"To find the Medusa iron embrace... I think this is it... Hey Glade, come over here!"
Ganorok will insert the baton in the hole, and try to use it.
Ganorok inserts the baton and the medusa's eyes pop open revealing white marble eyeballs with painted black irises. He notices that the baton turns easily. As he does so, the medusa's eyes rotate in their sockets. When the eye cross like the symbol of house Daellum, a bright blue light pours from the medusa's open mouth and envelops you all.
You suddenly find yourself in a cold stone box that roughly fits your dimentions. The air in here smells old. And there is no light. Thankfully, your Darkvision spares you from effective blindness.
You suddenly find yourself in a cold stone box that roughly fits your dimentions. The air in here smells old. And there is no light. Thankfully, your Darkvision spares you from effective blindness.
You suddenly find yourself in a cold stone box that roughly fits your dimentions. The air in here smells old. And there is no light. Thankfully, your Darkvision spares you from effective blindness.
You suddenly find yourself in a cold stone box that roughly fits your dimentions. The air in here smells old. And there is no light. Thankfully, your Darkvision spares you from effective blindness.
"Damn it!"
Orionet pushes up with his hands, trying to open the top.
This is either the entrance or a lame trap. Gotta find the others.
Orionet - The top doesn't budge, but it doesn't feel sealed, just heavy. Very heavy.
Orionet starts tapping on the walls, trying to find out which side is thinnest.
R, while no stranger to tight spaces, hates feeling trapped. Therefore, he will activate his rage and attempt a strength check.
For the sake of time, if unsuccessful, R will attempt to activate his Giant's Hide armor, attempting to burst his container as well.
Orionet - the lid seems the thinnest. From the outside, muffled by the thick stone, you hear a small but mighty grunt and the sound of sliding, then falling, stone.
Orionet sighs.
You climb out into an octagonal chamber made of fine, polished white marble. The domed ceiling peaks twenty-five feet overhead, decorated with frescoes of people in billowing robes, hands joined, looking down with pity on those below. Braziers along the base of the dome filled with flickering flames faintly illuminate the chamber. Twelve carved stone sarcophagi lie beneath the dome, surrounding a large carving on the floor of a leering medusa’s face. R is standing next to a nearby sarcophagus.
For those who have gotten out.
The recessed floor in the center of the mausoleum is an earth-tone mosaic of complex geometric designs reminiscent of Qadiran artwork, with a scowling medusa’s head in relief at the hub, 15 feet wide and made of iron, a larger version of the vertical head at the entry wall.
"Hey, guys! Get me OOOUUUTTT!!"
Glade will move his top as well.
and if he can't he will break it open with his +2 corrusive morning star. by hitting it repeatedly.
Horrified at the idea that his companions are still trapped, R rushed over to throw the lids off of occupied sarcophagi.
Hold on! R coming to the rescue!!!
Newly-enlarged Orionet comes too.
We'll push together R.
Glade pushes his aside and the three work together to lift the last lid off Ganorok.
"Thanks! Were are we? Sweet, I have just escaped my tomb!"
Garonok starts looking around, checking, observing, sniffing, trying to make a good idea where they are.
It seems we have been teleported into a tomb of some kind. I'd assume from the poem we have either passed the wall that hides its face or we ought to look for the will to feed the beast.
Orionet paces around the room, stopping as he circles back to his sarcophagous.
Ought we take these rods as well? I can't imagine they made magic to take the names of intruders for no reason.
You notice four holes in the iron medusa on the floor, one at each cardinal point. They look to be the same diameter as the brown, stone rods.
Glade looks in a hole to calculate the distance of how deep they are, remember he is mathematically intelligent, so he should know.
Approximately 4 inches.
Garonok collects the four rods, and give one to each of his companions.
"Each one grab a rod, and we do insert them at the same time... Let's see if we arrive to another tomb... 3... 2... 1... Now!"
The rods click into place and the medusa head moves! It rotates back and forth slightly from the action of some hidden mechanism.
"Move it clockwise!"
Orionet nods and grabs a rod and starts to pull.
The medusa's head is made of solid iron and is very heavy. In addition, the gear mechanism seems to need some torque to get going. Orionet can barely budge it.
Without even trying, Glade would know the answer he gets ready to speak, but Ganorok beats him to it, at least he is right.
oh well, he helps orionet pull
The mechanism starts to turn, but it needs more force to get the ancient gears really moving.
R catches his breath, then assists in the pushing.
The medusa head grinds into motion. After about 45 degrees of motion it stops. There is a grinding then a slam at the north door. Sounds like it's been unlocked.
Mouse, are there any traps between us and the door?
Orionet pulls out a small iron rod and holds it in one hand.
I'll take a look for traps
and he lets them know what is there.
There are no traps detected.
Garonok looks for traps too (you can`t never be too safe).
No traps detected.
Glade with his darkvision walks in, what does he see?
"To follow the Spider Star... Let's see, where could a spider be?"
Ganorok looks around for something resembling a Spider, or a Star, while approaching the Medusa Face door. Once there he will inspect it closely.
Ganorok finds no traps, but while inspecting the door, his hand brushes the Madusa carving. Suddenly, the door starts a slow, grinding descent downward into the floor! It takes about ten second for the huge stone slab to sink into the floor.
Beyond are the open spaces of the Necropolis proper. They stretch out for hundreds of feet. In the distance, perhaps 200 feet away, is a tall, grey stone building. Half way between here and there is a wreck of some kind. Looks like a coach. Beside the paved path that leads directly from this building to that one and stretching out in orderly rows are hundreds of exposed sarcophagi and many, varied headstones. Where there should be a bright, shining day outside stands a nighttime vista bathed in the silvery light of the moon.
"There is where the Spider Star should be! Anyone good in astrology? I must say "above ground" stuff is not my area of expertise."
Ganorok will move towards the coach...
"Come along! Try to walk only where I have already stepped on. I don't want anyone of you falling to his dead..."
Several tombstones on the western side of the path here have been crushed and shattered in a wide swath. The back of an ancient carriage is visible through the overgrown weeds and shrubs at the far end of the array of destruction.
Even a cursory examination of this crashed carriage makes it obvious that this open carriage hearse was once a very fine conveyance. However, time and the elements have taken their toll, and the once-rich wood is soft with decay. A crumbling coffin lies in the bed of the carriage, with the rotted leather straps that once held it fast lying beside it. The driver’s bench has two arrows embedded in its seatback.
Ganorok grabs a stone from the floor...
"I know this seems silly, but I say you can never be too cautions..."
From 30' away he throws the stone towards the coffin in the carriage, while screaming...
"ANYBODY THERE?"
Glade opens the coffin to see if there is an undead inside.
As soon as Glade alproaches the carriage, a vision overwhelms all of you.
The carriage hearse barrels along a hard dirt road, drawn by four frothing, maddened horses driven forward by your frantic whipping. A quick glance over your shoulder tells you that your mounted pursuers are gaining ground in the hazy moonlight.
“Aroden save us!” shouts a beardless old man sitting beside you as he desperately clings to the wooden seat.
“We no longer serve fools, Parsimus,” you growl with irritation. “Best get that through your thick skull.”
You glance behind again, this time to the bed of the hearse, where the fine silver coffin lurches dangerously, despite the five straps of stout leather securing it in place.
“Forgive me, sister,” you think. “It was I who was the true fool.”
You hear a dull thud as an arrow strikes the seatback. Another arrow sinks into Parsimus’s shoulder, knocking him from his seat to the hard ground below with a cry of pain. As a third projectile thuds into the carriage, you cry out to the starlit sky.
“Asmodeus! Have you abandoned me?”
With the cry still in your throat, a strange shimmer surrounds the hearse and the scene about you flickers
and fades. The dirt road is suddenly replaced by a paved walkway, and the surrounding woodland by a graveyard. Startled by the sudden change, the horses shriek and careen to the left. As the carriage leaves the road, the shimmering bubble of energy that encompasses it crushes the tombstones in its path. Suddenly, the horses seem to smash into an invisible wall, and their cries of terror abruptly cease. You are propelled from your seat, hurtled through the air as you and the carriage crash to the ground. You feel bones break, and as your neck snaps with a nauseating crunch, you hear a sinister voice behind your ear, whispering with an intimacy that terrifies.
“No, my puppet. I never forget a bargain.”
The open coffin reveals an empty, richly pillowed interior smelling vaguely of roses and decay; the cushions bear the impression of a slight, frail body.
"Wow! That was neat!"
Ganorok moves to look for the body, or the skeletons, of the horses and the person he was in the figment, at the front of the carriage.
"The devil prince... At least you can always bargain with the guy."
Lying face down on the hillside near the tree is the strangely mummified body of the driver, dressed in a carriage driver’s livery. His right index finger bears a gold ring etched with the cross-eyed medusa emblem. Clutched in the corpse’s left hand is a horsewhip.
The skeletons of the horses lay in a jumbled mess in front of the carriage. They must have died on arrival like their driver.
Yes... if you desire to Asmodeus is someone with which you can make a deal though for reasons demonstrated as well as his evil nature I would suggest against it.
"Not that it helps you in the end... Well, I guess he won't be needing it anymore."
Ganorok takes the ring, and search the body. He also wants to confirm the neck is broken.