The party:
Hector, a 14th level Archontean fighter
Coco, a 14th level Archontean magic-user
Julia, a 14th level Archontean cleric of Lucreon Thoth
Bjorn, a 9th level Wiskin assassin
Susarra, a 10th level Archontean fighter (retainer)
Scylla, a 10th level Archontean ranger (retainer)
Kormak the Snake, an 8th level Wiskin fighter (retainer)
Armenius, a 7th level Archontean thief (retainer)
The party decided to spend a day at the villa assisting in cleanup and to allow Julia to attempt to Raise the Dead after the attack by the mercenary group hired by the Settites. She was able to restore the milk maid, the scullery maid, the stable boy, the blacksmith, and a goblin named Cornshucker. They awoke the next day (Toternius 8th) to pouring rain. After restoring the final casualty (the wine steward) to life they returned through the rug to Lankios’ basement and decided to fill in some holes on their map around the Temple of Set in preparation for their coming assault.
Heading north and west from the debouche room they took the northern passage in the portcullis room into the Catacombs of Thoth. Proceeding through a hole in the ceiling they returned to a large natural cavern with a flat sandy floor. Hector threw some rocks into a cave that they knew a large lizard lived in until it came charging out. Armenius set his spear against the lizard’s charge, wounding it but being bitten in return before Hector felled the beast with a single blow. Kormak listened with the magical conch and declared the cavern complex lizard-free. Heading into the lizard’s lair they found its next which contained only a plain gold ring. Exploring the passage beyond confirmed their mapping and led to an iron grate beyond which was a Settite guard in the northeast corner of the Temple of Set.
Returning to the main cavern they explored a ledge ten feet up the southern wall which led to the stairs that descended into the precincts of Set. As they returned Scylla noted some faint clues that indicated the occasional presence of guards overlooking the cavern.
Exploring the northwestern passage they found that the leftmost one led down to what appeared to be another level. Returning and exploring the rightmost passage led to small cave in which was a five foot wide hole covered with a heavy wooden cover. The passage beneath led down to a natural cave about 600 feet below the surface with passages leading south and east. Proceeding east about a hundred fettle party passed a south branching passage before they began to approach a opening into a chamber from which light and sound was issuing. Kormak used the magical conch to determine that there were a pair of Set guards conversing with each other. They returned back to the chamber they had entered the level in where Coco ritually cast Invisibility on Bjorn who snuck back to the chamber and found it contained four guards, a Set acolyte, and exits to the north and south. The exits appeared to continue down to other levels so Bjorn returned to the party, but not before writing “Stefania hears all” in the sand, as the Settites had been compiling about both their posting in this cavern and “the Red Witch” herself.
Exploring the southern branch of the passage the party found it obscured by a strangely stationary opaque purple mist. Deciding not to enter the mist, they returned to the entry chamber and took the south passage, which led to a chamber with a sandy beach running along both sides of a narrow river. A broken, leather bound egg-shaped submersible vessel that had been damaged beyond repair. The river exited through a passage to the south that the waterway completely filled on both sides. Bjorn invisibly walked along the ceiling to the next room, which contained large roiling pool with slimes of various colors and textures floating on the surface, while am alcove to the north contained one of the by now familiar large magically evil salamander statues associated with the Heqeti.
Coco cast Spider Climb ritually and joined Bjorn on the roof go the tunnel and used a Fireball wand to destroy the slimes, but as they watched a new slime eventually bubbled to the surface. Seeing this, the rest of the party went through the rug to the villa while Bjorn silently and invisibly walked across the ceiling of the chamber to the southern exit and deployed the rug, allowing the party to avoid traversing the chamber.
The southern passage led to an octagonal room slab in marble of Rudisvan style. In the center of the room was a sunken area some eight feet below the floor containing rows of consoles and strange plasteel chairs. In the center of the sunken area was a tall, two-sided viewscreen. Along the sides of the pit were several tattered banners and two corkboards on which were tacked multiple maps. The entire area was in disarray, with scorch marks on most of the walls, and skeletons of winged bipeds, large robust troll-like creatures, and a few bipedal salamanders, slumped over broken consoles.
As Bjorn began to walk into the pit to get a better look at the maps, ten of the courses around the room stood and made moves to attack the party. Bjorn bloodied one in the it with a thrown dagger, while Julia destroyed another with the power of Thoth and Coco used a Fireball from her wand to kill one and bloody the rest. Susarra killed another before the zombies began to attack, sapping the constitution from Susarra and Hector, with Julia being immune to this effect due to her magical weapon. The rest of the zombies were dispatched in short order, but the party found to their chagrin that the Fireball had destroyed the maps.
Coco and Julia found a secret door in the northeast wallop the room but the party let it be for the moment and proceeded through a Rudishva iris door in the south wall that Kormak opened with a pale green ID card.
The room beyond was a large chamber also constructed in the Rudishva style. The east wall was dominated by two huge rectangles of black glass. In front of these were three eight foot tall pedestals, two four feet in diameter and one eight feet in diameter. Along the curved west wall were two smaller and one longer ledge set ten feet up the wall. Another iris door was in. The south wall and two staircases, one leading u and one down, exited the room.
The party returned to the north and explored beyond the secret door, finding a narrow oval passage that led northeast. After crossing the narrow river they climbed a flight of stairs and found the obvious back of another secret door. This door led into another Rudishva room. Within was a low basin and fountain surrounded by the desiccated husks of a number of exotic plant species. Among the debris was a still living large, yellow-flowered plant, and the entire center area was ringed by a set of slim porphyry columns. The ceiling within the columns was conical, rising some thirty feet above the floor and painted black with numerous yellow dots. A Continual Light spell at the apex shed soft yellow light on the former garden. Between the columns and the walls was a ten foot wide aisle floored in blue granite. A niche in the northeast corner contained a Rudishva teleport node, three narrow passages lined the north wall, two narrow passages were n the south wall, and wider passages led east and west.
Recognizing the plant as being identical to one they had battled in the Archon’s Palace in the surface ruins, they dispatched this one with missile weapons before entering the room. Exploring the western passage led to what appeared to be a Rudishvan library. Using the Helm of Comprehend Language they were able to read the three large Rudishvan scrolls that remained. The first was labeled “The Betrayal” and was a short, hastily scribed, and slightly bitter account of the treason of a certain Lisstak, chief of the kaliyani, against the rudishva. The second was titled “The Time of Darkened Skies” and provided a lengthy description of the efforts of the rudishva to drive back and destroy ‘the Hopping Ones’. The final scroll was titled “The Properties of Arcanum” and enumerated eight ways in which arcanum could be used to create, recharge, and modify various items.
Returning to the main room the party explored the northern narrow passages which all led to empty bunk rooms. The easter passage led to another iris door which was opened with the pale green ID card. Beyond was what appeared to be a rudishva equipment room, but the equipment was broken. Racks for equipment, made of both plasteel and baroquely wrought iron, occupied one side of the room, while three huge coffers lined the other. A four foot tall frieze along the walls at eye level was carved with elaborately sinuous images of spindly figures being brought tributes by a variety of creatures, including some that looked like trolls, some that looked like bipedal birds, and some that looked like snakes with legs. While exploring the room Bjorn bumped into a large invisible object in the northeast corner. Activating True Sight from the Djed Amulet revealed the object to be a life sized hyper realistic golden statue of a human male in Imperial field plate armor. They transported the statue to the villa via the rug and continued their exploration.
Returning to the arboretum and going south they found a large room with a low dais on which sat a heavy grey plasteel chair with wide armrests. Resting in the chair was the skeleton of a rudishva in a blue jumpsuit. Placed in the floor in an oval around the chair are twenty-five five foot tall podiums, each formed from an iron bar and a grey plasteel console. The walls were of black granite, inset with chips of yellow crystal in a pattern of sorts. On the body they found a silver and a yellow Captain’s ID card. Experimentation showed that one of the glyph buttons on the armrest of the chair caused the screens to show seven different scenes, including a cryogenic storage area, a weapons locker, the engine room, the bridge, a bio-containment unit, a shuttle bay, and a ziggurat around which many Heqeti went about their blasphemous business.
Returning to the room with the large black view screen they proceeded through the southern iris door with the newly acquired yellow ID card. Beyond was a passage with six lizardmen who drew their weapons but seemed keen to avoid a fight with the obviously powerful and more numerous party. They conversed with the oars in broken Archontean and said they lived near the Drowned Canyon, and expressed interest in having the party kill a giant eel that had been vexing their people. After giving the party an amulet that would mark them as a friend to any other lizardmen they met they continued on their way.
They found a group of three adventurers that been killed and looted, but the bodies still contained two scrolls. Moving north they found forty foot tall vaulted chamber studded with three foot diameter pedestals that varied in height from two to ten feet. Projecting from the walls at varying heights from ten to thirty-five feet were stone ledges. An enormous mural of an attacking winged biped was painted across the ceiling. A narrow passage led west to two Rudishva teleport nodes while an iris door led west to the room with the large viewscreens. The party moved northeast down a passage with two sets of stairs. Beyond an oval stone door they saw a large octagonal chamber. A huge varuda statue some twenty feet tall stood to the northeast, crouching on its powerful legs and with wings cocked in a halo above its head. Along the northwest wall was a three foot tall semi-circular pool filled with clear water. Wide passages led north and southeast and doors led west and south. The corpses of four dwarven explorers lay battered and smashed on the floor of the otherwise smooth and dust-free plaza.
As the party entered the chamber the large statue began to move towards them. Coco prepared to present the bones of Jaken the Proud but the statue emitted an ear-piercing scream which paralyzed Bjorn, Scylla, Coco, and Julia. Everyone else charged the state which began trading blows with Kormak while everyone else missed. The statue screamed again, this time dealing sonic damage to the party before a flurry of blows took it down. The recovered a magical pick from the dwarf corpses and determined that the pool was magical but the water was not. Returning back to Lankios’ basement they went to the villa to nurse their wounds and get items identified.
R.I.P.:
None
Foes defeated:
One giant lizard
Ten surprisingly tough zombies
Giant Varuda statue