Session 12: Inside the Tomb of Horror

As the party approached the altar at the front of the chapel, their attention was drawn by a skeleton on the floor that pointed at an archway to the right of the altar. This archway glowed with bright orange vapors. Riya moved over to investigate. Meanwhile, Zhang approached the altar and throwing caution to the wind, touched a strange block of material that glowed with an opalescent blue. Immediately, it shot out a lightning bolt that jolted every member of the party, except for Riya.

Once the other party members were done cursing Zhang for his foolishness, they noticed that Riya had disappeared. Then she came back out of the archway with the orange vapors. Except Riya was no longer a she - she had been transformed into a he. Strangely, Riya did not seem terribly perturbed by this. However, she did enter the archway again and this time she came back as her original sex. Inside the archway was only a dead end.

After a thorough - but careful - search of the room, Clancy discovered a small slot with an O drawn above it on the wall opposite the archway. PPP tried to feed the slot coins. Each time, it crushed the coins but nothing else happened. Remembering the line in the riddle about a “loop of magic metal”, the party suspected that they needed to sacrifice a magical ring. Hoping to avoid parting with a dear magical item, Clancy instead cast an enchantment spell on a plain ring and fed it into the slot. There was a crunching, crushing sound and then the stone facade gave way to reveal a corridor beyond.

After proceeding down this corridor for a little while, the party came to a closed door. Testing it, they found that it was stuck. Zhang decided to put the full force of his body against it. It swung open quickly and Zhang tumbled through … and into the pit trap beyond. After pulling himself out, the rest of the party navigated carefully to the other side of the pit. Remembering the line in the riddle that suggested a “fortuitous fall,” the party searched the pit but found nothing.

They found another door just ten feet beyond the pit trap. Clancy asked for a bit of time and sat down and began a magical ritual. After ten minutes, his weasel familiar was magically transformed into a spider. He then sent the spider underneath the door where it discovered another pit trap. The party carefully opened the door and triggered the pit trap, but again found nothing. This process was repeated once more on a final door. However, this time, the party did discover a well-hidden door at the base of the pit. Forgoing the main passage, the party headed through this new door.

Shortly after entering the passage, several members of the party began to get a strange sensation. Every footstep was magnified and every sound in the grim oppressive dungeon was magnified. Soon, this trepidation spiraled into sheer terror and several party members began pushing to escape the tomb. Only the quick thinking of Mid saved the day. She pulled out her lyre and began to sing a song that calmed their emotions. The fear vanished and they were left panting in the hallway. Realizing that they must be affected by some enchantment or unseen gas, the party pressed forward to escape it as quickly as possible.

At the end of the passageway, they found an archway but the passage beyond was covered in thick webs. Terlis, Clancy, and PPP quickly cleared out this thicket of webs with spells of fire and the party entered the chamber beyond. In this chamber they saw an iron mace inlaid with silver lying on the floor. On the far side of the room, a ghastly skeletal figure with a crown and robes was rising from slumber. It made a horrible sound and came toward them. Could this be the Acerak mentioned in the riddle?

With a battle cry, Zhang grabbed the mace and swung it at the creature. As it connected, the creature made a horrible wail of pain. The other members joined in the attack. The creature flailed at them with powerful fists, but with their combined might, the party was able to quickly reduce it to bone and dust.

No sooner had the creature fallen, than the floor began to rattle. Rocks and pebbles came falling from the ceiling. It appeared that the whole tomb was collapsing around their ears. Every member of the party began running. As they neared the original pit with the hidden door, Terlis heard a voice in his head say “its not real.” Turning, he investigated the trembling disturbance. He quickly realized that it was an illusion. There was no cave-in. After some explaining, he was able to regroup the party. Their mission was not an end.

As the party headed back down the passageway, the voice again spoke from Terlis’s left and said “here.” Stopping and exploring the wall, Terlis found a secret door that opened into another long passage. It appeared that the creature and the illusion of a cave-in had all been designed to mislead tomb explorers into thinking that they had reached the end of the tomb.

After heading down this passageway for some time, the party entered another room that appeared to be a laboratory or wizard’s workshop of some sort. In the center of the room were three large vats. Inside the middle vat was a green liquid of some sort. At the bottom, the party could make out what appeared to be part of a key. Clancy used his mage hand to retrieve the item, which turned out to be half of a key.

Curious, Terlis investigated another one of the pots. As he leaned over it, the ooze inside of the vat reached out a pseudopod and smacked him hard in the face. It then oozed out of the pot onto the floor. The rest of the party attacked and was able to make short work of the ooze. After defeating it, they looked inside the now empty vat and discovered another half key. When they held the two halves together, they magically melded into a single key.

The final vat appeared to contain only muddy water and exploration via mage hand revealed nothing. The party moved on down the passageway.

After some travel, the party again came to a doorway. This door led into a room filled with rotten furniture, tapestries, and coffers. Suspecting that one of the pieces of furniture might be the throne mentioned in the riddle, the party moved into the room to investigate. As soon as they entered the room, the floor began to shake violently and people found it difficult to stand upright. While several party members attempted to explore the furniture, Clancy ran over to the one door indicating an exit and opened it. Unfortunately, it was not an exit but a trap. Behind the door was a wall, but a small hole in the wall fired an iron spike that hit Clancy in the side.

While most of the party unfruitfully searched the furniture, PPP explored what was behind the tapestries. Behind the tapestries, he discovered another door which this time revealed the true exit to the room. Most of the party chose to flee from the still rocking room through the exit, but PPP stayed to explore the coffers. The first two coffers held gems of some value, but the third revealed a pack of angry snakes which managed to bite PPP before being destroyed. After this unpleasant surprise, the entire party moved on.

The party then wandered down the passageways, taking some time to decide which way to go when presented with a crossroads. Having chosen to go left, Kiki perceptively noted the existence of a trapdoor in the main passageway that led to a smaller passageway underneath. The party took this smaller passageway and after some time emerged into an entrance chamber with large doors that appeared to open into an important room. The doors would not budge but three slits in the wall near the door suggested some means of entry. After determining that the slits fit a blade perfectly, the party inserted three daggers into the slits and the doors opened.

The room beyond was a large and grand throne room supported by numerous brightly colored pillars at ten foot intervals. In the northern corners of the room were two large statues of a face with a large open mouth, about ten feet above the floor of the room. Clancy sent his spider familiar through each of these portals in turn. The first portal teleported the spider familiar to the entrance to the tomb. The second portal disintegrated the spider entirely. Seeing some possible advantage in having a quick exit, Zhang climbed up toward the teleporting portal and fixed a rope to it.

The party then proceeded to examine the actual throne standing on a dais on the southern wall of the throne room. A crown and scepter lay upon the throne. As the other party members carefully explored the throne, Zhang placed the crown on his head. He found that he could now see very clearly as if in bright daylight. He also found that he could not take the crown off. However, he tried pressing the gold end of scepter to the crown and discovered that he could now remove the crown.

Investigating the throne, the party noticed that a small replica of the crown was inlaid in silver below the seat. Touching the silver end of the scepter to this, there was a grinding noise and the throne sank down to reveal a five foot wide passageway leading south from the throne room.

As the party followed this passage, it began to open up, eventually ending in a rising multicolored stairway. At the end of this stairway stood a pair of gigantic adamantine doors. Riya grabbed the key that the party had found earlier and ran up to the door. She found a keyhole and placed the key in it. The doors began to swing open. the party moved to investigate what lay beyond. Inside was a large but fairly spartan chamber, compared with the rest of the tomb. At the far end of this chamber rose two pillars. Suspended in mid air between these pillars was a large orb, about one foot in diameter. The orb appeared to be made of dark metal but would flicker on and off with a radiant light (much like a light bulb that is beginning to die).

As the party contemplated this new and perhaps final puzzle, they suddenly heard the sound of slow clapping on the ceiling ahead of them. Looking up, they saw a drow male standing upside down on the ceiling. He was clapping at them and wore a smile on his face. He thanked them for giving him access to the final room and expressed some puzzlement as to who they were.

Rather than answer, Clancy stepped forward to fire an eldritch blast at this drow male who was likely none other than Niloverin. As Clancy stepped forward, he heard the sound of chittering legs around him. Turning, he and the other party members saw four giant spiders emerge from the ceiling and floors behind them.

“Fools!” said the drow. “Do you not know you interfere with one of Lolth’s chosen? Feel the wrath of the arachnomancer!”