Area 33. The Crypt of Acererak the Demi-Lich
Huzzah! The "stone-sheathed adamntite slab" from Area 32 slowly descends into the floor, revealing at long last the fabled Crypt of Acererak. What horrors lurk within?
"The smallish 10' x20' burial vault has an arched ceiling with a 25' peak. There is absolutely nothing in the room."
Oh.
There is a divot about two feet square and a few inches deep in the middle of the floor. If you look close, you'll see a tiny keyhole in the middle of the divot. Maybe you should put the FIRST KEY there?
BOOM! Using the FIRST KEY causes a devastating explosion! You are blown smack up against the ceiling Wile E. Coyote style, taking 5d6 points of damage. That'll teach you to put keys into keyholes!
To open the divot, put the SECOND KEY (the one from Area 28) into the keyhole.
Turn the SECOND KEY three times to the right. If you don't nothing will ever happen. If you do, the floor underneath you will buckle and pitch upward at tremendous speed! All but the northernmost five feet of the room is rising toward the ceiling, fast. The DM should count to 5. Anybody who hasn't moved to safety at the end of the count is smooshed up against the ceiling.
Turns out there was a mithril vault under the floor. It is 10 feet wide and 15 feet long. The door to vault, I absolutely kid you not, is unlocked and untrapped. You can pull it open at absolutely no risk to yourself. Go ahead, quit screwing around and open it.
Inside, is this:
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/ToH_Gallery/ToHGraphic33.jpg
There's loot here: Gems and a ton of magic items. All of your stuff that you lost in the teleporting arches is here too. Also 2 cursed swords and 1 cursed spear of backbiting, because Acererak is not going to not screw you over at the last minute.
If any of the treasure in the crypt is touched, the dust in the crypt swirls into the air and forms the shape of a man. It advances and threatens the party, but does not attack.
It never will attack. It just goads the PC's into attacking it. If they whale on it enough, the dust turns into a ghost. The 14th level pregen cleric can turn the Ghost if he rolls 7 or better on a d20. Otherwise, IIRC, ghosts are pretty nasty monsters to fight. So leave it alone and just scoop all the loot up into a sack.
Finally, Acererak himself is here. Ain't he handsome?
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/ToH_Gallery/ToHGraphic33a.jpg
Acererak won't bother you if you don't bother him. Let me repeat that.
Nothing bad will happen if you leave the skull alone. However, "if any character is so foolish as to touch the skull of the demi-lich, a terrible thing occurs." The skull floats up into the air and automatically drains one PC's soul. The PC dies. Acererak settles back down, "sated." He will only attack a second time if you keep hassling him. Every time anybody touches or attacks the skull, it pops up and murders somebody. But it only attacks in retaliation. If you leave it alone, you can loot the tomb in peace.
Acererak can only be killed by a handful of spells that I would never think to cast and by a handful of magic weapons that can't be found in the Tomb. If anybody ever killed him, then either (a) they entered the Tomb twinked out with powerful magic weapons; or (b) they straight up cheated.
IMO: This business with the FIRST KEY and the SECOND KEY wears me out. Sometimes trying a key blasts you across the room, sometimes trying a key is the only way forward. There is never, ever any indication which it is. AND if you guess wrong, Gary Gygax will make fun of you.
I don't know that there's much to say about Mr. A. Take the loot and leave him alone. The skull is blinged out with all kinds of valuable gems, so it makes sense that somebody would try to grab it. But after the skull kills one PC, why keep fooling around with it? Oh, it killed two of you. Why not leave it alone? Whoops! Three down. It's the same sort of "stop hitting yourself" dynamic that causes entire parties to feed themselves to the GGD.
And Acererak's vulnerabilities are weird. A ranger with a Sword of Sharpness can hurt him. A fighter with the same weapon is screwed. A magic-user casting
Power Word Kill is wasting his time, unless he becomes ethereal or astral first. Then, the spell will automatically kill Mr. A.
So that's it. I have a few concluding thoughts about the module. I'll post them next week. Y'all have a Merry Christmas in the meantime.