Session Thirty-Three
On the 5th of Innelen, the party was fully recovered and set out to find the Crypt of Badr al-Mosak. Skirting an orc village they spotted in a rocky valley, they reached the purported site of the Crypt around sundown. Their map had led them to ancient stone amphitheatre with a statue of Bel, the Slaughterprince, standing in its center. As the party approached, a palpable sense of dread overwhelmed them, and all but the most hardened fled. It took some time to regroup, at which point the shadows hung long in the west. Rakh declared, “The light of Imran does not shine there.” “We must destroy that baleful statue,” agreed Suad.
Shikra summoned her berserkers, and ordered one of them to attempt to topple the statue. The berserker was surprised to discover that the statue slid easily when pushed – so surprised that he stumbled and fell into the pit the sliding statue revealed, vanishing out of site. The berserker had uncovered a vast channel into the earth!
Zoya quickly belayed herself onto several hundred feet of rope and dove into the pit, relying on her ring of feather fall to allow her to gracefully drift down. The ring saved her life, for 80’ down something cut her rope. Using her spear, she guided herself onto a balcony 90’ down, and noted that the pit continued at least another 60’ further. Clambering up to the pit’s rim, she took advantage of her supernatural buoyancy to bounce back and forth along the pit until she came to the point where her rope had been cut; there she found a cunning scythe-trap, which took her long, tense moments to disable.
Meanwhile, on the surface, Suad surveyed the constellations. “The zodiac signs suggest that Ethlyn will die tonight,” he warned gravely. “No, they don’t!” Ethlyn squeaked. “Can you read the stars, girl?” the mage frowned. Rakh put his clawed hand on Ethlyn reassuringly. “Don’t worry. It is in Imran’s name we are killed. We are counted among His sheep to be slaughtered.” Suad laughed. “Imran’s not around at night.”
Senef had now clambered down to join Zoya on the balcony 90’ below. Just as he was about to land on the balcony, Zoya waved him off. They had spotted scorch marks on the floor. Zoya pointed left and right, north and south; 4 doors, each guarded by statue, each seemingly trapped. This was a place of death. She called for Suad to divine whether there were any secret doors – his magic found one portal to the south, behind a menacing bladed door. Low crawling on her hands and knees with a 10’ pole prodding every inch before her, Zoya reached the door and, after minutes of careful prodding and knocking, succeeded in opening it with her 10’ pole. Beyond was a great hall, dominated by a statue of Badr al-Mosak, coins gleaming like a golden trail.
It was by now almost 8:20pm; it had taken Zoya almost 2 ½ hours to clear the path for her comrades. The joined her in the great hall as she investigated the statue. However, Shikra – having witness the party’s near death from the traps in the Temple of Set – refused to advance and hung back by the balcony. It was thus the warlock that fell prey to the dread spectre which emerged from the darkness of the pit. Shikra’s screamed as her life-force ebbed away. Senef was able to destroy the spectre with his magic, but Shikra was reduced to a shadow of her former might. [Shikra lost two levels of experience, reducing her to 3rd level, from this random encounter.]
The Fated had hardly finished dealing with the spectre when a band of tomb-wights fell upon them. These were dispatched without tragedy, and the party found a pile of booty – possessions from the wight’s living days. These included a bronze-bladed jambiya, a spell scroll, a scroll of protection from genies, and two potions of invisibility. The part resumed its slow and careful exploration of the Crypt. Each step was measured; each flagstone prodded.
By 10:00pm, the party had made its way through two secret doors and reached an octagonal room marked by a large, black obelisk. “Want to check for traps?” asked Mahmud. The obelisk responded: “Extreme caution must be applied.” The obelisk could talk! “What did you just say?” asked Mahmud. “Do not suppose too much!” it responded. “Who are you?” “Despair if you continue thus!” “Why shouldn’t we ask questions? “Another tactic might prove better.” “Are you real?” “Extreme caution must be applied!”
Disappointed that the obelisk was merely a charlatan’s oracle, the party advanced deeper into the dungeon, coming upon another vast pit. This one stretched as far as they could see both up and down. As they watched, a still-animate mummy hurtled down the pit in front of them. Then a still-animate mummy hurtled down the pit in front of them. Then a still-animate mummy hurtled down the pit in front of them… On a hunch, Dornethan fired a marked crossbow quarrel into the pit. It plummeted out of sight…and a second later reappeared at the top of their line of sight, plummeting downward. And a second later reappeared at the top of their line of sight. “It’s an endless loop!” shouted Suad. Unwilling to explore such a potentially dreadful trap, the party turned back inward to the complex.
They entered a square room with a metallic cube, 10’ on a side, laying in its center. Senef climbed up on Rakh’s back to get a peek into the cube, and immediately fell into a hypnotic trance, slumping off Rakh’s back. After being roused, the shaman tried again to glimpse into the cube, and again, fell mesmerized. “Easy way to deal with that,” said Balen, as he hurled a fireball.
After the detonation, the party was able to gaze into the cube safely. They saw the charred bones of our human-headed skeletons; these must have had hypnotic powers, they surmised. They also saw the scorched ruin of what had once been a grimoire or holy book. “It can’t have been a very powerful grimoire if it got burned from a little fireball,” said Balen. The party quickly convinced themselves that the loss of the millennium-old book was certainly irrelevant to their quest and not worth dwelling on.
With further investigation of the Crypt the part found a second metallic cube, unfortunately empty. The Fated also discovered two more endless looping pits. One of these pits was filled with falling items and treasure, which seemed to have been equipment of a party of adventures that had clambered into the endless pit and gotten trapped. Still unwilling to risk exploring the endless pit, the Fated decided they did want to extract its treasure. Senef did this by taking control of the very wind itself and using it to blow all of the items onto the safety of the ledge, a powerful demonstration of shamanic magic.
The items recovered proved most marvelous, most of them seeming to date to the classical era of the Auran Empire. Suad claimed a crystal ball with clairaudience, gazing vindictively at Balen’s now-inferior crystal ball. He also took a cursed helm of alignment change, although he didn’t don it. Senef found a scroll case that was tightly sealed and showed signs of having been battered and crushed, as if a desperate adventurer had tried to get it open in a time of need, and failed. Within was a scroll of miracle! “Poor bastard,” the shaman said, gazing at the skeleton drifting through the endless pit.
The party returned to exploring the Crypt. They now discovered a temple courtyard featuring an altar to Sakkara. Zoya crept towards the altar to search it, and was shocked to discover all of her magical items began to vibrate. A voice whispered in her ear: “Sacrifice to me and thou shalt receive my boon.” Zoya wanted no part of such a pact – but Shikra did. The nearly-lifeless warlock offered up her claw of Ymmu M’Kursa and the shroud as well, irreplaceable artifacts of the lost Zaharan Kingdom. The items vanished and Shikra felt her life-energies renewed…
Whilst this was going on, Zoya had searched the last unopened exit in the Crypt and deemed it safe to open. It revealed a long, narrow stone bridge, set some 60’ above a series of dozens of tombs. All of them were open, and horrible deathly moans emitted from them. By crystal ball the party saw that the tombs were filled with mummies, spectres, wights, and shadows. Senef called on the spirits to divine what would happen if the party attacked. “The Malatath below will bring you terrible woe!”
“The Malatath!” exclaimed Suad. “The Malatath was the army of undead that the Efreeti Pasha used to fight Al-Sindor during the Empyrean War… but it was destroyed.” “I guess he mustered a new one,” said Mahmud, drawing his sword for battle.