A Push of the Fates.... Zakhara... You Jewel!

Game Master Insnare

"My name is Nura," the warrior says trepidatiously, taking a seat.

Nerim says, "Well met. It is sad but I do not have the privilege of having the grace of the Gods for I am not a prophet but an extremely old man who has lived longer than I really should have but this place is much more inhabitable than the desert and ruins somehow make me feel more comfortable. I cover my face because I need to filter the air slightly with my veil so that I do not cough myself into a frenzy. There are eleven trials to overcome that was installed by Azaltin's and Amakim's Vizier Zeenab representing all facets of Azaltin's personality."

He then hands the skewer of the jerboa to the Agrammar and looks at you group in its entirety both up and down almost like looking into your souls and nods to himself and says,"You look like you are capable and it is time for gifts to help you on your way."

He then takes from out of his robes what looks like an ancient prayer carpet with the designs written in Chun and inside there are three items: an ivory
scroll case; a stout, ebony baton carved with lions and
fitted with a smooth steel head; and a hollow, brass tube,
perforated by two small holes at one end.

He says, "May the Loregiver smile upon you the way she did once me!" and then a cloud of purple smoke fills the warehouse and Nerim is gone.

Zairiah smiled a little at the man's theatrics. Sounded like something she would do. She moved forward to look at the items. She trusted the man. He seemed nice, but there was no telling what he had left them, and still no clue about what 11 trials they had to face. She wished he had been a little bit more forthcoming.

She left the scroll case and what looked like an ebony wand for the magic users to figure out for now, but picked up the brass tube to look at it. Was it a flute? A necklace? Another wand? She wasn't sure.

Zairiah, give me an Appraisal check

Appraisal or Wisdom check

"What the?!" - Aggrammar exclaimed as the man simply disappeared. He still took a bite of the jerboa though.

The he looked over the ebony baton, the lions catching his attention.

Either Fadilah or eventually Agrammar opens the scroll tube and it becomes obvious that the scroll is a priest scroll and the other side of the scroll there is writing in Chun.

Can I get a Religion check from Agrammar? On the other side of the scroll there is writing in Chun, I think an Intelligence check to decipher the words.

Religion (Wisdom 16): 1d20 ⇒ 3

Agrammar

And the ebony baton? ;)

"This here scroll will protect ye from getting possessed" - he explains the others.

Intelligence check for translation. :)

Appraising (Intelligence=13): 1d20 ⇒ 15

I do have that as a proficiency (amazing), but no modifications to the roll that I know of.

You can give me an INtelligence check to look up the hieroglyphs in Chun to find out what it says, or you can choose to read them before going to bed. Ok, do you guys want to sleep here or go back to the Janni camp?

I say sleep here. We are adventurers dammit! :D

Sleep here.

Standard sleep/guard order

Your group decides to set up camp in the warehouse and you keep the cookfire stoked all night.

GM Rolls

Before you go to bed one of you decides to spend time with the dictionary and the scroll I am going to choose Fadilah, I hope you do not mind. 1d20 ⇒ 9

Fadilah feels she has cracked the translation after about ten minutes. Fadilahh

Feel free to give me either a spellcraft check or an appraisal check to figure out their abilities.

Feel free to retcon if you wish.

After an unassuming night of little consequence, you wake up in the morning, cooking breakfast getting ready to make your way to Azaltin's palace.

Abdalla the sheikh's husband appears in front of the window where you are and says, "I shall be accompanying you today, it seems you have already met with Nerim and he came by to see my wife last night and said you would probably not join us for dinner and breakfast this morning. As promised I am here to help you searching the city and discover the wonders of Azaltin's palace which lies to the north from here."

Do you know of the 11 trials that Nerim spoke of?

He says, "I know the group which preceded yours were excavating the palace and they all died. They worked for a long time to gain entry through the rubble but shortly thereafter they all killed each other. whether that was the first trial or the eleventh, I have no idea or it might be something else. We, janni, have stayed safely away after those folks died."

"It may be dangerous, but we should probably start by investigatin' that rubble then" - Aggrammar suggested.

Zariah nods and follows Aggrammar's lead.

The party moves out with Abdalla the Jann walking down the ancient and decrepit boulevard walking by many buildings whose striking resemblance faintly remind you of Muluk but the quarries in this area have different kinds of stone than Muluk.

GM Rolls

You follow the main boulevard past the Mosque where the former expedition started you grab some extra ropes and pulleys and a pick axe just in case. You then go north of the square of the old mosque and you continue forward. You see in front of you the rubble of a once great palace.

Only the front of the structure has
been excavated by the previous expedition, exposing a
pair of massive, bronze portals 20 feet high, flanked on
each side by a tall shedu, carved in bas-relief on the
stone.

Because of the heft of the doors, I am going to need an Open Doors check

Before approaching, Aggrammar takes a good look at those shedus, trying to understand if they might pose some sort of unnatural threat, or if they are indeed no more than bas-reliefs.

Not sure if the dwarven affinity with stone is of any use in this case :P

GM Rolls

Agrammar

"That shedu on the left is lookin' mighty suspicious ta me" - the dwarf grunted, drawing his weapon and shield - "Anyone else sees somethin' outta place? Or mebbe it is just the sun in me eyes?"

Zairiah takes a look at the left door.

Find/Remove Traps (75%): 1d100 ⇒ 35

Zairiah looks at the left bas relief of the shedu but there are not any traps on it.

The doors are not locked but the doors are extremely heavy.

Can I get a open doors check?

Abdalla says, "Shall I open the door?"

Zairiah tries to open the heavy door herself

Open Doors (Strength 12): 1d20 ⇒ 10

but if it doesn't work, then she asks for Abdalla's help.

Abdalla moves in to help out 1d20 ⇒ 16 and eventually the two of you are able to open the heavy bronze doors.

As you open the doors, the air inside is foul and rank with decay.

Abdalla grabs his nose and says, "We should allow this building to air out. It is disgusting."

Inside, you can see in the light shining in through the open doors, and find a large, vaulted foyer, its walls and
floors smeared with dried blood and piled high with the
rotting bodies of Haroushin’s first expedition. At the
center of the grisly scene stands a 12-foot-high black
granite statue of a great ghul, poised as if to spring at the
entrance. Two rubies glint
malevolently in its eye sockets.

Zairiah says

Yes, we should let it air out, but also get those bodies out of there and buried if possible. I am also a little worried about that statue, which almost seems alive to me, so let's be very careful.

Zairiah lays her weapons on the sand.

You guys stay here, and I will go in alone and try to pull a body out. If I am possessed and try to kill you, then you can easily subdue me, but don't follow me in, even if I beckon to you. If I do that, it won't be me doing it, but rather something else that has taken me over. My intent is to pull a body out so we can bury it.

Then, as carefully as she is able, she approaches the pile of bodies just long enough to grab the nearest foot or arm to pull it out.

If she is not attacked or possessed, she will drag it a ways away, incidentally searching it for anything valuable or even just individually recognizable (that can be used to identify the body if needed for family members later).

If she is attacked or possessed, then that depends on what happens next I suppose.

Zairiah goes into the room and because the horrid smell is extremely intense makes haste and sees that there are at least 50 bodies in this room and she grabs the first one of off the pile and drags it back to the entrance and lets out a gasp. In the desert heat the corpse is very heavily decayed.

Palace

50? Is that how many Hanoushin sent, or is this additional people beyond that? I thought his group was much fewer like 12 or so, but not sure if I just assumed that or read it somewhere.

Is there space where we can dig a grave here? (I think we discussed this before and the tradition was burial rather than burning or something else, but not sure. Please correct me if I am getting it wrong.

Anyone want to help me dig a hole to bury these? Not fun, but something to do while we wait for it to air out, and we don't want to leave these here unburied to turn into undead or not find their way to the afterlife. I'm sure Hanoushin would appreciate any mundane tokens indicating who they are for their families as well.

If anyone wants to help her, she'll tie a kerchief over her nose to muffle the scent and go in for more, searching each before she buries them.

The standard burial in the land of fate is to wash the bodies and to bury them. I do not think Hanoushin mentioned how many there were. You could probably bury a few here but there are fifty of them. I guess you can line them up and down the boulevard.

Abdalla goes inside and grabs two bodies and comes outside and he says, "We need to let that room air out it is infested. Maybe we should dig the holes first and then we can more safely pull out the bodies."

GM rolls

You find some personal effects on the first body and a purse containing 6 golden dinars.

"Yes, we need to tend to these unfortunate souls" - Aggrammar agreed - "But let us wait for it to air first?" - he added.

So... Are we going to bury fifty corpses? That will take at least a day, assuming we have the appropriate tools. Aggrammar is definitely not against it, just pointing out some 'operational' details.

Zairiah cleans off the things that she found so they don't have rotting corpse on them, gathering the personal effects into one pile and pocketing the gold.

When Abdalla suggests digging first, she nods and starts digging a mass grave.

Shouldn't take a whole day if we bury them together. Also, it seems like the good thing to do. This is part of the job. We came to find the people he sent earlier, and here they are. Although he also wants the scroll, of course, the humanity part of it is also important. As for tools, we can do makeshift, but I bet we don't have to. They excavated this place before they went in. There are probably shovels and picks right here... otherwise they would never have been able to get this far.

Still planning on searching all the bodies before they go into the ground.

Don't get me wrong. Aggrammar wants to bury these people. I was asking as the player, hence the OOC.

Fadilah could probably use something similar to a move earth spell.

Ever pragmatic, Aggrammar looks around for tools, and then begins digging graves.

Fetch spell: dig (<=40): 1d100 ⇒ 63
Fetch spell: move earth (<=20): 1d100 ⇒ 4

Surprisingly, after a while Fadilah's gen comes back with a powerful move earth spell, not the sort of thing that would normally be just lying around.

"It seems that my companion was able to find a spell of great use," she explains to the team. "How do you want me to excavate the area?"

40 yards by 40 yards and 10 feet of depth. I am pretty sure you and make the hole and cover the bodies in about two hours of time.

Zairiah smiles and explains what she wants to be able to bury everyone.

When they are ready, she proceeds with searching the bodies as they come out and then placing them in the new burial pit.

[ooc] 1d6 + 1 ⇒ (5) + 1 = 6 1d6 + 1 ⇒ (3) + 1 = 4

The party and Abdalla start shovelling the outline of an area where the group can start burying the previous expedition. Fadi sends her gen away for dig but the gen comes back empty handed however after a longer amount of time the gen comes back with Move Earth.

The party goes into the palace entrance in spite of the statue looking menaceingly proceeds to remove the bodies from the entrance being ready for burial. Zairiah searches the second body for loot and personal effects.

GM Rolls

Zairiah

PPD Save (12): 1d20 ⇒ 5

If she gets poisoned, which seems likely, is it something that is going to stop her and make her sick immediately? If not, maybe we can speed up the search and burial part because she is already poisoned? Of course, if this is what is going to take over her mind and turn her against the others, then nevermind. ;)

GM Rolls

Zairiah searches 10 bodies and finds purses of 10, 6, 12, 4, 9 and 11 gold pieces and also finds a scroll with arcane runes on it. Afterwards she feels ill and takes 1 point of strength damage.

Who is carrying the rod of smiting

I can carry it. Added also the scroll to my loot list.

"Damn it lass, what is going on? Were ye poking around in them corpses?" - Aggrammar looks over Zairiah - "Lemme see here..."

Heal 2 (means my Wis is treated as 18, right?): 1d20 ⇒ 11

Aggrammar

"This is not good lass" - Aggrammar shakes his head - "Next time don't go pokin' around corpses!" - he added - "Nice little scroll ye got there, but it will take at least a week for ye to recover fully, unless we find someone who can use divine magic ta remove tha disease. It is beyond me ta do that"

Low is good: 1d6 ⇒ 1

Damn Agrammar that is a yahtzee if I have ever seen one. Zairiah's debiliatating disease is a minor problem at best. She will take one more strength point in damage sometime before dinner.

Eventually you throw all of the corpses into the mass grave and Fadilah uses the remainder of her remove earth spell to cover them ups.

So, what do you want to do with that strange statue?