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…