Irakelesh watches the others' attacks hit the sand creature but do little damage. "Ok. We're going to have to try something different here." He puts his shortbow away and pulls out his morningstar. Hefting it in his hands he says, "This will probably put a dent in that pile of sand." Irakelesh adjust his feet to take a firmer stand and readies himself for if the sand creature approaches him. He also reaches for one of his prepared extracts and gulps it down. A shimmer of energy flashes across his body for a split second as the power of a Shield spell covers his body.
The sandling recoils in pain as the Fitliss removes a hand from his spear, steps forward, and sends a gauntleted fist crunching into the its face.
He puts his shortbow away and pulls out his morningstar.
The sandling snaps its maw at Fitliss's gaunleted hand.
Fitliss is able to snatch his hand away just in time.
Aliva will step in beside of Fits, setting her bow down and unhooking her battle Aspergillium. She will swing it at the Sandling.
Aliva looks a little surprised at herself for connecting so solidly with the creature. "I have never really been good with this thing."
Selassie draws her mace and moves back to the group, behind Fitliss.
Irakelesh takes a five foot steps to step up the sand monster and then swings his morningstar at the creature.
The weapon sails harmlessly over the creature's head.
"It seems to be working!", she says, noticing how Fitliss and Aliva's attacks do real damage to the creature.
Catching her breath, Ai'sha waits for a chance to advance and try to distract the sand monster in order to aid someone else.
Fitliss grins. "A good fight is always fun!" he declares as he punches the creature again.
Aliva and Fitliss land solid blows on the sandling, and it appears to be in bad shape.
Laroisael fires off a shot with her bow.
The sandling gives a final roar and lunges towards Fitliss, but Laroisael fires a perfect shot into the creature's open mouth. It collapses into a pile of motionless sand, defeated.
However, just then, noise from behind alerts the party to new enemies.
Several cat-sized vermin, tan-colored creatures that look like ten-legged spiders, likely drawn by the noise of the brief fight with the sandling, come skittering into the room and move to attack Selassie, A'isha, and Laroisael. Two similar looking but larger creatures, the size of a large dog, also move through the doorway into the room. Oversized jaws grind together slowly beneath beady eyes.
None of the solifugids are able to bite their intended prey.
"What are those?" Irakelesh exclaims loudly when the spidery things appear. "I've never heard of such things." One of the small spiders jumps into Laroisael and Irakelesh steps towards her. Irakelesh, still wielding his morningstar, takes a swing at the small spider.
"I just had to move up and smack this sand beast, now look I am without my bow."
Aliva will hold her turn till she has space to move to get her bow.
Ai'sha contains a scream of disgust and tries her best to kill the strange spiders before they can reach her, delivering a low diagonal ascending cut.
She then takes a step back with her foward leg, spinning with the momentum of her swing and finishing the rotation with a second attack aimed at the same spider.
After killing the smaller arachnid (?), she advances towards the left-side of the giant solifugid, taking one instant to probe for a weakness before delivering a shoulder-powered slash from above.
Selassie swings her mace at the little creature attacking her.
She then takes another swing at it.
I can't try and attack the little ones, my friends are in the way! Let's go for the bigger ones.
Fitliss moves through Irekelesh's square to engage the larger creatures.
"I just had to move up and smack this sand beast, now look I am without my bow."
Aliva will hold her turn till she has space to move to get her bow.
Irakelesh moves forward and squeezes between the statue of Pharasma and the eastern wall. He swings his morningstar but is unable to make contact, and likely wouldn't have even if he wasn't worrying about the statue and the wall restricting his backswing.
A'isha swings wildly as the creature skitters close, missing, but she steps back and is able to slash the creature across the body, causing coppery, blue blood to spray across the northern wall.
Another solifugid tries to scamper up Selassie's leg. She shakes it off and brings down her mace, missing, but her second attack is more well-aimed, smashing into the creature with a loud CRUNCH.
Fitliss moves forward and throws a haymaker at one of the adult giant solifugids, but he misses badly.
Laroisael throws aside her bow and draws her shortsword, stepping back and swinging the blade to attack the creature crawling at her.
Laroisael impales the solifugid on her shortsword like a shish-kebab, ending its meager existence.
One of the young wind scorpions tries to bite and claw at Selassie.
The creature bites and claws at her leg, and bloody wounds appear on Selassies's calf, bleeding profusely.
The other nymphal instar skitters after A'isha.
A'isha deftly dodges its maw.
The adults attack Fitliss and Irakelesh, myriad eyes filled with malice.
Fitliss is barely recovered from throwing his punch when one of the adults turns and rips into him with jaw and claw. The gnome falls unconscious, his life-blood pouring from a pair of gaping wounds in the chest and shoulder onto the dusty stone floor.
Irakelesh is far luckier, and none of the creature's attacks are effective, thanks in part to the shimmering force-shield of magic protecting him, and in part to the statue of the the Lady of Graves.
Aliva moves across the room, picks up her bow, and prepares to attack next round.
Ai'sha keeps movings, making it as hard as she can for the spiders to touch her. As the critter aproaches, she once again takes a swing trying to keep it away.
As her blade misses, she takes a moment to read the battlefield.
"Fitliss!", she disengages from the small spider, dashing across the room to fight the bigger solifugids. As she moves, her left hand touches the blade of the scimitar, giving it a faint glow before she strikes at the monster with a horizontal defensive cut.
Aliva will grasp her holy Symbol, "Milani please bless me with the divine power to protect my little friend.
A'isha is unable to land a blow on the adult camel spider.
As Aliva touches him, Fitliss awakens with a gasp.
"Fitless!" Irakelesh blurts out in horror as he sees the giant spiders tear into the gnome. "Ok you foul beasts. Your time is up!" Irakelesh looks intently at the spider in front of him and then takes a swing at it.
Selassie steps clear of the little creature and swings her mace at it again hoping to finish it off then attacking it.
Selassie steps back and clobbers the young solifugid once more.
Laroisael, bolstered by her slaying the previous round, stabs at the creature that Selassie has been fighting, and skewers yet another of the creatures.
Blinking back to consciousness, Fitliss surveys the situation. Uh oh, he thinks, looking up at the spider-thingy standing over him. I don't think I'm getting up without getting hit.
Fitliss stands, and the creatures both lash at him as he does.
Neither creature is able to hit him. Fitliss takes a weak swing against the nearest camel spider.
The creatures do not seem to view him as much of threat since taking him down previously, and direct their primary attacks at Irakelesh and A'isha.
One of the solifugids manages to slash A'isha with a claw, but none of the other creatures attacks manage to connect with Irakelesh.
The remaining young solifugid moves and attacks Selassie.
The tiny vermin is unable to get a hold on Selassie.
"Seems i'll have to take you insects seriously.", she mutters, recoiling from another attack. Ai'sha makes a spinning dance move that ends in another slash, her scimitar still glowing with magic.
Aliva east 5 feet stepping in beside Fits, swinging her battle Aspergillium at the hideous beast.
A'isha's scimitar slash brings down the first of the adult solifugids, greenish blood pouring out as its legs curl up under it.
Aliva moves over to attack, but the creature skitters aside as she swings her aspergillium.
"Great job, Ai'sha!" Irakelesh says when the giant camel spider in front of her collapses. "Now we just need to poke this other one and we'll be through with this horrendous creatures."
Irakelesh steps forward and takes a swing at the remaining adult.
Selassie takes a swing at the creature as it attempts to attack her
but misses
She steps over the little beast to stand near Aliva and takes another swing at it.
Irakelesh moves over the corpse of one of the solifugids and brings down his morningstar onto the other creature with a sickening squishing noise.
Selassie is unable to land a blow on the creature. Laroisael tries to stab the same one as Selassie moves aside, and once again she is able to finish off the disgusting creature.
Fitliss grunts as he siphons off Ai'sha's injuries. Let's finish this, before I go down again. Fitliss shifts directly away from the creature and stabs at it with his spear.
Aliva will scoop up her bow as she heads east, nocking an arrow and letting it fly at the remaining creature.
Fitliss lands a blow with his longspear, just as an arrow from Aliva hits the creature among its multitudinous eyes. The creature goes down, and Pharasma's Seekers breath a collective sigh of relief.
Fitliss lays a hand glowing with The Lady of The Sword's light on himself as he inspects the fallen creatures.
"Fits are you ok? I am glad that Milani gave me the strength to protect you."
Aliva will inspect the doors to the West, then half way to the east the spot where the Sandling came out to attack.
"That finishes that!" Irakelesh says as the last of the gigantic spiders falls. "And those are ugly! Is anyone else hurt? We should make sure that everyone gets patched up before we move on. We don't know what else we'll run into."
Irakelesh takes a couple strides to where he dropped his bow on the ground and picks it up. "A bow like this is a great weapon from a distance but sometimes you just have to be up and personal!"
"If several people are injured I can heal everyone again."
Aliva walks down the broken stairs and investigates the room which served as a lair for the sandling. To the south there are a number of tiny burrows or tunnels that pock-mark the wall, too small for even Fitliss to comfortably navigate, and further to the west stand closed double-doors engraved with a golden scarab. Returning to the reflection chamber, Aliva goes to investigate the eastern doors, from which emerged the strange arachnid creatures. She steps over the corpses of the creatures and peers into the room through the slightly open doors.
She can see that pillars line the wall of a rectangular chamber, interspersed with stone jackal heads extending from the walls. A stone altar, covered in a layer of dust, sits at the eastern end of the room.
"Everyone seems fine to me, thanks Selassie. How about we check out that Eastern room before moving downward," Fitliss says, taking his own advice as he wanders in and glances around.
Aliva will follow Fits into the eastern room, moving up the altar.
Aliva will look around the room as she
This appears to be the preparation chamber, where Akhentepi's body was embalmed (along with those of his cats and slaves who were buried in the tomb with him) and where the final mummification rites and interment rituals were performed. From here, the bodies must have been carried to their respective resting places before the tomb was sealed. The altar is dedicated to the ancient Osirian god Anubis, patron of embalmers and guardian of tombs, whom you remember from earlier in the tomb, and the funerary masks on the walls depict him. The masks also seem to function as torch holders, as in the antechamber. The tracks present in the dust are more numerous in this room, and it appears that the solifugids made their nest under the altar. There is nothing else of particular note in the room.
"This is all so interesting." Irakelesh closely examines each of the masks and the stone alter. "An embalming room." He runs his fingers over the surface of the alter. "And to think, at one point Akhentepi himself was laying here on this alter. Magnificent!"
After the investigation Irakelesh walks back out to the reflection room. "So let's see what's down there." He points west. "Aliva, you said there were more doors? Did you check if they were locked?"
Aliva turns from the altar as Irakelesh speaks to her, "I had not yet, I didn't go down the stairs all the way, just to where the Sandling came out. I can run there now to see, if someone else wants to join me, I don't feel like venturing here alone."
Aliva will head to the top of the stairs to wait for someone else, then proceed down the stairs.
"Yep, looks like time to head down the stairs!" Fitliss declares cheerfully, moving to head down with Aliva.
Ai'sha cleans her blade with a small square of fabric, but doesn't sheathe it. She takes her position ahead of the group again.
"Y-you didn't had to do that wound-sharing thing, you know?", she says to Fitliss, part thankful and part embarassed.
"All's well that ends well!" Fitliss declares cheerfully, proceeding down the steps now that most of the party is there. "Are you coming Irakelesh?!" he calls over his shoulder as he descends.
Fitliss and A'isha open the decorated doors to the west to reveal another chamber. A tapestry hangs from a frame against the south wall of this large chamber; it depicts an otherworldly vista where the souls of the dead, shepherded by strange beings, enter an ethereal river ambling through space toward a landscape dominated by an impossibly tall spire. Columns sculpted in the shape of Osirian warriors wielding khopheshes stand in all four corners of the room. The floor is tiled in a white spiral pattern on a black background, and this spiral pattern is repeated on the stone double doors to the north, east, and west.
Selassie and others immediately recognize the spiral on the floor tiles and the doors as the holy symbol of Pharasma, and it is also clear to her that the tapestry depicts the descent of the soul from the world of the living to that of the dead. The great spire depicted must be Pharasma's Spire, atop which sits the Boneyard, a sort of purgatory where souls are judged before being sent on to their appropriate afterlives. This room must be what was known as the "Hall of the Soul's Crossing," a common feature in Osirian tombs.
A cursory inspection of the north and west doors reveals that both are locked. They are heavy stone doors like the rest in this tomb.
As the group enters the chamber, Laroisael stops at the eastern doors at the head of the stairs.
"I...I'm sorry," she says quietly, her quavering voice echoing down the passage, her face pale in the torchlight, "I, I don't think I can do this. I am so sorry. I have to go," with that, she turns and runs north, presumably up and out of the dungeon. It would seem that she is suffering from some form of post-traumatic stress, and is unable to continue.
"I can't get through those things," Fitliss declares after one look at the doors, before wandering into the room to investigate it.