Session 42 recap

The party:

Hector, a 13th level Archontean fighter

Vul, a 13th level Archontean magic-user

Julia, a 14th level Archontean cleric of Lucreon Thoth

Bjorn, an 8th level Wiskin assassin

Susarra, a 10th level Archontean fighter (retainer)

Scylla, a 9th level Archontean ranger (retainer)

Kormak the Snake, an 8th level Wiskin fighter (retainer)

Returning to the Halls on the morning of Deuterios 26th the party decided to continue exploring the former Temple of Besa. Moving north from the room of the illusionary feast the party went down a corridor with five alcoves with rotted black velvet drapes. Inside each cubicle was a three foot tall stone platform strewn with moldy red, yellow, and black silk pillows. The corridor turned east and led to a four way intersection. After Bjorn heard nothing at a door to the east, Hector opened the door where the back of a large tapestry, which he pushed aside and peered into the chamber beyond. The sixty foot square chamber was dominated by a central sunken area with an impressive seventeen foot tall statue composed of ivory with accents in colored stone and other natural materials depicting Besa, the Sloe-Eyed Lady, in the midst of her famous erotic dance. She was naked, with arms upraised, with long black hair whirled around her body, with almond eyes and a fixed, grinning mouth. Soft red light emitted from sconces set into the walls and eight slim columns carved with erotic images rose to the twenty foot ceiling. The floor around the pillars was covered with thick, plush red carpeting. Low platforms covered with red silk sheets and red pillows occupied the north, east and west points of the chamber. Tapestries hung behind the platforms; one showed a surprisingly modest version of the Ravishing of Besa, a second depicted Besa presiding over a scene of torture, and the third depicted a number of naked men writhing on imperial impaling spikes. The remainder of the walls displayed a mix of erotic and violent frescoes. Stairs led up into a passageway in the south wall, and another door was found behind the eastern tapestry.

The party moved through the eastern door and found a mirror image of the four way intersection to the west. Heading north led to an entrance hall which was clearly designed to give a taste of what was to come for visitors to the temple; three pillars carved with scenes of the grinning goddess alternating between acts of love and acts of violence, and walls featuring badly worn frescoes depicting cavorting men and women, the women voluptuous and the men priapic, their activities including both pleasure and pain. Scylla giggled and Hector blushed at the display.

An alcove to the east contained a five foot diameter rose quartz circle set into the floor that the party now recognized as one of the one way teleport destinations, with a crudely carved tunnel leading east. A smaller passageway led west from the Northwest corner and shortly turned into a narrow carved tunnel which appeared to lead down to a different level of the Halls. Moving back to the four way intersection the parity conformed that the southern passage eventual circumnavigated the temple area, and the eastern passage led to another hallway that contained alcoves intended for adherents of Besa to engage in their dalliances.

Returning to the alcove with the rose quartz circle, the party began to explore the tunnel at the back of the alcove. After a few hundred feet they found themselves in a natural cavern bisected by a deep chasm filled with cold, slightly stagnant water; the eastern side of the cavern was thirty feet taller than the western side. The pool was filled with a strange fungal growth which resembled pond lilies. Utilizing his Slippers of Spider Climbing, Bjorn walked across the ceiling and explored the passageway leading to the west, finding that it eventually connected with the tunnel that led down into the feast room in the Temple of Besa.

The party returned to the temple and investigated the door at the end of the eastern alcove-filled hallway. Opening the door they found a large room with a seventy foot long freestanding wall running across the center of the chamber. Five cubicles lined the north wall, each equipped with restraints, low beds, and dry rotted black silken sheets and pillows. The floor south of the wall was sheathed in purple marble, while floor-length black velvet drapes in good condition were hung from the south wall. Bjorn used an Alexia’s Useful Pole to push aside the drapes, revealing a ten foot tall marble statue of Besa. The beauty of her naked body was slightly marred by the numerous cuts and bruises that cover her marble flesh, and by the fact that her left leg and right arm seemed to have been carved as if they had been broken. The face portrayed a grim, humorless smile. The whiteness of the marble had been marred by a strange glyph inscribed in a circle with black paint across the chest and abdomen. In the statues left hand was a five barred golden Djed amulet, the symbol Osiris. Coco ritually cast Detect Magic and determined that the statue, glyph, amulet, and drapes were all magical. As the party discussed their next course of action, a translucent woman wearing the raiments of a priestess of Besa came screaming through the dividing wall and attacked Bjorn but missed. As the rets of the party prepared for combat, Julia stepped forward and destroyed the specter in the name of Thoth.

Coco cast Dispel Magic on the glyph, and then ritually cast Detect Magic to verify that the glyph was no longer magical, whereupon Hector broke the arm off the statue to retrieve the amulet.

Returning to the feast room, the party went up through the hole and continued along the unexplored portion of the hallway, eventually coming to a five way intersection. Choosing the Northeast passage they discovered a worked chamber in disrepair. Two corridor fragments ended in cave-ins and strands of plaster hung from the ceiling with mounds of broken tiling dotting the floor. A basalt statue of a handsome man of middle age dressed in a tunic occupied the northeast corner, with ivory hair, clothing, and sandals. The statue pointed to the south with one arm, and held a cithara in the other. An inscription in Mithric on the pediment read “Eustachius the cantor, who located the Singing Grotto”.

Returning to the five way intersection they explored west and found themselves in a previously listed room, with flowstone and a glowing green glyph which read simply “KB”. Exploring southwest from the five way intersection shortly led to a side passage to a room that smelled strongly of decaying animal tissue. Four natural pools were along the walls while in the center were four frames made of bone and wood with animal skins stretched and drying on them, one of which scylla identified as a basilisk skin. At the far end of the cave was a pile of bones and rotting viscera. most of the bones coming from goats, lizards, and snakes.

Continuing south the party found another cave with exits leading west and east, the former being blocked by a latticework of wooden sticks, vines, and bits of debris. As they moved through the chamber Coco noticed a vaurmani trying to hide in the shadows along the wall. The party introduced themselves snd the varumani said he was named Muq, an exile from the Varumani kingdom because he had exposed a traitor but public sentiment had turned against him. The party asked why the western passage was blocked and Muq said it was to keep a pair of “metal eating monsters” out. When queried about the eastern passage he said he didn’t go that way very often because of a “creepy statue”. The party said that they would take care of the metal eating monsters for him and proceeded to the east.

Following Muq’s directions led them to a previously visited chamber that contained the wooden components of a wagon with none of the metal accoutrements, a situation that made more sense to the party now that they knew the nature of the nearby inhabitants. A portion of the party stripped themselves of all metal weapons, armor, and gear and proceeded into the chamber. The creatures were curious at first but ignored the party when they detected no metal on them, and the party was easily able to bludgeon the defenseless creatures to death. Finding two scrolls and three eggs that the minsters had laid the party continued on their way.

Since they were now relatively close to the bliss pollen chamber, they decided to stop by Olaf’s room and inquire about the strange scepter he told Kormak about. Olaf warned the party against trying to retrieve it because it was in the upper parts of the hive that contained the bees’ pupae and which they guarded jealousy, but Scyll said she she could talk to the queen and that they would be ok.

The conversation with the queen went very well, and she sent a worker to retrieve the scepter for the party. It turned out to be a bronze rod about three feet long with an apple-shaped head. A faint inscription around the neck, below the apple, reads in Mithric: “Forbidden fruit is the sweetest”.

The party returned to the area they had been exploring, stopping by the entrance to the tomb of Liskon the Mad to try to gain entrance again but were unsuccessful. Returning the room with stone table and silver goblets they proceeded south to a chamber where two Varumani were arguing with each other as they examined a map. They told the party they had bought it from a trader in the Varumani market who told them it was a map to the Forge of Zhorak. The party told the pair that the map was not accurate and during this conversation a secret door opened in the western wall of the room and a Sun-Scarred Knight emerged with his varlet. The party tried to engage the Knight in conversation as they had been trying to find one of his order to tell about their plans for attacking the Set Cult but the Knight immediately engaged in hostilities, with his squire retreating back into the room they had emerged from while the Knight planted his lance in the ground and a large burst of energy burst forth, dropping Coco and killing Niskim the goblin. A fierce battle ensued with Hector dropping but being revived by Susarra and Julia after the latter was able to Hold the Knight, and the party easily dispatched of the squire.

Image courtesy of Artvee

After stripping the two of their valuables, the party took the naked body of the Sun-Scarred Knight through the rugs back to the villa where they drug it into the sun, pounded s stake through his heart, cut off his head, and stuffed garlic into his mouth, all to no visible effect. While Coco cast Detect Magic as a ritual the rest of the party took the body of the squire back to the Villa and buried it in the garden. Examination of the room behind the secret door revealed a worked chamber with two thick, plush carpets, one with geometric patterns and the other displaying an octagonal tower rising out of a cavern. Two hammocks were slung in the corners, while two simple wooden chairs, a low table, a water keg, a Tripod of Heating, and a wooden chest were also present. The chest contained four weeks of dried rations, five hundred gold coins, ten ancient octagonal platinum coins, a silk pouch with seven carnelians, twenty flasks of oil, a tinder box, a hammer, a scribe’s case with ink and parchment, and three well-worn codices bound in blue leather, including “The Secret Courtship of Julius the Exarch”, “The Thirty-seven Quips of Balak the Sage”, and “The Lives of the Noble Founders, Arden and Vul”. Susarra and Kormak stayed behind in the Phocion’s Dividers cube for the night while the rest of the party went back to the villa to rest and go into Gosterwick to get items identified.

Returning to the Halls on the morning of Deuterios 27th they began exploring to fill in some holes om their map, finding that many of these passages led to previously explored areas. They eventually found a new room, containing two rickety wooden spear racks the former contents of which lay broken in pieces about the cave. Graffiti in Mithric was scrawled across the western wall of the cave examples of which included “Let the enemy take notice! They won’t be able to use this stuff now!” and “Marcus, optio X-S”. Proceeding west from this room led back to the home of the exiled Varumani Muq.

Returning to the east the party found a small, muddy cave with a lumpy headless statue standing near the entrance. It depicted a being with a squat torso, thick thighs, and humanesque arms that each held a spear, and was clearly meant to portray a Heqeti hopper. Inspecting the statue turned up no new details about it but did reveal a leathery oval object about four by three feet in size, sewed together with fine stitches from multiple panels. As Bjorn tried to determine how to open the strange device, it exploded in his hands, releasing a thick cloud of yellow spores. Hector and Scylla managed to avoid the spores but Bjorn began choking on them until Julia was able to Neutralize the poisonous effect with clerical magic.

Continuing east the party entered another cavern, this one with a patch of vermillion colored mold covering the southern wall. As Hector cautiously entered the chamber the mold began to ripple and patches of it changed color, until it reveled a crude drawing of a Heqeti hopper with an arrow pointing east. Continuing east the party found another natural cave that seemed to have been partly worked in antiquity, with several broken bits of primitive mining equipment scattered around. The southern extension contained the remains of a large Heqeti slander statue similar to ones the party had seen before. The head of the statue had been hacked off and lay on the sandy floor, excrement had been shoved into its eye holes, and crude graffiti in Mithric covered its torso (“back to the swamp, hoppers!”, “teleport this!”, etc.. A piece of dirty linen thread ran across the floor of the chamber, leading towards both a northern and eastern exit.

Following the string to the east the party found that it ended next to the corpse of an adventurer. The cave floor was sandy and Scylla easily saw evidence of very old traffic including drag marks, the footprints of Heqeti hoppers, small bits of broken bone and stone, etc. The party searched the room and Bjorn found a secret door in a northeast alcove. Hector was able to open the door with brute strength, revealing the chamber beyond.

The chamber was roughly hewn from the rock, the walls pebbled and slightly oily. On the east wall were three large pieces of graffiti in Mithric: “Death to the hoppers!”, “Life to the Xth” and “We have disabled the damned wells. Let them try to flank us now!” Two niches to the east held seven foot diameter circles of stone rising three feet above the floor. A statue of a heqeti spellcaster stood at the north end, while several overturned equipment racks were in the south part of the room. Broken equipment and the bones of numerous heqeti and humans lined the floor. As the party entered the room the bones on the floor assembled into a score of undead creatures and moved to attack the party.

R.I.P.:

None

Foes defeated:

A spectre of the High Priestess of Besa

Two poor, defenseless, metal eating monsters that were just minding their own business

A Sun-Scarred Knight

A Sun-Scarred Knight’s varlet