Kufieno chuckles to himself and walks over to pat Seal on the shoulder, then takes his shortsword and mockingly taps the shoulders of the dwarf. "I dub thee, Sir Target Practice!" Trying to stifle his guffaws, he turns to follow the party, looking over his shoulder and winking at Seal.
Peering into the next room, Kufieno crinkles his nose. "Desna weeps! Who's coming to dinner?!"
After being browbeaten and feeling guilt from nearly being the cause of death from one of the few men he calls friend, Sealman scratches Thunderpuss behind the ears, throws his dorn over his shoulder, and continues on.
Moving to the south, you see a single sarcophagus of gold sitting atop a white marble plinth at the far western end of this wide hall. The bas-relief lid depicts a handsome man holding a sprig of grapes and a bottle of wind crossed over his chest. The eyes are large star sapphires and the grapes appear to be individual gemstones that could be worked free with the right tools. Five wide alcoves in the room are carved with dozens of narrow niches, each of which contains a different bottle of what appears to be wine.
Unfortunately, as you enter the room a clay golem resembling a woman with the lower torso of a serpent and a Sihedron rune for a head activates to defend the sarcophagus!
"Clay *squeak* golem! Do not use acid!"
Rissi shoots a greenish ray from her clawed fingers disintegrate.
round :P
Kufieno moves closer, lifting into the air, and conjuring a ball of ice. Taking aim, he hurls it at the golem's head.
Rissi warps some of the clay with her spell as Miana swaps amulets and Kufieno tosses a snowball at the golem. The golem slowly swings its arms at Miana.
"Defend this position," Sealman says to Thunderpuss. He then hurries after Miana so that she doesn't have all the fun.
Rissi begins to conjure a creature from another world to aid in the battle.
Miana punches the golem but Seal slips in his pottery attempt. Rissi starts a summoning incantation.
Kufieno sucks in a deep breath then breathes an arc of lightning at the golem.
Lucian extends his hands, refocusing after his near-death experience.
"Desna, bring my companions luck in their endeavor, let them revel in your glory!"
Kufieno sends the golem stumbling back in shock as its clay morphs and melts away into a puddle of useless goo....
The sarcophagus itself turns out to be only gold plated. Of greater value are the two star sapphire eyes (each worth 1,000 gp) and the dozen amethyst grapes (each worth 300 gp). The wine stored in the alcoves remains delicious to this day, preserved by Runeforge’s aura. In all, there are 68 bottles in this room, each of which is worth 100 gp—and each of which could serve as components to make gluttonous runeforged weapons.
"Wine! Why, it must have aged so much if it really dates back from Thassilon. Imagine that, a 10,000 year-old wine!" comments the Varisian evangelist. "Shall we open one and find out if it's still good?" he proposes.
"Such a vintage was grown for the master of death and unlife. I can only imagine that the *chhh* was grown in a suitably perverse way - perhaps the vines found root in grave soil."
The walls of this room have been plated in iron, each plate of which bears a single rune—the upside-down, hooked “U” shape. What appear to be two ten-foot-tall smooth crystal pylons stand in the middle of the room. A rippling curtain of blackness shimmers between these crystals. On the opposite side of each crystal, strange tendrils of black energy—reverse lightning crackling in extreme slow-motion—extend out from the crystals into spheres of roiling blackness in circular caverns to the left and right of the entrance. The air in the room is shockingly cold.
The crystal pylons themselves are powerfully infused with negative energy—any living creature that touches a pylon gains a negative level (no save). A successful DC 15 Fortitude save removes this negative level 24 hours later.
Kufieno smacks his lips. "I could use a drink!"
Frowning as the party moves on before imbibing Dead Guy Wine , Kufieno peers around the room. "Can you make any sense of this, Miss Rissi? Lucian?"
Sealman pops open one of the bottles and takes a swig as he leads the party north.
Once Seal enters the room, he wander with bottle in hand to the western alcove to investigate the niche. He takes another pull from the bottle as he palms the stone wall.
"Be careful, do not touch the pylons or the curtain, it's made of negative energy and is some sort of portal leading to the plane pertaining to that kind of energy. Let's be quick here, then leave."
"Wait, Lucian. Do you not see how the crystals are stabilizing the portal? It would be a simple matter to destroy them and sever the connection to *squeak* undeath this wing has. It would no doubt let many of the *chhh* restless spirits bound here have their final rest."
The ratfolk squats on her haunches and strokes her whiskers in thought. "The trick would, of course, be to do so safely - one would best do so from further then six paces away. Positive energy would do well, but perhaps you could summon a creature of the elemental plane of earth - perhaps it could survive long enough to shatter a crystal. Amusingly, I gather an undead entity would be well suited to eliminating this *chitter* threat."
"What if I channeled energy from afar, would that be enough?"
"I do not think so - the energy contained within is more volatile than the *chhh* magic I call upon to summon balls of fire. Three of your channelings of positive energy would perhaps bring the pillars to the brink of shattering, whereupon we could use other means to destroy them. Miana has the same connection to the energies of life and creation as you, and I think her better suited to surviving their destruction. At least, I have seen her *neek* perform such feats before"
Seal goes to investigate the small niche, being careful not to touch any of the negative-energy infused items in the room. In the small area beyond is a tiny cache of books and magical supplies geared toward the process of infusing a complex with wraiths and negative energy. In addition, there are two scrolls of plane shift and a scroll of binding sitting near the back of the cache, held down by a slender wooden box. Within this box rests a tuning fork attuned to Runeforge—the material component necessary to plane shift into this demiplane.
Kufieno tries to follow the conversation, but begins to lose the thread, shrugs, then moves over by Seal and grabs the bottle of wine, taking a swig. "Go for it, Miana!" He says.
"Agreed! Let's put this plan into motion."
Lucian then calls upon Desna's holy energies thrice to weaken the pillars and the portal.
Lucian channels and then retreats, allowing Miana to place the final few charges into the pillar to destroy it. It explodes outwards in a powerful release of energy.
The portal immediately begins to shrink in on itself in a ritual of self-destruction but in the process it yawns open into the negative energy plane for a brief moment—just long enough to allow a powerful monster from that deadly realm to manifest in this chamber—a nightwing nightshade. This creature looks like an immense bat made of roiling blackness with two glowing red eyes. The nightwing is furious at being siphoned into this world!
The bite of a nightwing drains magical power and energy. When a nightwing bites a foe, the victim must make a DC 23 Will save or one spell effect currently affecting him immediately ends—determine which spell is drained randomly if the target is under the effects of more than one spell. The nightwing heals damage equal to twice the level of the spell drained—hit points in excess of its maximum are instead gained as temporary hit points that last for 1 hour. If a nightwing attempts to sunder a magic item with its bite, its magic-draining bite renders the item nonmagical for 1d4 rounds (if the item is a permanent magic item), drains 1d8 charges (if the item has charges), or renders it permanently nonmagical (if the item is a one-use item). The item (or its wielder, if the item is attended) can resist this effect with a DC 23 Will save. Damage dealt to an item is applied after the effects of magic drain are applied.
"What in the Nine Hells is that!?" Kufieno exclaims.
Assuming Lucian is going to aid the party someway, and not liking the looks of this creature, Kufi decides to cast a spell defensively, cusing his form to waver.
Kufieno quickly protects himself against the monstrous undead beast.
Lucian yells what he can recall to his companions: "It's resistant to magic and cold. Use blessed and cold iron weapons!"
The he empowers his companions with a blessing of fervor.
The ferocious nightwing attacks the only other creature in the cramped room with it: Miana!
"Go away! the ratfolk squeaks.
Rissi puts her powerful magics to use and banishes the nightwing to the Plane of Shadow!
Kufieno grins widely. "Great job, Miss Rissi!" Whistling to himself he begins searching the room.
"Excellent job, Rissi! Now let's have a look at what's in the cache we saw earlier..."
"Yes, yes. Dead things give me the creeps - good riddance to that *chhh* creature. I agree with master Lucian - to the cache."
Seal goes to investigate the small niche, being careful not to touch any of the negative-energy infused items in the room. In the small area beyond is a tiny cache of books and magical supplies geared toward the process of infusing a complex with wraiths and negative energy. In addition, there are two scrolls of plane shift and a scroll of binding sitting near the back of the cache, held down by a slender wooden box. Within this box rests a tuning fork attuned to Runeforge—the material component necessary to plane shift into this demiplane.
To the east the chamber appears to be some sort of laboratory. Tables made of stacked sarcophagi support alchemical apparatuses, books, carved bones, scrolls, and various pieces of anatomy that have been dissected and preserved in dozens of ways.
The makings of an alchemist's lab sits atop one table. The books are both interesting and horrifying in their subject matter of the dead
Seal will check out the door to the north of this room.
To the north down a narrow corridor lies a bookshelf-lined room containing a large collection of dog-eared tomes, manuals, and scrolls, as well as jars of fluid in which float humanoid organs and bits of flesh. A dissected human torso sits atop the room's stone table. Behind the table, studying the dissection-in fact, tasting it would be more accurate-stands a ravenous zombie holding a serrated dagger which it is using to slice off small morsels of flesh. It hisses in anger as you enter.
The cannibalistic zombie leaps around the table to block Seal's entry and digs its dagger into the dwarf's side!