Session Thirty-One
The party had just finished tying up the cultists when two guardsmen rushed to the monolith. They had caught sight of the illusory fireball Balen had thrown. The Fated explained that they had captured cultists breaking into a secret doorway in the monolith, and demanded to be brought before Sheikh Arslan.
The sheikh, along with the local cleric Nadron, were roused from slumber and confronted by the cultists, pulling back their hoods one by one to reveal prominent members of the tribe. When the sheikh saw his own son in cultist’s robes, carrying a symbol of Set, he was outraged. To be certain of the situation however he commanded Nadron to detect evil upon his son, while putting him sharply to the question. Korus Arslan could not conceal his animosity towards his father, and his ill intent revealed his treachery.
The torturer was summoned, and he began to extract information from the captives. The squealing cultists soon revealed that their cult had planned to kill the sheikh and his firstborn son and install Korus as the new chief. Their plans had accelerated when the evil cleric Corga had been contacted by a powerful efreeti pasha, who promised great wealth and power if they delivered the princess Shadalah to it. The cultists had hired the slavers of the Sandvoyager’s Guild to capture Shadalah, but the princess had disappeared without being given to them. All of the cultists insisted that the slavers had the girl! After the interrogation was complete, the headsman was brought forth, and all the cultists save Korus were slain and their bodies burned. Korus remained with his further for further interrogation.
The next day, 26th Agitelen, the Fated delved back into the Temple of Set beneath the monolith. After battling off giant spiders, the party entered a chamber with unholy water and demonic ichor. Shikra gathered a bottle of the demonic ichor, for what unspeakable purpose none could say. Balen, not to be outdone, mixed the demonic ichor with the unholy water, creating what Senef derisively called “diet ichor... now with 50% less evil.”
These shenanigans were interrupted by the arrival of a half-dozen cultists who sought revenge for the killing of their colleagues the prior evening. This time the party was not caught off-guard or asleep, and they handily dealt with the red-robed thugs. Pushing deeper into the temple, they came upon a room with a brazier of violet flame, surrounded by skeletons. Shikra seized control of the skeletons before they could knock the brazier of flame onto the party, and Mahmud dispatched the undead. Afterwards, Shikra’s summoned mujahedeen confirmed that the brazier did, in fact, explode violently if disturbed.
Past the brazier of violet flame, the party found a near-naked warrior manacled to the wall, being tortured with food and water just out of arm’s reach. This proved to be Barus, the chief guard of the slavers. He had been tortured for two days with demands that he reveal where Shadalah was, but of course he knew nothing. Upon being rescued Barus tried to sneak off, but Rakh and Ethlyn put short work to that.
Suad’s divination magic revealed several secret doors that the party began investigating. One of these lead into a terrible trap that sent all of the party sliding down into a deadly pit. Sapphira crushed her hand in the fall, while Suad and Ceara both sustained concussions and lost several teeth. Umar dented his cheek, while Wazir broke his nose and tore up his face badly. The party was in no shape to continue, so it extricated itself from the pit and headed to the surface.
Back in the Oasis, the sheikh briefed them on the result of his interrogation of Korus. When Korus had learned that the slavers did not have the girl, he had immediately began to rant and rage at Corga. “The priest must have given her to the efreeti himself, that treacherous dog! He planned to supplant me as ruler of the tribe!” Sadly the priest, having been brutally slain in the fighting at the monolith, could neither confirm nor deny these charges, but Korus did reveal that the priest used a sinister-looking three-horned skull to communicate with the efreeti. The group had espied this skull in their earlier expedition into the Temple of Set, and decided to return for a further exploration.
The next day, 27th Agitelen, the party (save Sapphira, Suad, and Ceara, who were in no shape to fight), headed back into the Temple and returned to the chamber where they’d spotted the skull. Shikra donned the red robes of a cultist and, after some muttering of various runes marked on the skull, managed to contact the efreeti pasha. Unfortunately the mighty genie was not fooled for even an instant, saying “I already have what I need. You are too late. Soon all that you love will be burned and destroyed!”
This grim news renewed the party’s determination to discover the location of the Crypt of Badr al-Mosak, where they thought either the princess, or the efreeti, or both, might be found. Pressing onward, they battled through a pair of mummies and a nest of giant spiders to finally come to sealed bronze doors of great antiquity. These read “Beware ye the wrath of Set and His minions, for before you lies the Gate to His Kingdom of evil and those who make that journey never return.”
Here, the Fated paused. They considered what had befallen them in the Well of the Prophet, and how they had awoken the Thrassian mummy king. They considered what had befallen them in the Sunken City of Pazar, and how they had awoken the Efreeti Pasha. And they decided not to open the bronze doors to the Kingdom of Evil… though it was a close vote.
Instead, they turned around and headed south, towards a barred door they’d earlier noted. Bashing this door open, they revealed seven goblins, apparently miners who were digging in the vicinity of the Temple. The miners claimed to be working for the slavers, and offered to take the party to meet their overseers. The goblins lead the party into what seemed like an entirely separate underground complex, of unknown size. The goblins stopped when they came to a post with three bugbears – their overseers. The party was beginning to parley when Balen decided to just dispatch all ten beastmen with a ball of fire…
His spell exploded in the caves, sending smoke and shockwaves everywhere. Shouts and cries began to ring through the hall. A fight was on!