Leaving the chamber of slime behind them, the five journey down a lengthy tunnel to an intersection, which the shaman priest just happens to notice is trapped with yet another pit. Avoiding—and inspecting—this, they can go north, south, or east. South is another door…that shoots a spear. East is a door, with another pit in front of it. Ghen and Nar both end up in it.
Beyond that door, the tunnel leads to a strange chamber of unworked stone filled with silver and gold mists. Buckthorn ventures in, and sees a strange and compelling woman. They exchange words, she seems nice, but then begins wracking the halfling with psychic damage. Forge charges in, and they are all soon being wracked with psychic damage even as the siren—herself ironically compelled to be here?—teleports around the cavern and even continues to chat with Buckthorn. At some point this also goes awry, and buckthorn shoots Forge. They forgo talking, but don’t have loads of luck in attacking. At least until Lucian
practically dies. Then things seem to turn. The siren is “destroyed”. A handy haversack is gained, with a bit of this and that, including a glowing rock. And that’s it. (with lower XP to boot…as they did play into the trick).
At their limits from the pit, the slime, and the siren, they dare to spend the night in the Tomb. They are very, very lucky.
After their rest, they return to the intersection and head north. Find a door, behind which is a secret door, next to which, oops, they don’t find that yet…Instead, they follow a tunnel, go through a heavy stone door, and get hit by sleeping gas, which puts down Forge and Lucian and is immediately followed by the emergence of a giant stone elephant shaped juggernaut, that is designed to squash them. And it has some success. Forge gets up, Lucian snores, most everyone is crushed a bit here and there, and they really don’t know what to do about it. There are stairs nearby (leading to a dead end), and the pit down the hall at the intersection, and they realize that magic and thievery can nudge the juggernaut a bit. It refuses to go all the way to the pit. But doesn’t go up the stairs, and with that, they manage to get out.
But where now? Returning to the intersection, Nar-Heru uses an arcane ritual that finds something just beyond the true-false door. Another secret door in the floor. This leads to a tunnel, with leads to another hall, and a door of adamantite. With three slots. Reluctantly, and eventually, three blades are placed in the slots. The blades remain whole, and the door opens. To a vast chamber full of pillars.
Not seeing the whole of the room, even with the light stone, they head north. Towards the ceiling, another devil’s mouth! Then three 10 by 10 foot protrusions into the chamber, each with a door that glows as it is approached. Then, another devil’s mouth!
Lucian touches a pillar, that glows blue like one of the doors. He gently floats up, and then drifts northward. They through a rope to him, and he is kept floating, holding the rope.
The first door is opened. An empty chamber is revealed. The second door, which glows an unpleasant lilac, is opened, and a room with shields and swords on the walls is revealed. Forge enters, and one set flies off the walls and attacks, others enter, and more swords and shields attack! They realize they can attack and put down a set…but then, Forge goes through a door to another chamber, one of hopelessness.
At some point, no one is in the room with the weapons and there are no attacks. Then Forge goes back in. The swords and shields go berserk, inflicting massive damage, other try to help, and they also get massive damage. The swords and shields follow into the pillared hall, and inflict massive damage. But eventually they made to stop attacking.
Buckthorn has a rare feeling. He is actually hurt.
Scrawled on the wall of the chamber to the north, is a warning not to go south, but how else would one get there? The party scavenges some treasure from those who slowly, or not so slowly, died there, and return to the great hall. Back in the hall, they watch as the scattered swords and shields reanimate and return to their place of vigilance, guarding the chamber of hopelessness.
The third door glows blue as it is approached. Lucian is down by this point, but Ghen touches a pillar and goes up, and floats right towards the devils mouth on that side. They get him down.
Behind the third door is a sarcophagus. They dither, but can’t resist and fling it open. Inside lies a mummy, with a great gem placed in an eye. Again, they can’t hold back, and grab the gem. The mummy crypt master rises. Its slams with its rotting fists and calls forth dark shrouds of necrotic energy. It also uses fear to drive back and stun, including Forge right into one of the pillars, leading him to start to float away. At some point Lucian follows. Wielding the mace of disruption, Ghen engages in hand to hand combat! His radiant strikes hinder the mummies regeneration. Hoping to set its bandages on fire, Nar-Heru calls forth a great ball of fire, to which the mummy actually has some resistance. Still, the mummy does not like the ball of fire, and tries very hard to kill the wizard.
He fails. At some point Nar is prone and both Lucian and Buckthorn are dying, but the crypt master is finally finished.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………….
The mummy is destroyed, but he leaves a gift behind. From his strikes on Ghen and Nar-Heru, and a curse given to all at his death…some of the party now have a very dry cough.
If the mummies chamber is inspected, the only remaining items of interest are some vials in the sarcophagus, some empty, some not…
Forge has the great gem.
Much of the great hall remains unexplored.
