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Message: <blockquote data-quote="skotothalamos" data-source="post: 6248191" data-attributes="member: 83398">Deeper into the ZigguratThe constables were under an ancient ziggurat deep in the High Bayou. Seven dead bodies lay before them, they had passed five others, and numerous dead things had attacked them from inside the walls of the ziggurat. But they had found something: a great golden plate set into the carved wall of a hidden chamber. The entrance to the hidden chamber had been propped open by one of the previous expeditions to the ziggurat, who probably also left the ironic “Welcome” mat across the threshold to the room. The plate on the far wall depicted orcs, goblins, and minotaurs fighting beneath the constellation of Alesia the Wayfarer, who is linked with the planet Apet. Flanking the plate were pair of pillars carved to look like winged serpents. A chalk semi-circle decorated with arcane writings was drawn on the floor, centered on the plate. One of the dead bodies was lying across the circle, breaking the arc of its border. James investigated the circle, deploying his Remarkable Mechanical Hat for an extra set of hands. He discovered that there were actually two concentric circles. The inner one (closest to the golden plate) was designed to suppress a ward of some kind, while the second one was a new ward. James inferred that someone was trying to shut off whatever protection magic was on the golden plate, to allow whatever it held back to escape only as far as the protection circle. Someone’s foot had broken the line, however, and whatever they let out went on a rampage. Summer’s head was reeling. She said that she felt the presence of the planet Apet. Not just its influence, but literally she felt that the planet itself was within a hundred feet of her, behind the golden plate. She had a vision of walking the silvery arc of Apet, looking down into the planet’s swirling gray clouds. Some skyseers believe that the unfinished ring around Apet holds the entirety of history, with various scholars arguing the significance of the missing thirty degrees of the ring. Summer stood at one edge, looking out across the void toward the other end. She got the feeling that if she looked long enough she could see the dawn of time. Coming back to her senses, she could only tell the others that Apet was here and that was probably not a good thing. She was almost immediately struck by another vision. She saw the three ancient orcs again holding their golden artifacts – sword, staff, and amulet – and standing in the hidden chamber before the golden plate. They were surrounded by strange semi-translucent beasts similar to those the constables had faced several times now. “Warbeasts of Gidim,” said one of the orcs, in a tongue Summer did not know but understood, “Toteth’s seal has failed!” Another orc replied that it was a trick, and while the beasts were indeed from Gidim, he could smell the dust of Apet on them. “Smell them later,” said the orc with the sword. “Think at them so I can cut them.” One of the other orcs seemed to concentrate or meditate, and one of the Gidim beasts became solid, allowing the sword orc to chop it in two. Summer came back to reality and realized that while the thought-beasts of Gidim were eaters of thoughts, they could also be fought with properly applied thoughts. She shared her revelation with the others. Cazara investigated the bodies, finding that the two in the hallway seemed to be more grad students from Xambria’s team, but the other five were dressed like capable adventurers. They seemed to match the description of Bergeron’s specialists that had been sent to deal with the “golden seal.” Cazara noted that the bodies had all been previously searched by yet another party. Ironpeak and Malkie milled about the room, trying to not cause too much disturbance. Mort scouted ahead down the passageway, finding another fire trap and several more halls. He waited there for the others to finish their investigation. James and his hat checked out the golden plate on the wall, but noticed that it was not solid gold, as the group thought. It was instead a thin veneer of gold over the top of a piece of stone. James and Summer had the definite impression that this gold plate was a decoy. It’s at about this point that all hell broke loose. James Chinast had set off two more traps when he joined his hat between the two winged serpent pillars. He triggered a trap several rooms away which represented the planet Mavisha, the plane of water. The Mavisha trap would soon fill the entire ziggurat with greenish-black poisonous water. The only way the constables could survive the flood would be by rushing back out the entrance. James also triggered the trap devoted to the planet Nem, the plane of ruin. The dead began to rise, but not just in the secret chamber, or even the entire ziggurat. For miles around, the dead were rising. Peat-coated skeletons of adventurers and trappers, zombified corpses of albino crocodiles, hollowed-out carapaces of spiders and their victims, vast swarms of dead birds and bats, all of them began to stir and converge on the ziggurat. Throughout the ziggurat, trapped rooms had been marked with concentric-ring carvings depicting the solar system and specifically indicating which planet was associated with each room’s trap. The constables had detected these carvings on the floors of each trapped room thus far. They might have had forewarning of the Nem trap had they seen the Nem-themed carving at the threshold of the secret room, but someone had covered it with a Welcome mat. But the constables knew none of this at this point. Cazara and Mort were the first to have any inkling that something had gone amiss: Mort heard and then saw the water rushing toward him from the far end of the hallway. Cazara noticed that one of the bodies she was searching tried to grab her. Mort ran and warned the others of the oncoming flood. Cazara quickly disabled a majority of the rising zombies before dashing out the door. A pair slowed James and Malkie’s escape, but soon all the constables were rushing back the way they had come. The mummies in the walls began to break out all around them, grabbing at the constables as they ran. Ironpeak led the way, breaking her way through the press of undead flesh, making enough space for Cazara to take them out in clumps. Malkie was busily chugging invisibility potions to stay out of sight as she dashed alongside Ironpeak. Summer was keeping up, but James and Mort were lagging behind. As they came to the luusory floor room, Ironpeak disabled the trap again with a flower. The constables seemed to be making speedy progress ahead of the oncoming flood, but at the exit to the illusion room stood the three ancient orc mummies. These three were far more imposing figures than the spearmummies in the walls, and the group tried to get past them without a fight. Summer realized that she could now speak their language. She took the ancient staff and set it on the floor, saying (in her best Ancient tongue) “We have come to give these back.” Once again, the group hoped to make peace by returning the artifacts. The mummies did not seem to be appeased. Convinced of her ability to win over any crowd, Malkie re-appeared and parroted the sounds that Summer had made, trying to mimic the sentence, “We have come to give these back,” in the Ancient tongue. Whatever she said only enraged the mummies further and they charged into battle. Summer could be heard to mutter something about tonal values and using the wrong contextual marker and that Malkie had actyally said something along the lines of “We’re here to take these.” It’s also possible the ancient guardians against the ephemeral thought-beasts were not predisposed to think highly of a creature that just pops into and out of existence. The mummies threw curses at the constables, slowing their pace and even forcibly teleporting them farther back into the ziggurat. Cazara grabbed a golden bracelet from Summer and threw it on to protect herself from being teleported. Malkie went into a rage, transformed fully into an awful creature of the night, and then clawed and bit her way through the three mummies and their growing army of zombies and lesser mummies, leaving a wake of torn wrappings behind her. The group pushed into the opening, allowing James and Mort to escape the illusory room just as the oncoming flood washed the flower off of the sigil. Unfortunately, the group rushed right into one of the fire traps, which the mummies had been holding at bay until Malkie destroyed them. As everyone burned, Cazara was set upon by a disturbing column of semi-translucent crawling beasties which kept attaching themselves to her. Mort disarmed the fire traps and Summer cleared a path through a small side tunnel full of zombies, leaving only two rooms between the group and the exit. In the chaos of the spider swarm, Malkie had gone invisible again and dashed for the exit ahead of the others. Her potion wore off just as she entered the hallway leading to the exit chamber. In that hallway, she saw two giant mutated centipedes, and in the chamber beyond were some glowing orbs of light. Malkie was overmatched and barely escaped being killed immediately. The rest of the group caught up to Malkie just as the flood waters came rushing out of a side tunnel, nearly cutting off the group’s escape. With the group clumped up in a tight group, the light orbs launched a deadly series of explosive attacks. Much of the group was seriously injured. Malkie took out a centipede, but was then taken out by a blast of energy. James scooped up Malkie, but was himself taken down after carrying her no more than fifteen feet. The group had made it to the last chamber of the ziggurat and these sentient chromatic orbs were tearing them apart and blocking any escape up the stairs. Summer reminded everyone to think at them so they could be more easily pushed out of the way. Ironpeak tried to rush one of them to make space, but the other one lashed out as she ran by, taking her down. By now, Malkie had died face-down in the poisonous flood waters. A giant mutated centipede was gorging itself on her corpse. Ironpeak and James were unconscious and dying in the water. Only Mort, Summer, and Cazara were still on their feet. Mort steeled himself and simply walked up the stairs, shouldering his way past the orbs. This left Summer to save the others by relying on her Elfaivaran schooling. First she stepped between worlds and re-entered reality on the exit stairs. Then, she cast a spell which normally would be used to strike an enemy while teleporting two friends up to that enemy for a pair of follow-up strikes. She shot herself with the first half of the spell, teleporting James and Cazara out of the ziggurat entirely. Ironpeak had standing orders with the other constables to leave her for last. With no way left to reach Ironpeak the group reluctantly left her behind as the entrance to the ziggurat was closed off by the flood. Outside, Cazara was able to resuscitate James (as Ironpeak finally succumbed to poison and drowning inside). Looking around, they saw that Mort was already ascending to the top of the ziggurat. They also saw that all of the dead of the High Bayou were slowly converging on their position. A steady rain was falling and the visibility was obscured by mist. A whispery voice in their heads said one word: “Climb,” and so they did. At the top of the ziggurat, with the zombies and skeletons and carapaces climbing all around them, the remaining constables heard a deep growl. This was followed by a colossal figure moving in the rain, so large it seemed the swamp itself had risen up to reclaim its dead. The many undead were dragged away and pulled beneath the surface. A titanic serpent, its half-rotted skull over twenty feet long, devoured the dead in huge mouthfuls, fixing one milky gray eye on the constables as it did so. After some more thrashing about, the great serpent slid away in the mist. The constables could just barely see the silhouette of the titanic creature through the mist as it reared up to address them. Its lone eye shone like a beacon. A guttural and sibilant voice imposed itself over the landscape: “My slumber is disturbed. You, as agents of King Kelland, shall redress this offense. Most that fled your mortal trap were mute beasts. One had reason. It can be judged. Follow the scent of its homeland’s blood. Find it. Cut its flesh, then do as you please. “Kill it, and it will rot. Send it home, and it will despair. Do either, and I shall be appeased. A great coil of the snake then pushed up out of the water an delivered the dead bodies of Malkie and Ironpeak to the surviving constables. “You will need these. Do not fail me.” Half-rotted snakes then slithered out of Malkie and Ironpeak’s mouths and slid away down the ziggurat. Black swamp water gurgled up from their mouths and then they both coughed up great gouts of the stuff. The Voice of Rot had returned them both to life, but to what end? Cazara muttered under her breath. “Agate. ‘A gate.’ I’m so mad.”</blockquote>

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