Merutep follows Marius into the secret chamber and waits for him to ensure it's safe to proceed down the stairs. Aya sits perched calmly on her shoulder.
"Stairs, then? Okay. Where do you want me in the descent queue?"
"I hope this is the end of the last of our travails, I would really like to get our reward for all this dificulty."
"Should we check the east doors before heading down the stairs?"
"Leave the locked doors or the open stairs behind us? I vote for leaving the locked doors to our rear."
"We can always come back," Merutep replies with a smile, clearly excited to keep moving on.
Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, Marius proceeds to the end of the hall and sends the glowing spheres of his dancing lights spell to the flight of stairs.
Marius' lights illuminate the stairs which end at yet another set of double doors.
Caius follows behind Marius staying alert.
"Yeah I'm for checking this out and then coming back to the other doors." he says to the group.
"Sounds good to me, shields to the front aye lads."
"That is the commonly accepted method." Meriui chuckles as he replies to the good doctor.
Marius moves cautiously down the stairs and checks the double doors for traps before checking to see if they are unlocked.
Marius' thorough search of the doors doesn't reveal any traps and the doors open with a push to reveal a room containing several dust covered boxes, chests, and urns.
Merutep follows Marius forward with a smile. Although she's trying to maintain a calm, level-head, Merutep is clearly super thrilled to be here and is bursting with excitement.
She looks around the dusty room with interest.
Aya looks around the room with interest from her perch on Merutep's shoulder, more cautious and alert than her 'mistress.'
Rashim follows Marius and Merutep down the stairs, keeping an eye out for traps along the way.
"Now this is more like it. Pay day is finally here." Hibbins walks in to the room and starts looking around at the their payoff. "Wait a tick, where is the sarcophagus?"
Extra +1 if traps for a 25.
Dr. Hibbins exploration of the room turns up a secret door located in the eastern wall. Further examination reveals a rune of an insect carved into the stone of the doors. Touching or opening the doors would release whatever spell the rune is holding.
The shield follows down the stairs and takes a position in the room below, dragging Meriui along behind it.
Finding nothing, Merutep looks at her companions. "Find anything interesting?"
"Secret door with a magical trap carved in to it. I'm going to assume these are grave goods, which means behind that door is the burial chamber we seek."
"Fascinating! Can you open it?" she asks curiously.
Merutep begins opening the chests and boxes, none of which are locked or trapped assuming Ankhepti's spirit would want access to these item in the afterlife.
Most of the chests contain clothing and foodstuffs that have not withstood the test of time but amongst the items she finds two vials of a metallic silver liquid, a finely crafted longbow, 10 cold iron arrows, a gold scarab shaped clasp, an onyx and ivory holy symbol of Pharasma, a silvered hand mirror, and a wax sealed urn of nard.
"Wow, look at this stuff!" Merutep remarks excitedly.
Holding up the silver liquid she passes it to Dr. Hibbins. "Do you have any idea what this is?"
She holds up the fine longbow and arrows. "Does anyone want a beautiful bow? Marius?"
Then she examines the holy symbol, scarab clasp, hand mirror and nard. "Beautiful craftsmanship."
Rashim's eyes are drawn to the gold scarab clasp. Related to Khepri? Probably not, everything is a scarab around here... "Yes, beautiful, and particularly fitting for a group called the Sand Scarabs!" He laughs a little, then turns his attention to the door. He examines the door more closely.
If no other threats present themselves, Rashim will begin to go to work on the rune, attempting to carefully disrupt the magic in the rune without discharging it.
"Very nice looking pieces. I doubt the bow will be very useful inside the tombs. Maybe I'm wrong."
Marius cast a detect magic and scans the items they've found. If any of them detect as magic he will do a spellcraft roll to identify.
Caius looks intrigued at the treasure trove they have found. "Wonderful. These look great, even if they are not magical, perhaps they will fetch a fine price in the antiquities market."
He takes a closer look at the objects found.
Marius' eyes glow blue as he examines the items found in the chests. Looking them over only the two vials of silver liquid detect as magic. Examining them closer he determines that they have a a faint aura of transmutation magic but he can't seem to glean anymore information about them.
Caius looks the other grave goods over with a shrewd eye. The longbow is definitely masterwork quality and would probably fetch about 375 gold pieces on the open market. The golden scarab would bring in around another 75 gold. The urn of nard is similar to the one you found earlier and would be worth about 100 gold pieces. The silvered hand mirror and the Pharasmin holy symbol are unknown quantities but he's sure the temple in the city would pay top coin for the latter.
Rashim pokes and prods the sigil on the doorway with his tools. After some time he takes a step back and wipes his brow, determining that the doors are no longer trapped. Stepping up, he opens the doors to reveal a long corridor ending in a single stone door.
Merutep pins the scarab brooch to her dress and places the mirror and nard in her backpack. She leaves the bow and arrows out for someone else to carry.
Then she stands up and peeks down the corridor.
"Is it safe?" she asks Rashim.
The man behind the shield moves towards the open door and looks through.
"Want me to go first?"
"Go right ahead my friend." Hibbins keeps a wary eye on the stone door at the end of the hallway. "One or two rooms left till we get to go home and celebrate."
Too excited to wait any longer, Merutep wanders off down the hall.
Aya shakes her feathered head at Merutep's foolishness. She looks around warily, clearly nervous about hidden traps and curses, but doesn't leave her 'mistress' ' side.
With Meriui in the lead, Marius will follow behind Merutep, hoping the the man's shield will protect them all in case something bad should happen. Once they reach the door Marius will kneel down to examine it for traps before trying to open it.
Meriui heads down the hall, his massive shield at the ready in case something should happen, when....nothing happens. Followed closely by Merutep and her companion, then by Marius the trio now stand in front of the stone door. Marius examines the door which he declares free of traps before he opens them.
The unlocked door open with a touch to reveal a 15' x 20' room in the center of which rest a sarcophagus, covered in gold leaf, the lid of which is carved in the likeness of an adult man with his arms crossed across his chest. Two ornate chest sit in the northeast and southeast corners of the room while a pair of bronze urns stand between them. Everything in the room is covered in thick layer of dust, as if undisturbed for centuries.
Merutep wanders into the room and pauses in reverence.
"It's beautiful," she breathes.
She reaches out to touch the sarcophagus, then stops.
"Do you think it's safe?" she asks Marius, remembering the last one...
Taking a step back from the sarcophagus, Merutep instead moves deeper into the room to examine the chest and urns in the south corner of the room.
Aya's fine feathers raise in warning as Merutep approaches the sarcophagus. She squawks loudly, causing Merutep to pause.
Clearly relieved that Merutep's leaving the sarcophagus to someone else, Aya barely has time to look around before Merutep starts recklessly opening chests and peering into pottery.
The exasperated bird shakes its head, as if Merutep were a foolish child, then does her best to help Merutep examine the relics.
"Since there were no traps leading in here, there should be some in here, right? Somewhere?" He keeps his head on a swivel, worried that this was far too easy . . ..
"Considering it is his chamber, I am going to guess there is a guard and not traps. Hopefully long dead, unless it is of the undead or construct nature... I'm guessing construct considering the nature of the guards so far, but I am not ruling out the buried coming back to guard his own tomb."
Caius moves into the chamber following behind Marius. He stands in the corner and keeps an eye out for trouble, while his companions search the room.
"Let's just hope it's just a payday. I'm itching to finish clearing this tomb out, head back to the city and divide our profits."
He then relaxes a slightly as he leans on the wall. "Hopefully we can get another interesting tomb after this one."
"Oh, that would be exciting," Merutep replies. "But, we'd best focus on the tomb at hand first."
Rashim comes down the hall to join the conga line outside the door.
With all eyes on the treasures in this room no one notices the creature as it slithers from the shadows behind the dais until Merutep feels a sharp pain in her thigh as it sinks it's fangs into her flesh. Looking down she sees a snake, but not an ordinary snake. This one is made of metal.
+poison
An Iron Cobra is built with a reservoir, designed to hold up to 3 doses of any particular poison it's creator wished to fill it with
An Iron Cobra has damage reduction 5/- and a spell resistance of 13
Initiative:
Merutep let's out a sharp yelp as the metal snake bites her in the thigh.
Aya cries loudly and flaps her wings, drawing attention to her wounded charge...
Hearing Merutep yelp, Rashim moves quickly into the room, pushing past the others. Seeing the metal snake, he slides back into a far corner, and causes a nearby stone to levitate up. He lines up an opening, and the stone streaks through the air.
Marius calls upon the luck of his ancestor's as he draws his sword. With a quick slash he strikes at the creature.
Damage is 6 to the snake.
"I have enough for one more and then I am out."