The Scarlet Son

The adventure continues at the Pathfinder society just outside of the Center.  The Chosen have been there a couple of weeks waiting for the Pathfinders to find out more about the prophecy regarding the Yarafad-reborn nascent demon lord.

They are called to the Pathfinder society and informed that although there is nothing new in terms of the prophecy, there have been troubling reports of followers of Choranus being murdered in the southern city of Magnamar, which could just be coincidence, but could also be related to recent events. 

The Chosen are asked to travel to Magnamar and investigate, but first to stop at a small orphanage on the south side of the Center to visit with Aralis, the proprietor of the orphanage who is a follower of Choranus, and whose brother recently made a pilgrimage to Magnamar and who has not been heard from since.  They also caution the Chosen to be on the lookout for some sort of powerful being that could be a shell for the reincarnated Yarafad.

The Chosen visit the orphanage and find Aralis to be a kind, 40-something woman who has quite a handful at the orphanage, as the orphanage contains mostly mutants and half-breeds; the kind of children are not really welcome at normal orphanages and who have no real chance of ever being adopted.  There is for instance a half-Minotaur toddler (named “Gorag”) running around and ramming into things, and Aralis herself is holding a baby, that while human in shape, has half of its head (top down across the nose) covered in green scales (“the sweetest baby named Tamenth”), who is smiling at her with big gums and is one of those babies that is so ugly it’s cute

She tells them pretty much what they already knew – that her brother Lendik went on a pilgrimage to the city of Magnamar to take a Dawnwalk (a ritual walk just before dawn along the waterfront), and never came back.  Now, with reports of Choranus followers being murdered in the streets during Dawnwalk, she’s concerned that he may be one of the victims.

The Chosen (less Trinity and Theon, who are currently in a Center prison after raising a ruckus at a local tavern) travel to Magnamar and track down the local town hall where they are introduced to Kasadei, the law officer involved in hunting down the killer.  She tells them there was first a disappearance of a travelling priestess of Choranus, followed by a grisly murder of a Choranus Dawnwalker every week or two after that (the victims’ hearts were cut out), for a total of 4 murders so far.

She explains to the Chosen that she would like to set a trap in what they believe is a likely next spot, using one of them as the bait (none of the guards are competent enough) – pretending to be a Dawnwalker.  The Chosen agree, and since it is early in the morning they have all day to prepare.

They first go to the local Order of Choranus, who are initially skeptical of the Chosen, but once they find out this is the group that actually freed Choranus they are much more forthcoming.  The Order tells them:

-        The first victim that disappeared was a travelling Choranus priestess named “Zadendi”.  She went for a Dawnwalk, disappeared, and is presumed dead.

-        The other 4 victims were simple followers, and while the Order has been discouraging locals from taking Dawnwalks until the murderer is captured, as Magnimar is a common location for pilgrims to travel to, many are still taking Dawnwalks simply due to ignorance of the murders.

-        The Order confirms that the first victim was Aralis’ brother Lendik

-        The group also mentions that almost a century ago, a Priest of Choranus and a couple of his followers built a shrine down in the southern portion of the city (called “the Shadow”, as it is perpetually in darkness as it is located under a large bridge, and is a very bad part of town), but they were quickly murdered by thugs and the shrine was abandoned

-        Necromancers were hired to speak to the dead bodies, but little info was gained about their murders, other than there was an eerie absolute silence just before they were killed, and one of them briefly saw a knife that had a white feather dipped in blood on the handle.  (Florence recognizes this as the symbol of the Demon Lord Shax –Lord of Lies and Murder)

The Order offers them some robes of Choranus and advice on how to move like someone on a Dawnwalk, and after some discussion Emrys is selected as the bait, while the rest of the Chosen decide where they are going to hide/wait on rooftops and alleyways.

As they have some additional time to kill before dawn, they go to the taverns to try and get some more information from the locals.  They hear some stories about scratching noises on the roof, flapping sounds, and one guy who even experienced absolute silence in his house, just inside his front door.  It eventually went away, and when he opened the door he found one of the dead bodies.  One homeless and very drunk dwarf told the group that he saw something flying southward through the air one night carrying a body, and it seemed to land somewhere down in the Shadow part of the city.

(NOTE:  This week's adventure only had one battle, but it was EPIC.  My description below simply cannot capture the complexity and fun involved in the 2+ hr encounter.)

Once dawn approaches, the group heads to the suspected murder site and set up their ambush.  Emrys begins Dawnwalking around a couple of city blocks, with the rest of the Chosen on the inside of his route – Desna and Remy on a rooftop keeping watch, and the rest hidden in a courtyard behind a fence below.  Additionally, Emrys has Florence’s familiar Joey in his pocket, with whom Florence is now able to telepathically communicate.

After a couple of circuits, Emrys notices a stone gargoyle on a rooftop in the Northwest of his circuit that was not there previously.  He taps Joey, who communicates to Florence that something is up, and the Chosen begin focusing on moving to the Northwest – Desna stays on the roof, Remy climbs down and starts circling around from the Southwest, while the rest of the Chosen cross the street and start working their way West from the North side of the street.

Thanks to Emrys’ heightened awareness, he notices a figure approach him from behind , and turns to throw a stone pre-loaded with a light spell at the figure, just as she’s throwing a stone at Emrys that is pre-loaded with silence.  It is evident now that the attacker is a woman with short red hair, wearing leather armor and carrying a dagger.  The two begin to fight as the rest of the Chosen try to move in (or attack remotely), and the gargoyle leaps off the roof and attempts to pick up the attacker and flee.  Unfortunately, the gargoyle rolls a 1, misses, and lands instead in the middle of the melee.

The next round, the gargoyle successfully is able to pick up the attacker and start to fly up and away, but Florence unleashes the Griffon Sphinx of Wondrous Power, who is able to catch up and grapple the gargoyle (causing the attacker to fall 30 feet to the ground).  For the next few rounds, the Griffon Sphinx and Gargoyle continue to grapple, with the Gargoyle taking shots at the Griffon Sphinx, but nothing much else happens.

Back on the ground, multiple Chosen have surrounded the attacker and are doing a number on her, but the spellcasters are a bit tied up due to the silence stone.  At some point the attacker calls up a mist that obscures everyone’s vision, except Remy’s, as he has climbed up on the roof of a building and is jumping and swinging at the gargoyle.

Eventually Florence runs up and throws the silence stone into the mist towards the melee, preventing the attacker from casting more spells and allowing Chosen spellcasters to cast spells (no Chosen spellcasters were in the melee at this point).  The Chosen then fundamentally switch tactics to non-lethal damage on the attacker (while she continues to unsuccessfully try and escape) in order to capture her.  This is ultimately successful, when Ang gets a hold of her and just punches her into oblivion.

Ang then joins Remy on the rooftop at the same time that the Griffon Sphinx maneuvers the gargoyle onto the roof of the building, allowing Ang and Remy to full-on attack the Gargoyle until he is dead.

The local guards show up just after the battle (surprise), and they take the attacker back to the town hall.  The Chosen are allowed to interrogate the attacker (who is not very forthcoming), while Kasadei sends for the Order of Choranus.  During interrogation, Ang accidentally knocks the attacker out again, and by the time she comes to the Choranus priests have shown up, and are shocked to see that the attacker is the priest of Choranus (Zadendi) who went missing just before the murders started.

The priests beg the Chosen not to beat her any more, as they would like to investigate in their own way and potentially return her back to the light.  Florence casts “Blood Biography” on Zadendi, and receives the following information to these questions (which are automatically asked by the spell):

-          Who are you?  Zadendi

-          What are you?  A worshipper of Shax

-          How was your blood shed?  By the Chosen

-          When was your blood shed?  Just a few hours ago.  And before.

Not a whole lot there, so they retrieve the body of the Gargoyle, and Florence casts the spell on him also:

-          Who are you?  The Scarlet Son

-          What are you?  Half Gargoyle/Half Fiend

-          How was your blood shed?  By the Chosen

-          When was your blood shed?  Just a few hours ago.

Florence recognizes the name “Scarlet Son” from some of the histories and prophecies regarding the Chosen as a major assassin used by previous nascent Demon Lords.  The Scarlet Son was banished back to the Abyss hundreds of years ago and not heard of since.

The Chosen agree to let the Order interrogate Zadendi in their own way, and decide they want to investigate the southern part of the city in the meantime, to see where the gargoyle may have been taking Zadendi back to.  The main decision they need to make is whether they are going to sleep first and recover their spells and energy, or head down right away while it’s still light outside.

To be Continued…

The Time Has Come

The adventure continues in Dexin, where the group is preparing to go to Yarafad’s lair and rescue Choranus.  Trinity has caught back up with the group, so they head back to the Temple of Choranus to pick up the head priest, who leads them uneventfully to the foot of Yarafad’s lair in the mountains to the northeast.  He leaves them partway up the mountain at the foot of a large stairway, where he provides them 3 scrolls of Protection from Evil and information about a phrase that might be helpful to the group – “The time has come”.

The group then proceeds up the rest of the stairway to an inverted pyramid that is carved out of the mountain.  

Standing guard at the opening to the pyramid are 2 Minotaurs who see the group, but do not really seem to care much.

After some small talk in Giant, Florence says “The time has come”.  The Minotaurs respond by knocking an odd series of knocks on the door and then leave – literally just walking right by the group and heading down the stairs.

The group is trying to decide how to handle this when the door opens and a monstrous Minotaur comes out.  He says in Giant – “You Chosen – the time has come”, and then proceeds to attack them with his great axe.

The group defeats him and heads in to the room.  Theon, during the process of decapitation, notices that the Minotaur has a black pearl for one of his eyes and takes it.

The room is clearly the Minotaur’s room; there is a large sleeping pallet in the northeast corner, a huge maze painted on the north wall, a chest near the southeast corner, and a large Minotaur statue in the northwest corner holding a hammer.

It is observed that the statue has no eyes (just sockets), and the black pearl from the Minotaur outside fits perfectly.  They surmise that another pearl is needed, and that it will be in the chest.

The group discovers that there is a trap on the chest that will launch a javelin at them, which they are able to disable, and a second trap that will activate a magical fire in a large cone.  The group votes Remy to deactivate it, since he has the Ring of Torag (helps to absorb fire and reduce fire damage).  He opens the trap from behind it, which was a good – although futile – idea, since the trap was in the wall behind the chest.

The ring absorbs the damage though and amongst the treasures the group finds a black pearl ring.

They pop off the pearl and stick it in the other eye of the statue, which activates it.  The statue turns and starts smashing the wall behind it, opening a hole large enough for the group to move through, then turns back to stone (including the black pearl eyes, unfortunately).

The room behind appears to be a dusty old dining room,

with nothing of note in it other than a spiral stairway heading to the second floor.  The group heads up.

At the top of the stairs is a long landing to the west which leads to a door to the south.

The group opens the door to find a nice sitting room with comfortable chairs and some end tables with pitchers of healing potion in it.  

(It is surprising to me that no one speculated that pitchers of healing potion might be a bad omen for what was about to happen.)  There is plain door to the south and a black door to the west with gold speckles throughout.

The group heads through the black door,

behind which is a room with 6 hanging practice dummies (casting lots of shadows from the torches), 

and 3 mirrors with large diamonds at the top of each (North, East, and South walls).  Almost immediately, Remy is the victim of a Magic Jar spell cast by a Shadow Demon,

which sends his soul into one of the gems (the East gem).  The shadow demon possesses Remy’s body and slams Emrys into the wall.  A few of the group aren’t in the room yet and don’t notice, a few have entered and confront Remy, and Trinity just quietly starts prying the North diamond off of the mirror.

Remy begins attacking the group, who then try (at varying levels of success) to hurt/grapple Remy (including an arrow to the shoulder).  Remy (the Shadow Demon) even tells them at this point that they need to kill him or destroy the jar, or he’s going to kill them all.

(Note:  When the priest of Choranus gave the group the scrolls of Protection from Evil, someone asked what they did, and Ryan mentioned that they prevent various mind/spirit type attacks from evil creatures.  I was hoping someone would remember this and cast one on Remy to kick out the Shadow Demon.  Alternately, had someone performed various knowledge or spellcraft checks, especially once the phrase “jar” had been uttered, the group almost certainly would have learned that destroying the jar would have released Remy back into his body.  It was actually a complete coincidence that Remy was standing next to the Jar diamond (the one on the East wall) when he was possessed; it was just a die roll, but I assume that would have been the one the group would have destroyed.)

Once the group has subdued Remy (and Trinity has popped off the first diamond, breaking her dagger in the process),

the Shadow returns Remy’s spirit to his body and casts a Deeper Darkness spell, bringing the room to an almost complete unnatural darkness, and telepathically whispers “the time has come” in the group’s ears.  Most of the group decides to bail at this point, although Trinity decides the darkness is a good cover for popping off the other 2 diamonds.  Desna and Ang stay in the room with her, while the rest of the group heads out and through the south door (thinking everyone came out with them).

Through the south door is a library, with an old librarian sitting at a desk on the south wall.

He looks up thoughtfully at the group and says “You’re here for it, aren’t you?”  The group responds “Yes”, and follows up with “The time has come”.  The old man nods knowingly, picks up his old lantern and hobbles over to the east wall, where he smashes the lamp on the wall, setting the closest bookshelf on fire.  The group responds quickly with a water spell that saves the bookshelf.  However, the fire was not put out before the old man steps back into the fire, says “The time has come”, and his skin melts off to reveal a huge fire elemental.

Meanwhile, back on the ranch, the Shadow demon has cast a Wall of Ice in the doorway,

trapping Trinity, Ang, and Desna.  Luckily the Shadow rolled very poorly and Trinity didn’t notice how close to death she came while popping off the East wall diamond.  At this point, Florence uses a sonic spell to shatter the ice wall (Note: people seemed surprised that such a thick wall could be shattered so easily, but it was actually a shadow conjuration, so it was 80% weaker than normal, making it fairly easy to break), and Desna used her Spiritual Weapon to start firing at the Shadow Demon.

In the library, a battle has ensued with the Fire elemental.  During this battle, Desna’s Spiritual weapon does some damage to the Shadow Demon, which, being incorporeal, the demon is not used to, so he teleports to the library, unexpectedly appearing basically next to a living fireball, which greatly weakens him.  The group then quickly finishes off both the Fire Elemental and the Shadow Demon.  The library seems to have lots of random books and scrolls (ship captain logs, tax records, etc.), but upon closer inspection many of them have prophetic insertions that seem to mention “The Chosen” a lot.  The group realizes this is a task for the Pathfinders, and focuses more on the usable scrolls they find (Excruciating Disfigurement, Analyze Dweomer, Waves of Ecstacy, and Create Treasure Map).  Also, there is an accounting of the 3 diamonds from the Shadow room by the Monster Hunter, to make sure that Trinity hasn’t accidentally taken one without telling them.

The group then goes through a door to the west, to find a long passageway leading up to the third level.  As they are climbing the stairway, Emrys notices a small device in the wall which when activated opens a secret door behind the stairway.  The group goes through to find a long passageway that is essentially an art gallery,

with many paintings of a grand wizard in battle (presumed to be Yarafad), demons, demon lords, Choranus in pain, etc.  They avoid a trap that would drop them out of the bottom of the pyramid and at the end of the hallway a beautiful archway appears for a few moments that Florence is able to associate with Choranus.

A few of the group (Remy, Theon, and Ang) walk under it before it disappears, giving them True Sight for the next few hours (although they did not notice anything at this point).

They then take the stairway up into what is essentially an arena - sand floor and cheering crowd (sound only),

with a cage for monsters in the southeast and a viewing platform on the south wall (some people notice a large figure watching from the platform, but it’s hard to see details.  There is also a large puddle of blood in the middle of the arena.  Those with True-Seeing can see a massive amount of magical symbols all over the walls and ceiling.

A big-ass Manticore comes out of the cage and attacks,

but he’s taken out pretty quickly.  During that fight, the pool of blood congeals into a man-like shape – a blood golem – and also attacks the group,

but is also taken out fairly quickly.  At this point, the figure on the platform ascends some stairs in the east wall.  In the Manticore cage the group finds some small treasure and a +1 Ring of Protection.

The group climbs to the platform and up the stairs, to the roof of the inverted pyramid.  They see a door to the North, into the mountain, and a small room that sits on the top of the pyramid.  They enter through the door and find Choranus, chained to poles as seen in both the temple basement and the art gallery below, shaven and bloody.  They also see a throne on the south wall with a large demon sitting on it, and a chest next to the throne.  Those with True-Seeing can see that there is actually a crippled wizard sitting on the shoulders of a Nabasu demon,

and as the wizard realizes the gig is up right away, he has the demon set him on the throne and speaks to the group.

In a nutshell, Yarafad tells them that he has been crippled his whole life (surprisingly, no one brings up the art below that shows Yarafad in grand warrior fashion – clearly some artistic license was taken there), and was basically approached by demons at a young age to help him get back at those who tortured him for being a cripple.  He then makes demonology the study of his life, getting stronger and stronger, to the point where he even began travelling abyssal planes and met once with a Demon Lord.

It was even demons that showed him how to make the shackles that hold Choranus.

At some point in his life, he discovered there was a large amount of prophecy regarding him and his ascension to power, and became a collector, trying to understand the future.  Through this prophecy, he came to know that the group would come to his lair on this day to free Choranus, and this would be the day he would die.  At this point he seems a little confused, analyzes the group, then asks Desna “Are you the Archer or the Healer?”, to which Desna responds “Both”.  Yarafad is not happy with this answer, but decides whatever his issue is, it’s not worth pursuing.

He tells the group that the keys to unlocking Choranus are in the chest next to him, and that by opening the chest, they will kill him, which he seems oddly ok with.  The group opens the chest, and there is a maelstrom of wind in the room, basically forming a mini-tornado.  Half of the wind comes from Yarafad himself, which is a black smoke, and the other half comes from the chest, which is a white smoke.

The smokes whirl rapidly around each other, until they blend into a grey smoke ball, which starts bouncing around the room.  Those with True-Seeing can also see that the entire room is completely coated in magical runes (similar to the arena, but much more dense), as well as lots of lines and angles that meet at specific nexuses.

The Nabasu demon

walks under a point in the ceiling with the most dense nexus of lines, and strikes upward with his weapon, breaking a huge hole in the ceiling and releasing the smoke ball to go shooting into the night.  The demon then turns to the group and says in Abyssal – “Master says you are the Chosen, and I’m not to hurt the Chosen”, and then he disappears.

In the chest, the group finds the key to unlock Choranus and a scroll.  They unlock Choranus from her binds, but initially she is fairly unresponsive.  They open the scroll to find an ancient text stating:

The time has come…

The blood is spilled

The Chosen are marked

All Hail the Chosen

The time has come…

The child is born

The Lord is released

All Fear the Chosen

The time has come…

Geysers of blood will cover you

Screams of the innocent will haunt you

All Praise the Chosen…. and despair

The group at this point notices that all of them have a strange green marking/tattoo encircling their left ring fingers (kindof like a Celtic Knot).  Despite anyone’s best efforts, these marks seem permanent.

Once they are done reading, Choranus is back in action.  She’s clean, hair’s back, etc., but she indicates to the group that something’s just not right.  All she can do to repay them for freeing her is to give them a diamond with a Wish in it – to use the wish they just need to break open the diamond.  Then she vanishes.

The group leaves the room and heads through the door in the mountain, which is basically just a winding passageway back down to the base of the pyramid.  They find the priest of Choranus there as well as some Pathfinders, whom the priest summoned when the group went into the Pyramid.

The Pathfinders collect all of the books and scrolls from the Library, and everyone heads back to the main Pathfinder headquarters on the eastern side of the Center.  It takes a couple of weeks of analysis before the Pathfinders have anything to share with the group.  In trying to transcribe and link the different prophecies, it seems that the following has been determined (some of this is historical/known information to give context):

-          Demons are not created; rather they are born by the spirits of evil beings when they die.  The type and magnitude of the evil determine the demon (i.e. A lustful man or woman might turn into an Incubus or Succubus)

-          In rare cases, someone is evil enough that they might become a nascent Demon Lord (the difference between a nascent Demon Lord and an actual one being the amount of Abyssal land and armies they own.)

-          Yarafad was evil enough that his spirit would create a nascent Demon Lord.  Additionally, his spirit was combined with hundreds of years of Choranus’ suffering (which was captured in the chest), so the combined evil and suffering probably created the most powerful nascent Demon Lord yet.

-          Something unusual happened during his death though – due to the magical runes surrounding the room where he died, his spirit was unable to enter the Abyss.  This caused the nascent Demon Lord to stay in the Material Plane.  The breaking of the seals on the room by the Nabasu demon allowed the spirit to flee and find a body to inhabit.

-          This has happened in the past a couple of times before, and each time the Demon Lord was driven back to the Abyss by a collection of heroes referred to as the Chosen.

-          It appears this situation is unusual in that the term Chosen is also referred to by the bad guys as the group that would release Yarafad’s spirit when the Time Had Come, so it seems for the first time in history, the good Chosen and the bad Chosen are the same people.

-          There seem to be two specific wildcards in the prophecies.  The first is that there seems to be something unusual about the body that will be (already is?) inhabited by the new Demon Lord.  Historically, the basic human-ness of the body put a limitation on the Demon Lord’s power, helping to level the playing field with the Chosen.  Something seems different about this body that may prevent this limitation, although they have not been able to track that down yet.

-          The other wildcard is an apparent missing Chosen.  The Pathfinders, similarly to Yarafad, analyze the group and eventually ask Desna if she is the Archer or the Healer (to which she again replies “both”).  While this didn’t seem to bother Yarafad too much, the Pathfinders have a specific passage where the Archer hands something to the Healer, indicating that they must be two separate people.  The prophecies clearly state that “The Chosen were there from the beginning”, so it’s unclear who might be the missing Chosen.

The Pathfinders will continue to do research to clarify the prophecies, but in the meantime there is some bad news about problems in the southern city of Magnamar that might be related to the Chosen and their upcoming quest to banish the new Demon Lord they have set upon the world.

To be Continued…

All That Glitters Is Not Gold (And Can Be Worth More In A Fight)

The adventure continues at the campground where Ang has disappeared.  The group has determined that he was most likely taken by the priests of Choranus, and tracking efforts show that whoever took him went in the direction of the Choranus settlement.  Although their initial plans were to update Assint, they decide they should get Ang back before going to him with the bad news about coming up empty-handed at the Ossirian temple.  At this point, a monster hunter named Theon joins up with the group.

As the group will learn, Theon has a thing for decapitation

He informs the Inquisitor that he is needed back at his order.  The Inquisitor joyfully leaves and is never heard from again.

They head to the Choranus settlement, which is oddly empty, and follow the tracks into the main temple where they had previously met the head priest.  In his office is a note that Ang is down in the basement, waiting to be rescued, but it will not be easy and they will need strong hearts and minds.  Much of the group is of the opinion that the priests are probably evil.

Ang is probably not even getting coffee

They enter the basement and follow a long tunnel, in which they meet up with a group of 10 Lemure demons.  

Lemure Demon - lowest on the Abyssal totem pole

Remy is able to drive 5 of them off through intimidation in the Abyssal language, and the other 5 are disposed of reasonably easily.  Many in the group feel that cavorting with demons is a sure sign the priests are evil.

The group then continues until they reach a large hexagonal room, with 5 doors (one on each wall; they’ve entered through door #3).

Map for planning - high art indeed

The 6^th wall contains a realistic painting of a beautiful woman (identified as the deity Choranus), who is horizontally chained to 4 posts by long chains, and has a massive look of anguish and despair on her face.  (No picture of her; for some reason all of my searches for women chained to poles didn't quite pan out the way I planned...)

In the background is some sort of magic soundtrack of her weeping and/or screaming in agony.  Most of the group is now under the impression that the priests of Choranus are actually torturing her and are super-evil.

The group enters the first door to their left and follows this pathway to a large cavernous room that contains a Xill.  

Xill - 3 swords and a poisonous claw

They defeat the Xill after a reasonably long and difficult battle, and discover a chain on its neck holding some sort of metal object.  The monster hunter is happy to remove the necklace by removing the entire head (for his collection).

Unsure of what this object is, they head back to the room with the painting, only to find it has changed, now with the Xill in the picture, slicing into her legs with his short swords and draining her blood.  The screaming soundtrack seems to reflect this new agony.  Now, not only is the majority of the group sure that the priests are super-duper evil, but they are concerned that their actions may possibly be causing the torture.  Florence is the one member who vocally questions this conclusion and believes it may be the task of the group to rescue this damsel in distress (in addition to Ang).

They decide to traverse the next doorway to their left, which takes them to a similar cavernous room, this time containing a Manticore (which promptly buries a tail spike in Theon from across the room).

At least it's a happy Manticore

Zambo casts glitter on the Manticore,

Suck it, Mariah Carey

blinding it, which allows many in the group to safely approach the beast.  Although the Manticore eventually gains it sight back, the group finishes him off pretty handily.  They find another necklace with a metal piece on the Manticore’s tail, and Theon once again takes the head.

Back at the hexagon room, the painting is updated to show the Manticore burying several spikes in Choranus’ side, causing profuse bleeding.  Remy is filled with despair and doesn’t function so well for next hour or so.  

Remy fails his Will save

They head to the next door to their left, on the other side of the painting, and head down the hallway.  This time, Emrys disovers a trap at the end of the hallway that opens a trap door in the floor onto some spikes.  

Score one for high Perception

They avoid this trap and enter the room, where they find 2 Minotaurs who promptly charge them.  

Ferdinand he ain't

Using a well thought-out strategy for once, Florence casts her grease spell in the middle of the room,

It's the word

Zambo casts glitter on them, and Emrys casts an obscuring fog spell.  The net result is 2 Minotaurs in the grease, one that has fallen and another that is blind.  They die reasonably quickly after this.  There is a third metal object on a necklace and another head removal.

They head back to the hex room to find the painting has magically morphed once again to a Minotaur burying its great axe into Choranus’ back.  They take the last door and follow the pathway to a smaller room that contains 6 Quasits,

Quasits are small, but mean!

who immediately turn invisible.  Thanks to some lucky bow shooting and another glitter spell, the group quickly knocks off the demons, including one that polymorphed into a caterpillar and was subsequently eaten by a summoned eagle.

Sorry, Heimlich

Thankfully, the metal object was not on the eaten Quasit, and after a requisite decapitation the 4 metal pieces are able to be pieced together into an oddly shaped key.

I want this complicated of a key for Miriam's new car

Back at the hex room, they find the painting has morphed into one where a Quasit is hovering in front of Choranus, with one talon embedded into her eye.  After a moment, the paining melts away as if rain were pouring on it, and a new painting appears as if painted by a million small brushes.  The new painting is the original one of Choranus when they first entered the room.  There is a clicking noise and a magically concealed door opens under the deity.

The group enters this new room, which contains a jail cell cage and a stairway in the back.  Ang is inside the cage, which can be opened with the strange key.  The group can’t wait to get their hands on (and weapons buried into) the head priest, but Ang indicates that the Choranus priests are ok (at which point Desna seems ready to declare him traitor and off him).  The head priest comes down the stairs and explains to the group that kidnapping Ang was the only way they could think of to get the group to the temple to see the suffering that Choranus has been going through for hundreds of years.

Mayans - too cool for calendars with cute cats

She had been captured by Yarafad and imprisoned as a never-ending blood supply as she heals back to new each day, and Yarafad uses this blood supply to help in the creation of things like Yarafad’s box (and presumably other evil machinations).  The priest asks the group to rescue Choranus from Yarafad, and after some discussion they accept. (Although the priests have nothing worthwhile, the line “You’ll be rescuing a goddess that has been tortured for hundreds of years.  She’ll probably do something nice for you” seems to sway them heavily.)

It turns out the priests do have some worthwhile items for the group, as cold iron bypasses the damage reduction of many demons (and Yarafad will probably have a few of those) – a cold iron longsword, some cold-iron tipped arrows, and even some cold iron ingots that can be used to coat a couple of other items (namely Theon’s great sword and Ang’s giant flail).

It helps that Theon is also a blacksmith

The group returns first to Dexin to fill in Assint on the desert adventure as well as to regroup before heading to Yarafad’s lair.  There is also a Pathfinder there waiting for an update, and between Assint and the Pathfinder, the group is able to sell their items and historical gatherings for a large sum of money that will be essential in helping them prepare for their next adventure.  Assint is not so forth-coming about paying for Ang’s rescue, however.  (“You’re the ones that lost him”).

Once prepared, the group plans to pick up the head priest of Choranus, who will lead them to Yarafad’s lair in the mountains to the Northeast.

I'm sure Yarafad's mountain will have more flowers

To be continued…

The Sands of Eternity (conclusion)

The adventure continues in the emperor’s pyramid in the desert.  Just after the group discovers a secret door out of the wives’ room (12), the paladin Titanus appears.  She has been teleported in by Zambo’s order to give him an urgent message to return, and gives him a Teleport scroll he is to use.  Zambo reads the scroll - not realizing it has an area effect meant to bring Titanus back with him - and Zambo, Trinity, and Thelieth all disappear (leaving the paladin behind).  Titanus decides to continue on with the group for a short while before heading back through the desert (after all, what could go wrong?)

Behind the secret door is a short hallway (12h) that leads to a dead end, which is quickly determined to have another secret door.  The group enters that door  into a room that is clearly the emperor’s room (18) – lots of loot, fancy sarcophagus and coffin, hieroglyphs, the emperor himself (somewhat mummified although still in pretty good shape after 8,000 years), and a mummified sphinx pet.

Lacking anyone with high Charisma (ahem), Remy does his best to butter up the pharaoh (there is some unknown magic involved that allows translation), but things do not go so well.  The pharaoh demands they prostrate themselves before “the Immortal God”, and a certain cleric will have none of it (“There’s no reasoning with the undead”).  Having identified Remy as the first person to enter the pyramid, the emperor has his pet mummy sphinx attack.

A battle ensues and after some hijinxes (which include eagles crashing to the ground in fright and the paladin simultaneously taking massive damage, being cursed, and contracting a disease), the sphinx and emperor are killed.  The emperor turns to dust, leaving behind a Hand of Glory with a Ring of Translation (Osirian) on it, and amongst what turns out to be several thousands of GP worth of various types of loot (including a cursed periapt, and a hieroglyph summoning statue), is a journal written by the emperor (Sekh-Ma-Pefer III).

In the journal is a description of waking after his burial, the realization that his memory of the process for eternal life is completely fried from the mummification process, and then lots of rage towards the living – a rage so strong that it actually animates all of the dead that were buried with him to accompany him in the afterlife.  So the quest itself was basically set up for failure from the start.  Remy has the idea that the group can give the journal to Ang’s father, but charge him up the wazoo for the Ring of Translation. (This conversation happens out of Ang’s hearing.)

The group decides that due to the massive amount of loot (much of which is heavy), as well as the historical significance of the pyramid, they’re just going to call in the Pathfinders to clean up after them.

There is a massive door to the east that is locked and no one seems to be able to force it or pick it (ahem), so they head back around to the long hallway heading north (16).  A secret door is found about halfway down the west wall, with 5 different sphinxes on buttons on it.  The group determines that the right order needs to be pressed to open the door, with the wrong order activating a trap.  They decide to keep moving north for now.

There is a door a little further up the west wall that leads into a room (15) with 4 obelisks near each corner and a golden circle inscribed on the floor.  They are able to determine from clues in the room that each obelisk is tied to an elemental type (fire, water, air, and earth), and also find a panel in the back of the fire obelisk.  When the fire obelisk is touched to open the panel (which contains a 1-time use gem of summoning a fire elemental), a fire elemental appears in the circle.

The elemental seems to treat the circle as a container at first, but after a little prodding at the edges realizes that any containment magic the circle might have one had is now gone and he attacks.  The group eventually defeats him, but they get pretty beaten up, and decide touching any other obelisks is a bad idea. (The complete opposite becomes true a little later…)

They head back north in the long hallway and come to a T with a door to the west and a room to the east (13), where they can see several skeleton archers in a couple of chariots who are thankfully all looking in the wrong direction.

The group decides they’re just too beaten up and head back to Sekh-Pa-Mefer’s tomb room to camp for the night.  Thanks to a couple of droughts of Potion of Restoration, the Periapt of Healing, and some healing skill and spell use, Titanus is brought back to tip-top shape.

When they wake in the morning, they discover the 4-armed bloody skeleton has been reanimated and they have to beat him up again.  

They do so, and continue back to the room with the skeleton archers (who are still looking in the wrong direction).  Desna lets fly a Channel Energy spell that drops them all in one fell swoop, and Titanus decides at this point he’s dallied too long and heads back out into the desert.

The group enters the room to the west (14), where they encounter the emperor’s Huntsman and his pet mummified leopard.

(I couldn't find a mummified leopard, so I settled for a mummified cougar)

They drop these 2 quickly and head back through the chariot room, and down the subsequent hallway, which leads to the northern concealed door they found in the very beginning.  They go into that room (6) and start heading to the open doorway to the west.

This room (7) is a sanctuary with lots of hieroglyphs, small rooms (8) to the north and south with statues of Ra and Set (in the base of the Ra statue they find a scroll of Searing Light), and a huge fake granite door to the west with lots of hieroglyphs on it.  Using the Ring of Translation they are able to tell that most of these represent prayers for the emperor’s journey to the afterlife, but there is one section that functions as a Remove Curse scroll.  (If only they’d have walked through that open door at the beginning...)

They also discover that the fake door actually conceals a secret door.  After they go through it (9), they are attacked by a mummy that is supposed to look an awful lot like the emperor (in a room that is supposed to look an awful lot like the emperor’s burial chamber.  

The group realizes that this whole setup was supposed to trick tomb robbers).  He is ultimately defeated, but not before he drops Remy to the ground for the count.  Desna patches up Remy and the group discovers most of the loot in the room is just gold-plated nonsense (and very heavy) and probably not worth a whole lot (again, a job for the Pathfinders).  They do discover that the mummy was wearing an Amulet of Mighty Fists, which clearly played a part in the massive damage done to Remy in just a couple of rounds.

Of note on the back of the false granite door is a series of 5 different animals, which correspond to the sphinxes on the secret door buttons found earlier.  (If only they’d have walked through that open door at the beginning...)  The group heads back there (16) and presses the buttons in the correct order, opening the secret door.

Inside (17) is a narrow but long room with the big door that they couldn't get open from the emperor’s room, and 2 statues of Anubis that promptly attack them.

The group hits the statues several times and rolls lots of damage – none of which seem to effect the statues, so running is deemed a good idea (especially since Florence has cast a grease spell in front of the door that buys them some time).

Remy and Desna decide the best course of action is to run into the elemental room (15), and if followed by the statues, start hitting the obelisks to summon the three remaining elementals that will then kill the statues.  Miraculously, this plan works, although slightly differently than planned as only one elemental may be summoned at a time (even though the same elemental type can be summoned over and over).

So basically the group hides behind the obelisks and eat popcorn while Desna slaps the Earth obelisk over and over, watching the 2 Anubis statues fight a series of Earth elementals.

The third Earth elemental is able to finish off the statues, but is hurt enough that the group can finish him off easily and leave the room.

Having determined they've cleared out the pyramid, the group heads back through the desert (leaving behind only a recently reanimated 4-armed bloody skeleton).  They exit the desert and start heading back to Dexin to give Assint the bad news.  One night after camping, the group wakes to find Ang is missing.  Near where he was on watch, they find the word “box” scrawled in the dirt.

A large discussion ensues; at first the group thinks Ang has run off, but nothing is missing (and in fact his stuff is still there), so they realize he has been kidnapped.  They decide the word “box” must be referring to Yarafad’s Box.  Ideas thrown out as possibilities are Rhalabhast of Many-Eyes (deemed not likely), Nekros the Grotesque (reasonable possibility), the Order of Choranus (they did declare themselves enemies, after all), and even whatever was in the box (maybe Rhalabhast didn’t feed it properly and it escaped?  But why would it take Ang?)  In any case, the group decides to head back to Assint and tell him both about their lack of information on Eternal Life and the kidnapping of his son.

Desna is especially torn up about telling Ang’s father of the kidnapping – “Now we can't pull the trick about the journal and the translation ring, cuz that would be tacky".

To be continued…