Session 40

Date: 7/12/2015

Attending: Jake, Chris, Joey, Aaron, Dave

Absent: Justin – recovering from flight from Ohio

Start Time: 7:30 p.m.

End Time: 10:20 p.m.

XP awarded: 3000

Game time elapsed:  10 days

Enemies Defeated:  Lorith, 4 Fire Worms

Notes:

The Will crept off, refusing payment due to his “failure”, and the Knights ran into the main Xiannian Tomb after Lorith – Fyn ditching the last construct and joining them (the construct being too large to enter).

The Tomb was hot inside, and the party charged straight ahead, down a sloping corridor and into a room filled with lava. A thin stone bridge 100 feet across spanned the molten lake, with a large circular metal vault door at the end. About 20 feet from the door on the bridge, Lorith waited. Fyn called out to Lorith, “It doesn’t have to be this way.” Lorith responded with “Will you let me pass un-molested? I can go?” Fyn paused for a moment, and replied, “You’ll have to answer some questions first.” Lorith smiled and said, “No then. Bring it.” The Knight began advancing on Lorith. Grigor cast a spell that launched an orb of acid at him, and Lorith laughed as it hit. “I knew you’d use magic!” he crowed. “The fire worms don’t like magic.” Suddenly, as in response to Grigor’s spell, four large snake-like beasts rose out of the lava and attacked Grigor, spewing fire down on the party. Grigor was instantly killed.

Frumious made it to his side (while Feydor confronted Lorith and Fyn engaged the worms) and cast a spell called revenance. Grigor sprang back to life and rejoined the battle. After exchanging a few blows, Feydor hit Lorith with a mighty blow (critical hit with Storm’s Fury while smiting evil for 120+ points of damage) that slew him. A few rounds later the knights had mopped up the fire worms. At the end of the fight, Frumious told Grigor that his spell did not actually raise him, it only delayed his death for 8 minutes. The group began discussing how to deal with Grigor’s body, and whether to have him reincarnated as with Feydor. Grigor, on the other hand, declared he still had 7 minutes, and demanded that the party continue through the tomb – albeit speedily.

Fyn set to work on the circular door. It was obvious that the Illmarian excavation had tried to breach the entrance but failed. Fyn however was able to open the locks and disable the devices, and the tomb was unsealed. Racing into the long forgotten tomb, the party bypassed all side corridors and went straight for the heavily trapped door at the end. Fyn dispensed with all the traps and they entered a vast room dominated by a raised stepped dais – an interior ziggurat. On top was a massive stone sarcophagus. Lining the walls, 6 rows high, were upright niches where mummified bodies looked down or up at the sarcophagus. Racing to the top, the party paused while Grigor read the pictographs carved into the stone, and then opened the sarcophagus. Inside was a smaller, human sized wooded coffin surrounded by the skeletons of dozens of bodies. Prying the lid off of the coffin they found a mummified body, with a book at his feet, an ivory rod on one side and a golden sickle on the other, and a golden crown on his head. All the items were magical. Gigror identified them. The ivory rod had the ability to resurrect the dead, and Frumious quickly used it on Grigor before he expired.

The pictograms identified the central figure as the Vac the King of Uthden Fields. Furthermore it explained that he had had all the noblemen and their families slain shortly before his death – they being the bodies in the wall – and was buried with his wives (who were buried alive with his coffin – the skeletons in the stone sarcophagus). His children were slain unto the 2^nd generation and their blood mixed with the mortar upon which his coffin rests (the ziggurat).

The book was titled the Nine Words of Power, and was heavily and complicatedly trapped (the cover and binding). Fyn believed that with some time to study and work on it, he could open the book. The sickle was a horrifically evil item. If used to sacrifice a woman or child, the blood can be drained from the wound into a chalice. If this blood is drunk by the person performing the sacrifice while still warm, they received a +6 profane bonus to all ability scores for one week.

The crown was also evil. It could be used to create simple golden rings (the rings must actually be forged by a jewelry maker). The wearer of the ring could not remove the ring. The wearer of the crown can dominate, as per spell, the wearer of a ring with no saving throw. The crown can control up to 100 rings at once. The rings do not have to willingly be put on. Low on spells and hit points, the party potioned up and exited the tomb to confront the final construct. To their surprise (and dismay) the construct was destroying the last remnants of the camp. It ignored them, continuing with its work, and Fyn was able to disable it. A handful of random papers from the command tent was all that could be salvaged.

The party reentered the tomb to explore all the side passages the had run past. Grigor stayed behind in the entrance corridor to examine the papers recovered from the Illmarian camp. Four guards, who had been instructed to ambush the party in the tomb, cautiously exited and asked if they could be allowed to flee. Grigor summoned back the Knights (Fyn stayed behind in the tomb to continue exploring) and they interrogated the guards before letting them go. The information gleaned was:

*Fingali was not part of the group, but working on behalf of someone allied with them

*The University excavation had been here 3 months

*Books, scrolls, weapons, and treasure found in the tombs were sent back to Illmar by cart as it was found. The last cart left 2 weeks ago.

*Lorith was in charge.

The party went back into the tomb to find Fyn and catch him up. They found him bleeding but conscious, having accidently set off a trap that almost disemboweled him. Exploring the rest of the tombs, they found King Vac’s Vizier, a room where the royal guard was buried, a rack full of magical weapons, and a room that had 3 large chests of gold and one chest of gems. They camped for the night in the hallway.

While they rested Grigor read the excavation papers. It expressed Lorith’s frustration at being unable to open the main tomb’s vault door. It also expressed surprise at Mario’s activity. Apparently, Lorith had been sent to assassinate Mario a year ago, which he did and destroyed the corpse. He wondered who was posing as Mario now, but orders from the University told him not to interfere with the “Mario imposter”. It records Fingali’s arrival, with instruction from the University to work with Fingali. The evil dwarf was looking for two things in the tombs, a book box and a set of 77 scrolls, and he searched through all the artifacts found in the excavation for them but they were not there. Lorith details the first encounter with the Knights, noting that Fingali slew one, and that they chased the Knights all the way to Loston, but would go father out of fear of the witch. When they returned their guards left behind said that Fingali went into one of the lesser tombs for an hour or two, came out, gathered his stuff, and rode off to the east. Lorith went into the tomb Fingali did and found a previously unknown hidden panel in a wall that was now open.  Summarizing that Fingali had found what he was looking for, Lorith cursed him in his notes, knowing that the Knights would return and Fingali would be a great ally in the next fight.

The next morning they stripped the large plate off of each giant construct and used it as a skiff, placing the treasure chests (2 each) on them. They spent the day exploring and examining the Illmarian campsite. Resting for the night, they then began the slow tedious journey back towards Loston in the morning.

It took them 3 days to get back to Loston, arriving late at night they check in to the Hilltop Inn. The next day they paid a local shopkeep to appraise the chest of gems, and the party spends the entire day counting coins from the chests. Each chest has about 20K gp, and the gems are worth around 80k.

The next day they realized that they never took the time to examine the Xiannian bodies to see if they were human or not. They saddle up and make the 2 day journey back to the tombs. Arriving in the evening they re-enter the tombs. Fyn had reset the locks but was able to reopen them and they unwrapped a mummy for close examination. They discover that the skin color was of a reddish hue and thay they did not appear to have hair on their heads, not even eyebrows. The internal organs were slightly different in arrangement and size, but they couldn’t tell if that was a racial difference or a result of time and burial practices.

Suddenly Frumious remembered that he had the spell Speak with Dead (carefully labeled by him “useless” in his book). Grigor’s mind almost shut down as he realized that they had around 1,000 bodies they could quiz, but the group talked him out of forcing Frumious to spend the next decade in the tomb with him asking every corpse about first world daily life.  Instead they let Frumious rest and rememorize, and chose to use Speak with Dead on four corpses: the King, the Vizier, and two random noblemen.

Questions and answers for the Vizier:

1) Who do you worship? I worship Pipos

2) What is Omnos’ role in the world? Omnos is a God, the Creator God

3) Did Omnos create the other Gods? I do not know; that is not taught

Questions and answers for King Vac:

1) Have you heard of Ellicor? Yes

2) What was Ellicor in your world? Ellicor is the Crafter God

3) What was the Shadow Lord’s function in your world? I know of no one with that name

Questions for nobleman 1:

1) Do you know of Brulor? Yes

2) What is Brulor’s function? He is a God.

3) What lies to the West? A vast ocean, and then another land.

Questions for nobleman 2:

1) Are their people in the land to the far west? I don’t know.

2) Are you familiar with the Laughing Maid? No.

3) Do you know who the Chronosi are? No.

The party then rides through the night to Loston, resting during the day, and riding again at night, finally reaching Loston in the morning. They gather their cart, stuff, and Bajol and intend to shop before moving on. End Session