While he is protected by various magics, if it looks too fetid, he will summon a Chaosodile and ask it to bring the body to the surface. He's not afraid you understand, but doesn't want to get dirty.
"She was just too wrapped up in herself, you know?"
Stelle looks at Zilchus, and with a totally deadpan tone inquires, "No. Did you mean Neferuset, or some other mummy?"
She then urges the sick dog toward the secret door, and tries to recover a bit.
"Maybe," she says, "We'll find something useful behind the wall, or this secret door."
After a moment she and Anubis lean against the door and she says. "You know, I don't feel great. We need to rest, maybe not in this strange room."
She inspects the secret door, waiting for recovery and to see what Kosei is discovering beyond the crumbled wall.
"I've never died before and I never thought this one would take me down. I had no worries,"
"Oh, except for that time the mummy croc rendered you to bits out of sheer malice when you wanted to play with him, that was nasty Commander Zilchus my friend" Kosei nods, struck by the notable imagination that queen Nef was too wrapped up in herself.
"Perhaps we should let the pus to settle down and pick her treasures on our way back. Sure the Ruby Prince will like to have those ones in his personal museum" Kosei keeps trying with the crumbled wall.
"Oh, except for that time the mummy croc rendered you to bits out of sheer malice when you wanted to play with him, that was nasty Commander Zilchus my friend"
”Lol, no,” Zilchus lols, remembering it perfectly. ”Sure she knocked me out, but I was fine once I started to breathe again. It was nothing.”
Zilchus waits to see what his Chaosodile drags from the muck.
Kosei leans into the wall some more, but it just doesn’t want to give. Eventually, perseverance will pay off, and a section of the wall will collapse, revealing a small chamber beyond. Examining the wall, you can see it was Stoneshaped, as per the spell, and someone did a poor job of remaking it.
The walls of this chamber are covered in closely written hieroglyphs. The hieroglyphs, painted upside down, speak of the hideous alien horrors waiting in the Dark Tapestry. To the east is a column of inky darkness. Ghostly, non-humanoid shapes of dusty gray appear to both rise and fall within the column, limbs and tentacles waving frantically. A faint odor of soured wine pervades the chilly air. It appears to all tests to be another teleport circle.
To the west, Stelle opens the untrapped secret door as well, continuing their plans before they were so rudely interrupted by the Queen. This small, austere crypt contains a single limestone sarcophagus, its lid depicting a slyly smiling Osirian woman clad in black linen robes. A disturbing symbol is painted on her forehead. Hieroglyphs adorn a cartouche painted about her neck which reads ”Neferisis”.
- - -
Finally, the chaosodile comes back up empty save for a couple diamonds worth about 200gp a piece. It’s eyes are mucus-y and there’s a rasping as it breathes - already succumbing to some disease from the pool.
”That’s it?!” Zilchus snaps at the chaosodile. ”Bring me her body. And you look at diseased at me! I brought you into this world, and I can take you out! Get me that body.”
The chaosodile dives back into the water, puss rolling over its head as it descends. It surfaces some time later with two more diamonds. By now one of it's eyes is sealed shut with some sort of green ooze leaking out of it and its mouth hangs open gasping for breath.
It spits the diamonds onto he platform.
Kosei examines the strange circle in the room "I think I have found a new teleportation circle my friends. Shall we use it?"
"Neferisis? Whom is this one? We should open this sarcophagus and the other one to discover what is within before we leave my friends" Kosei examines the limestone and scans it for magic.
"I think I have found a new teleportation circle my friends. Shall we use it?"
Stelle looks on with disgust at the hieroglyphs and the frantically waving limbs and tentacles as Anubis hacks up the remains of his breakfast.
"Not without knowing where it goes. Someone, probably sickened from it, tried to seal this away. Maybe it should stay that way."
~~
"Poor chaosodile! They shouldn't look like that! Can it be healed?" She looks at its mouth hanging wide open."I think he's trying to say there is no more body..."
~~
"Yes, I'm all for opening the sarcophagi. Whoever Neferisis is, she plays too close court to Hakotep and Nesferuto."
If Neferisis's sarcophagus doesn't appear to be trapped, Stelle will shove the lid off with her lance.
Something in Stelle's words make Kosei to remember about healing "Oh! Yes, you also were hit by those monsters and the queen"
With a couple of touches Kosei heals the wounds of both Stelle and Zilchus.
Kosei heals the warriors (and Anubis too!) though he finds no magic or trap.
Stelle opens the sarcophagus, and you see a canopic jar with the head of an octopus within - and Queen Neferuset’s regenerating body!! She has all her gear and is slowly reforming. If you do nothing, she’ll surely reform within the day.
The Queen's body and gear shine brightly in Kosei's Detect Magic, as does the canopic jar.
Zilchus laughs and looks at his chaosodile, spitting out diamonds and not bodies. He shakes his head confused.
”Okay buddy, do one more search for things, and then you can go. I see I was mistaken about her body. My bad. My bad. I had no idea,” Zilchus moves over to the clever Stelle.
He readies his adamantine falchion over the canoptic jar. He looks at Flo, then Kosei.
”Think I should smash it good? I kind of want to smash it good. I kind of want to smash it good, then burn her body.”
"I think we found the body Zilchus. You want to have a look at this" when the Commander arrives Kosei is already scanning the objects trying to discern what they might be "Some undead use phylacteries to trap their souls, but I have never heard of mummies doing so, but now, I am no expert either" the man shrugs and looks for Florence hoping she knows more about it "Smashing it might work good to permanently defeat queen Nef my friends"
The canopic jar is not related to Queen Neferuset as far as you can tell, and is in fact non-magical.
The Queen however, has quite a bit on her…
scrolls of dust form and implosion
wand of deeper darkness (10 charges)
belt of incredible dexterity +2
cloak of resistance +3
headband of alluring charisma +2
ring of protection +3
gold bracelets set with a purple corundum and an unusually large black opal (3,250gp ea), red deshret crown capped by a gold hooded cobra with small rubies for eyes (2,200gp), gold earrings set with tiny black star sapphires (2,000gp), gold pectoral necklace set with black pearls (14,750gp), 10 black gemstones of various types (50gp ea), powdered lead and platinum (worth 250gp), silver dust (25gp)
"Look the jar is not even magical..." Kosei attempts to open the thing hoping it is not Pandora's box.
The Garundi eyes the ring and the cloak, being a better replacement of his own in case you others have already better equipment than that.
Kosei starts collecting the gems and jewels "Look, I think this stash could really impress a Queen of the desert my friends"
"So, Hakotep is not here, and only the teleportation circle remains. We are being forced to risk that one"
Zilchus looks at Florence and puts his own brain to thinking about how to permanently kill this queen of dust of rags.
Know (History)
Know (Religion)
"Let the dunes and the winds of Osirion guide you with whispers of past old time my friend" Kosei touches Zilchus with guidance to help him uncover that bit of history and repeats for the queen.
Heal ...
"Oh, thank you dear Kosei!"
~~~
"So, Hakotep is not here, and only the teleportation circle remains. We are being forced to risk that one"
"No, not necessarily. There is the room beyond the arch way over the pool."
Stelle pauses, in thought.
"What happened to Neferuset's body in that pool? Is that actually what holy water would do? What if we dumped this regenerating Queen mummy in there? Or, what if we just dumped our own holy water -- "
Stelle stabs into the Queen mummy's regenerating body with her lance.
for
Zilchus does indeed, with Kosei and Stelle help, learn the truth of this crypt, though he’s not sure about the Queen. Could be almost anything really. Florence puts her mind to it as well, and the pair come up with a few possibilities ranging from a stake through the heart to burning and moistening the ashes with holy water.
Stelle stabs her, a little. She tries to pull the punch, and does (no need to roll to hit, so just 20hp damage if you wish), but it’s still enough! The Queens form crumbles inward, as if the centuries of time settled on her shoulders all at once. The mummy wraps collapse around the desiccated flesh and bone briefly, before even that collapses into dust.
The Queen is no more. Only the canopic jar and miscellaneous loot remains in the dusty coffin.
"And that seems it was enough my friends" Kosei passes her hand trying to grasp the dust left by the queen's body "That is how order comes back to nature"
As no one else seems interested, Kosei picks up the ring and the cloak left by the queen "Maybe this will strike fear on any of the queen's servants remaining" as for the rest of the treasure, he helps to stash it for the group "Once we are back to Sothis, we must check with reliquaries and experts about the nature and function of the canopic jar"
Then, it seems we go south to explore the chamber the queen came from.
The area beyond the arch is shrouded in Deeper Darkness. It'll take about an hour or so to fade. Do you wait - or do you have a method to pierce the darkness?
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Zilchus waits by the queen's dust until others have moved on, then lowers his loincloth to offer his own personally created 'holy' water into the dusty remnants.
"From my bladder to you, my Queen," Zilchus squirts happily, trying to get all the dust nice and damp. "We shall be better by your departure."
When that is done, and after a few stout shakes, he will join Kosei to explore the dark chamber.
"Ok, let me scout ahead in the dark to see if I can figure out what lays ahead" Kosei wild shapes into a diminutive bat which gives him the blindsense required to have a reasonable picture of what is to the south.
The bat flaps his wings while trying to go unnoticed in his exploration. He will not get too far away from the group, only cursory exploration.
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Stelle watches in complete surprise when the body of the Queen crumbles to dust. "Oh. Well. That was easier than I thought it would be... Anyone in need of a an octopus head?" she asks, eyeing the canopic jar.
Wait, what are canopic jars used for? "Which organ of hers do you think was the octopus head?"
"Once we are back to Sothis, we must check with reliquaries and experts about the nature and function of the canopic jar" Then, it seems we go south to explore the chamber the queen came from.
"Do you think we can check out the other sarcophagus first, then maybe head to Wati? I could use a Restoration." She hangs her head in shame.
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"Ah! Who knows, she was just embraced to it on the sarcophagi. My guess is it was just her favorite sleeping toy. Some child habits just die hard my friend" Kosei offers as any response to Stelle.
"We happen to have a restoration scroll with us. I can use it now on you, or I can wait after I come back from the exploration" anyhow, Kosei will at some point use the restoration scroll to recover all temporal negative levels from Stelle.
Upon the realization he cannot use it, he raises an eyebrow and looks intensely at Zilchus as he hands to him the scroll.
”Oh thanks,” Zilchus takes the scroll and uses it on Stelle, blowing the encoded diamond dust into Stelle’s face, as is appropriate for the completion of the spell. ”There. How is that? Better?”
Zilchus explores the dark area with the sunrod tucked in his belt.
Perception
The space beyond the archway is dark as a starless night, and the sound of the steady, wet breathing of some colossal beast drifts from the velvety darkness.
The pool extends 10 feet past the low archway. The whole chamber masked in deeper darkness and radiates an aura of overwhelming evil. A great octopoid figure, its tentacles reaching out for the sparkling waters of the pool, is painted on the floor in vivid, nauseating shades of green.
Three green basalt statues of misshapen horrors - all writhing tentacles, eyes stalks, and fanged orifices - stand in niches on three walls. They’re stained with dried blood and gore, which puddles beneath them in gummy pools on the floor. Those skilled in knowledge arcana know that the grotesque statues represent beings of great power associated with the Dark Tapestry.
It is otherwise empty. Oh, and the guilty looking Stelle is in fact healed of her temporary negative levels.
Oh! Also, I slightly misspoke when I initially described the canopic jar. I meant to say the top of the jar was an octopus carving, not that it had an octopus inside. You have not, as yet, opened it. Could be anything in there. Even a squid!
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Kosei comes back flapping from his inspection and voices up his findings with an acute bat-like voice "Lots of tentaculae stuff in there my friends, yet no more treasures or exits seem to be there"
"But what about the canopic jar? We have not open it yet. Maybe we should. Should we?" Kosei-bat revolves playful around the jar waiting for Zilchus or Stelle to open it or Florence to explain why doing that would be a very bad idea.
Zilchus leaves the unpleasant place to the somewhat less unpleasant bubbling river of disease, death, and diamonds.
"I can open it," Zilchus says. "Put it down and step away. I'll use my falchion in case there is asp inside."
If so, Zilchus will lunge out to open it.
The carved octopus head top is swiftly removed revealing the ashes of Neferisis, and also a virulent fungus called midnight mold. Thankfully your air bubbles protect you from the worst of the effects, which are really quite nasty. You can reclose the lid, or cast neutralize poison or remove disease to end its effects. There is nothing of value inside (unless you value ashes and a virulent fungus that is).
"Terrible smell" Kosei closes his nostrils with a hand while he draws one of the remove disease scrolls the group bought "Let's see this clean soon"
Unwrapping the scroll, Kosei says the magical words and cleanse the fungus and ashes.
"I hope that is enough my friends" he looks around looking for a way to go forward "We might want to try jumping through the teleportation circle now"
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The fungus is cleansed as the party lines up for the next teleportation chamber. You touch the cold and cloying darkness - and disappear!
You reappear in a bare square room, except for a detailed painting of a writhing serpent on the floor. The chamber smells of death, and has no apparent exits. The snake radiates an aura of moderate transmutation for those who care to look. The more perceptive among you notice that hieroglyphs are cleverly woven into its sinuously painted serpentine form from head to tail. They read, in ancient Osiriani, “Speak my name, and I vanish. What am I?”
Also, as with the last teleport pad, tracing the painted serpent with your finger will return you to the prior room. The ceiling is 30’ up in this otherwise small space.
"What? Is it Ben? It's probably Ben," Zilchus says very softly to Florence, the smart one.
"Thank you, Kosei!" Stelle says, as Kosei cleans up the fungal ash mess. "I appreciate the fastidiousness!"
~~
"We might want to try jumping through the teleportation circle now"..."I agree..."
"Really... haven't you had enough of the Cephalopod themed rooms?!" she asks, reluctantly following the others.
"What? Is it Ben? It's probably Ben,""Shh! Let me think..."
"Speak my name, and I vanish. What am I?” ANOTHER riddle?!
Stelle shrugs, rolls her eyes and quietly points to the painted serpent. "The other sarcophagus? Or maybe 'Breath'?"
She mouths the words "The other sarcophagus".
"My aunt will always tell me I should remain quite as every time I speak up my smart look disappears" Kosei observes the sarcophagi clueless "So I guess the answer to the riddle is smartness"
The party talks reasonably to the chamber, but it does not seem to respond in any meaningful way. Nothing they say seems to trigger any secret doors or other egress.
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"You know what, I think I might have guessed the answer" the Garundi approaches and speaks up ""
”Silence? Ah...that makes more sense than Ben, I guess. Though he vanished just as quick,” Zilchus waits to ensure that Kosei was correct.
The wise Kosei shouts 'Silence' at the walls, but they remain, and he's unsure of any historically relevant riddles.
Seeing as there is no place to go (yet), Zilchus keeps his uncomfortable lack of social distancing in place, and looks around for an exit.
Perception
"You are smart Florence. Sure, that is the detail that slipped away in my mind" impressed, Kosei waits for the word to be spelled, and once it is done, he waits for something to happen.
"Did you notice that my friends?"
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Florence thinks back, way back. There was a running gag in the deep history of Orsiriani dark humor. It had to do with doors though, and sometimes people, but maybe the idea is the same. The joke was popular with the security forces of the time. They’d come to a house they were to enter and shout, ”Speak my name and I vanish, what am I?” Then they’d kick in the door while shouting, ”Door!” Later, when things became a little darker, the joke was used by the people who had friends and family vanish during the purges by the dark inquisitors. They’d put peoples name in the joke, who had disappeared from their communities into the ranks of the slaves… or worse.
There’s no door here, nor an Osirian. So Florence thinks perhaps ‘Wall’ is the correct answer. In ancient Osiriani of course.
Zilchus waits to see what is going to happen.
Good thing we have smart people along. They usually tend to get bored and leave me. Like Ben. Like Nidhi.
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Somewhere, a pharaoh laughs at his own bad joke as the walls slowly lower into the floor revealing a much larger pillared room with an exit to the north. The ceiling in the chamber is 30' high, though the exiting tunnel only 10'.