Session 15 Recap
The party:
Hector, a 1st level Archontean fighter
Coco, a 4th level Thorcin magic-user
Julia, a 4th level Archontean cleric of Lucreon
Capdoffer, a 5th level goblin
Bjorn, a 4th level Wiskin assassin
Susarra, a 3rd level Archontean fighter (retainer)
Alba, a Thorcin hireling
As the party sat in the common room of the inn in Gosterwick on the night of the 4th of Fidios discussing their next plan of action they were approached by an earnest young man wearing fur armor and carrying a club. Introducing himself as Hector he explained that he was a former Archontean legionnaire who, after mustering out, had come to find his fortune in the Halls of Arden Vul. He had sold most of his equipment (including his better armor and weapons) to buy a map to Arden Vul and an adventuring license from a group of halflings for one hundred gold coins. Since they needed someone to fill Chert’s spot on the roster for a couple of weeks as he recovered from the previous day’s misadventure (and, truthfully, feeling a bit sorry for the naive young man) the party invited him to join them.
Via a combination of magic rug and horse travel the party assembled the next morning in Lankios’ basement and returned to the handling level of the halls. Making their way around the entrance room they returned back to the southeast to the small porch overlooking the chasm just southeast of the room with the stone throne. Bjorn left most of his equipment and, taking one of the magic rugs and wearing the Death Mask of Ptoh-Ristus for its benefit of granting infravision, began climbing along the chasm wall to the southeast. Shortly after beginning his journey he had a slight moment of terror when he noticed five giant centipedes climbing down the chasm wall towards him, but they luckily seemed to have no interest in him and continued along their way. After about eighty feet the chasm narrowed and ended, and he began climbing along the north wall. After about thirty feet he came across a pair of large stone doors, broken open and hanging on the hinges, with a corridor leading to the northeast. Placing the rug down he rejoined the party and described what he had seen. He and Capdoffer then returned through the rug to explore the passageway quietly. They found that it almost immediately led into a large room lined with burial niches, many of which lay open and empty but ten still had their carved marble gisants intact; the likenesses varied in gender, size, racial features, and garb, but most featured the traditional cylindrical headdress of the priesthood of Thoth. One large burial chamber lay the northeast wall. The rest of the chamber was filled with a haphazard array of some nineteen sarcophagi with their lids off and scattered around the room. Narrow paths wound through the clutter and junk.
Capdoffer and Bjorn returned through the magic rug and brought the rest of the party through. Before entering the chamber, Coco began to cast Detect Magic as a ritual. Before she could finish the spell however the sound of growling and whining began to emanate from the chamber and seven figures began to approach the party. Six of these were hunched over, feral ghouls but the last was different; an emaciated zombie-like corpse with red glowing eyes which shone with a cunning intelligence. Seizing the initiative a few party members threw lit flasks of oil at the approaching creatures, missing one of the ghouls but hitting the wight, which unfortunately seemed unaffected by the flames. Presenting her holy symbol Julia called upon the power of her god to rebuke the creatures, and two of the ghouls recoiled in horror and retreated to the corner of the room. Coco cast one of the spells that she had learned from the Codex of Eustachius the Cantor, The Pummeling Fists of Arak-Zhorr, and the middle of the chamber became filled with flailing fists composed of vortexes of air. Susarra pulled Hector from the front line and, along with Capdoffer, engaged the remaining ghouls and wight as they approached the party.
Facing two of the foul creatures Susarra was unable to withstand the ghouls’ paralytic attacks and she fell motionless to the floor. Capdoffer was able to avoid the attacks from the ghoul he face but the wight grabbed his arm and he felt an icy chill as his constitution was drained from him. Coco once again summoned the powers of her god and the wight was forced to retreat. Hector, who had stepped up to take Susarra’s place after she was paralyzed was soon paralyzed himself, as was Julia when she stepped into the fray. Between Capdoffer’s attacks and Coco’s magic the remaining unturned ghouls were soon defeated and the ghouls cowering in the corner were dispatched with missile weapons. Unfortunately the wight proved impervious to non magical attacks so Bjorn wielded Susarra’s spear and he, along with Capdoffer with Larel’s Pin, bravely (after taking a minute to work up his courage) strode into the large tomb and finished off the wight.
Pausing for a moment after the pitched battle to catch their breath, the party took stock of their situation. The burial chamber into which the wight had retreated featured a large marble pedestal with a life sized marble gisant of a priest of Thoth, the whole area stinking of decay and death with no valuables to be found. While they waited for the paralysis to wear off of their compatriots, Coco and Capdoffer searched the main tomb area. Luck was on their side, as they both found a secret door, Capdoffer discovering one in the northeastern wall and Coco finding on in the southeastern wall. In front of this one lay a skeleton that possessed a few items interest, including a golden torc, a thin cylinder of iron, and a small key on an orange cord around the skeleton’s neck. Remembering that there was a secret door in a room about fifteen feet south which the party had been unable to open that had a small round hole in it about the same size as the iron cylinder, it was theorized that this object might open both the secret door in this room and the secret door that it likely led to. A quick experimentation showed this to be the case.
In the meantime the rest of the party had recovered from their ghoul paralysis and the party set about looting the main room in earnest. A thorough search of the rubble revealed about 350 gold pieces worth of gems, and opening the remaining close burial niches uncovered nine piece of various gold jewelry and an open wan with a single word inscribed in it in Mythric, “fulgur” (lightning). Coco stuck this wand in her belt as the party recovered the rest of the items.
Turning their attention to the northeast secret door, it was found to be a simple sliding panel at the back of a burial niche. Proceeding down the short passageway beyond the party food found themselves looking into a chamber crammed with treasures, surrounding a plane stone sarcophagus with a carved marble lid, the gisant on top of which portrayed a short man wearing platform heeled shoes and the raiments of a priest of Thoth. An inscription on the sarcophagus identified it as belonging to “Iacobus, Prior of Thoth”. Deciding to remove the treasure from the chamber before dealing with the sarcophagus, the party catalogued it as containing six bolts of expensive silk, a solid gold statuette of a baboon weighing fifteen pounds, a magical mace, sixteen ten pound bars of silver, two disks, over two feet in diameter, of grooved, beaten gold with one inch holes in their centers, a very large pool written in Mythric entitled the Book of Priors, five cleric scrolls, and twelve potions. The only remaining item was a large wooden chest which proved too heavy to move. As Capdoffer began to open the chest to remove its contents, he cried out in pain and held up his hand from which a dart protruded, with a foul green viscous liquid leaking from around the wound. Capdoffer had barely enough time to utter a Goblin curse word before falling to the ground, stone dead. Cursing their complacence, Coco began draining the blood from Capdoffer’s other hand (much to Hector’s shock and horror) into the Jade Cup of Life Restoration and Capdoffer was soon back amongst the living, weak as a newborn kitten but otherwise none the worse for wear.
His sacrifice was soon found to have not been in vain as the chest was found to contain thousands of ancient copper, silver, and gold coins; a king’s ransom in treasure for the second time is as many days. Using their tried and true grappling hook method the party removed the lid from the sarcophagus as they stood in the hallway but it was found to be bereft of both occupants and treasure.
Realizing that Capdoffer would have to join Chert in their bespoke Thoth Patrol retirement room back in Gosterwick, part of the party left the dungeon to ride horses to town with one of the rugs, and the party moved their newfound treasure stash to their safe holding at the Rarities Factor while Capdoffer went to join Chert in convalescence. The party found that the wand was indeed a Wand of Lightning Bolts as Coco had surmised, and finding themselves with a surfeit of cash decided to have the potions identified rather than taking a chance on the taste testing method.
As their business was concluding one of the clerks onformed them the Wicktrimmer, the proprietor of the rarities factor, wished to speak with them. Ushered to his private quarters, Wicktrimmer informed them that Thoth Patrol was one of this most profitable (and therefore favorite) customers, and that has passing on some information as a courtesy: Due to their increasing power and visibility as delvers of the Halls, they were starting to become quite well known amongst some of the power players of Arden Vul and Gosterwick, a situation that could cause both woe and weal, and the party should be on their guard. Taking Wicktrimmer’s advice to heart the party returned to Arden Vul via horseback and rejoined their compatriots in the hidden treasure room. Reasoning that since it was hidden behind a secret door that had until very recently been guarded by a rather formidable horde of undead and was therefore relatively safe, the party spent the night here.
In the morning, Bjorn once again divested himself of his excess equipment and began climbing along the chasm wall to the northwest, to investigate a chamber that they had seen directly across from the stone throne on the south side of the chasm. After determining that nothing untoward happened when he stepped into the room he used the rug to return and fetch the rest of the party.
This 25 foot high chamber 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 no one was able to decipher them. A staircase descended to the east. Julia realized that this was the room she had had perfect vision of when she sat in the smaller stone throne on the opposite side of the chasm.
Following the staircase to the east, the party descended for some twenty feet before encountering a passageway running north. After about thirty feet the passage was blocked by a cave-in, which a crude tunnel had been dug with tools to bypass. Proceeding past this the party soon found themselves looking into a chamber only seven feet tall, and containing three sarcophagi, each of them bound with rusted metal bands. The party paused to discuss their next course of action.
R.I.P.
Capdoffer, a goblin, killed by a poison needle trap in the treasure room of the Priors of Thoth (raised from the dead)
Foes defeated:
Six ghouls
One wight
That Jade cup is awesome! Great recap.