Corso will try the most direct route: walking back to the wall, climb up it and drop down over the other side.
Rathis waits, making sure Corso made it over OK before following.
"Looks like that's the way out,
Though I think that light that came through for a moment could mean a time difference."
"Who knows," Rathis responds fatalistically. "Only one way to find out, though, I guess. Once more into the breach?"
He looks around, shrugs, and follows Corso over the wall.
Each of you is also hit with the staggering yet harmless and short lived disorientation as you transfer from silvery night to blazing afternoon in the space of a razor blade.
It is an uneventful trip back to the Lion Sleeps. As soon as the girls enter, a pair of herders gasp and rush the girls. They wrap them in their arms and protectively escort them to a corner before returning to you and thanking each of you profusely and repeatedly. They offer prrsistantly if they can do anything to repay this miracle you have worked.
Ferod smiles and nods in acceptance of the praise. Just a room, bath, and some hot food. More work we have to ensure no more are stolen like these girls.
"It was my pleasure to help."
You pass the night comfortably, if not extravagantly. At least the beds are clean and warm. The food isn't bad either.
The next morning you return to the tomb and perform a repeat of your entrance earlier. Everyone exits their coffins with a minimum of hastle and the door to outside is unlocked. Night envelops you once again as you make your way to the proper teleportation circle.
Each of the five items you have collected fits neatly into the sockets provided. Once the last clicks into place, you are immidiately teleported again.
The ceiling of this next chamber is grand and peaks forty feet overhead. It is covered with frescoes depicting the prophecy of Aroden’s return. In mockery of this, however, a massive fresco on the northeast wall depicts an infernal figure, black as soot, with the head of a goat and hairy bat wings. The devil holds a wicked- looking scythe in one hand and with the other feeds a brazier fire with pages from a book entitled The Prophecies of Aroden. A huge, defiled symbol of Aroden, its wings clipped bloodily, occupies the southeastern wall.
A 25-foot-tall iron statue of the Medusa Triumphant dominates the west end of the chamber. It depicts a naked medusa standing over a decapitated corpse, holding a sword in her right hand, blade parallel to the ground. The other arm is extended, grasping her grisly trophy by the curls, gore dripping from where the head was severed from its body.
The medusa carving on the floor is the teleportation circle that sends those who step on it back.
"The decor in these places are just lovely. Not hard to see why their reputation is less than sterling. Even I wouldn't decorate a place like this, and I have as much blood on my hands as anyone."
He looks around for any egress other than the teleportation circle.
There is a single exit east. You enter a room with four shimmering pools occupying a barrel-vaulted chamber, each about a foot deep and displaying a highly detailed mosaic of a cockatrice at its center, composed of fake precious stones.
Omar immediately spots and disarms a trap of Flesh to stone here, and you move on without incident.
The next chamber’s twenty-foot-high ceiling is held aloft by pristine granite pillars. The walls are covered in murals depicting battle scenes, while a twelve-foot-tall aquarium occupies the west end of the room, framed in iron and with thick glass. Four elaborate chairs of carved mahogany sit before this water-filled tank. A great Qadiran rug of intricate geometric designs covers the floor.
This strange chamber serves as the burial crypt of the Adella who brought final ruin on the entire House. The only ingress into the tank is a 3-foot-diameter iron entry hatch atop its northeast corner. Turning the locking wheel to open the hatch, hinged on its west side, requires a DC 18 Strength check.
Front and center in the aquarium floats a bloated, unusually preserved corpse, its arms and legs shackled with chains attached to floor and ceiling, clad in an extraordinarily wrought breastplate emblazoned with the cross-eyed medusa, and bobbing in the green-hued water.
The pommel of a sword protrudes from the body’s belly. The floating cadaver’s dead eyes are wide open, and its black hair wafts back and forth, as though cast about by a gentle breeze. A bronze plaque, green with age, mounted on the glass above, reads: “‘Then Let Them Drink’— Bartolomae Adella, 4496–4542.” A gilded bathtub stands to the corpse’s left, its legs great lion’s paws. Thick seaweed grows at the back of the tank, obscuring whatever might lie at the rear of this grisly aquatic display.
No traps detected.
"Oh my..."
I don't see a reason for there to be a current in that overgrown fishbowl. Anyone else see a reason to mess with it?
Ferod notices a slight scent of turkey and stuffing. Yum!
Val does a detect evil sweep of the room.
Nothing pings.
"Since there is not evil in the room, we cna open the hatch and get the sword."
"I'll do it, just in case something hostile but not evilly-aligned is waiting in the water."
Corso will open the hatch and retrieve the body.
The body is chained to both the floor and the ceiling of the tank. The sword, however, is not restrained by anything but the corpse. Do you persist in removing the whole body, or just retrieve the sword?
Ferod starts humming duunnn dunnn... duuuunnnn duun... duuunnnnnnnn dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dunnnnnnnnnnn dunnnn
As soon as the sword in pulled from the corpse the northern pillars melt into a rancid-smelling mound of animated ooze that has about their shifting countenance the hideous shape of half-melted men.
Rathis waits, looking around nervously.
"No offense to your searches and senses, but this place reeks of a trap. Something is certainly not right here."
Be swift of sword, and fleet of foot!
Corso will move between two of them and insult the third one
Val charges and Attacks one of the things
Growling slightly as the rancid blobs appear, Rathis pulls a vial from a pouch, shakes it quickly and tosses it toward the one Omar targeted. It explodes in a small blast of raw force.
"What the hell are these things?" Rathis calls out.
"They look like oozes."
The ooze like creatures by Corso treat up and gurgle in response to his taunts.
1.
2. 23
3. 87
The two things next to Corso clobber him with their amorphous appendage bits and one manages to get lucky with a surprise blow to the kidney. They both grope and slide over the man-bastion's defenses like they're trying to grab hold, but neither succeed.
The third, however, casts! A cloud of foul, acidic fog descends over Corso, Val, Rathis, and the other two slimy monsters, hiding them all from view of anyone they aren't standing right next to! It then slithers into the cloud with a choking gurgle that might be laughter.
Corso will attack one of the ones adj. to him, weaving his tonfa in a defensive pattern that, when combined with his shield, makes for a hard to beat defense.
Rathis hisses as the acid fog eats away at him, backing out of the mess as he blinks tears out of his eyes, trying to see more clearly.
"Get out of the fog," he yells. "We don't want to fight these things on their own terms!'
He readies himself in case one of the creatures gets closer.
Val backs away and once out of the Fog, uses her wings to create some wind.
The fog swirls, but val is unable to create sufficiently strong wind to dissipate the cloud.
The slimes surround you, cutting off your escape just as Valeria withdraws. The assault your steel defense with a will but none get through... this time. Even as you fight, you feel the acid of the cloud eating away at you through the cracks in your armor that the disgusting blobs failed to exploit.
None of the blobs emerge from the fog. Ferrod seems to be contemplating something.
Ferod begins casting a summon spell. Help is coming, just stay out of the way for a moment!
Heeding Ferod's call, and not seeing a reason to step into the acid cloud, Rathis waits, ready should one of the creatures emerge.
Foolish to stay and fight in there. That's how you end up dead.
Cut off from his allies, Corso will focus on one of the enemies in a bid to break free.
[dice=Attack Rolls (Nothing fancy, just "punch him in the face")]1d20+23; 1d20+18; 1d20+13[/dice]
The Azata appears and stares the acid fog down for a moment before lazily casting a spell. A severe blast of wind rips across the room, easily dissipating the acid fog.