Friday, September 30, 2016

I want my mummy!

Pharast 3, 4712

Having spent the night resting in a dimensional space, the party emerges from the fortress. Gerald was unable to rest, however, so he looks haggard and was unable to recuperate his spells. Fortunately for him, there were no random encounters. With two unopened doors, the Coopers decide to head north. Daryle opens the bronze door. A blast of cold air rushes past.

The room features five sets of bunk beds, upon which are the bodies of seventeen priests wearing various religious garments. Each priest worshiped a different deity, and each one had their throat slit. Though clearly Azlanti, the priests appear as if they had just been killed. A layer of ice covers everything. Nothing that he is still without pants, Omok looks for a body with pants. He discovers that this particular priest worshiped his own deity. He takes the body into the magical room, casts a small spell and is attacked by a small fireball, which de-ices the pants.

The Coopers take a look around. Roscoe surmises that the priests in this room were executed to conduct a sordid ritual. Rowen suggests that Roscoe could use the wand of resurrection to bring back one of the good-aligned priest. Roscoe agrees that this is not a bad idea. Returning to the room now wearing pants, Omox takes another look and he discovers an amulet of spell storing on one of the dead bodies. Roscoe asks the hobgoblin to find a good-aligned priest. Omok examines each person's religious symbol carefully and he is able to identify five good deities, two neutral deities, and two evil deities. While no one is looking, he takes one of the evil priests' amulet of Nurgal. Rowen, spotting Omox, does the same thing and he grabs the amulet of Achaekek.

Using the wand of resurrection, Roscoe resurrects a female priest of Shelyn. Once she recuperates from the shock of her death and her return to life thousands of years later, she begins to speak Azlanti. Gerald understands about a third of the conversation, while Omok casts comprehend languages on himself and acts as a translater for the rest of the group. Inexplicably, Rowen also speaks a fluent, if garbled dialect of Azlanti. It's almost as if he had been taught the language by a zombie...

The priestess introduces herself as Iaome and she explains to the party that she had been kidnapped by cultists of the Shadowed Fire, and had been brought to this distant continent and to this Spire to be sacrificed so that Yarrix could be restored to her full power and break the ward that keeps her in this tomb. Clearly, the ritual had failed.

When she concludes her tale, She is healed by Omox, Gerald and Roscoe. Roscoe asks her if she would like to join them in their quest, and she replies in the positive, since the world she came from is gone and she'd rather not remain here in this tomb.

While the party remains in the cold room discussing their current predicament, Daryle moves across the main room and heads to the southern door. She listens to the door but she hears nothing. She opens the door and is greeted by a blast of fresh air. The room is a vision of hell. A sarcophagus stands in the middle of a swirling cloud of greenish gas. Gargoyles are in the wall spewing the gas, while purplish flames lick the walls and the floors. Darelle comes up behind her and slowly the rest of the party meanders over to observe this room.

After some discussion, it is agreed that Gerald should deal with this situation. The sorcerer decides that a fireball will burn the fog and deal with any presence in the room. The fog is indeed burned off, but unfortunately, the plan goes awry as the fireball enters the room. It returns to the sender, hitting him and two others behind him. Smoke arises as charred clothes falls off Gerald.

Omok uses a spell to protect himself, then he enters the room. He circles around the sarcophagus, then takes a closer look at it. Without knowing, he is transported to an alternate dimensional space. Two demons step out of the shadows and attack him. Outside the room, Darelle notices that something is wrong with Omok and he does not appear to be moving anymore. She also enters the room, but as she nears the sarcophagus she too becomes trapped in this space, and she must engage the demons.

Daryle realizes something is wrong. She tells Roscoe, but the Hellknight hesitates to enter the room as more fog has started pouring from the gargoyles' mouths again. His sister convinces him to go, so he enters the room with weapons drawn, but when he takes a look at the other two members of the party he also sees the symbol on top of the sarcophagus' lid and he is also transported to an alternate reality.

Now three of the party members appear paralyzed in front of the sarcophagus. Meanwhile, Gerald, having recovered from his own attack, uses open to throw the sarcophagus lid off. Again, however, the spell backfires when the lid flies out of the room above Omok, Roscoe and Darelle's heads and lands squarely on Gerald. With the lid open, a mummy arises from the sarcophagus. The great Yarrix joins the fight. Suddenly there are two combat situations going, with Omox, Roscoe and Darelle fighting two demons, and Daryle, Gerald, Thorne and Rowen fighting Yarrix. Upon seeing Yarrix, Rowen takes off and runs away from the room. He enters the temporal trap, and keeps on running.

For a time the demons appear to be winning, as they land successful blows while the party is unable to strike them. But the tide turns when Roscoe lands a critical hit and slays one of the demons. Helped by Omok's summoned creatures, the three of them are able to triumph over the demons and they are immediately ejected from the alternate dimensional space, only to land in a battle with the mummy.

The rest of the party have been pummeling Yarrix with attack after attack, but the mummy seems hardly damaged. Roscoe jumps on top of the sarcophagus and lands a great blow on Yarrix. Having crawled from under the sarcophagus, Gerald, still not having learned from his previous mistakes, casts close on the lid. It goes flying back to the sarcophagus. Yarrix is able to avoid it, but Roscoe gets hit and falls in just before it closes. Now Roscoe is inside!

The fight continues with each member of the party successfully attacking the mummy, but she in returns strikes several times. Eventually, a combination of blows manage to destroy the mummy. Omok rescues Roscoe from the sarcophagus. Being bloodied, the party decide to retreat back to their dimensional space, but they realize that Rowen ran away with the staff. So, they camp in the room with the statues.

Omok asks the the orb of command. his daily question: "How do I read the book without going insane." The orb tells him that he must use goggles of truth seeing.

Roscoe gives the Sword of Savith to Darelle. She now has a better weapon. Eventually, Rowen makes his way back to the party. Unfortunately, unlike the rest of them, he is not rested.

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