Session 45 recap
The party:
Hector, a 13th level Archontean fighter
Coco, a 13th level Archontean magic-user
Julia, a 14th level Archontean cleric of Lucreon Thoth
Melnax, a 7th level elf
Bjorn, a 9th 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)
The party decided to make their way back to the entrance to the tomb of Liskon the Mad so that Julia could use her Stone Tell scroll to hopefully learn about the contents of the tomb and the key that would open the locked door. They began by returning to the twelve-pillared hall containing the one-way teleportation circles. Examine the room, they found more graffiti next to six of the eight circles, including “Cats!” and “That was a big mouse!” in Archontean, “Meat” and “Avoid the Wine” in Thorcin, “Music Room” and “Beware the [effaced] in Archontean, “To gold” in Wiskin, “To Forge” and “Find Eustachius’s Book” in Mithric, and “Hot and humid” and “Bring suitable gear” in Archontean. The last two rose quartz circles had no graffiti near them and did not detect as magical when Coco cast that spell.
The party was wary of the graffiti as they knew from personal experience that the one teleportation circle they had used before appeared to be incorrectly labeled (it was the third one, labeled Music Room, which took them to the Forge of Zhorak).
After a very long conversation the party settled upon a plan whereby Coco and Hector would wear the Rings of Friendly Defense. Coco would turn herself blind to make Hector invisible, and he would go through a teleportation circle that they were fairly certain of the destination. Assuming that Coco stayed blind, they would wait for Hector to walk back. If she regained her ability to see (implying that Hector had lost his invisibility for whatever reason) se would immediately turn him invisible again, unless she turned invisible which was Hector’s sign for them all to join him through the portal.
Hector headed through the portal labeled “Hot and humid” at 3:10pm on the 28th of Deuterios. Coco stayed invisible, and the party waited for him to arrive, which didn’t happen until nearly eight hours later. Hector related that he had become overwhelmed by the Bliss Pollen and had wandered in a fugue for six hours before regaining his sense, reorienting himself, and returning to the party. Given the late our, the party decided to use Phocion’s Dividers and rest for the night.
Arising on the morning of the 29th, Bjorn used True Sight from the Djed Aulet to see if any more hidden words were inscribed around the teleportation circles but found none. This time the plan was changed slightly; Coco made herself blind to make Hector invisible, and if he then turned her invisible as well, it was safe to come through. Hector went through the portal labeled “Meat” and Coco presently turned invisible, so the rest of the party went through as well, joining him in the erstwhile grilling chamber of the Feasters. They made their way back to the Bliss Pollen room and as they were waiting for their addled companions to regain their faculties so they could scale the wall back to the teleportation circle room, Olaf the Bee Whisperer came wandering by. He had a shovel made of Bliss Flower stalk and part of a giant bee carapace with him and as they exchanged pleasantries he began digging into the turf, shortly finding a rust colored Rudishva identity plaque. The party traded him a fresh green salad from Larel’s Sack for the plaque.
Since several of their party members were still under the effects of the Bliss Pollen Julia was put in charge of minding them (she grumbled a bit about being assigned to “daycare duty”) while the rest grabbed shovel’s from Larel’s Sack and began searching the cavern. On a somewhat fresh corpse directly umagic banded mail, a magic amulet in the form of a leading lion, another Alexia’s Useful Pole, and some gold and silver coins. Scattered generally about the cavern they discovered some more coinage, a potion belt with three intact potion bottles, a wand, a crude basalt statue of a salamander, some broken Rudishva tech, a lesser Rudishva power supply, and two pieces of plasteel, one foot square with a button in the middle.
After the party had all recovered from the effects of the Bliss Pollen, they continued to the tomb of Liskon the Mad and Julia cast Stone Tell on the keystone of the archway above the door, which presumably would have a good vantage over both the interior and exterior of the tomb. This allowed her to ask three questions, which the party had discussed while searching the Bliss Pollen cave:
#1: What does the key look like in exacting detail? Answer: The stone described what sounded like a normal, plain, iron key but comically large, about two feet long.
#2: What’s on the other side of this wall? Answer: The room had been made as a tomb with wall carvings and a sarcophagus but some amount of time later someone had hung tapestries over the walls, placed a tablecloth on the sarcophagus, and bought in various items of furniture.
#3: What does the last person who had the key look like? Answer: The stone described a human male 5’ 6” tall, slender, with many rings and amulets, a robe covered in eyes, gaunt copper cheeks, closely cropped black hair, two warts by his nose, and long spidery fingers.
With this new information to ponder the party returned to the teleportation circle room and went through the portal labeled “To Forge”, arriving in a ten foot square alcove open to the north where passages to the north and west had collapsed but a smaller five foot wide passage leading east still remained. Three backpacks were in the floor just outside of the lapis lazuli circle they had arrived on. After ransacking the backpacks and finding a moderate amount of mostly mundane adventuring equipment they followed the narrow corridor to the east, soon entering a twenty by thirty foot room with seven ten foot tall stone doors lining the walls. Six relatively recent corpses were strewn about the floor. A twenty foot diameter mosaic dominated the chamber, at its center a singing Thothian cleric. In the first circular register around the cleric were some tribal looking heads with open mouths, each with a letter from A to G under it. The outer register showed various creatures, including to butterfly like creatures, a baboon headed humanoid with four arms, a cleric of Thoth in formal orange robes, a pair of black birds, a fire breathing dog, and a blocky creature resembling a golem.
After using a grappling hook to procure one of the bodies and finding no visible wounds on it but some blood that had leaked out of the ears, the party cautiously entered the room. Some time was spent trying to open the doors or manipulate the mosaic, all to no effect. The party then descended a short flight of stairs to the south, finding themselves in a large cavern with a thirty-five foot ceiling. Several pillars of rock extended from floor to ceiling. A light breeze was circulating through the chamber in a counter-clockwise direction. All of the natural stone in the cavern was covered with a pale yellow, phosphorescent, and slightly furry fungus that ripples in the breeze. The wall to the southeast had been worked and flattened, with lumps of chalk lying nearby and writings in Mithric. Carved into one side of seven large stone pillars was a three foot tall stone head. Resembling the ones in the mosaic to the north. A niche in the southern wall contained a fifteen foot boulder that had been entirely shaped to resemble a huge stone head. To the west a large alcove contained seven looping horns carved into the stone and enhanced with bronze mouthpieces.
Examining the chalkboard wall revealed a number of jottings in Mithric, including “Compose swiftly, or face appropriate action!” and “Repetition does not equal music.” One tonal sequence, named ‘Restorative’, was fully indicated: E E F E A A. The start of a second sequence, tantalizing entitled “Eustachius’s Lament” was also present, although mostly erased: B ? D ? This triggered the party’s memory about a book that they had found while exploring the halfling level, and sea quick trip back to the villa via the Rugs was made. The book, a codex with no title and simply inscribed as “Property of Eustachius the Cantor”, contained a variety of sections, including descriptive notes of a variety of Thothian liturgies including the Litany of Light, Canticle of Revelation, and a Psalmody), 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, and finally the exact note sequence for a song called the Cantor’s Lament: B D F D E.
Coco tentatively blew into the second horn from the left. After a few moments the giant head in the southern part of the cavern made a loud ‘raspberry’ sound. After checking the doors and finding none empty, Julia blew horns 2, 4, 6, 4, and 5, which would be the Cantor’s Lament if the horns started at note A om the left and ascended to the right. The tonal sequence was incorrect however and the loud grinding sound of a large stone door opening could be heard from the north. Presently a four armed humanoid with a baboon head entered the chamber with obvious ill intent, and the party dispatched it with little difficulty. The party then played the same note sequence, with the assumption that the note A was at the right and the scale descended to the left, 6, 4, 2, 4, and 3, but this was also the incorrect sequence and another loud grinding sound issued from the northern cavern, followed quickly by the whooshing of hundreds of small bird wings as a murmuration of starlings flew into the cavern, circled for a short time, and then flew through a small crack in the ceiling.
At a loss as to how to proceed due to a lack of anyone in the party with musical talent, some of the party returned to town via the Rug through the villa and procured the services of an itinerant musician at a tavern in Gosterwick, a young songstress named Helena. After bringing her back through the rug with them, she had Julia play all seven horns in order so that she could identify the note associated with each. This was accomplished in short order but the grinding sound of a stone door issued from the norther chamber again and the being hounds could be heard until in short order eight hell hound appeared at the entrance began running towards the party.
Placing Helena at the back, the party assumed a defensive posture as the hell hounds charged. Coco blasted them with a Cone of Cold from her Staff of Power while Melnax rummaged through his backpack for a Wand of Cold. Julia called the blessings of Thoth onto the party as the melee fighters met the hell hounds’ charge and wounded a few of them. Six of the hell hounds attacked the fighters with their teeth, dealing some damage, but two of them breathed fire injuring many and burning Helena the musician to death. Melnax used his Wand of Cold, Coco cast Magic Missile, and the melee fighters finished off the beasts. Julia cast Raise Dead on Helena, who found herself with a slightly better bargaining position than earlier and bartered her way into a full share of the monetary treasure that the party expected to find after playing the Cantor’s Lament. Informing the party that the note sequence she had heard was B A G F E D C. Julia then played the sequence 1, 6, 4, 6, 5 and the large head in the southern part of the room moved loudly north, exposing a set of stone stairs.
Descending the stairs led to a twenty foot square room, the walls of which were decorated with frescoes showing representations of shimmering butterflies in iridescent colors. An oak desk carved to make it look as if it were made of actual branches sat against the south wall with sheaves of sheet music placed upon it. A hammock had rotted in place along the east wall, and a set of simple pine chairs and tables lay in the center of the chamber. The west wall contained a rack with several musical instruments including three buccinae, a pair of cithara, three lyres, and two auloi. By the entrance hallway was a stone chest, inside of which was a pouch with eight golden yellow topaz gems, an unusual set of ebony Archontean chess pieces in which each of the usual figures carries a tiny gold instrument, a stack of twelve ancient octagonal platinum coins, and a set of erotic earrings made of ivory and platinum. A ritual Detect Magic from Coco revealed two of the musical instruments to be magic and the party agreed to let Helena have these in addition to her share of the monetary treasure as they had no use for them. They also agreed to let her stay at the villa while she recuperated from the effects of being Raised from the Dead. After recovering the treasure from the six corpses in the northern hall they all returned through the rugs to the villa to spend the night and have the magic items they had recovered identified while they discussed their next course of action.
R.I.P.:
Helena the musician, burnt to a crisp by hell hounds in The Singing Grotto [revived by Julia with Raise Dead]
Foes defeated:
A Greater Guardian of Thoth
Eight hell hounds