Scipio spent most of his effort channeling healing energy into Samar before making a hasty swing at the last mummy.
Samar and Scipio slash at the remaining mummy but it somehow not only remains standing but strikes Scipio!
Neshim rips into its neck with an arrow, which isn't quite enough to finish it off.
Initiative
Samar -13
Scipio -12
Mummy Guards: Red -44, Blue -46, Lime -38, Yellow -41
Neshim
Scipio flails about without actually managing to hit anything...
Samar cuts the remaining mummy into three pieces, which slam to the ground and cease moving.
You are victorious, and the masked figure remains suspended in the air.
Scipio turns his attention towards the wall and the numbers. "Is this the clock? Can we remove it somehow... If it's built into the structure I'm at a bit of a loss. I'm sure there are other treasures here it is best if we don't leave I feel we should stay focused."
Extremely wary, Samar walks over to the floating body, reaches out with her hatchet, and cautiously pokes it...
...curious if the body reacts.
The figure floats in the middle of the room, 10 feet off the ground and 10 feet from the ceiling above. Samar can pick out faint shimmering distortions in the air surrounding the figure - physical manifestations of the magic holding him in place.
Neshim squints at the magic, making notes.
Scipio looks at the others "Am I missing the point here, is that guy the doomsday clock? Certainly easier than moving a wall."
Samar shrugs. "Beats me." She takes her time, searching the room thoroughly, for anything she can steal or break into....
Neshim pipes up.
"Retrieving that figure seems apt. That mask is something of a mystery. Why does he have one and not the mummies?"
"You want the bodies down?" Samar asks in surprise. After a moment she shrugs. "If you say so..." Samar pulls out her rope and grappling hook, gives it a toss, and tries to hook one of the bodies. Then she tries to yank it down with the rope.
Samar definitively latches her hook and rope around one of the non-undead mummies, yanks - and to no avail. The magic holding it up is still intact, its source not yet drained.
Scipio notices something very thoroughly concealed - the outline of a door in the western wall.
When its pointed out to her, Samar tries to open the door.
The door clicks open. The masked figure and the bodies remain suspended in the air.
Samar looks through. This tiny, bleak chamber has unfinished stone walls. One wall is lined with shelves filled with musty, leatherbound books. In the center of the room, an ancient mummified body sits at a stone-topped table, posed as if in meditation or study. Iron bars hold the preserved corpse in place, with cuffs holding its moldering hands on either side of a massive gemstone, within which glowing hieroglyphs shift and change. A brace across the front of the body holds the face forward, staring at the far wall with empty eye sockets. On that wall, a large, ornate mirror frame is filled with a sheet of absolute darkness—black beyond night.
"Well, this can't be good."
Samar creeps into the room, reaches for the gemstone with the hieroglyphs, and pockets it, then slowly creeps back out of the room.
Scipio tries to identify what exactly constitutes the doomsday clock "This isn't going to be easy is it."
Samar seizes the the strange gemstone with the shimmering hieroglyphics within. This appears to be the countdown clock the group have been sent to retrieve. Scipio determines that the runes in the gemstone are much simplified versions of the numbers counting down on the incomplete walls of the room he remains in, but deciphering them to understand the countdown’s target date would still require several days of observation and study.
The group must now decide whether - or if - to take action involving the secret chamber of contemplation or the suspended figure and bodies.
"We got what we came for. I say we shut the door here and book it." Samar places the gen safely away in her bags.
"I agree, we've spent longer here than I would have liked, best to get moving... if there wasn't an evil organisation coming my curiosity might get the better of me."
Neshim mutters about not getting to take sufficiently copious notes but he comes around to your way of thinking. Mainly once he thinks about what the Night Heralds will do to his notes and the group.
"We can come back in a few weeks if you really want. Maybe this place will seal up if we can remove those gems." Scipio heads back the way they came rather than deal with any more of the guardians left to defend this place.
Samar follows, happy to backtrack and leave this place behind.
Once the group collects the countdown clock, they withdraw from the tomb.
They are in time to escape the Night Herald mercenaries who are surely approaching.
The group hands over the clock to Kamisora Vord back in Kelmarane. She’s interested in keeping the artifact and the Dark Tapestry tomes and offers the group a reward of 50 gp for them all. If the group is interested in continuing their association with the Esoteric Order, Lady Vord also agrees to sponsor them in joining the organization.
Fin(?)
Samar has decided this Esoteric Order thing is way too much of a pain in the ass. She takes her gold and goes back to guarding caravans for coin.
Scipio suggests they take it easy in town for two or three weeks and after that if no work comes up go back to the tomb.
Samar grins. "Might be worth it..."