this dark tomb any light is welcome.
A moment after Rock had entered the stairway exiting the first chamber, I heard the sound of metal snapping and a blade came hurtling out of the stairwell to land on the floor near the horses. Rock called out an apology. Liadan had entered the stairway with the intention of healing his wounds, but he proceeded on into the next chamber. He summoned us to join him immediately.
I ascended the stairs into a room furnished with two plinths. A pool occupied the center of the chamber. To my left I saw Rock and Liadan engaged in destroying more of the walking skeletons. A figure wrapped in strips of linen lay upon a plinth near the skeletons - they had been occupied in wrapping this figure when Rock entered. This is the manner in which the people of Mulhorand dispose of their dead. When she and Rock had eliminated the skeletons, Liadan began to cut the wrappings from this body, for Rock had seen signs that someone living had preceded us into the tomb, and Liadan reported that the figure still appeared to move. Thinking the walking skeletons had been about to bury some poor soul alive, she endeavored to free him.
When the wrappings were removed from his head this revealed that his eyes and mouth had been sewn shut and despite his motions he was quite dead. Then he began to shudder, and a great mass of beetles erupted from within his body, far more than could have been contained therein. They swarmed down the plinth onto the floor and began clambering over Rock and Liadan, biting through the gaps in their armor. Rock exclaimed a command word and Brimstone's sword emitted a gout of flame that turned them to cinders. The body had fallen to the floor and still somehow squirmed about, so Erim drew a wand from his belt and burnt it also.
In the meanwhile Nekaya had endeavored to purify the pool that lay at the center of the chamber, for it was filled with a black liquid which she stated was not typical of the contents of such a pool. She also mentioned that it was unusual for the embalming chamber to be so near to the entrance - for we had determined that the fallen-in opening in the chamber where we arrived must be the entry to the tomb. But Nekaya's efforts to affect the pool had no success.
Nekaya wished to continue through the tomb until we could find and destroy the gong that continued to ring, each time causing the hairs on my neck to stand on end. Liadan agreed with Nekaya that we must stop the gong and lay the dead to rest. The sounding of the gong seemed not only to raise the dead but to make weaker the powers of the gods to turn aside such abominations. As we did not wish to leave our mounts unattended, and we could not bring them through the tomb with us, Nekaya prevailed upon Pakkin to remain and watch over them. She then gathered up the skulls of the two walking skeleton guardians to prevent them being revived by the ringing of the gong. Each time it sounded the fragments of bone upon the floor would shiver and gather together as if trying to reform themselves.
Beyond the second chamber the stair descended rather than rising. Nekaya explained that this was typical for such tombs. Rock preceded us into each passageway to disable any traps set to prevent desecration of the tomb, which is also typical. When he could not disable or destroy the traps he marked them so that we could avoid activating them. In the second passage small darts flew from the walls to strike him, though they did him no hurt. The remainder of our party simply leaped over the stone that triggered this trap.
The third chamber contained many more walking skeletons. There was also a scorched mark on the floor, as though someone had attempted to burn them with a spell. The gong sounded once more and several fallen skeletons raised themselves to their feet. These were only servants, not warriors, and were easily dealt with.
The stair descended again, this time trapped with a heavy stone overhead that dislodged to release a cloud of dust. This dust burned the skin where it touched. Liadan drew out the rune of water she carried so that we could wash the dust from our bodies.
We entered a chamber filled with yet more of the walking dead, but these were armed. Rock crushed one with his hammer, but lost his footing and went tumbling down the stair. Nekaya and Liadan stood in the doorway of the chamber to meet the oncoming skeletons. I sprang past them to strike one as it approached. My blades slid off their fleshless bones. To aid my friends, I turned my swords toward relieving the skeletons of their weapons and deprived two of them of their sickle-shaped blades in this manner. Liadan then turned them to dust by Lathander's grace.
Erim had moved across the room to face a skeleton wielding a bow, and I went to his aid. The skeleton threw down its bow before I arrived. When disarmed they attempted to claw us with their bare finger-bones. Unable to harm it with my sword, I sheathed my blades and grasped it in my arms, hoping to crush it against the stone wall of the tomb. Then Rock's hammer came hurtling past my head, destroying the skull of my foe before returning to my friend's hand.
We observed that in this room there were the remains of many more unliving warriors than those we had destroyed. There were also smears of blood and the signs that something had been dragged across the floor. We had already suspected that someone must have preceded us into this place and that the poor soul in the first chamber may have been one of their number. Now we felt certain that we were not the first living beings to enter this tomb since it was sealed centuries ago.
As we continued our journey, Rock, seeing that Sulian had little effect on our enemies, lent me Brimstone's flaming sword to use against their flammable linen wrappings. We proceeded into the next chamber, where we met more armed skeletons, these even better equipped than those we had just encountered. Nekaya exclaimed that these must be the pharaoh's elite retainers.
Erim announced that he knew a spell to apply against them, and we held the doorway until he could recite the arcane command to summon it. A blast of flames shot from a ring on his hand to engulf the level hallway between us and our enemies. When the inferno cleared not one of the skeletons remained whole.
Rock had continued to check each stair and passage for traps. But one such trap managed to slip past his notice as we descended once more. He trod on a stone and suddenly the stair swung away beneath him, dropping him into darkness. Before the rest of our party could draw nearer the stair had closed again.
Erim made a gesture and a wide section of the stair vanished, leaving an opening into a pit. Rock had managed to catch hold of the lip of the opening and before it closed he had activated his immovable rod, such that he now hung from the rod through his belt, suspended above the pit. He advised us that he had found someone else in the pit, evidently the persons who had preceded our entry into the tomb.
Nekaya sent Sunshine down to give healing to one of the three folk who had tumbled into the pit together. The other two had been slain by the long fall. The man who survived was badly injured and cringed away from Sunshine's light, though we thought perhaps this was because he had been in the darkness for many hours or days.
After a rope was tied to the immovable rod, Rock descended to the bottom of the pit to retrieve the injured man and the rest of us hauled them out. The man was unconscious when brought out of the pit, but this did not appear to Liadan to be a result of his injuries. When she granted him Lathander's mercy, his injuries improved but he also seemed to suffer. We had already observed that his skin was the color of soot, which did not seem to be a result of his wounds. Nekaya suggested that he might be a denizen of the realm of shadows, similar to the shadow creatures that had attacked us in the park in Arrabar.
Bearing the insensible man with us, we continued our journey deeper into the tomb. Nekaya sensed that the grey man's nature was one of evil, but we wished to question him. Once his wounds were healed enough that he would survive, he was bound. Erim then summoned a floating disk to enable us to cross the opening he had created in the stair.
As we passed through a chamber containing two thrones and several chests, we heard music faintly from the next room. Entering it, we found that it contained many of the pharaoh's treasures, including his chariot harnessed to skeletal horses, and even a river barge. Among these waited yet more of the his unliving servants, one of them playing a harp while another sang an ancient tune. Two warriors wrapped in linen stood at either side of the entrance.
Quips & Quotes:
Erim: "Can we find the nearest miniature sun out of here?"
Devo: "This creature, once human, is only lightly covered in burial wrappings."
Hedrin: "It's casual Friday."
Hedrin: "I probably had the wand out to heal Rock."
Jubilee: "But you might have had your mace in your other hand to pacify him first."
Devo: "You can tell the chamber is intended for preparation for unlife - ahem - the afterlife."
sniffles: "Mummies - very flammable - you go first."
Devo: "The urns are full of herbs and spices. I think there are 11 of them."
Zora: "So Ahnukileal was a colonel?"
Erim rolls the damage for two charges of scorching ray from a wand. His first roll is 6, 6, 6, 3. His second roll is 1, 1, 1, 5.
Hedrin: "It's been en-eviled. I'm an en-eviler."
Zora: "I have an uncanny trap sense. Ow! There's one."
Zora (as Rock falls down the stairs): "It's a Rock tumbler!"
Jubilee: "The skeleton can claw me."
Zora: "It's in their contract. It's a claws."
Zora: "You could pick up a femur and hit it with that. That'd be humerus."
We have gained another member of our party, so to speak. A small orb of light now follows Nekaya. She tells us it is a creature of good sent to her by her gods, and it will not harm anyone not of an evil nature. She calls it 'Sunshine'. She is able to converse with it in her native tongue, though it does not seem capable of speech itself. It gives off no more light than a candle flame, but in this dark tomb any light is welcome.
A moment after Rock had entered the stairway exiting the first chamber, I heard the sound of metal snapping and a blade came hurtling out of the stairwell to land on the floor near the horses. Rock called out an apology. Liadan had entered the stairway with the intention of healing his wounds, but he proceeded on into the next chamber. He summoned us to join him immediately.
I ascended the stairs into a room furnished with two plinths. A pool occupied the center of the chamber. To my left I saw Rock and Liadan engaged in destroying more of the walking skeletons. A figure wrapped in strips of linen lay upon a plinth near the skeletons - they had been occupied in wrapping this figure when Rock entered. This is the manner in which the people of Mulhorand dispose of their dead. When she and Rock had eliminated the skeletons, Liadan began to cut the wrappings from this body, for Rock had seen signs that someone living had preceded us into the tomb, and Liadan reported that the figure still appeared to move. Thinking the walking skeletons had been about to bury some poor soul alive, she endeavored to free him.
When the wrappings were removed from his head this revealed that his eyes and mouth had been sewn shut and despite his motions he was quite dead. Then he began to shudder, and a great mass of beetles erupted from within his body, far more than could have been contained therein. They swarmed down the plinth onto the floor and began clambering over Rock and Liadan, biting through the gaps in their armor. Rock exclaimed a command word and Brimstone's sword emitted a gout of flame that turned them to cinders. The body had fallen to the floor and still somehow squirmed about, so Erim drew a wand from his belt and burnt it also.
In the meanwhile Nekaya had endeavored to purify the pool that lay at the center of the chamber, for it was filled with a black liquid which she stated was not typical of the contents of such a pool. She also mentioned that it was unusual for the embalming chamber to be so near to the entrance - for we had determined that the fallen-in opening in the chamber where we arrived must be the entry to the tomb. But Nekaya's efforts to affect the pool had no success.
Nekaya wished to continue through the tomb until we could find and destroy the gong that continued to ring, each time causing the hairs on my neck to stand on end. Liadan agreed with Nekaya that we must stop the gong and lay the dead to rest. The sounding of the gong seemed not only to raise the dead but to make weaker the powers of the gods to turn aside such abominations. As we did not wish to leave our mounts unattended, and we could not bring them through the tomb with us, Nekaya prevailed upon Pakkin to remain and watch over them. She then gathered up the skulls of the two walking skeleton guardians to prevent them being revived by the ringing of the gong. Each time it sounded the fragments of bone upon the floor would shiver and gather together as if trying to reform themselves.
Beyond the second chamber the stair descended rather than rising. Nekaya explained that this was typical for such tombs. Rock preceded us into each passageway to disable any traps set to prevent desecration of the tomb, which is also typical. When he could not disable or destroy the traps he marked them so that we could avoid activating them. In the second passage small darts flew from the walls to strike him, though they did him no hurt. The remainder of our party simply leaped over the stone that triggered this trap.
The third chamber contained many more walking skeletons. There was also a scorched mark on the floor, as though someone had attempted to burn them with a spell. The gong sounded once more and several fallen skeletons raised themselves to their feet. These were only servants, not warriors, and were easily dealt with.
The stair descended again, this time trapped with a heavy stone overhead that dislodged to release a cloud of dust. This dust burned the skin where it touched. Liadan drew out the rune of water she carried so that we could wash the dust from our bodies.
We entered a chamber filled with yet more of the walking dead, but these were armed. Rock crushed one with his hammer, but lost his footing and went tumbling down the stair. Nekaya and Liadan stood in the doorway of the chamber to meet the oncoming skeletons. I sprang past them to strike one as it approached. My blades slid off their fleshless bones. To aid my friends, I turned my swords toward relieving the skeletons of their weapons and deprived two of them of their sickle-shaped blades in this manner. Liadan then turned them to dust by Lathander's grace.
Erim had moved across the room to face a skeleton wielding a bow, and I went to his aid. The skeleton threw down its bow before I arrived. When disarmed they attempted to claw us with their bare finger-bones. Unable to harm it with my sword, I sheathed my blades and grasped it in my arms, hoping to crush it against the stone wall of the tomb. Then Rock's hammer came hurtling past my head, destroying the skull of my foe before returning to my friend's hand.
We observed that in this room there were the remains of many more unliving warriors than those we had destroyed. There were also smears of blood and the signs that something had been dragged across the floor. We had already suspected that someone must have preceded us into this place and that the poor soul in the first chamber may have been one of their number. Now we felt certain that we were not the first living beings to enter this tomb since it was sealed centuries ago.
As we continued our journey, Rock, seeing that Sulian had little effect on our enemies, lent me Brimstone's flaming sword to use against their flammable linen wrappings. We proceeded into the next chamber, where we met more armed skeletons, these even better equipped than those we had just encountered. Nekaya exclaimed that these must be the pharaoh's elite retainers.
Erim announced that he knew a spell to apply against them, and we held the doorway until he could recite the arcane command to summon it. A blast of flames shot from a ring on his hand to engulf the level hallway between us and our enemies. When the inferno cleared not one of the skeletons remained whole.
Rock had continued to check each stair and passage for traps. But one such trap managed to slip past his notice as we descended once more. He trod on a stone and suddenly the stair swung away beneath him, dropping him into darkness. Before the rest of our party could draw nearer the stair had closed again.
Erim made a gesture and a wide section of the stair vanished, leaving an opening into a pit. Rock had managed to catch hold of the lip of the opening and before it closed he had activated his immovable rod, such that he now hung from the rod through his belt, suspended above the pit. He advised us that he had found someone else in the pit, evidently the persons who had preceded our entry into the tomb.
Nekaya sent Sunshine down to give healing to one of the three folk who had tumbled into the pit together. The other two had been slain by the long fall. The man who survived was badly injured and cringed away from Sunshine's light, though we thought perhaps this was because he had been in the darkness for many hours or days.
After a rope was tied to the immovable rod, Rock descended to the bottom of the pit to retrieve the injured man and the rest of us hauled them out. The man was unconscious when brought out of the pit, but this did not appear to Liadan to be a result of his injuries. When she granted him Lathander's mercy, his injuries improved but he also seemed to suffer. We had already observed that his skin was the color of soot, which did not seem to be a result of his wounds. Nekaya suggested that he might be a denizen of the realm of shadows, similar to the shadow creatures that had attacked us in the park in Arrabar.
Bearing the insensible man with us, we continued our journey deeper into the tomb. Nekaya sensed that the grey man's nature was one of evil, but we wished to question him. Once his wounds were healed enough that he would survive, he was bound. Erim then summoned a floating disk to enable us to cross the opening he had created in the stair.
As we passed through a chamber containing two thrones and several chests, we heard music faintly from the next room. Entering it, we found that it contained many of the pharaoh's treasures, including his chariot harnessed to skeletal horses, and even a river barge. Among these waited yet more of the his unliving servants, one of them playing a harp while another sang an ancient tune. Two warriors wrapped in linen stood at either side of the entrance.
Quips & Quotes:
Erim: "Can we find the nearest miniature sun out of here?"
Devo: "This creature, once human, is only lightly covered in burial wrappings."
Hedrin: "It's casual Friday."
Hedrin: "I probably had the wand out to heal Rock."
Jubilee: "But you might have had your mace in your other hand to pacify him first."
Devo: "You can tell the chamber is intended for preparation for unlife - ahem - the afterlife."
sniffles: "Mummies - very flammable - you go first."
Devo: "The urns are full of herbs and spices. I think there are 11 of them."
Zora: "So Ahnukileal was a colonel?"
Erim rolls the damage for two charges of scorching ray from a wand. His first roll is 6, 6, 6, 3. His second roll is 1, 1, 1, 5.
Hedrin: "It's been en-eviled. I'm an en-eviler."
Zora: "I have an uncanny trap sense. Ow! There's one."
Zora (as Rock falls down the stairs): "It's a Rock tumbler!"
Jubilee: "The skeleton can claw me."
Zora: "It's in their contract. It's a claws."
Zora: "You could pick up a femur and hit it with that. That'd be humerus."
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