Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Shrouded Dead

The party entered a room that was a cross between a crypt and a laboratory.  Several stone sarcophagi stood in the room, along with a table covered with papers, vials, beakers and strips of linen cloth.  Melisana had determined that these items could be used for mummification.  The body on the floor was left incomplete.  As Mara picked up a small piece of metal that she thought could be a key, the corpse arose.


Again the crew found themselves in a battle, Demin was firing crossbow bolts, Mara shook the earth, hoping there were more mummies in the sarcophagi.  The mummy attacked and pulled Melisana next to it with a length of cloth.  Another mummy stepped out of a sarcophagus and weakened several party members.  Lythandar let loose a magic missile and Pretis planted the standard.  Melisana noticed that the mummy before her seemed to regenerate some health and called for fire damage through her written in fire.

As the battle progressed Melisana noted that possibly the items on the tables could be used to complete the mummification process on some of the non risen mummies.  Alhellara moved to the table and started the process through a religious check.  Lythandar moved up and used Arcana to add to the mummification project.  Meanwhile Demin decided to try and sit on a sarcophagus but just as he started to sit on it the lid opened and a mummy emerged causing attacking him.

With the fire damage inflicted by the standard the party managed to keep the mummies from using regeneration as one even emerged from its coffin already bloodied.  Soon two of the mummies fell, the challenged to keep a mummy from rising continued but Pretis found herself flanked by two mummies who both managed to inflict critical damage.  This 100 point total damage almost laid out Pretis but she survived and with Mara's help managed to inflict their own double critical damage on one of the mummies.  

Meanwhile Alhellara and Lythandar finished the challenge to complete the mummification of one of the creatures.  The last of the mummies hit the floor and the party opened the final sarcophagus to find a pristine mummy inside.  They then took a short rest and searched for treasure, finding nothing.  Mara, still under the influence of her table fetish, removed the top of the table and rolled it around the room.  Demin moved to the door in the southwest and finding no traps had Lythandar open it with his mage hand.  This led to a landing with stairs heading south.  Down the stairs the passage led east, where its similarity to a previous location Shadow Tomb was noted by several party members.  This passage however had lifelike images of humanoid hands carved along the walls and floor.  Checking for pits Mara led the way with her rolling table.  After 100' or so a door led north with the passage continuing east.

Again the door was observed but no traps were found so Mara opened it.  Gofin and Alhellara continued down the corridor to the east where a dead end was found.  The chamber  smelled of dust and mildew.  Shelves along the east and west walls contained bottles of powder, decanters of various substances and carefully coiled strips of linen.  Lythandar noted that these matched the mummification elements found on the table in the previous chamber.  A narrow 5' passage led out of the northwest corner.  Mara searched for secret/concealed doors but found nothing.  The group moved out the narrow passage.

This passage led in an arc back to the east where another stairway led down.  The passage led to an X intersection in the middle of which was an open pit.  Gofin clambered down into the pit to check for passages but found nothing.  Going south Mara soon found another door.  As she opened it there was just a blank stone wall beyond it.  Despite this the party heard the grinding of metal from all directions.  Mara quickly yelled for retreat and the party scurried back to the intersection.  At the intersection they didn't hear the metallic grinding from anywhere but the south.  Lythandar moved back down the passage and shut the door, the grinding stopped.  He then opened it and the grinding started again.  This action continued ad infinitum, until the party finally convinced Lythandar it was just a harmless trick  

The group then followed the passage to the east until the came to another open pit with doors on its north and east.  Mara laid the table across the pit and moved to the eastern door.  Finding no traps she opened the door.  As she did so a moment of vertigo washed over the party.  The walls which were solid stone tunneled through the rock, now consisted of smaller bits of rock haphazardly stacked and mortared together.  Everything appeared to slide into sharp focus, and from outside the group thought they could hear the distant call of birds.

Mara chipped away at the mortar and opened a small hole which let sunlight into the passage..  Beyond the door Mara found the passage continued to the east and there was a door on the north.  Hoping to find a way outside she opened the door which revealed a 20' passage ending in another door.  Lythandar opened the previous door to the north and revealed a similar passage.  He then moved up to the next door, opened it and found a 10' passage with another door.  Opening this door he revealed a 50' x 20' chamber,  glowing runes adorned the walls throughout this new hallway - so many that they overlapped each other.  Mara meanwhile opened her door, found another door opened it and entered the same chamber.  

Lythandar tried to read the mystic characters but found no context to their jumble.  Alhellara used her helm and could decipher some of the runes which led her to believe they were part of some spell but with no obvious affect.  Pretis and Gofin moved up in the hallway to the north where the hall made a turn to the east, then south to an open, previously concealed door.  Lythandar opened the door which led to another door to any empty dusty 10' room.  Going east Pretis found a larger chamber whose floor was covered by several inches of water that slowly sloshed and trickled through cracks in the stone.  Along the south wall, a pair of demonic stone faces spouted water in a low arc into a circular pool ringed by stones.

Meanwhile Melisana determined that she had felt the sensations here before and that they must be in the Feywild.   The water chamber had a double doorway leading north, Demin used his flying hook the swing over the water to the doors which he opened.  This revealed a stairway heading up to the north.   At the far end of the stairs was a door mechanism.  Demin determined that this mechanism was probably hidden on the far side.  The group moved to the stairs and Lythandar opened the door revealing an empty dais on the south side of a very large chamber.  Orderly rows of pillars stood within the enormous hall.  Interspersed among the pillars were zombies, wights and a tall dark man who tuned to look at the party.  As he smiled he revealed his fangs.

Scorecard:  The party received 2057 XP for the battle with the mummies and now have 74528 XP needing 8472 more to reach 17th level. 

No comments:

Post a Comment