Session 40 recap

The party:

Hector, a 13th level Archontean fighter

CocoVul, a 13th level Archontean magic-user

Julia, a 14th level Archontean cleric of Lucreon

Crown Prince Melnax, a 7th level elf

Bjorn, a 8th level Wiskin assassin

Susarra, a 10th level Archontean fighter (retainer)

Scylla, a 9th level Archontean ranger (retainer)

The party discussed a plan for defeating the animated statue of Sulla Bellator in order to recover the magical armor it was wearing. Bjorn took the Bones of Jaken the Proud from Julia to free her for spell casting and the party backed out into the hallway with the statue following close behind. CocoVul cast Stone to Flesh and Julia attempted to blind it with Continual Light but the statue resisted both of their spells. The melee fighters carried the day after it was discovered that the statue was immune to missiles both magic and mundane. Recovering the armor, Julia went to town via the rug to have it and the axe identified. The axe was identified as Sulla’s Axe, which was especially effective against constructs [DM’s note: lol] and the armor was the Armor of Sulla which afforded greater protection against missiles.

Deciding to take an extended break to rest, relax, and do some research, the party tied themselves together in preparation for crossing the bliss pollen rooms and made the long trek up to Lankios’ basement, and thence back to their villa. They spent two weeks of downtime, and accomplished a variety of tasks:

• Julia was able to cure Melnax of his delusion that he was the elven crown prince.

• Coco came to her senses and realized she was not Vul.

• Coco researched the spell Diamond Screen.

• Bjorn researched and created three vials of poxvial poison.

• Julia started learning how to read Mithric.

• Hector and Scylla took a romantic trip to the Inn of the Broken Head to pay the horse boarding fee.

The party returned to the Halls on the morning of Deuterios 24th. Returning to the hallway with the now empty tomb of Sulla Bellator they continued south into a natural tunnel which led to a large cavern pitted with uneven dips and hummocks. Seven stone figurines hung from strings in the northeastern section of the chamber, each one about a foot and a half tall, with arms and legs twined about an unrealistically-large, gaping mouth, and painted in bright primary colors. Coco cast Detect Magic as a ritual and determined that all of the figurines were magic. Bjorn threw a javelin at one of the figurines and connected with a solid hit but did no visible damage to it. As he seemed disinclined to retrieve it Hector walked into the chamber to do, but as he approached the figurines some sort of magic was triggered and Hector, unable to overcome the effects, lost all of his memories about who he or any of his compatriots were, where he was, and why he was there. After some time spent convincing him they were his friends Julia and Scylla took him through the rug back to Gosterwick to the Temple of Mitra for evaluation. The high priestess informed them that this seemed to be an arcane magic effect and suggested they visit the Arcane Practitioner’s Club. The magic users there were able to diagnose Hector as having fallen victim to a “memory trap”, withe act of the figurines being connected to a clay head stored elsewhere that contained Hector’s memories, which could be freed by breaking the clay head.

While Julia, Scylla, and Hector were attending to this business in town, Coco cast Detect magic as a ritual and determined that one of th heads was now not magical. She then cast Dispel Magic on the entire group and then cast Detect Magic as a ritual again to verify that all of them figurines were now inert. When the party reunited they began by searching the room for secret doors, with Melnax finding one in the wall behind where the figurines hung. Bjorn listened at it with the Conch of Amplification but heard nothing. Hector had to use his Gauntlets to lift the door open, which revealed a natural tunnel leading up to the northeast. This led to a small ten foot square worked area with an obvious secret door in the eastern wall. Bjorn listened again and heard nothing, so Hector again used his magical strength and opened the door, revealing a large chamber lit by four smokeless torches containing four elaborate day beds carved of teak and set with brightly colored silk sheets and pillows. Six oriental carpets with geometric and animal patterns covered the floor with four more carpets hanging on the north and south walls. These carpets were figural, and depicted strangely-accoutered warriors with spears and curved swords. Ten small tables occupied the rest of the floor space, including a pair of small tables of solid ivory, a set of five oval tea tables in teak and ivory, a pair of mahogany end tables, and a magnificent sandalwood gaming table inset with ivory and gold on which a backgammon board with ebony and ivory game voices was set up. A low bookcase held various tomes and in the northeast corner was a jumble of brightly colored plasteel equipment.

On either side of the door that they were looking through stood two six foot tall statues carved out of ironwood. Each depicted a grimacing demon warrior holding a glaive, the faces of each warrior featuring tusks and wild eyes. Each statue was decorated with a Khumus-style bronze helmet, a set of four gold arm rings shaped like snakes, a steel breastplate, a pair of steel greaves, and four gold finger rings set with black pearls. The northern statue also wore an exotic silver necklace from which dangled thirteen four inch long curved fangs.

Arising from a chair as they entered was a skinny, spindly-limbed biped some eight feet tall, with a large hairless head from which protruded two small, curved horns. The party immediate recognized this as a Rudishva. After trying a few languages the ruudishva addressed the party in accented Archontean, introducing himself as Tataka. He was soon joined by a companion who he named as Vatapi. When asked how they had survived so long since the fall of the Rudishva within the Halls, they said that they had lived throughout the Archontean era with the help of key technology that they had squirreled away. When the Archonteans abandoned Arden Vul, they sought a safe location far from the politics and warfare of the new factions. They found it here, in this “strange human temple dedicated to the pleasure/pain principles”. Here they have lived in harmony for millennia, awaiting rescue from the stars. When asked what their roles aboard The Glorious Beacon of Shining Heaven they said that they were junior officers with bronze IDs that they had lost in the ensuing millennia. Bjorn attempted to cross the room to check behind the curtain on the east wall but was stopped by the air, who expressed shock sat such rude behavior at someone who was a guest in their home. The Rudishva told the party that nothing lay beyond but the rest of the temple complex, and the party returned to the figurine room.

Moving southwest down a natural tunnel they entered a plain chamber with a female goblin standing confusedly in the center. After a shot conversation it became clear that she had fallen victim to both the bliss pollen and the figurines and had no idea where she was, who she was, why she was there, or how she had arrived. The party bade her to follow them and continued to the west, entering a larger cavern overlooking the bliss flower cavern located to the west. The cavern was dark with a floor of uneven rock, with lumps, boulders, and small stalagmites throughout. The walls and eastern section of floor were covered with a mat of climbing vines with pale, whitish leaves. A stone table overlooked the drop-off to the bliss flower chamber, with a skeletal form wearing an assortment of items laying on the floor next to it. As Hector approached the table six tentacles emerged from one of the nearby “rocks” and began to attack the party.

All but Bjorn and Melnax were grabbed by the tentacles and slowly dragged towards the gaping tooth filled maw that had opened in the creature. Susarra wounded the tentacle that had grabbed her enough to make it drop her and Coco Dimension Doored to safety while everyone else was dragged ever closer. Melnax cast Fireball at the creature while Coco attempted Hold Monster but the innate magic resistance of the creature resisted both of the spells while the Fireball caught Hector. The melee fighters of the oars eventually did enough damage to the creature to drop it.

Hector then resumed his mission of inspecting the body. It was a human skeleton wearing an odd suit two huge turtle shells sewn together along the sides, with boiled leather arm and leg extensions. The helmet of the suit was made from the chitinous head of an ankheg. The party theorized it was some sort of armor meant to protect the wearer from giant bee stings, a theory bolstered by the many pockmarks from the insects’ stingers across the suit.

Moving to the southeast and proceeding through a passage that was obscured by the climbing vines but indicated on their treasure map, the pray continued through and empty room to a cave featuring several impressive bits of flowstone in beautiful caramel colors. The flowstone had almost (but not quite) obscured a glowing green wizard mark. After Hector removed the flowstone with the battering ram mode on the Rod of Lordly Might they see that it consisted of the entwined letters “K” and “B”. Coco cast Dispel Magic on the wizard mark but this had no effect, which indicate that it must have been cast by a powerful wizard. After a few attempts at guessing the password the party decided to move on.

As they now knew where they were on the treasure map, they made their way towards what was titled the Tomb of Liskon the Mad. In the room outside of the tomb they found a Wiskin warrior slowly banging his head against the south wall, weeping uncontrollably. He wore a Norman helmet and a chain mail byrnie on which was painted a yellow snake, and carried a serrated long sword. Suspicious of the party at first, it quickly became apparent that he too was under the dual effect of the bliss pollen and memory trap, and after a few moments spent reassuring him he agreed to join the party.

The party examined the door on the south wall which supposedly led to the tomb. It was a plain stone door which featured an exaggeratedly large keyhole. Despite its size nothing could could be seen through it, and Coco’s Knock spell had no effect.

Stymied by the door, the party returned the way they had came and went to the west. A passageway sloped down to a chamber into which multiple other passageways sloped into. A poorly hidden pit trap occupied he center of the room, and Bjorn Spider Climb Slippers’ed his way down, retrieving a back that held three clay flasks of a sickeningly sweet spelling viscous purple liquid. A ritually cast Detect Magic from Coco showed that they were not magical.

Moving south they entered a room containing a pile of wooden boards and two wooden in the middle of the chamber, apparently a cart with none of the metal fixtures. A small alcove to the east contained a deep (well of cold, clear spring water. Using the Staff of the Frog Coco dove into the thirty foot deep well and found one item at the bottom, a beautifully carved, three inch tall, jade statuette of a Khumus warrior turning to fire an arrow over his shoulder, long hair in two topknots that drop down his back, a long, droopy mustache, and lacquered armor.

Continuing south and then east they entered a broad cave forty feet tall where they entered with a large flowstone drift in the the southeastern end making it only 15’ tall at that point. The flowstone was a beautiful caramel color, and is slightly wet. Scattered about the flowstone wee four piles of cleaned bones, including a recent pile that seems to have been a large quadruped. As Hector and Coco entered the room a large grey fleshy mass dropped from the ceiling, but they were able to easily step out of the way and the party dispatched the creature as it slowly undulated toward the nearest wall. They headed north down a long tunnel, passing a thirty five foot drop on their right and eventually coming to a cool and damp twenty five foot tall cave that was surprisingly devoid of bliss pollen; it is cool and damp. Three large rock formations stood in the center of the sandy floor; the northern two extended all the way to the ceiling, but the southern formation was only twenty feet tall. Investigating the top of the this formation they found an old fire ring besides which was the skeleton of a long-dead dwarven adventurer and their equipment, along with a small patch of four foot tall mushrooms. The equipment on the dwarf’s skeleton included a dwarf-sized suit of magic banded mail, an inert Dwarven Life-Stone bearing markings in Dwarven Runic, a fine but non-magical war hammer inscribed with the clan ‘Hornfels’ insignia, a silver belt (250 gp), and a backpack with a coil of rope, six spikes, a hammer, two flasks of oil, and a bag of carefully polished marbles. Bjorn procured a chicken from Larel’s Sack and fed it some of one of the mushrooms, and after it didn’t die he tried one and found that it sated his hunger for the day. He was able to convince the Wiskin and the goblin to do the same.

The party continued south, finding a room where three thick spears were thrust into the sand that covered the floor, a varumani skull perched atop each one. In one bull’s eye socket was a piece of parchment on which was written in Archontean “the tomb of Marius the Great is now inaccessible, save through the hidden door in the propagandistic ‘shrine’ to the archon. One must still placate the guardians”.

Continuing their exploration, they passed a chamber containing an iron ore vein that appeared partially eroded. Continuing further they found a large chamber being guarded by a group of Varumani wearing green hats. The Varumani informed the party that they would have to pay fifty silver coins each or a “shiny rock”. Coco asked with indigence if they would really have to pay 300 silver pieces for the nine of them and the Varumani said that they would. The party settled in on top of the rock formation with the dead dwarf and the mushrooms for the night, and got 450 silver piece from the villa.

On the morning of Deuterios 25th the party continued their exploration, returning to the Green Beret Varumani and paying the fee. Proceeding to the south they found a large sixty foot tall cavern with an uneven floor containing many small holes and ridges. The cavern was dominated by a forty foot tall cliff that ran along its southern edge. A shelf extended along the south wall above the cliff, beyond which a steeply rising tunnel lead to presumably another level of the Halls.

Two patches of worked stone were in the cavern, one at the bottom of the cliff by the eastern edge, and the other at the top of the cliff in the same location. At each location the rock floor had been smoothed flat in a 15’-diameter circle with an oaken shepherd’s crook some ten feet high firmly inserted into the rock in the exact center of each location, a copper bell about three inches in diameter hanging from each. A bit of Mithric verse was inscribed in the flattened rock in each circle and read:

Five for the furious

Four for some fun

Three for trouble

Two to be spun

And One? One is for the lonely

After exploring the chamber a bit, Hector rang the lower bell four times. When he did, a group of imps suddenly appeared, wearing jester suits and clown makeup and, accompanied by circus music, began to perform acts of gymnastics and simple card tricks and pantomime for ten minutes. At the end of this they held out a hat which most of the party placed some amount of money into and the imps disappeared. Bjorn tried ringing the bell six times but nothing happened. After ringing the bell on top of the ledge four times abiding treated to a repeat performance by the imps, the party decided to move on.

Returning to the chamber where the grey fleshy mass had attempted to drop onto Coco and Hector they proceed to the south where another grey fleshy mass dropped form the ceiling, this time enveloping Hector. Most of the party attacked cautiously so as not to injure Hector but Bjorn thrust his Dagger of Venom into the creature, killing it but luckily not Hector.

Continuing further south they encountered a locked door that Coco Knocked open. Beyond was a ten foot by twenty five foot room, fifteen feet tall with walls simply decorated with a single word inscribed in Mithric. To the east, the word was ‘beauty’, to the south ‘strength, and to the west ‘utility’. The inscriptions stood out from the bare granite because they are filled with silver. The chamber was dominated by a twelve foot by five foot by four foot sarcophagus made of stone. Atop the sarcophagus is a fine gisant of Phocion the Builder, dressed simply in a tunic with a belt pouch, and carrying a level and a set of architect’s dividers. Removing the top of the sarcophagus using their usual method, they found a compartment in which a set of human bones rested. A scattering of ancient gold solidi and ancient silver pennies carpeted the inner compartment. In addition, a tightly rolled scroll titled the Testament of Phocion the Builder. Coco read the scroll, which provided a narrative of the various building projects of the famed Archontean architect Phocion, spread over thirty lines of cramped text. The list of his projects included the Pyramid of Thoth, the Archon’s palace, the temple of Thoth, the temple of Set, and the temple of Horus among others that the party had never heard of. Coco noted at this point that the parchment also concealed an acrostic message. Beginning with the second line the opening letters of each line read “Strength prepares the way”. Hector then touched each letter of the word Strength on the southern wall in turn and as he finished a secret door opened in the western part of the wall.

Proceeding through the secret door the party descended a narrow set of steps that led to another secret door. Opening this the party found themselves peering into one of the more elaborate tombs they had found during their time in the Halls. The ceiling was fifteen feet tall and carved so as to suggest a wooden beamed ceiling. Two large stone sarcophagi and two tall bronze statues occupied the chamber. Large, silver-filled inscriptions occupy the diagonal walls of the northern and southern niches. A mosaic, surrounded by another silver inscription, occupied the floor in the center of the chamber. The inscriptions were in Mithric and filled with silver.Clockwise from the northwest, the inscriptions read:

Northwest: Theory and practice are the sires of art.

Northeast: Strength means locating a solid foundation and choosing proper materials.

Southeast: Utility requires a judicious distribution of the parts, with each in its proper place serving its proper purpose.

Southwest: Beauty derives from a proper sense of proportion and from the pleasing appearance and good taste of the whole.

The mosaic was formed of tesserae of brightly colored stone forming four quadrants. In a separate circular band around the mosaic were the words Proportion, Uniformity, Consistency, Economy. The quadrant by the word ‘proportion’ showed a rectangle made of silver tesserae surrounded by azure blue tiles. The quadrant next to the word ‘uniformity’ showed an elevation of a building front, in ivory tesserae with thin black onyx edges, with three columns on either side of a central door. The third quadrant, next to the word ‘consistency’, featured the front and side of a dwelling in one-point perspective, as well as a rose compass; the building was in ivory tesserae with edges marked out in thin pieces of black onyx. The columns at the front were simple doric columns, and there was a window in the side wall. The rose compass indicated that the window is to the east. The final quadrant had a small person (in blue quartz) inspecting pieces of granite, silver and marble; close inspection showed the figure was pointing to the granite piece.

The eastern and western niches contain eight foot tall bronze statues of Phocion. The eastern statue showed Phocion as a typical Archontean aristocrat, dressed in a toga and gesturing into the center of the room. The other statue depicted him as an architect, wearing a simple tunic and belt pouch and holding forth his dividers and level. Both showed him with closely trimmed beard and hair, and with a naturalistic face (large nose, several warts, and kind eyes).

The sarcophagus to the north was a plain rectangle. The word “Phocion” was inscribed on the lid and a continuous mid-relief sculpture ran along its side. The images represented the builder at work, directing men raising stone blocks, carving out caverns, and erecting a pyramid. The second ‘sarcophagus’ was actually a stone table, carved on its side in the same scheme as the northern sarcophagus. A grid of shalf inch square holes and a rose compass was carved into the top of the table; there are nineteen holes in each row/column, each one inch apart. Arranged around the grid were neat piles of appropriately sized building materials made of silver, granite, and white marble. There were three piles of wall segments, each cut so as to allow the insertion of up to three pillars along the front of the wall segment. A fourth pile contained wall segments with windows; four segments of each material. Another six piles contained pillars that can be inserted into the wall segments including oak, ebony, silver, gold, white marble, and granite pillars with each pile containing forty eight pillars. Finally there were three piles of roof pieces, with each pile distinguished by size and material. One of the roof piles has six pieces, three and half inches long and made of silver. The second pile of roof pieces contained eight seven inch long granite pieces The last pile of roof pieces was in white marble, with ten pieces measuring ten inches long. All roof pieces were gabled roofs; end pieces had a pediment on one side, while interior pieces were just the roof itself. The party found themselves a bit overwhelmed by the puzzle set before them and paused to consider their options.

R.I.P.:

None

Foes defeated:

The Statue of Sulla Bellator

One tentacled toothy lump

Two grey fleshy ceiling dwelling masses