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…

8/10/2014 - The Sands of Eternity

The adventure continues in Dexin, after Assint (Ang’s father) puts the angel and demon statues together to a flash of light.  Once the light dies down, Remy is standing there, having just been teleported back from his Magus headquarters.  The statues themselves do not seem to have done anything, although Assint informs the group that there indeed was an impact elsewhere. 

Assint tells the group of finding a historical manuscript long ago as a Pathfinder which was very difficult to translate, but eventually indicated that a ruler ~8K years ago, through his friendships with certain local magical creatures, was taught the secret to eternal life.  His plan was to resurrect from his burial tomb as an immortal, benevolent ruler over his people, but a group that found this very unnatural locked the tomb up magically and separated the key into 2 parts – the 2 status pieces.  Assint now wants our group to go to the location and use the key to go in and get the emperor and bring him back so that HE can learn the secret to eternal life.

The group takes a few days to get prepped, and during that time Florence returns with Thelieth, an Inquisitor who does occasional work for Assint. Once preparations are complete, the group heads north for a couple of weeks to the edge of the Blasted Sands desert, then rents some camels in a local village and head in.  Eventually they find a pyramid that was buried under the sand until a recent massive sandstorm uncovered it (exactly as the group was informed by Assint had happened when the key parts were fitted together).

The pyramid is ~250ft at the base, 150 ft at the apex, and is very solid with no doors or windows.  There is an ~30 ft wall all the way around it, with a little building about 750 ft to the east with a passageway leading into the pyramid from it.

The group enters the building to the east, where there are lots of pillars and statues.  They find and deactivate a trap of falling rocks, then head into the passageway.  Halfway down they run into a rolling pyramid that tries to crush everyone.  Trinity and Desna manage to get past it using some sleek acrobatic moves, but discover the door at the end of the hallway requires the key statues (which Ang has).  The ensuing battle is one of the more chaotic and confusing in Pathfinder history, but the pyramid eventually dies and the door is opened.

The group enters, sees lots of carvings, drawings, and statues (a common theme throughout the pyramid), detects and avoids another trap, then comes to a room with a sarcophagus.  Remy tries to open it and gets bit, as it’s actually a Mimic.  The group defeats the Mimic without Remy dying (he does get down to 2 hit points, so the cleric begrudgingly heals him mid-battle with “a waste of a spell”). 

The group finds concealed doors to the north and south, and despite the open door to the west, decides to head south.  They come to a room with 2 reed boats lying end to end.  The closest boat has a pouch with Dust of Dryness in it.  The other boat has a scarab swarm in it, which the group defeats quickly and easily.

The group heads through the doorway to the west, passes a long hallway heading north, and opens a door to the west which, although unusually empty in terms of drawings and statues, contains 4 burning skeletons and a large blood covered skeleton with 4 arms (each with a masterwork short sword).

A fight ensues wherein Desna kills 3 burning skeletons with divine energy, causing them to explode, doing serious damage to the close-by Ang and Thelieth, who are already singed from engaging in hand-to-hand combat with the burners in the first place.  What does she do the next round?  Blow up the 4^th, in apparent massive disregard for the well-being of Ang and Thelieth.  Apparently she thinks being the healer allows her to indiscriminately damage friend as well as foe, since she can patch them up afterwards.

The room to the north is a small luxurious room with comfortable chairs, good food, waterfalls, music, etc.  The ruler’s 2 wives are there, who seem genuinely happy to have guests to disrupt thousands of years of boredom.  Desna’s interactions with the women (being the only one who can magically communicate with them) cause her to realize this is all an illusion and the 2 are zombies.  She proceeds to start shooting them point-blank in the face with her bow while Trinity starts slicing them up from behind.

The zombie women do not last long, and there is much discussion as to the wisdom of ambushing and killing the wives of the ruler we’re trying to bring back with us.

Zambo:  "I can't believe you killed his wives!"
Desna: "... They were already dead."

They’re wearing lots of jewelry and a Periapt of Health (prevents disease), which Desna considers wearing until it’s pointed out that this would be fairly definitive proof to the ruler that we killed his wives.

The group finds a secret door to the north, and…

To Be Continued…

8/3/2014 - The Blood Eating Box

The adventure continues in Falcon's Hollow.  The Blackscour Taint has been healed.  The Paladin has been called off on a crusade of undetermined length, the Barbarian Gwar has left to find someone to work his alligator skin, and the Magus Remy has been called back to see his Wizard Academy leader for personal reasons.  The group meets Trinity, a teenage former lumber consortium thug who lost her brother to the taint.  Being discouraged at the lack of action and empathy by the leadership and appreciative of the group’s efforts, she asks to join them.  The group agrees and she specifically takes a liking to Desna as the group’s healer.

The group travels uneventfully for a few days west to a small village called Dexin where the "employer" lives.  His mansion is monstrous and very ostentatious.  The entire village seems to have sprung up around the mansion in order to tend to it.  An old man answers the door and invites the group in, and begins leading them to the study.  He walks slowly so Ang blows by him and leads the group to the study on his own.

The employer is a regular looking, slightly older man with spectacles and very expensive taste in clothes.  He indicates that his name is Assint and he used to be a Pathfinder, but decided striking out on how own would be much more lucrative (and apparently he was right).  This explains how the Pathfinder guild had some knowledge as to the types of items he would be interested in buying (or not).  He is quite astounded (almost rapturously so) that the group has retrieved the angel statue.  He won't say why, but he does indicate that the group absolutely must now get a second statue (of a demon) that complements the first.

The statue is currently in the possession of the wizard Rhalabhast of Many Eyes.  Rhalabhast is willing is willing to part with the statue, but not for money.  The employer asks the group to travel to Rhalabhast and get the statue from him, indicating that Rhalabast being a wizard, he’ll most likely want some bizarre task performed.  The group agrees, and also reminds him that he needs to pay up for the angel statue.  He seems miffed that Ang has not taken care of this already and pays the group.  Emrys at this point realizes that Ang is the employer’s son, but based on Ang’s plain equipment and overall demeanor, Ang has clearly not been coddled.  Whether this is due to a fall-out or just good parenting is unclear.

 The group travels a week north through an oddly uninhabited wooded area (no travelers on the road even) to a small unassuming cottage where Rhalabhast of Many Eyes lives.  Rhalabhast opens the door, and is almost what you would call a quintessential wizard.  (Robes with stars, pointy hat, long beard, etc.)  In addition, the cottage is clearly much larger on the inside than the outside, and is completely full of “wizard stuff” (books, scrolls, retorts, strange objects of questionable use, etc.)  

What is most unusual are his spectacles.  Similar to the ocular device in National Treasure, but with dozens more mobile lenses of multiple colors that he continually flips in different combinations as he stares at the group.  He continues to flip them even as he invites the group in and speaks to them.  The group asks about the glasses; Rhalabhast gives a wizardish answer (i.e. not helpful), but after inspecting the group closely through his lenses indicates that Florence might understand some day.

Rhalabhast explains that his rival Nekros the Grotesque has something he wants called Yarafad’s Box, and he wants the group to get it for him.  He has it on very good authority that Nekros is far away for an extended period of time, so the group will not have to deal with him directly, but instead they need to break into his inner sanctum where he keeps the Box.  

There is catch of course.  There is something in the box (he won’t say what, “for their own protection”), so not only must they not open the box, but they must feed the box “blood of a lawful being” each day to keep the “item” contained.  (His description can be translated to roughly 5 HP points/day).  They can tell when the box is getting thirsty as it will start making gurgling noises.  Zambo is quickly identified as the only “lawful being” in the group at the moment, and he is thrilled to work closely with the cleric for the rest of the adventure.

Rhalabhast shows them the Demon statue as proof, and it is very similar to the angel in height and how it’s standing with its arms outstretched.  It’s noticed that the shape of its back very well may complement the back of the angel statue (as in, they might fit together).  Rhalabhast gives them directions to Boulder Cliff (about 3 days journey) where the entrance to Nekros’ lair is, with instructions that “When the dead look to the sky, a way will open”.

The group makes this journey without incident, and arrive at the foot of Boulder Cliff to find 6 dead hunters and a dead bear lying on the ground.  The rotted weapons and armor indicate that the bodies have been there for several decades, but the bodies are oddly preserved.  After the group examines the bodies for loot, Desna suggests that they flip them all onto their backs.  They do so and a boulder rolls away near the cliff face with and entrance into the cliff.

The chamber on the other side of the cliff is an immense circle that is completely dark (dancing lights, anyone?), with a stairway cut into it that spirals into the darkness.  (The room is 550’ across, so no one can ever see the other side until they get to the bottom and there is a light source).  The stairs are fairly large in terms of stepping area (3 people can fit abreast, with about 2 ½ to 3 feet in stepping area and only about an 8 inch drop to the next step), and the group begins their descent.  Although 3 can be fit abreast, they use a 2-wide marching order (to keep anyone from falling) with the fighters in the front.

A few hours in, the group is surprise attacked from behind by a group of 5 tirgefrabs, which are basically almost human-sized hairless cats that attack not only with their claws, but by spewing vomit that can reduce the targets’ strength and constitution. (Had the group looked up when they first entered the cave, they might have seen the ledge above them holding these cats). Luckily for the group, during the surprise attack one of the tirgefrabs begins to choke on its own vomit leaving only 4 to fight.  The 3 tirgefrabs in the front (including the choker) are quickly dealt with and the other 2 turn and run.  A couple of good bow shots prevent them from making it very far.

The group continues descending, and not long after the fight a large chunk of stairway collapses, so the 2-wide marching order is shown to be wise.  At this point, Florence receives a telepathic message that her presence is required elsewhere and she heads back up to the surface.

There are no more incidents in the 2-day descent (the group traveled a little over 30 miles in total), but while camping twice the group is bombarded by a disembodied voice that says things like “Who invades my domain?” over and over, laughs hysterically, or emulates children screaming.  Luckily, they’re all able to get good sleep and not be impacted.  Zambo joyfully notes that the box at this point will require 5 days of feeding.

When they reach the bottom, they see that it is actually a lake of an odd colored liquid (a few large creatures swimming in it), with an odd glowing bridge covering the lake (the entire 550’ diameter surface. The bridge has large circles cut out of it that almost touch in some places.  At the center of the bridge is a giant mound of guano, although it’s clearly not solid guano as there is a door leading into it.  To get to the mound, the group must traverse the bridge, with a minimum of 3 places where the bridge gets narrow enough to require balancing.

Unfortunately, Zambo, Arthur, and Emrys are not so good at balancing.

They all fall into the water (which is slightly acidic) and are attacked by 3 colossal leaches.  Ang and Trinity drop in ropes while the others attempt range attacks down onto the leaches (once of which manages to latch on to Zambo and begin sucking).

Also unfortunately, Desna and Ang are not so good at shooting downward and drop their bows.

Fortunately (for once), Emrys is able to catch both bows while holding on to the rope.  After watching 3 fall in to the water and 2 drop their weapons, the teenage thug remarks that it’s amazing that any of us are alive at all.  The leaches are eventually defeated and the fallen climb up ropes, with someone tying a rope to Arthur to get him out.

The group manages to reach the guano pile with a few more incidents of poor balancing (including the wise-ass thug), which are fairly trivial now that the leaches are dead.  The door into the guano pile is locked, but easily picked by Trinity and the group enters the inner sanctum.

Inside is a large room in the shape of a star with a large pentagram etched into the floor.  In the center of the pentagram is a raised dias with Yarafad’s box on it.  The box itself is white, around 3’ high and 3’ in diameter, and has a metal bowl attached to the top with little metal tubes running out in all directions and running down the sides, with several little inputs into the side of the box.

The room itself has 16 additional closet doors around the room, with metal pipes leading out of each room into a contraption on the ceiling, which culminates at a large tube in the center of the ceiling that points directly into the bowl on the box.  Blood is slowly dripping into the bowl from the device, and there is a wheezing coming from one of the closets.

In the closet the group finds a chained up man in cleric garb with little pipes sticking out of his neck, thighs, and wrists.  With his dying breath he looks at the group and exclaims “Bleed for the box, or else it will escape!”  In an odd oversight, the group doesn’t think of collecting the remaining blood from the dead body, even though they thought of collecting Zambo’s blood from the leech that sucked him for a round.

All of the other closets contain completely emaciated chained up dead bodies, still attached to the same little bleeding tubes.  A little more searching and the group finds a secret room that is clearly Nekros’ study, which contains a spell scroll (unclear what it is, as it’s written in a language unknown to the group), 3 vials of processed tirgefrab vomit, a 2’ cylinder of lead, a glass bucket, and a 2 pieces of parchment.  One piece describes the needs of Yarafad’s box as well as plans for the blood-feeding machine, the other piece describes advice for binding a quasit named “Elzemon” into service.  It mentions that the quasit becomes visible if exposed to lead and that it is immune to Will effects unless its name is spoken.

The group takes the box out of the guano building and makes its way relatively ok back across the bridge (a few more falls, but the box is ok).  As they approach the stairway back up, a swarm of fangsights attack from the roof of the guano building (these are pink grape-fruit size globs that are randomly covered in eyes and fanged mouths that appear to be collected from multiple creatures.)  The swarm is driven away successfully and the ascent begins.

There are no attacks during the ascent, but the first night Desna (on watch) hears a boulder rolling down the stairs and wakes the group.  A boulder never appears.  The second night, Trinity (on watch) hears a voice “from the goddess Desna” trying to convince her to open the box, but she does not succumb.

Upon exiting the cave, the group comes across a group of 8 squat humanoids carrying a limp body that attacks them after a disembodies voice urges them to “Gorge on their flesh!”.  5 of the humanoids are entangled by a spell (cast by Emrys) and the other 3 are dropped quickly.  The entangled ones are then picked off.

On a ledge of the cliff, a small quasit appears (demon with ram horns and wings), thanks them (for what, they’re not sure), and offers them the dropped body as compensation.  He then disappears while flying away.

The man is paralyzed, but this effect eventually wears off.  He explains he is Valbris, a cleric of Choranus, a group that has been getting picked off lately by an unknown entity (understood now to be used as Box food).  He is astounded that they have Yarafad’s Box, and explains that this box is somehow an opposing force to his diety and must be brought to his temple/village immediately for destruction.  He is persuasive enough that a long discussion ensues, at which point the group decides to travel to the temple and discuss it with the elders.  Most realize that to not deliver the box to Rhalabast would be a bad idea as it would be betraying both Rhalabast and Ang’s father, but they decide to hear them out.

They travel the few days to the village, and all but Ang, Trinity, and Zambo wait outside in hiding while those 3 go in to discuss.  Ultimately the head cleric of Choranus is unable to convince them to give them the box, and he indicates that they probably have made new enemies that they have not heard the end of.

The group returns Valbris to his village and makes its way back to Rhalabast’s cottage where the door is open and the demon statue is sitting on the table.  They do not want to simply leave the box (which they have been dutifully feeding, although they gave that task to Valbris while he was travelling with the group), so they stay and wait, and eventually he returns, thanks them for the box, and gives them the statue.

The group returns to Ang’s father and gives him the statue.  He is once again astounded – visibly shaken even to have both pieces.  He takes one statue in each hand and slowly brings them together, the backs of the 2 statues perfectly complementing each other.  Just as they touch, there is a bright flash and…

To Be Continued...