Introduction
Somewhere under a lost and lonely hill of grim and foreboding aspect lies a labyrinthine crypt. It is filled with terrible traps and not a few strange and ferocious monsters to slay the unwary.
It is filled with rich treasures both precious and magical, but in addition to the aforementioned guardians, there is said to be a demi-lich who still wards his final haunt.(Be warned that tales told have it that this being possesses powers that make him nearly undefeatable.)
Accounts relate that it is quite unlikely that any adventurers will ever find the chamber where the demi-lich Acererak lingers, for the passages and rooms of the tomb are fraught with terrible traps, poison gases, and magical protections.
Furthermore, the demi-lich has so well hidden his lair that even those who avoid the pitfalls will not be likely to locate their true goal. So only large and well-prepared parties of only the bravest and strongest should even consider the attempt, and if they do locate the tomb, they must be prepared to fail …
So was the legendary tomb of Acererak described to you, many weeks ago. You have since spent your waking hours and extraordinary resources trying to locate the tomb, and have finally found it at the western border of the Duchy of Geoff.
Now, here you are, a group of brave, perhaps foolhardy adventurers, at the peak of your skills and knowledge, ready to press forward in search of what may be the greatest treasure you’ll ever know.
You have arrived at the site of the demi-lich’s last haunt: a low, flat-topped hill about 200 yards wide and 300 yards long. Ugly weeds, thorns, and briars grow on the steep sides and bald top of the 60-foot- high mound. Several large black rocks are scattered on the hilltop.
Morgan is the image of a Dwarven warrior, barrel-chested and stout beyond belief. His Arms were the size of many a barbarian's legs, and he walked with the sort of confidence that comes from knowing you're the biggest predator in the area.
All of this, and yet he stood barely an inch over five and a half feet. Both his hair and facial hair were braided with ornaments made of gold, silver, and rarer metals, yet they made no noise as he moved.
Other than his shield, he wore no obvious armor, but he carried both a warhammer and a battleaxe, one on each hip and each made of the purest silver. His steel shield he wore on his right arm, indicating that he was left handed. His hands were shod in gauntlets from two different sets of fullplate, each of dwarven make. A diadem of beaten platinum rest snugly upon his brow, and leather pants and steel boots made up the bulk of his clothing. a pair of belt pouches rounded out his accoutrements.
During the travel to the tomb, You all would have come to know Morgan as a stout warrior, and one of the high priests of an unnamed deity of Dwarven magic. Should anyone attempt to name a god they believed to be his, Morgan would adamantly refuse to name his deity, stating that it's name was not for the ears of unbelievers. His mystic power, however, was not in doubt. As one of the high priests of his faith, Morgan had repeatedly displayed his ability to judiciously apply his divine magic to help overcome foes.
"So," Morgan remarked, "We've arrived at last. Time to see what the legends are all about."
A weaselly looking man, Kraven is far from what most would picture as a devout paladin. His wiry frame hide the taunt muscles from years of service, just as his dark cloths hide his well fitting platemail, anointed with many symbols of Ilmater. He carries with him little more than the barest essentials and martial gear, having donated nearly all of his wealth to the church.
What is not in question, is Kraven's religious fervor. Much of the time spent travelling has been spent in either prayer, or religious discussion with others of faith, like Morgan. He is not combative in these discussions, merely seeking to know as much as he can about those he travels with and the deities they serve.
Legends are oft rooted in the sands of truth, my good dwarf. responds Kraven as he rechecks the straps on his shield. If even half the stories are true, this endeavor will surely test our mind, bodies, and faith.
Sonya is a picture of beauty and grace. Her tall, lithe form has ample curves that suite her petite frame, but are not overkill. One might say she is perfect. Standing at 5'10" she is tall, but not for a Chondathan. She has pale skin, piercing greens eyes, and vibrant red hair. She wears a odd looking set of dark red robes, with many patches sewed into the inside, underneath you catch a glimpse of elven chain. She carries a staff carve from ash, its length covered in arcane runes, it radiates power from the fist size emerald sitting atop its shaft. She wears numerous other magical items as well, a glimpse into her lucky, or not so lucky past.
She spends the days traveling atop a magical broom that moves a few feet of the ground, only stopping to exam some plant she may have not seen before. She talks freely about the vast knowledge she posesses, but tarries away from attempts to gain knowledge of her past. Do not be confused by her nice demeanor though so her temper is short and her wrath terrible..
"Indeed what you say is true. I have spent quite a while researching the fabled lich tomb and I believe most of the stories you here to be truth in some form. It shall be an epic story to write after this is all said and done.."
The ashen blonde half-elven girl you've come to know as Saenaith, or "Sen" for short, stands barely 6 feet tall. Her face, when not covered by her unkempt hair depicts a youthful beauty with large, almond shaped, purple eyes that together with her small frame almost makes it hard to take her seriously as a fellow adult or indeed an adventurer.
A short green tunic dress covers her turso, arms, and barely half of her bare thighs, while the feet and lower legs up to just above the knees are clad in long, finely wrought boots of elven make. Her narrow shoulders are wrapped in a dark green cape with a fur-lined hood. In her right hand she holds what appears to be an elven bow missing its bowstring. This implement you have learned she uses to release magical bolts of purple energy the same way an archer releases arrows from an intact bow.
A catsized, lithe, dragonlike creature rests on her left shoulder, wings folded close to its back, surveying the situation with quick turnsof its head, not unlike a bird.
She drops her hood, the small dragon flapping its wings to stay on her shoulder as she does so: "So are we going to have to dig it out of the dirt or something?"
"Ha! Like a elf would know anything about mining."
"I have to admit, my people aren't quite as attuned to the dirt as yours.", Sen retorts with a smirk, her arms crossed around her bow.
At the banter over the entrance, Kraven shucks off his pack, rummaging through it a moment before removing a small tome. Hmm... my research on this doesn't mention anything about excavation. I suppose a lich wouldn't mind using a few spells if he ever felt like leaving his tomb if it added much to the secrecy and security of his lair.
Replacing the book in the pack, and readjusting it on his shoulders, he adds, Perhaps a bit of reconnoiter of the area prior to digging in a random location?
"We should deffinitely search the area for a proper entrance berfore getting our hands dirty.. And by our I mean yall.. I don't dig.."
A squat blad gnome listens to the banter while he ponders if he remembered to clean himself within the past three days. The casual observer would likely not notice, but Simo pauses while preparing his spells to get a short whiff of his skin under his robes and remains stonefaced as the vague-ly onion smell causes his eyes to water, Would it be unprofessional to cast prestidigitation to clean myself before we go in.... What if I say some beastie could track my scent or something...
Sink bites the tip of his pen as his eyes drift off the spellbook and into the air thinking deeply.
nondetection on myself using one of my powders
and see invisibility before we go inside anything.
Sen turns to the dragon on her shoulder: "I'll need a better view of the place."
The creature spreads its wings and leaps off with a few flaps, taking to the air. Sen's eyes glaze over as she stands in concentration.
A large, muscled man wearing no armor or even shirt finally speaks. If you won't dig, what use are you? All should carry there own weight. He glances towards Sonya before walking away. His long velvet red cape flows behind him in the wind. There is something almost feral about him, yet he also exudes an aura of cold calculation. On his hip he carried what seems to be nothing but a hilt with a ruby gem embedded on the pommel. He looks over the small hill before them.
Morgan pulls his axe and then begins attacking the thornvines on the sides.
Kraven chuckles slightly at the shirtless mans remarks, By the look of her, there isn't much weight to carry there... he comments dryly. Seeing the others looking over the hillside, Kraven shrugs before joining his eyes to the search, knowing that years of reading religious texts by candle light did not help his eyes acuity.
After several hours of searching the site, you found a possible entrance, and Morgan digs up a doorway. After the dirt and stone are cleared, you find a corridor set within the ground.
The corridor is of plain stone, roughly worked, and it is dark and full of cobwebs. These hanging strands obscure the 20-foot-high ceiling overhead. After 30 feet, the passageway ends at a pair of oaken doors fitted with iron pull-rings.
You have also located two other leads on what could be entrances. You have thus far managed to unearth the second of the three.
This plain stone passageway has a ceiling 10 feet high. Two oaken doors bound in iron and set with iron pull-rings stand side by side at the end of the hallway.
The third possible entrance is set between the two, but will take more work to unearth.
Morgan will say nothing but continue hacking the weeds and vines clear of the 3rd entrance.
Sen helps morgan by pulling at the imaginary string in her bow and launching arrow after arrow of purple energy with each release, blasting away at the brush covering the entrance.
Do we have anyone skilled in the arts of trap finding and removal? Perhaps the detection of magic? Three entrances lead me to believe there are some surprises for those who choose wrong. asks Kraven as he assists the excavation.
"My god is the god of magic. Of course I can see it."
Once we get all 3 entrances cleared I will use detect magic on all 3 to see what we can see.
Sonya will go about checking the 2 cleared out dorra for traps while the third is being unearthed..
If you run into trouble, I can bypass them - but I'd prefer to preserve my efforts until later. It's a trivial matter really, I'd have more trouble deciding how above the act itself, Simo says loudly from what he figures is a safe distance, Of course to bring all of you does limit the choices, and the future choices down the road... You know what, I'll let you guys handle it. I'll send my buddy here in with you.
A small lizard scuttles along with Sonya.
After the doors are cleared, Morgan will use detect magic on all 3 entrances.
Bright, brilliant colors cover every surface of this tunnel, the stones and pigments undimmed by the passage of decades. The floor is a colorful mosaic of stone with a distinct, 2-foot-wide winding path of red tiles snaking its way southward.
No stonework can be seen on the walls or the ceiling 20 feet above, for some sort of cement or plaster has been smoothed over these surfaces and then illustrated.
The scenes painted show fields with herd animals grazing, a grove with several wolves in the background, and slaves (humans, orcs, elves, and strange human-animal mixtures — pig-humans, ape-humans, and dog-humans) going about various tasks. Certain frescoes depict rooms of a building, including a library filled with books and scrolls, a torture chamber, and a wizard’s workroom.
Within these painted dioramas are chairs, windows, boxes, bales, doors, chests, birds, bats, spiders, and all manner of things.
hmmm. I've always just thrown rocks at things I thought may be trapped. Usually worked.. he thinks for a bit before giving a slight wince. usually. Arrak will then assist in searching for traps.
Looking for traps as well..
At entrance one she pays close attention to the doors, hinges, and the upper portion of the entrance way, especially the mouth looking area.
+12 = 21
At entrance two she again looks at the doors and the area surrounding them. She pays close attention to the symbols above and between the doors to determine what if any there meaning.
+12 = 31
At entrance three she doesn't venture to far as it looks sketchy.. She gives a general look of the area but thats it for now..
+12 = 24
Sonya and Morgan inspect the area and determine two things: One, the doors are false, and two, that the ceiling is unstable. They hastily retreat from the area.
As Sonya and Morgan walk down the corridor and get closer to the double doors, they notice that about 30 feet down, flush with the eastern wall, is a 20-foot-long, 10-foot-high, 5-foot-thick block of solid granite. The block is unlike the other stonework, which is made of smaller stones.
As they move past it and closer to the doors, the block begins sliding outward from the wall, scraping loudly across the floor as it moves.
At the sight of the block sealing up the area, Kraven cant help but shout out to those searching, in case for some reason, they missed the loud scraping behind them. He then rushes down to the edge of where the block is closing off the passage, arm outstretched to try and help his companions make the last few feet in case they are lagging in their escape.
RUN MORGAN!!
She bolts for the way out..
That was quite a shock! Simo exclaims near the opening to the tunnel, Do we have any other options?
The stone closes against the wall just as Morgan and Sonya narrowly escape being trapped. On inspection of the stone, there doesn't appear to be any way to force the mechanism to move it back. However the stone looks to be mundane and could be chipped or blasted at.
Arrak nods. See, shoulda thrown the rock. best we look into trying another entrance then? he begins to look around for a sizeable rock, or equivalent.
"Hah! they try to trap a Dwarf? In stone no less?"
Morgan will cast stone shape as many times as necessary to make a 5' wide tunnel through the stone.
The stone is 5' thick, 10' high and 20' long, so it'll require four castings of the spell to make a tunnel all the way through.
"So I suppose you have your mind set on using this entrance?" Sen comments as Morgan creates a new corridor.
She follows him down the tunnel and inspects the door at the end, as well as the walls, ceiling and floor immediately around it, to ensure there aren't more traps.
Sonya sets aside while the dwarf clears the way.. I think the other way is the obvious entrance.. When yall are ready we can check it out closer..
"I like to keep my options open."
"So it seems we must check out the multicolored entrance then.. I'll try something a little extra for it."
She pulls a wand from her Harversack and and uses it as she examines entrance #3..
She will look at the area closely as she moves as well..
Morgan casts Stone Shape multiple times and opens a tunnel through the large stone.
Meanwhile, Sonya trots over to the site where the 3rd possible entrance was unearthed and uses her wand to inspect the area.
The wand pulses and points about 30' ahead to the left.
The wand points at a section of the mural, where two jackal-headed human figures are painted so as to appear to be holding a real bronze chest that protrudes from the wall. The chest appears to be the trap that the wand is pointing at.
Inspecting the chest, Sonya sees that it is hinged on the bottom so as to allow the lid to swing down if a catch on top is pressed. The catch appears to have a needle rigged in it. It looks like the needle can be avoided by using a dagger or other small object to depress the catch.
Simo trots along with Sonya, his lizard splayed out on his bald head, Well had you mentioned a bright and vibrant corridor, then I imagine there would be no need to carve that stone!
As she steps in he casts his spells and follows behind as she inspects the chest on the wall. He gently sets his lizard on the ground and lets it scurry forward deeper into the hall to scout ahead up to 100 feet away telling it softly, OK, sparkle. Today is your day. Go forth and let us know what you see, you beautiful bastard.
Kraven watches the spellcasters work, both on carving the stone and then to discover the trapped chest. Think the little one will be safe up there? he asks Simo. And do we want to trigger that trap from a distance? Maybe with a magical hand I've seen others do?
"I can bypass this easily with a dagger.. When everyone is ready we may proceed.."
She pulls a dagger shaped patch from her robe and it quickly forms into a real dagger.. Using the proper technique she bypasses the dangerous part of the trap..
arrak shrugs. Been ready, still say throwing a rock is the easiest way. But I've never had someone with your finesse around. Most impressive.
"Bronze! What kind of ancient human place is this? Dwarves were working with bronze before humans crawled out of the...wherever humans come from."