Session #20– “Moor-Tomb Denouement” (part 1 of 3) 1
As the jellied flesh of the ghastly thing that claimed to be Dalvan rapidly putrefied, the stench dissipated enough to abate the retching, and a few moments later those who had been paralyzed had feeling come back into their limbs. They sagged and nearly fell, and Telémahkos braced himself to catch Timotheus when he came out of it, as the bigger Briareus was the last to come around.
Markos awoke cradled in Crusta’s lap.
“I call on
Isis to save you,” she cooed.
“Thank you, Crusta, and thank Isis,” the mage said, sitting up with some pain. The wounds he had suffered from the vile stone knife ached with cold evil.
“Isis is bad!” Crusta snarled. Markos just sighed. “You need to reconsider that position. You may find in time that Isis is
not bad…”
Crusta nodded vigorously. “Me ‘sider…”
Timotheus Smith walked over to the last fragments of the undead thing’s skull, as Markos used
prestidigitation to clean off all the blood and vomit on everyone’s clothes, and crushed it under his boot.
Telémahkos crept over to the dais and looked it over before climbing up on to it, carefully avoiding pools of Bleys’ vomit from when the watch-mage had stumbled away from the melee in his illness, He was vigilant for more dangers lurking behind the thick velvet curtain covered with splotches of gray and black mold. Telémahkos examined how the curtain was hung and then pressed his face to the wall, to see the space behind it. There was no light from within, but he did notice that there was the slightest bit of breeze shaking the curtain almost imperceptibly.
“I have already looked behind the curtain,” Bleys said, walking over to the dais. “There is a short passageway to another room smaller than this one.”
Telémahkos pulled the curtain aside as Timotheus poked around in the open sarcophagus with his saber. There were shards of bone and lots of dust amid tattered clothing. There were also innumerable bits of paper scattered all over the area, and Tim called Bleys over to look at it. The scraps seemed to have been ripped from the pages of books, as some still had dried remnants of glue and thread from the binding. It was all illegible, crusted with dead flesh, stained with blood, mold and gore.
“I should go first,” Timotheus said to his cousin, who was looking down the hall. It was perhaps twenty-five feet long, six feet wide and ten feet high with an arched ceiling. Telémahkos turned around and protested. “I should go first and check. There may be traps…”
“And there may be monsters, in which case I should go first,” Timotheus patted his left bicep and smiled.
After a brief dispute, Telémahkos agreed to give way to his cousin. He also told Tymon to collect all the scraps of paper, in hopes that some of them might have some writing on them that was still legible and might provide some clue.
Beyond the passage was a smaller round room, which held a great pile of coins and other things. On the opposite side from the passageway there was a slot high up on the smooth walls of the chamber, and it was slightly angled up. It looked as if the great pile had collected over time from there.
There was stone door on the same wall as the slot. It was not unlike the ones the young nobles had been using the magic masks to traverse through the tomb.
Telémahkos held up a gold coin. “This is one of ours! The money we put in the bowl ended up here!” He allowed himself a smile despite the constant oppression of this place. He began to examine the treasure more closely, and Timotheus could not help but squat beside him and look it over with greedy eyes. Bleys the Aubergine arrested his movement to the stone door when he noticed something odd from the corner of his eye. Markos stopped abruptly, being right behind the adventuring watch-mage, and Crusta bumped into him.
Tiny pieces of paper had been pasted with blood and gore as glue - making a message or story or warning. Most of the scraps were so small as to only contain one word, but a few contained two or even three. Whoever had done this had done it meticulously, ripping the words from the pages of books, the shredded binding of which, Telémahkos spotted in the pile of loot. There were also bloody prints on some of the words that suggested a compulsive pointing of them over and over again. Others were circled or pointed to with arrows etched out in blood, perhaps by a piece of bone sharpened into a stylus.
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“This may be some clue to getting out of here,” Markos suggested.
“That is doubtful,” Bleys said. “I imagine that it will be simply a matter of using the masks again…”
Telémahkos had Tymon copy down the words, while he and Victoria inventoried the treasure the best they could. Markos continued to muse over them. Dunlevey the Swordsman stood guard as they did this, but Bleys and Timotheus went back into the first room and flipped over the heavy pieces of the sarcophagus lid to reveal some carved thereon. They also retrieved the magical ring that the undead thing claiming to be Dalvan had worn, but left the vile stone knife where it lay. Bleys also scooped up the battered ornamental silver sword. It was clear from the marks on the side of the sarcophagus that someone had used the sword to lever it open.
Laarus walked over and translated the runes. They told of Dalvan’s sleep and entombment and how he would rise again.
“So was that thing Dalvan?” Victoria asked, as they all gathered in the treasure room once again.
“I don’t know,” Markos replied. “But somehow I don’t think so… Does anybody know what ‘magen’ is? Or ‘Eibon’?” He was quoting from the pasted words.
No one knew.
“Not surprising,” Markos muttered in reply to his companions’ silence.
“We should finish looking through this treasure and pack it away before we try the door, as it may close behind us and hinder our ability to return, as the other doors did,” Bleys said, pointing to the door on the far wall.
Telémahkos and Timotheus could not help but grin as they separated the treasure and saw how much it really was. Victoria grabbed a sack that Telémahkos handed her to carry. Bleys stepped over to see some of it for himself. Among the treasure were several large octagonal coins, some of gold and some of silver, he picked one up. “These are coins from
Agon’s Realm,” he said, with a bit of awe in his voice. “Truly ancient treasure…” There were over six dozen of the gold octagons, and nearly a thousand of the silver ones. Also among the treasure there was jewelry, such as a gold ring set with six tiny tiger eye agates, a gold fang pendent with inset diamond chip, and a silver necklace bearing a heart-shaped ruby medallion. There were precious gems, like four golden yellow topazes the size of child’s fist, and chips of shining malachite. Among the copper, silver and gold coins (some of which were
dwarven obleks) were many smooth river stones etched with indecipherable runes, and
nearly worthless iron pennies from the
Kingdom of the Red God of the West. There was also a single
Tempestas silverleaf. One of the shredded book bindings was found to still have a several remaining pages, which turned out to hold arcane spells for study, and there was a bone scroll tube.
There were also the stains and shards of many broken glass and clay potions vials, however, a handful were intact. Two potions in steel vials marked with a red band, and three in clay vials marked with silver dots. There was one potion in a glass vial still intact fill with w
hat looked like vinegar floating atop thick cream
When all these things were gathered up, and Tymon had done the best he could to copy down the strange cobbled message with all the relevant markings, they prepared to open what they hoped would be the final door.
“This has to be the way out,” Telémahkos said. “I’ve been thinking… If Dalvan put all those clues out there and had defeatable challenges on the way to finding his body, he probably wanted to be found, and that was part of his plan for rising again… I think the ghoul, or whatever it was, ate Dalvan’s brain before anyone could make it that far, and it became convinced it was Dalvan…”
“Interesting theory,” Markos replied. “But not one we can ever prove…”
“But where did the ghoul come from? Did it just happen to stumble into the tomb looking for something to eat?” Victoria sounded unconvinced.
“But just in case it can possess someone, we should burn what’s left of it…” Telémahkos suggested.
“We should wait until we are prepared to leave,” Bleys said. He explained that when he had cast
detect magic to examine the pile of treasure, he had noted a magical glyph inscribed on the door. He did not recognize it, but he drew it on the small slate he carried in his satchel with a piece of chalk for Laarus and Markos to examine.
“Lightning… Or something…” Markos said. “Nothing good…”
“We should sleep and regather what strength and spells we can before risking the door,” Bleys suggested, and everyone agreed, though no one relished spending the night in the oppressive tomb.
When it was his turn to watch, Markos spent some time trying to explain to Crusta what life might be like once they all returned to civilization.
“We will not be able to be together all the time,” he said. “Or hardly at all… Not at first… But I want to take you to the temple of Isis, so you can learn more witchcraft from a reputable source… It will be good for you…”
“And they take me?” Crusta pouted, but her swollen lips quivered with an underlying anger.
“Probably… I hope so… But you’ll have to worship Isis…”
“I worship any god that I need to to get what I want… Many different gods for many different reasons,” she said, as if quoting.
Later, as Timotheus and Telémahkos watched, the cousins discussed what the party should do next.
“I say we go straight back to Pyla and look into this whole hobgoblin thing,” Timotheus said.
“I think we should look into this matter with the Nine,” Telémahkos said. “In the long run it may serve the purpose of foiling the hobgoblins’ broader plans… And before we can do that, we need to find out who among the nobility is working for the them…”
“Eh… Politics! I hate politics,” Tim complained.
“If you want to be a real noble you need to get used to dealing with politics,” Telémahkos replied with a sigh.
Bleys the Aubergine spent his time looking over the salvageable spells from the remains of one of Dalvan’s spellbooks.
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Tholem, the 11th of Keent - 566 H.E. (637 M.Y.)
While there was no way of knowing what
Ra’s Glory was doing in the sky and past the tons of earth and stone that hovered over them with palpable weight, the Signers were fairly certain that night had passed, and regardless, they were eager to escape the accursed tomb. The wounds from the vile stone knife still lingered, despite the generous healing spells dispensed by Victoria and Laarus by the grace of their respective gods. Happily, however, the burning in the lungs of those that aspirated the acidic mist the room with the living caryatid column had dissipated.
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“Once the door is open I will set what remains of the corpse on fire,” Telémahkos said.
“And how do we plan to open the door if we cannot dispel the glyph?” Laarus of Ra asked.
“Timotheus looks like a robust sort…” Markos offered with a smirk.
“Are you saying you want me to set it off and just hope that I can withstand whatever nefarious magic it spouts?” Timotheus asked.
“Basically… Yes…” Markos was expectant.
“Alright!” Timotheus smiled and began to walk towards the door. Telémahkos was ready in the next room holding a torch above the tattered tapestries and scraps of paper he had piled on the oil-soaked remains of the ghastly thing that called itself Dalvan. Bleys held the ‘greed’ mask, and Markos the ‘generosity’ one. Timotheus handed his gear to Dunlevey and Tymon to hold, while Victoria and Laarus readied themselves to give Tim aid, or to fight if something were to come through the door once it was opened.
At the last moment, Bleys and Markos stepped back, as if by instinct, for when Timotheus touched the stone door there was a resounding crack as if the air itself were being torn asunder. The two mages felt their hair stand on end as Timotheus came stumbling backward looking pale and feeling a deep aching in his limbs. He waved the others away as he leaned his hands on his knees and stood there for a moment taking deep breaths. “I’ll be fine,” he said through clenched teeth.
A moment later Bleys noted the hidden rune of generosity on the door by donning the mask of greed, and Markos touched it wearing the one of ‘generosity’. The stone door slid up and open and then there was a lock ‘clack’ as if it locked into place. Telémahkos went over and examined it, but he had already dropped torch on to the pile he had gathered. Smoke was slowly filling the adjoining room.
Beyond was a narrow passage only ten feet long, it led to a vertical shaft that went much further than the light of their lantern could reveal.
“Didn’t the original clues say something about ‘a simple climb,’ twice?” Markos asked.
“That is not a simple climb,” Laarus replied after they had all examined it. The shaft was about four feet to a side and carved of the smoothest stone they had ever encountered. It was a slick black rock that gave almost no traction. Telémahkos gave it a try to get a sense of how hard it would really be, but after sliding in place for a while and then only making a little headway, he decided that a fall from a greater height was likely even if he could go further.
Bleys gave it a try as well, benefiting from a
bull’s strength spell granted by Anhur’s grace, but he had no better luck.
“There must be more to it than this,” Markos said. “All these clues and traps and puzzles and then there is just a shaft? There must be some magic that opens the way or reveals a ladder or creates a lift…”
“Or perhaps some mechanical means…” Bleys offered.
“Telémahkos, aid me in searching this entire room,” Markos said. “Every nook and cranny cannot go unexamined…”
Telémahkos sighed, but began to mentally divide the room into areas to search.
“Can I borrow your pick?” Timotheus asked the watch-mage, and Bleys handed it over. The tall Briareus bastard walked back into the shaft, and slowly began to pick handhold and footholds into the shaft wall.
Hours passed in this way. Telémahkos searched with aid from Tymon, Victoria and Laarus. Dunlevey helped Timotheus by clearing out the chips of stone and dust, and providing him a boost and support when he began on chipping holds that were above his reach. Markos grew tired of it rather quickly and announced his talents better served the party by
identifying some of the items they found in case one might suggest a way out.
“Such as a potion of
levitation,” he offered. He used the pearl carried by Victoria to cast the spell.
He looked over the ring worn by the Dalvan-creature, and two of the potions. He told them what he learned of
the ring, and said the glass vial was a potion of
cure serious wounds. The stuff in at least one of the the clay vials was a potion of
longevity.
Bleys the Aubergine helped with the searching, but kept coming back to the plastered words and looking for some clue. “Note how ‘lid’ is circled in the word, ‘lidded.’ I thought this might be a reference to the lid of the sarcophagus, but the runes on there offer us no information on how to escape this place…”
When Markos was finished identifying those three items, Bleys gave him another pearl and the heart-shaped ruby amulet, certain it was the amulet of Fallon they were seeking. Sure enough, it was. However, because of the limit of how much Markos could learn about an item can do with each cast, he was only able to learn of three of its qualities. The rest remained a mystery, for now.
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It was decided that Laarus of Ra would hold the amulet until it was returned to the church of Isis.
“’To… Who… those who would be free…’” Bleys read from the words on the wall. “There must be some hint here… Some instructions…”
“Or could it not merely be the work of a creature trapped down here and driven mad by its hunger for flesh?” Laarus asked. “Whether it decided it was Dalvan because it ate his brain, or because it was simply mad, it
was mad and not sure of its own identity even as it attacked us, compelled by its hunger… The word hunger is even etched there on one of the panels… I am not sure this is anything at all…”
“A mind wracked by madness may still have some purpose in trying to leave a message, even if we cannot readily understand it, not being mad ourselves…” Bleys said, standing. “I still think this is here for a reason… Perhaps not for some immediate reason… But it was too meticulously done to be total chance…” With that he took the ornamental sword, which was among his things for now, and slid it up into the slot from which the treasure slid out into the chamber, hoping to trigger some unseen mechanism, but nothing happened.
Frustration began to get as thick in the room as the smoke in the main crypt chamber that was now trailing in a thickening plume into the treasure room, and wafting lazily up into the shaft. It began to sting their eyes, and while Laarus started the coughing, soon everyone followed suit. Timotheus had to give up his work for a time to give his burning lungs a rest. He had made it up about sixty feet, using his own footholds, and being able to rest his back against the opposite side of the shaft to brace himself as he worked. By this point he had been picking away for hours, stripped down to his britches and boots, his muscular arms and chest shining black with a mix of dirt, soot and sweat. He winced as he picked at the first of what would be many blisters on his hands.
“That’s a good idea… Direct, I like it,” Telémahkos complimented his cousin.
“Someone has to get us out of here,” Timotheus replied, his smile gleaming from within the blackness of his face. “Damned if I’m going out by starving to death trapped in some tomb…”
“I still say there has to be a magic way out,” Markos said, waving the smoke up the shaft with a blanket.
“Or a mechanical one,” Bleys added. Giving up the search for now, he opened up the bone scroll tube and read the spell within. “
Agon’s Hammer!” Bleys swore with genuine astonishment.
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Timotheus put in another two hours of work before pure fatigue stopped him. The party rested once again.
…to be continued…
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Notes:
(1) Session #20 was played on Sunday, November 11th, 2007.
(2) You can see a scan of the prop version of this message I hand out on the Aquerra wiki,
here.
(3) The spells recovered were:
Read Magic, Material Provider, Summon Monster I, Greater Disrupt Undead, and
Command Undead
(4) See Session #19
(5) In Aquerra, the
Identify spell is house-ruled so that one ability of a magical item per caster level can be determined per casting.
(6) Agon’s Hammer is both an expletive and a rare and powerful spell from the
Third Age.
), I will say that this the longest a campaign I have run has lasted without at least one PC death (and usually 2 or 3 by now).
