As the party completed restoring their third sarcophagus a dark shadow moved out of an unexplored hallway to attack the party. It firstly pushed and immobilized Pretis, Lythandar and Melisana. Mara moved up to attack the shadow and Gofin attacked with her Noose. After Demin took a shot at the monster it whaled on Mara quickly blooding her as she felt isolated from the rest of the party. Free to move again Pretis moved up next to the shadow, essentially bottling it up in a corner. Demin, Gofin, Melisana and Lythandar peppered it with ranged affects while Alhellara applied healing to the party and also added her own Radiant damage. It didn't take long before the shadow fell.
After a short rest the Demin moved forward into the unexplored hallway which led to another sarcophagus and an additional room with five more sarcophagus and a pair of double doors. Demin examined the doors but determined that they did not match the doors depicted in the tapestry. Leery of continuing to use the same skills Meisana adjusted her sights to perceive where the pieces were missing and Pretis used Athletics to find a new piece of marble. Melisana restored the grave and they moved on to complete another resting place.
As Pretis and Lythandar returned to the "rubble room" they were quickly attacked by another Boneclaw Daggerhand Skeleton. Lythandar teleported out of danger from the Impaling Burst but Pretis was caught in it and then took a claw hit also. She left immediately, narrowly being missed by the Opportunity Attack. The rest of the party move into the long hallway and waited for the skeleton to move toward them. The party pecked away at the enemy who was soon bloodied by Alhellara. But at that moment the Necrotic Puilse did damage to everyone in the party. With several members bloodied and/or low on surges, Alhlellara cast her Battle Surge refreshing everyone in the party. They then quickly finished off the Boneclaw.
After a rest and some discussion about taking an extended rest the group decided to finish the final tomb restoration. As they did so a human spirit dressed in white robes entered the area carrying a circlet and a pouch. The spirit bestowed the items on the party with a thankful bowing of its head. The group identified the circlet as a Circlet of Mental Onslaught and saw that the pouch contained 400 gp. The group then decided to take an extended rest which was uninterrupted. Alhellara claimed the circlet.
After the rest Demin checked the doors for traps and seeing that they were not locked open them to find himself looking outside at a courtyard with building surrounding it on 3 sides. There were piles of something laying on the ground, several cairns and some wooded areas. Lythandar wanted to open the south leading door from the earlier hallway and doing so found the rope and wood bridge leading to the map room they had entered earlier. The group decided to leave through the double doors where they discovered several corpses, almost decayed to skeletons and clad in various pieces of armor, mostly broken. Since the corpses made no motion to attack the party searched the area and found 600 gp. a set of +3 Gambler's Suit Leather armor, which Demin claimed, and a parchment with a set of notes or orders penned on it.
The parchment stated:
Conquer the Garden
Find the Circle
Vor Rukoth
Find and explore Tovag Baragu
Find the Archway to follow Iuz
Lythandar recalled that Iuz was an evil demigod of some sort while Pretis stated that Vor Rukoth was a once great tiefling city. With horror Alhellara recalled that Tovag was the land where the city of Tor Gorak was in Ravenloft. The party shuddered at the memory of Vecna and the Citadel Cavitius. Mara stepped back into the doorway and found herself in a different place, similar to what Gofin had described earlier. Exploring to the north the party found no exit and no doors. Going south the found themselves at the top of the cliff face looking down at the Campfright area. They followed the cliff face to the east where the bridge was but farther east there was no way around the oddly shaped building they had seen from the map room. This was where the "rubble room" was also. To the west the party followed the cliff face around a pentagonal building and then headed north along the cliff face to find the oddly shaped room that they had entered from the underground tunnel. Farther north they circled another large building that led to a dead end. The group tried to determine which building they had been inside but they couldn't quite link up all the areas. It seemed as if they may have missed something.
The hearty adventurers decided to return to the building of tombs since it was apparent something strange was happening there. Melisana opened the doors and looked in seeing an empty chamber as she the group stepped in they felt the following:
The world spun, dropping away beneath their feet. For an instant they fell, and the memory of stability, of reality, was only a fading dream.
Then the vertigo stopped, without even giving them time to stumble. They found herself on solid ground "somewhere else." Although they stood inside a structure, its solid marble walls are rough and worn by weather and age. Then they heard the echoes of screams reverberating off the walls; of the originating sound, they could make out nothing at all.
Suddenly a pall of despair and the agony of loss flooded through them Before their eyes passes the faces of every friend and loved one they'd ever lost, a part of them wanted to add their screams to the echoes to give voice to their own torment. The sounds and visions soon faded, but they left behind a lingering gloom in each heart.
In the room they beheld a marble sculpture, slightly larger that a broad shouldered human, standing near one corner. It depicted a figure clad in robes with a crown upon its brow, but the face had long since been chiseled away. Elf sized footprints, carved into the marble floor, led away to the south. Although this was another world than Gofin had visited the floor plan was still the same. Demin and Pretis headed to the south where they found another statue in the eastern niche. It was identical to the first statue, even the rough chiseling of what used to be the face matched exactly. The carved footprints led westward and then south.
As the rest of the party arrayed themselves around the entry hall Melisana approached the statue and offered a prayer. Suddenly from behind the statue appeared a gray hued angel.
Scorecard: The party received 343 XP for completing the restoration of the graves in the Catacombs. They now have 23369 XP and need 2631 more to reach level 11. They found 1000 gp and the Circlet of Mental Onslaught (Alhellara) and a set of +3 Gambler's Suit Leather armor (Demin).
No comments:
Post a Comment