Six From Gate Pass - Chapter 3: Shelter From The Storm

[digimattic]

Arnir smiles happily as the rock becomes soft and pliable "A handy trick, Cavekeeper."

He picks up a glob of clay and crafts a crude effigy of a person before driving a finger through its head.

"How long will this take?"

 

[Gregor]

GM: Hrimr can affect 50 squares with this spell. You can easily cut away the soft clay with your weapons and make enough room to walk through the hallway. This would probably take you under an hour or so.

 

[Bannock]

Bannock puts his hands on his hips and arches back, stretching after the exertion of moving the stone.

He reaches into the rock and pulls some out, rolling it into rods, shaping points and edges, and experiments with various shapes.

"Amazing! This is a trick any stone mason I know'd kill to have! How long will the spell last? Will the rock harden again? We could fashion many a stone knife or maul while it's like this."

He takes the time to inscribe 'Bannock was here' into the wall. Then, feeling that they better not waste Hrmir's spell, he puts the wide blade of his great poleaxe to use chopping and shoveling great hunks of softened rock out of the passage.

 

[The Bashar]

Hrimr chuckles at Bannock's child like wonderment.

"The effect is permanent. Druids stronger than I could harden the clay back to stone."

Hrimr sets himself to the task of clearing the hallway.

 

[Gregor]

********
Caves (Tomb)

As predicted, the party is able to easily cut away and excavate a path through the cave-in due to its current state as soft clay. After about an hour of labour, you walk through the previously blocked hallway wiping the chalky mud from your hands and weapons.

The chamber you now stand at the threshold of is a similar size to both the entry room and the burial chamber - perhaps 40 feet by 40 feet. This room is much more ornately decorated however. The ceiling is rib vaulted, with scaled snake reliefs as the ribs. Covering all four of the walls is an exquisitely detailed high relief frieze depicting snake men worshiping a colossal viper at an altar, while behind the snake-men are human slaves prostrating themselves. The frieze continues with other images of snake-men torturing humans, elves, dwarves and gnomes, and other macabre scenes. Every ten feet or so an archway is also carved into the wall, dividing up the frieze into stand alone scenes, similar to the interior of a grand temple you may have seen in Gate Pass or elsewhere.

In the middle of the room sits a grand sarcophagus in the shape of a snake with humanoid arms crossed over its chest gripping a large sword. The sarcophagus was likely covered in gold leaf at some point, but it has peeled away or tarnished. Thick dust covers everything in this room, indicating that it has not been disturbed for some time.

 

[funkmamagoat]

Be it curiosity, greed, or a combination of both... Kirio cannot resist pull of the grand Yuan-Ti sarcophagus. Although terrifying, their mystique is too much to resist. He carefully approaches it and cast detect magic, looking it over as best he can for locks or traps...

OOC: if Kirio does no sense anything peculiar with detect magic or notice a trap with perception he will try to open it.

 

[Adjuntive]

Alric picks up the key from the neck of the dessicated yuan-ti and joins the party in excavating the cave in hallway.

"Hm. A useful skill indeed. What I could do with that skill when sieging a castle..."

Keeping a distance from Kirio not wishing to disrupt his analysis of the sarcophagus, he waits for him to finish and mentions helpfully:

"Should it be trapped I would rather I open than you take the effect of any malicious device. You are too important to us to be the shield of our meat."

Should Kirio accept this suggestion, Alric attempts to open the sarcophagus with the rest of the party at a safe distance.

 

[funkmamagoat]

Kirio nods to Alric "very well, what you say is not without logic"

 

[Gregor]

********
Caves (Tomb)

Kirio, you walk about 15-20 feet into the room and detect nothing with your spell. Additionally, the sarcophagus does not appear to be trapped or locked. Accepting Alric's help, the two of you stand next to the large coffin, grip the lid and heave, attempting to raise it and slide it over to reveal the contents.

When the lid raises a fraction of an inch, you both hear a loud metallic crack and then the sounds of hidden gears cranking to life somewhere below you. You look at eachother with panic in your eyes as you suddenly have that pit of your stomach sensation of fear. It all happens in an instant: one minute you're attempting to lift the lid, and the next the tiled floor beneath you falls away, split in half in some kind of trap door. A yawning black pit, five feet by ten feet and running the length of the sarcophagus, peers up at you from unknown depths.

At the last possible moment, Kirio is able to leap to the side, grabbing hold of the edge of the sarcophagus and pulling his legs away from the pit. Alric tries the same, but the weight of his armor is too great. The party sees his gauntleted hands grasp at the dusty stone floor before he falls into the the shaft in the floor. He screams a blood curdling cry as he falls and the trap door swings back closed with another clank of gears and a puff of dust.

Alric, you scream as you fall down a black shaft, your terror echoing up the walls. It seems as though you fall forever until you slam into a solid stone floor. You hear your bones snap, your armor crunch and the horrible screeching and ripping sound as sharpened metal spikes rip through you. The pain is so intense and sudden that you're able only to cough up blood and pass out.

 

[funkmamagoat]

Kirio gets up, his hands shaking visibly, and snickers a little at his own stupidity...

			"how I've managed to live 214 years is sometimes beyond me... my lust for loot and knowledge will be my undoing someday. Well, at least I've managed not to soil myself... I think."

It is only then that Alric's scream seems to register, and he looks back so see the floor once again closed, no sing of the armored warrior anywhere in the eerie light cast by Arnir's spell

			"hmmm, I dare say this does not bode well for my bedroll and rations...

"Did anyone bring rope...? We may need some if we are to recover our stalwart Ragesian friend."