Session 12 Recap

The party:

Chert, a 4th level dwarf

Coco, a 3rd level Thorcin magic-user

Julia, a 1st level Archontean cleric of Lucreon

Capdoffer, a 4th level goblin

Bjorn, a 1st level Wiskin assassin

Susarra, a 3rd level Archontean fighter (retainer)

Alba, a Thorcin hireling

Having decided on a plan for the following day the party bedded down in their hideout as a thunderstorm rumbled above. Arising early on the morning of the 30th of Dikaios, the party emerged into a clear cold morning and proceeded directly to the Pyramid of Thoth and into the Halls. Greeting the halflings a good morning the party moved south through the archway to the large baboon fresco. They turned left and southeast down a hallway. On their left they found a set of stairs leading east down to a doorway. Listening at the door revealed no sign of occupation beyond and the party opened the door.

The chamber beyond was filled with a thick layer of trash. Some of the party began to search the trash while others checked for hidden exits. Both groups succeeded, with an eight inch square piece of white glass being found, as well as a secret door in the eastern part of the southern wall. Chert added the white glass square to the black and blue ones they had already acquired, noting that they now had glass squares with “all the colors of the rainbow”. At a few raised eyebrows, he clarified: “The dwarven rainbow”.

The secret door was a simple stone panel that easily slid aside to allow passage beyond, and the party stepped through into a narrow hallway of plain rock leading to a set of rough-hewn stone steps that terminated at the back of another secret door, obvious from this side. Opening this door revealed a large room, some forty by eighty feet, with a twenty foot tall ceiling and three rows of stone columns painted with a shimmering gold paint. A door lay in the middle of the west wall while two ten foot wide open passages exited the room in the eastern wall. Scattered among the columns were seven corpses including two halflings, four beast men, and a human dressed in wizard’s robes. Proceeding cautiously into the room, the party began to examine the bodies to find signs of what may have caused their demise. The bodies were found to have signs of both blunt trauma and bite marks, as if from a large beak. This immediately brought to Chert’s mind the weird floating squid-like creature that he had seen in the cavern next to the chasm on the lower level only a few days before. Quickly looking up, he saw six of the creatures silently floating down and was able to warn the party before they were surprised.

Bjorn retreated to the area of the secret door and began throwing daggers at the creatures while Alba moved to the nearest corner to stay out of harms way and light the battle with the lantern she carried. Coco cast a Sleep spell and two of the beasts fell to the floor. Chert dispatched one of these and moved to engage another in combat, while the rest of the party did likewise. A protracted battle ensued with the party taking numerous wounds from the tentacles and beaks of the creatures while slowly reducing their numbers. Bjorn threw all of his daggers and a spear, eventually daring to run out and dispatch the other sleeping beast. Eventually the party was victorious, battered but all alive.

Taking time to catch their breath and examine the corpses, the party found a variety of mundane arms and armor, a steel rod with a polished spherical oak knob on one end, two ceramic flasks containing liquids, and a handful of gold and silver coins. Coco cast Detect Magic as a ritual, revealing that the potions were magical but curiously the steel and wood rod was not. The knob was easily removed by unscrewing it but no secret compartment was revealed. Testing the potions showed them to be potions of Healing and Heroism. Placing the rod in Larel’s sack for later examination, the party retreated back through the secret door to the north, ascending the spiral staircase to Lankios’ basement to visit the room with the foul-tasting but healing goo. They found that it had replenished slightly in their absence and those who were injured pinched their noses and swallowed some of the goo, taking care to leave at least one dose in the pool.

Returning to the columned room the party took the northernmost eastern passage which shortly opened into a twenty foot square room containing a low dais and a 4’-tall alabaster book stand, with thick dust and trash scattered about. The walls were in good shape and decorated with a midnight blue paint with hundreds of small flecks of silver. Two doors were in the northern wall and an open passageway continued east. Examining the bookstand revealed some scraps of parchment, which Coco confirmed to not be magical and containing nothing of interest.

Turning their attention to the doors in the northern wall the party first examined the western one. Opening it revealed a narrow, sixty foot long passage which ended at an identical door. Defaced frescos of ibises adorned the walls but of more interest to the party was the score of bodies strewn along the length of the corridor. Taking a moment to assess the situation the party saw that the bodies were mostly clustered at either end of the hallway and that most of the weapons that were visible were battered and broken. The party placed spikes that would prevent the door from fully closing and Chert put the Potion of Watery Form in his pack and cautiously stepped into the corridor.

Image courtesy of ArtVee.

Examining the bodies revealed that there no signs of trauma on any of them and that they had accumulated over a long period of time. No food was found and all of the waterskins were empty. As Chert was taking stock of what equipment may have been salvageable, the door suddenly began to swing shut, but was stopped by the spikes. Applauding their foresight the party reopened the door fully and Chert decided to finish his investigation. Opening the door at the opposite end of the hallway revealed a blank wall, and triggered the closing of the door again. Chert spent some time pulling all of the salvageable equipment back into the room while Coco again cast Detect Magic as a ritual. All told the treasure pile included a magical long sword with angular silver zig zags inlaid in the blade, a scroll of high level magic user spells, a nonmagical gold ring, a magical incandescent blue spherical stone, and a magical shield, in addition to a leather sack with numerous copper, silver, gold, and platinum coins.

Deciding that the left door was obviously a trap meant to foil would be tomb robbers the party turned their attention to the right door. Opening this door revealed an corridor identical to the other, although no corpses were found within. Again the party spiked the door open and Chert approached the door at the end of the hallway while the rest of the party waited in the room. As he opened the door he noticed a blank wall lay beyond this one as well and a pit opened up under his feet, his body making a sickening thud as he hit the bottom. As the party made their way down the passage to render aid the cover of the pit sprang shut. When they arrived Susarra opened the false door and floated down using her ring of Feather Falling to render aid while the rest of the party started hammering in spikes to use a rope to remove them both from the pit.

Luckily the fall had merely knocked Chert unconscious and Susarra administered the potion of Healing that the party had found in the column room. Susarra and Chert were removed from the pit, as well as the corpse of a human male with mundane equipment and five pound gold ingot stamped with the imperial insignia. The man was identified as one of Dalton’s Darlings that the party had met weeks before.

Deciding to press on the party took the eastern open passage out of the room. The corridor shortly turned to the north and opened into another twenty foot square room, open in it’s northeast corner to the Great Chasm. In the middle of the room a stone chair sat, facing the opening. Carved in the seat of the chair was a glyph, the likes of which no one in the party had ever seen before. Using the bullseye lantern, the party was able to see another chamber across the Great Chasm, with a much larger stone chair just at the limit of their sight. There was also another opening on their side of the chasm some thirty feet east. Coco confirmed that the chair and glyph both radiated strong magic. With her curiosity outweighing her caution, Coco sat in the stone chair. She immediately felt the glyph’s power begin to spread through her body. When it reached her eyes she felt her entire body stiffen as she felt her consciousness thrown from her body. In her mind’s eye she saw a barrel-vaulted chamber, the brick walls topped with a layer of mostly intact royal blue painted plaster. The ceiling was 25 feet high in the center of the chamber, dropping to fifteen feet at the sides. Eleven ten foot tall floating columns made of stone sheathed in flaking painted plaster occupied the middle of the chamber. The northeast side of the room was open to the Great Chasm, a two foot tall brick wall extending along the edge except for a ten foot section in the center. A ten by fifteen foot platform, five feet tall, occupied the center of the hall on top of which was a seven foot diameter, two foot tall stone disk from which protruded an iron rod holding an ivory olifant. The edge of the platform had an inscription in Mithric: “Hall of Echoes. Name Thyself, and Whisper Thy Message. Thou Shalt Be Rewarded in Thine Ear”. As she shook herself from the vision, which had seemed to her to take but a few seconds, she was startled to learn from the rest of the party that she had been sitting rigid in the chair for ten minutes.

Seeing that there was apparently little danger to sitting in the chair, Julia was the next person to try it. Her vision was of a different place, a 25 foot high chamber which had a floor composed of ten foot square flagstones, most of which were cracked and buckled, with the walls made of undecorated grey granite. The centerpiece of the room was a giant stone chair, the seat of which rose four feet above the chamber floor and was five feet wide and deep. The back of the chair rose another six feet in height and was loosely covered by an extremely worn piece of leather. The seat and arms of the chair were worn, as if by use. Incised into the seat of the chair was a large glyph identical to the one that Julia was sitting upon. Additionally an eight by fifteen foot stela was set into the floor behind the chair. Inscribed on the stela was the image of a tall biped with small horns on its temples and a prominent brow ridge and jawbone with slightly visible fangs. It was dressed in a flowing robe and its hands rested upon the hilt of a massive great sword. At its feet was a sinuous reptile. Strange runes ran in a register around the image, but Julia did not recognize them.

Not wanting to be left out, Bjorn was the next to take a seat in the chair. As the glyph’s power reached his eyes however instead of seeing a different area in the halls he saw nothing. When he opened his eyes he was horrified to find he could still not see. After waiting a while to see if his sight would be restored with no luck, the party administered half of the Elixir of Health to him, which cured his blindness and eliminated any parasites he may have been carrying unawares. Deciding that they had pressed their luck enough, the party left the room.

Returning to the column chamber the party next took the southernmost passage to the east. This led to another trash filled twenty foot square chamber with a passageway to the east that terminated at a door. Taking time to search the trash revealed an illusionist scroll of Phantom Armor but nothing else of value.

Chert asked Susarra if she would open the next door since she had the ring of Feather Falling. She agreed, amusingly mentioning how she hoped this would be remembered at her next quarterly review. The door was stuck but the strong Archontean fighter had little trouble opening it revealing another twenty foot square room beyond, the stone walls painted with peeling yellow paint and a set of stone benches attached to the walls. Taking time to search the benches showed that the one nearest the door was hanged, concealing a cavity beneath, inside of which was a bolt of carefully folded yellow silk, a bulls-eye lantern, a flask of oil, and an octavo-sized codex marked “Property of Eustachius the Cantor”. This latter was the personal notes and musings of a priest of Thoth named Eustachius, containing notes on a variety of Thothian liturgies, descriptions and vague summoning notes for beings known as the “Guardians”, a 10-folio history of the temple of Thoth within Arden Vul; a series of capsule hagiographies of early high priests, the exact note sequence for a song called the Cantor’s Lament, and two spells; Pummeling Fists of Arak-Zhorr and Curse Item.

After collecting these items the party continued down the passageway to the east. A short hallway leading south to a door was noted and the party continued east in to a large (forty by sixty foot) room. The room was richly painted, with a sky blue ceiling on which was depicted the constellation of the ibis in gold stars. Thirty-nine cherry-wood stalls line the walls; each stall is five feet tall and four feet wide, with a three foot deep seat. The stalls were intricately carved with floral, geometric, and animal patterns. On one section of the east wall was set a much larger seat, some eight feet tall, six feet wide, and five feet deep, with a wooden canopy; this is the prior’s seat. The center of the chamber contained an oval band of mosaic, five feet by eight feet with a three foot square and six inch deep indentation set in the middle of the oval. No tesserae were in this depression, and all of the tesserae in the mosaic were the same shade of flat gray. A narrow passage led east in the northern part of the eastern wall.

While the rest of the party searched the smaller stalls, Coco sat in the larger one, to see if esoteric knowledge could be gained from doing so. She did not, and the rest of the party found nothing the smaller stalls. The party proceeded down the narrow hallway to the east which led to another twenty foot square room, a supply closet that had been very efficiently looted, with only scraps of parchment and bits of linen and silk remains, with only the attachment points left to show where sturdy wooden shelves had once stood. A secret door was found in the north wall, but it required a key and no one in the party had the ability to to pick the lock.

The party then returned to the room with the wooden stalls and went west to investigate the door in the southern passage. Listening revealed nothing and again Susarra opened the door, revealing a short hallway leading to another door. As she stepped over the threshold the hallway was suddenly filled with the noise of a dozen very loud brass instruments. Realizing that some sort of magical trap must have been triggered the entire party retreated to the T intersection in anticipation of the arrival of whoever had set the trap. After ten minutes the noise stopped and no one had arrived, so the party entered the hallway only to again trigger the cacophonous sound. This time they proceeded to the next door and opened it, revealing a group of eight older beast men in shieldwall formation with spears protruding. Moving quickly to defuse the situation the party mentioned that they had spoken to a beastman patrol who had invited them to meet Mother, to which the beastmen expressed doubt because no Banda would invite the party to the beastmen’s back door as it were. Chert explained it was more of an open invitation rather than a specific one, and that it had been extended by Vasselius, the leader of the Banda they had encountered. During this time another banda had come as reinforcements, and knowing the name of one of the beastman sergeants did much to smooth the negotiations. Taking stock of the party (looking especially at Bjorn) the beastmen didn’t think that Mother would be very interested in them but said that the leader of the beastmen, Count Skleros, may have some tasks that would be suited to their abilities. Describing a place to meet the beastmen told the party to be there at the same time the next day, and the two groups parted on neutral terms.

Still curious about the opening in the chasm wall east of the chair room, the party set about devising a plan to get there. In the end it was decided to tie a rope to Susarra which, combined with her ring of Feather Fall, allowed her to make a pathway of spikes and ropes in relative safety similar to what Thalia had done on the lower level. Thirty minutes of loud hammering later and the party was carefully making their way across the chasm wall to the opening. This was found to be a narrow porch which was undecorated save for a pair of iron sconces attached to the southwestern wall. Three large coils of rotten hemp rope, a hammer, and 20 spikes lay on the floor of the room. Two narrow hallways, one leading west ten feet to a stairway leading down and one leading forty feet south to an apparent dead end provided exits from the small ledge. The party proceeded to the south and were able to easily find a secret door in the western wall. Their luck proved to be in as a thirty foot deep pit opened on the west side of the door as soon as it was opened. Peering down the pit the party could see a number of corpses piled at the bottom. Spending time to pull all of the equipment out, Coco cast Detect Magic and the party was able to recover a magic spear, a magic shield, two vials of holy water, one potion of water breathing, and a few hundred copper, silver, and gold coins. Proceeding past the pit the party found themselves at another apparent dead end with another secret door that was easy to discern from the back side. Opening this secret door revealed it to connect to the passageway that lead north to the chair room near the chasm and west to the book pedestal room.

As the day was beginning to grow late the party began to make their way toward the exit, stopping first to investigate the room at the end of the hallway that led southeast from the baboon fresco. This room was parallelogram-shaped, some thirty feet by seventy feet, and a grey-green mist covered the floor throughout. Three stone benches in the eastern part faced a sunken area that was three feet lower than the rest of the room, with five wide steps leading into it. In the middle of the sunken area was a fifteen foot high onyx pillar. Trash cluttered the room, along with almost completely obliterated wall frescoes. High up on the western wall and partly obscured by a layer of grime was an inscription in Mythric. While the rest f the party search the trash and for secret doors, Coco worked on cleaning the grime off of the inscription, which found to say “Thou May Ask of Thoth What Thou Will, Provided Thou Accept His Judgment”. After a long discussion about the possible meaning of this rather cryptic statement, the party decided not to experiment with the room and departed.

After a long round trip to store some of the magical treasure they had acquired with Lankios, the party decided to keep the illusionist scroll and long sword to show the halflings, so as not to arouse their suspicion as to why the party was finding no magical treasure. Returning to the entry chamber, the party showed the halflings the coins and jewelry they had found, along with the scroll and long sword, noting that they had not wielded the long sword and thus could not guarantee that it wasn’t cursed. After considering this for a while the halfling on duty called for the new hire Varius to be summoned. Groggy and half asleep he was told to wield the sword, and then hand it to Roskelly, which he was able to do. The halflings decided to keep the magic sword as their cut of the treasure, reasoning that even though the value was more than agreed upon cut, this was balanced by them having taken the risk of wielding it first. The party agreed and returned to the surface, finding that it was after midnight and thus the 1st of Fidios. Chert and Capdoffer ruminated on their first month spent in the Halls of Arden Vul as the party made their way to their basement hideout for a well-earned night’s sleep.

R.I.P.:

None

Foes defeated:

Six weird floating squid-like creatures