A keen observer herself, Nuru aids Marnarius as he examines the large chamber. "Quite unsettling that we have found the last two compasses either broken or missing."
Marnarius spots a fireball trap on the sarcophagus itself. You notice a few scratches around the arming mechanism noting that it's been disarmed, but it appears to have also been rearmed.
Almathea examines the inscription above the tomb and tries to scour her memory for any information about Memket Maatya.
Leto watches Alma investigate...
Yes that´s quite unsettling indeed. 2 can be coincidence, but a thrid gone would be a pattern. Alma you know anything about this tomb here?
"To be fair, they're shiny, metal and complicated, and a lot of plunderers could have made off with them as treasure."
"If it comes to that, we have a direction and can search along it. Too many places for things to hide, though...in my limited experience, necromancers don't tend to hang out signs. Step back a bit--I'm going to try to get past that fireball trap. Some guidance would not be unwelcome."
The slayer sheathes blades and draws his toolkit.
Nevai provided the requested guidance, then quickly left the room.
You don't manage to disable it, but it also doesn't explode.
The half-elf sighs. "This won't be easy. Nevai, do that again, get behind something solid, and be ready to patch me up."
You feel like you're very close, but still not successful.
"I'll keep trying. Before this next one, though, can you fix the damage that alchemist did?"
The half-elf's hand twitches as a drop of sweat falls onto it. "Oh, shi--"
Marnarius is carefully holding a long thin piece of metal to a thin hole while pressing down on a triangular bit of stone on the side of the sarcophagus. Almost there, and then...disaster!
Luckily, having been warned of the nature of the trap, the rest of the party was well back from the opening.
Inside the sarcophagus is a well preserved mummified corpse, which has almost certainly had sanctify corpse cast upon it. Most of the valuable jewelry and other bots and pieces have been looted, but an old set of senet remains.
Focused as he was on recovering from his error, Marnarius bears the brunt of the fiery blast. He grimaces in pain at the severe burns, then turns to Nevai and Nuru. "Um, would you mind?"
Four taps of a wand later and it was like the fireball hadn't even gone off... except for the charred wreckage around the room. "I'd say something snide about being careful, except we both know you did a far better job than I could have managed."
Leto pads Marnarius on the shoulder, avoiding the burned spots.
Well done, even if you´re medium rare now. He gives him a broad smile and walks up tot he sarkophagus.
So someone disabled that trap, took some stuff, left this here, magically preserved the mummy and then enabled the trap again? This is highly suspicious. I sense something is going on here. What do you think? perhaps we should take this stuff.
"Why would you think the preservation spell wasn't put on when the mummy was first buried?"
"Well, shall we head off to the next nearest location on the map? Unless anyone thinks that they can track down where this compass was taken too, we should keep moving."
"Oh, and if you want to take the game, go ahead. It appears to be magical in nature. A game of fortunate passing. Winning a game of it is supposed to win you the favor of the ancient Osirion gods."
"It's probably long gone. The next nearest is a good idea."
I don´t know much about magic, but i would wonder if such a spell works so long. What do you say Alma?
We should also take that game, that´s why we´re here after all.
He steps over and cautiously grabs it, putting it in the backpack securely.
"You do not wonder how a spell of preservation could work for so long. So why not a spell upon the game set lasting just as long? It must have been one of his prized possessions in his mortal life. Likely previous tombrobbers mistook it for an ordinary item."
I am wondering how a spell is working that long. Anyway, let´s move on! We have a mission after all.
"Think about it like this. You could carve a stone statue, write a book, or make dinner. In a week, the statue and the book would be just fine, though your dinner would be thoroughly unappetizing. Now wait a thousand years. Your statue is still fine (as long as no one broke it), but the book... not so much. Depending on the craft, the product lasts different times. Magic is much the same."
It doesn't appear to be anything more than a standard sanctify corpse spell. It is not preserved any more or less than a typical mummy of its apparent age that received that spell.
Marnarius shrugs and pulls out the map again. "Next closest compass is east and a little south of here. The map shows it as walled off except from the east, though, so unless you want to do some climbing or trust we can get through the wall let's try the one to the north and east."
"Alright, heading north and east sounds faster and easier than the wall."
Ageed! I have little comfort with climbing... Heading to the northeast sounds much more to my liking."
You make your way through the city as cautiously as possible, and again, Marnarius manages to lead the group in a way that avoids most of the trouble. Eventually you make your way to a walled-in courtyard, the entrance of which stands wide open. A long-neglected garden and thirty-foot-tall obelisks decorate the open area. Several squat outbuildings stand near the western wall, but a sprawling sandstone building with a steeply pitched pyramidal roof and elaborate reliefs dominates the property. The building’s unique trapezoidal roof stands out against the necropolis’s skyline.
Uncared for, the garden went wild long ago, its more exotic plants now replaced with heartier desert scrub.
Marnarius contemplates the scene. "Do any of you know what that might be?"
"I believe this was once called the Pyramid of Arithmetic Bliss and it used to be the home of a Stonemason's guild. After the Plague of Madness it was re-purposed to house Wati's architects, engineers and mathematicians. Certainly a reasonable place to locate a compass."
What's the plan?
The small side buildings to your left are all empty. There's a large set of steps leading up to massive double doors at the front of the larger sandstone building. The doors are currently closed.
The doors are rather large. (Both together are nearly 15 feet across.)
Before advancing up the stairs to examine the obvious doors, Marnarius scans the great staircase for any sign of recent traffic.
Nothing seems to have been through in the past day or so. Given the wind through this area, you're not sure you'd see tracks from anything further back than that.
After some searching you find that neither the steps, nor the door are trapped in any way. And the doors, while closed, are not locked.
Leto looks around, ready to open the doors when the others are...
The half-elf draws both kukris with a whisper of steel on leather, then nods to Nuru. "Shall we?" He prepares to defend against anything beyond the doors when Nuru opens them.
"Let's!" the dwarf says as she beams a smile at Marnarius. Nuru draws her khopesh and holding it firmly in her left hand, flings the door open with her right hand.
Deep niches line the walls to either side of this wide passage, dividing blocks of detailed hieroglyphs. Scrolls and loose bits of parchment lie scattered across the floor. The building's entryway seems to have served as an enormous filing system for the guild’s collected wisdom, making it all readily available to its members. Looking down the forty foot hall you can see into a large open area with sarcophagi lined along the wall and various tools strewn across workbenches throughout.
You don't hear or see anything as you enter the building, but as you carefully make your way inside, eerie babbling starts echoing through the hall. Three clouds of shadow boil through the walls. Skeletal maws now obvious as the source of the mad babbling. The claws of the creatures reaching out from the darkness towards you.
blub blub blub
The slayer's eyes defocus as he stares off into nothingness, matching the eldritch babbling with his own.
Casting Diviner's Fortune on Leto. +2 to all rolls for one round.
The three Allips float forward and attack each of the un-fascinated party members.
First Leto,
then Nuru,
and finally Nevai!
The claws reach out and leave frost on the skin of Leto an Nevai where they pass through the two warriors. A cold chill washes over them.
Nevai acted as quickly as he was able as they were set upon by the ghostly creatures.