Session Eighteen
The party was in the dark and cursed caverns beneath the watchtower intent on destroying the necromantic cult of Kirkuk. In the course of their exploration, Sharik had enslaved a desert ghoul to his will, and now commanded the undead beast to lead them to the necromancer’s shrine.
The ghoul obligingly lead the party to a sacrificial pit, a 35’ diameter sinkhole carpeted with white bones. Looming over the sinkhole was a 10’ tall statue of a bipedal hippopotamus, with the limbs of a lion and the pendulous breasts and swollen belly characteristic of pregnancy. Bronze sconces stood on either side of the pedestal, their smoky torches illuminating the statue with dim light. Sharik and Ethlyn recognized the statue as of Taweret, the Kemeshi goddess of earth, mother of monsters.
The holy warrior Mahmoud knew that to cleanse the sinkhole of evil, the chaotic altar creating the sinkhole had to be destroyed. Infused with the strength of an ogre by Balen’s magic, Mahmud leaped into the pit and toppled the vile statue. Senef then blessed the area, and the darkness seemed to lift. The strange heat of the caverns did not subside, however, so the party knew the connection to the sphere of fire was not yet undone.
Departing from the sacrificial pit of Taweret, the party descended down a small cliff by means of hewn stone steps. The cliff face was carved with ancient Zaharan hieroglyphs, inlaid in silver. Senef, a Kemeshi, was familiar with the dark tongue, and translated: The young kingdoms shall be laid waste and desolate. Blood shall drip from the rock, and there shall be chaos in all places; fire shall break out, and wild beasts roam beyond their haunts, and women shall bring forth monsters. Sharik recognized this as a verse from The Book of the Awakening, an apocalyptic prophecy written by the blind seer Istakhran just prior to the collapse of the Zaharan Empire. The silver inlay was evidently valuable, but the party decided not to dig it out of the glyphs.
The desert ghoul now led the party to a tunnel that ended in a sheer stone wall, decorated with a bas relief of a demonic being emerging from the flames of hell. The party’s theologians recognized this as Dahaka, the Kemeshi god of fire and death. Sharik thought perhaps the wall might be illusory and pressed forward, accidentally triggering a secret door. The chamber beyond had been geometrically hewn from the living rock. Its limestone walls were scorched and smoke-stained. The center of the room was pierced with a deep pit which burned with ceaseless smoke and flame. In the center of the pit stood a fire-blackened 20’ tall statue of Dahaka, its eyes each a large ruby of great value. Strange chutes led from the far wall to the pit.
The party surmised that these chutes were the very ones that their erstwhile comrade Raziel had slid down to his fiery doom so many months prior. That meant that this pit was the source of the efreeti which had nearly destroyed them all! Sharik commanded his desert ghoul to retrieve the rubies, thinking that this act would provoke the appearance of the efreeti, but in fact it merely retrieved the rubies. Not content to have secured the treasure without slaying the monster, Mahmud drew Cyclone of the Four Quarters and entered the fires of the shrine, hoping that this might summon the genie. His wish was fulfilled, and the efreeti called to battle. The evil genie transformed itself into a pillar of living flame and descended upon the adventurers, but it did not reckon with Mahmud and Cyclone, which cleaved the flame in twain.
With the Efreeti dispatched, Mahmud put on Ethlyn’s ring of fire resistance and waded into the pit, toppling the statue with his enhanced strength. Senef blessed the area, and the connection to the elemental plane of fire was ended.
The party had not, as yet, seen any sign of the necromantic cult, but this soon changed. Methodically exploring the caverns past the burning shrine of Dahaka, the party finally found the cultists’ redoubt. There they were confronted by six hooded and robed cultists guarded by four Thrassian skeletons. The leaders of the cultists revealed themselves to be the Barber of Kirkuk and the beggar Bzurg the Whiner. The Barber was enraged. “You should have listened to me and gone after the Carnelian Idol. Instead you have violated our sacred caverns and destroyed thousand-year old holy places. You must pay for these crimes!”
Sharik astounded the party with his cunning, saying “but we did bring you the Carnelian Idol. It’s right here in my bag!” He then reached into his marvelous bag of fantastic creatures and tossed a small idol at the cultists’ feet. An idol of a CHIMERA. RRRAAAHHHRRR!
As the cultists gasped in shock, the party charged. Despite the chimera raging amidst the cultists, the Barber’s magic might would have been enough to destroy the battered party, but Mahmud charged forward, over-running every foe in his path to slash into the Barber. His spell was disrupted, and a moment later he was cut down. Buzurg went down under arrow fire while Rakh and Masamba slew the rest of the cultists.
The party found quite a storehouse of treasure in the cultists’ redoubt, including several magical potions, many carvings of jade, rolls of silk, pieces of ivory, the carcasses of hell hounds, and more. Particularly interesting were a series of opal cameo portraits of deceased Zaharans, who bore an eerie similarity to the Barber.
With the destruction of the cult, Ethlyn’s quest was completed. The party might have at this point escaped to the surface with their treasure, but they decided to press on a bit further despite their wounds. This proved an error in judgment. The caverns’ connection to the sphere of elemental fire had, over the years, allowed certain monsters to “cross over” and the party had the misfortune to stumble into a particularly fearsome set: A pack of five hell hounds. The hell hounds achieved complete surprise on the party, and their terrible fiery breath wreaked havoc, destroying the party’s chimera, as well as incapacitating Mahmud, Ethlyn, and Masamba. Senef, Sharik, Balen, Suad, Nakhita, and Rakh were able to win the fight but it was closely fought.
In the aftermath, Senef turned his healing arts on his fallen comrades. Masamba proved to be merely singed; barbarians are tough to kill! Mahmud had damage to an eye from the flame. Ethlyn fared worst of all – her brain itself had been cooked in the flames and she seemed very addled. “I’m not even sure why we’re in this dungeon!” she said. Concerned that Ethlyn might have become even more vacuous and empty-headed then she had been to date, the party evacuated the caverns.
The next day, 9th of Genelen, Senef performed a shamanic ritual to speak with the local genies. “Are there more sinkholes in the caverns below the Watchtower?” “No.” “Can rich treasure or magical items still be found in the caverns?” “No.” “Have we purified the water of Kirkuk?” “No.” So advised, the party decided it would look elsewhere for adventure.
Before that could happen, however, they were facing weeks of recuperation. Ethlyn somewhat confusedly paid a call on Daood the Wide, and asked him if he could restore her damaged intellect. The corpulent priest agreed after an exchange of coin, and weaved his magic. Ethlyn seemed to make a full recovery, but when no one was around she began to see a strange creature dancing around her – a tiny efreeti, with little red horns. The creature introduced itself as “Mustafa,” and said that its master Dahaka had taken an interest in her. No one else could see the creature at all, and Ethlyn was unsure whether she was going insane or she truly had acquired a demonic familiar.
While Ethlyn and Mahmud were recuperating, Sharik and Zoya decided to loot the Barber’s shop of whatever goods he might have. While perhaps not behavior that was strictly condoned by Imperial land, they felt justified in claiming these goods for their troubles. The shop had a miscellany of useful treasures, including 250 roc feathers and 2 crates of Thrassian fossils.
After recovery was complete, the party reconvened for a foray to Alakyrum, Pearl of the Desert. They reached the city on the 8th of Juselen. While most of the party headed over to the Patrician’s Rest, Mahmud traveled to the Great Mosque to give an offering of jade treasure. The cleric, Imam Al-Idam, thanked him for his gift and returned the jade trophy to Mahmud, saying “now you will carry the Great Mosque with you.”
The next week passed in a blur. Zoya commissioned a noblewoman’s takchita, richly embroidered with beads and sequins. Mahmud and Ethlyn commissioned plate barding for their war dogs, while Mahmud had the Zargonite masked forged into a helmet for his canine. Ethlyn also recruited city planners to rebuild her “kingdom,” Cynidicea. Eventually she hired Iraj, an Opelenean engineer who came well-recommended at the Patrician’s Rest while Mahmud hired Wadi, an Opelenean explorer to replace the fallen Jamal as navigator. Rakh hired Irial, a priestess of Mityara, to serve as his spiritual guide in the pathways of law. And Senef hired Volundr, a Jutlandic skald who impressed him with his charisma and copious drinking skills.
The party finished their stay in Alakyrum with a visit to the Imperial arena, where Masamba defeated a local champion and earned the aplomb of the crowd – and 3,300gp. With new companions in tow, and pockets filled with coin, the party headed back to Kirkuk with plans to explore the magically sealed tomb complex there.