The bird screeches profanity at Eli as he makes his way to and through the entrance-turned-exit. "Swamp rat! Swamp rat!" Eli has one hand resting on the stone door and stops to shake his head. You can't leave, man. You can't until all is lost!
Suddenly, a murky ball of caustic goo hits the sarcophagus out of nowhere. Perhaps it is the element of surprise. Perhaps it is that his heart is truly in it now, with everything on the line. Perhaps, and most likely, it is just luck.
The acidic gloop strikes the sarcophagus, burning through its stone with a sizzling sound.
It doesn't prevent it from slamming its weight into Ashira, almost knocking the young woman to the ground. Whatever work Pharasma was doing to protect her priestess, it is apparently ended.
Ashira 5/10 hp
Devon -4 hp
Sarc 32
"Foggert, save 'er!" The bird complies and dips down to harass the sarcophagus with beak, claw, and excrement.
It's not enough.
Ashira fails to deliver enough healing to Devon to wake her up. That was the last of her power. Now Ashira is as empty as can be. Is there any way she could save her? Maybe.
Ashira takes a step away from the sarcophagus and hauls Devon's battered body over her shoulders. If Pharasma deems it, perhaps Ashira can dodge one more strike from the animate object to bring Devon to Eli.
"Eli! Take Devon! Even if I fall, take her with you."
*thoom*
More acid etches deeply through the lacquer finish of the sarcophagus, melting the gilt death mask into something hideous and inhuman, eating into the stone, irreparably pitting the white marble; but it's not enough. The thing still stands, just.
*thoom*
Still walks.
*thoom*
It steps towards the labouring priestess, and slams into her once again.
Ashira falls, the catlike rogue sprawled across her shoulders.
*thoom*
The sarcophagus continues to move towards its next target, the sound echoing off the vaulted ceiling.
*doom*
*doom*
*doom*
Ashira -1 hp
Devon -4 hp
Sarc - 35
"SHOOT IT, SHOOT IT! ", the bird commands the wizards who is overcome with moral fright. How hard could it be to hit the construct with it coming right at him?
ssssssssssssssssssssssss
The sarcophagus halts in its stride; there is a moment's silence... and then it collapses inwards on itself, melting, the marble crumbling under its own weight. Rivulets of molten dissolved gold give the funeral mask the appearance of tears...
ssssssssssssssssssssssss
sssssssssssss
ssssss
And then there is silence; and Eli is alone in a dark, dark tomb.
Alone.
In the dark.
Eli turns around to get the lantern that is tied to his backpack but forgets that when he turns, so does the backpack. "Idiot!", the wizard yells, feeling only hopelessness and frustration after achieving victory. He finally manages to undo the strap that keeps the lantern in place and then tries to light the darned thing.
Ashira is fine. She just got a big wallop on the top of her head.
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The procession out of Akhentepi's tomb is very different to the one that entered. Instead of four strong and confident adventurers only three emerge, bearing the scars of lethal traps and the body of their fallen friend.
Leaving the necropolis slowly the group is fortunate to fall in with a group of Necropolis guards, who escort them safely back to the city of the living. From there, there is only one destination - the Temple of Horus and Ben Ali, Say'ri's husband.
The man is no older than Say'ri, but the hacking cough that announces his presence betrays the fact that this is a very ill man. He opens the door with a smile. "Just in time. I have a..." before his smile crumples as he takes in the sight before him. "We should take her to the chapel." He manages, just about holding onto his composure. "This way."
He leads the way to a small chapel, larger than the house, but not by much. Although not wealthy the chapel does boast one adornment - a lovely window of stained glass that faces east and shows Horus seated on the throne of the gods, beaked face in profile and his famous Eye staring down the nave.
Ben Ali directs the group to place his wife's body on the small altar under the window, before taking a handful of dust from the ground outside and rubbing it into his short, dark hair. "Thank you, for bringing her back to me." He says, tears glinting in her eyes. "As I said, there's stew in the kitchen. Please do wait there if you want. I... I need to be alone for a little while."
After about twenty minutes of awkward sitting in the kitchen with a bubbling and fragrant pot of stew, Ben Ali returns and bustles around. He insists on taking care of Devon and Ashira's wounds and serving up large bowls of stew to everyone. "I've cooked it already, it shouldn't go to waste." He insists.
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Say'ri watches her own funeral procession from the mirror in the tomb, battling a terrible sense of deja vu as her body is carried away in front of her.
"It is not your time descendent." The stern tone comes from her left and Say'ri turns to find herself face-to-face with the General, Akhentepi himself. Dressed in his full funeral finery he cuts an imposing sight. "You have great deeds yet to do. Dying here in my tomb is not your destiny."
"That is cold comfort General." Say'ri responds sharply. "Since I am dead. Killed by your accursed traps too!" She glowers and the scarab shield she claimed from the armoury appears on her arm. Strangely, the sight brings a smile to the elderly face she confronts.
"That proves it." He says, gesturing with his flail at the shield. "Only my blood could claim my arms as you have. I will see what can be done!" He disappears from sight, leaving Say'ri alone, trapped in a white empty space, apart from the mirror window to the empty tomb.
A voice rings around her and suddenly the room fractures around her, letting in a glorious burst of sunlight and the penetrating gaze of a great Eye.
------------------------------------
As dawn rises over Wati Horus is illuminated in his full glory, his cobalt blue gaze falling on Say'ri still corpse. Suddenly a flurry of movement shatters the silence, as Al-Janah appears. The hawk glides onto his mistresses chest and lies down, falling still.
Silence falls again until, in a sudden burst of sound Say'ri sits up. Her face is pale, grey almost, as though death has drained the colour from it and she seems confused for a moment until Al-Jannah settles in front of her.
As the two exchange some sort of silent communion the door opens and Ben Ali enters. Seeing his wife sitting up he gapes and the plate of carefully prepared offerings falls to the floor unnoticed.
"Say'ri?"
A moment later husband and wife are embracing, reunited.
"Ben, my love. I need to introduce you to my ancestor, Akhentepi. He convinced Great Horus that I earned a second chance." Say'ri says, a great smile on her gray face. The hawk settles on her wrist and nods regally to the puzzled cleric.
"Can we have some breakfast?" Say'ri asks, breaking the solemnity of the moment. "Dying is hungry work!"
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Inside, Say'ri eats her way through three people's worth of breakfast, grinning slightly the entire time. Apart from her skin being a good five shades paler than before, with a greyish tinge, she seems remarkably unchanged by actually dying...
When she finally finishes eating Say'ri sits back and looks from face to face. "So? What now?"
Devon's eyes flutter open. He had the most terrible dream, that he was cursed to be trapped in the body of a catgirl and then was crushed to death by an animated sarcophagus in a dusty tomb...
Feeling the weight shifting on her chest and the fur brushing against the bed she was lying on, she sighs. It wasn't a dream, then. At least she's not dead. Not yet. Still, every part of her body aches. Her bones are bruised, and it will take some time before she heals completely.
Devon wraps the thin robe she's clad in around her and pads on bare feet out of the recovery room. Ashira and Eliyajah are waiting in Ben-Ali's common room, but the last member of the party is missing. "Say'ri?" Devon asks, but seeing their crestfallen expressions, she knows what fate befell the doughty warrior. She lowers her eyes, ears flat against her head, and sits beside her companions.
"I'm sorry. I did all that I could to stop that thing. I thought for sure it would have killed us all. How did we beat it?"
When told of Eliyajah's last-minute change of heart, Devon's eyes water. He could have fled the tomb. Nobody would have blamed him. But he came back. He came back and saved her. A low thrumming sounds in her chest, and without thinking, the catgirl rubs her head against Eliyajah's shoulder affectionately.
Belatedly realizing what she just did, Devon blushes and turns away. "Um, th-thank you," she says awkwardly.
***
Devon remains solemn and silent the rest of the evening, eagerly eating the stew Ben-Ali provides and curling up in bed to get some much needed rest. When she sees Say'ri returned to life the next morning, she yowls in surprise, fur raised on the back of her neck. "Say'ri? What happened? How is this possible?" Noting the gray pallor of her skin, she takes a step back. "Are you undead?"
Recent events have left Eli's fingernails a hot mess. Chewed down and without anything left to give, they represent the wizard's current mental state: worn-out and in need of a break. Seeing his companions go down one by one had filled Eli's breeches with luke-warm bog water, but true horror and hopelessness had hit the wizard the moment he found himself staring up at a rope. He had hit rock bottom. Scaling that bandit just by himself is an ordeal, let alone when there's an unconscious companion in need of immediate aid and, perhaps worse, one in need of a burial ceremony. No, he didn't feel like a hero whatsoever. And what hero chews on his nails the way he does?
Shaking and shivering from a cold gnawing away at his soul, Eli offers Devon a bleak nod and rubs his shoulder against her head. What warmth the act ought to give doesn't pierce through the frigid layers laying waste to and around his soul. Maybe he just needed more time.
***
The wizard's tanned leathery skin takes on an impossible pale quality when Say'ri not only steps back into his life but greets Eli and his companions. "W-w-what?!"
His family had played cruel tricks and pranks on each other for as long as he could remember, like drunk uncles pretending to be bog mummies to spice up a birthday party. But this?! Is this a cruel trick or a blessing that simply goes beyond his comprehension? Devon had already asked the million-gold-piece question and so he waits, mouth ajar, for Say'ri to explain - if she can - what is going on.
Ashira isn't quite as badly injured as Devon, but she's been reeling between awake and asleep constantly. She has a swollen lump on her head, large enough that a perceptive person could spot it under her head scarf.
Whenever she was awake, even in the middle of the night, she'd shuffle over to the chapel to see the body of her friend, Say'ri. She would weep, and pray to Pharasma. Not just for her friend to be judged favourably, but also for forgiveness. This was the first person that Ashira couldn't save.
When Say'ri awakens, Ashira was just about to stumble into the chapel for another round of prayer. She sees Say'ri upright, embracing her husband. Is this a dream? She casts Deathwatch, which she always has on hand. Say'ri is real, alive, resurrected by a miracle. She collapses to Say'ri's side, and apologizes fervently for failing to keep her from dying.
During breakfast, Ashira is sitting by Say'ri's side. To Devon's question, she replies "Not undead. I checked. Say'ri is a living, breathing person once again."
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"I've been sent back." Say'ri explains, around another mouthful of food. "Akhentepi, the General whose tomb we were exploring, is... was a paladin of Horus and my ancestor. He interceded for me with Horus, and Horus in turn caused my rebirth. Akhentepi is here to." She gestures to her falcon, who has been sitting almost stock still on the window ledge. "I think its to make sure I don't mess up again!" She confides with a smile. "You can poke me if you like Eli - I am real, and not undead either. I'm... something else. Quite what that's going to do to me... I don't know, but the brush with Horus has changed me - I feel more... sharper. More perceptive. It's strange I know."
She shrugs and turns back to eating.
"So, back to the tomb today? Akhentepi says there's plenty left inside and not, using his words, 'too many more chances for you to die foolishly'."
"Oh, right!" Says Ashira as she suddenly remembers that she still has powers and that they've refreshed now that it's a new day. She'll channel energy right then, so she and Devon don't have to feel quite so miserable.
"Sorry Devon, I hope you're feeling better now."
Devon thanks Ashira for the healing. She accepts Say'ri's explanation warily, but then she nearly chokes on her food at the suggestion about going back. "You're not serious? We almost died twice there--you did die! Surely we should cut our losses and be done with that accursed place!"
Eli opts not to poke Say'ri and takes her word for what it is. It wasn't the first time he had seen someone dodge their funeral. "I knew it! Just like mah uncle Baw-be-ree-us! I knew I wasn't no crazy when I told my second mom that I saw the lanky bastard slipping out of his burial hole in the peatlands!"
However, the conversation moves on and both Devon and Say'ri have something important to say. Eli weighs in. "She's got a point. I mean, you both got a point. The trap has been triggered, the fake sarcophagus destroyed and all that remains is finding the way to Akhentepi's actual tomb. Only this time we'll take our sweet time making sure every inch we cover ain't a crow-kissed trap that wants to do nothing more than to send us straight to Pharasma's embrace. Slow and steady, like fermenting cucumbers in peat."
All this talk about bogs and peat is causing Eli to miss home.
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Devon thanks Ashira for the healing. She accepts Say'ri's explanation warily, but then she nearly chokes on her food at the suggestion about going back. "You're not serious? We almost died twice there--you did die! Surely we should cut our losses and be done with that accursed place!"
"But we've done all the worst bits, as Eli said. Why give up now?" Say'ri seems unphased by revisiting the site of her own death. "Besides, the Grand Mausoleum will never give us another job if we don't get this one done first!"
Devon sighs, tail twitching in agitation. "Fine. Let's go get it over with then."
When the group starts travelling, Ashira can't help but ask "What did you see after... well, you passed? I once died when I was younger, and I saw the spire of Pharasma, and the Psychopomps that looked over the endless boneyard."
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"I got stuck behind a mirror." Say'ri says with a smile. "You know the one we found in the tomb? I was there, watching you leave. Then Akhentepi and I spoke. After that I had an image of a blue eye, brighter than the sky itself and then 'wham' there I was. Back. It was disorientating to say the least!"
She goes confidently ahead and strolls into the darkened interior of the tomb without slowing for light.
"Huh, I guess seeing in the dark was a perk..."
"That's incredible. So what does your ancestor have to say about us robbing his tomb?"
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"Apparently he'd prefer that we use it to avoid 'any more embarrassing incidents'" Say'ri replies, after a moment of apparently listening to her falcon. Her tone makes it clear that she's quoting.
"So, let's go!"
Say'ri will lead the group confidently back to the burial chamber, enjoying her newfound ability to see in the dark. Once there she looks from wall to wall.
"I missed this bit last time - which way should we be going from here?"
"I'm not quite sure what that means..." Replies Ashira as they march to the tomb.
Once there, Ashira illuminates the area with her spell.
There are two (formerly) secret doors leading off from the chamber where you so nearly met your demise.
The first leads to a small room which is filled with human-shaped bundles wrapped in linen. Each wears a small medallion around its neck: small wooden symbols marked with Pharasma's spiral.
Devon doesn't find anything of value in this room.
Ashira specialized in midwifery, and therefore has less knowledge and expertise regarding old burial rites and beliefs.
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"Apparently these are all the slaves who built the burial chamber. They were killed to protect its secrets." Say'ri reports, not sounding particularly disgusted. "That was pretty common back then. They've been buried with full funerary rites though - everything done properly. Shall we move on?"
Say'ri trusts Devon to sniff out valuables, and is quite content to leave the room once the rogue reports nothing of interest.
The other secret door opens into a room that holds several neatly arrayed chests, boxes, and urns. The dust of centuries covers every surface.
None of the chests and boxes in the room are locked. Most of the goods in the chests, such as once-f ine clothing and sealed jars of food, no longer have any value after the passage of centuries, but among the spoiled and ruined grave goods are several salvageable items of value, including two vials of silversheen, a masterwork longbow, 10 cold iron arrows, a gold scarab clasp worth 50 gp, an onyx and silver holy symbol of Pharasma worth 100 gp, a silver hand mirror worth 35 gp, and a wax-sealed clay urn of nard worth 75 gp.
The only exit is a set of stone double doors.
Say'ri is more interested in the relics than in the doors - those are Devon's job.
"Something about tho... oh! Look at this holy symbol. It's beautiful! "
Spotting a trap on the door, Devon warns the others back and tries to disarm it.
The door clicks on its latch and opens... into a horrible death awaiting you all with nasty, sharp pointy teeth the true burial chamber, the final resting place of Akhentepi. A sarcophagus covered in gold leaf rests on a raised stone platform in the center of this chamber. The casket’s cover is carved in the likeness of an adult man with his arms crossed over his chest, and covered in thick coat of dust.
Two ornate chests sit beyond the dais in the northeast and southeast corners, and between them stand two large funerary urns.
Inside the sarcophagus, Akhentepi’s mummified corpse wears an exquisitely crafted gold funerary mask worth 500 gp. One of the chests contains Akhentepi’s armor, the magic suit of padded armor he wore in life. The other chest holds a disintegrating cloth sack filled with 500 gp, as well as a small, well-preserved darkwood coffer worth 50 gp.
Inside the coffer is a potion of Darkvision, a potion of Lesser Restoration, an ornate lapis and carnelian pendant worth 70 gp, and an assortment of carnelian, lapis lazuli, and turquoise semiprecious stones worth a total of 55 gp.
Devon sighs with relief when she sees they have finally finished exploring the tomb that nearly claimed her life. She purrs happily, tail swishing back and forth. "Not a bad haul. Let's get this all up to the surface and catalog it before we report our success to the temple."
The chest is beautiful, and is worth 200 gp as an art piece. Inside are two potions of Cure Light Wounds and one potion of Darkvision.
Also inside the chest are two books with thin, gold-plated metal sheets for pages. The first is a brief biography of Akhentepi, and the second is a list and description of the various military campaigns conducted by the nation of Osirion between 2350 and 2450 A.R.
Each book weighs 25 pounds and is worth 300 gp.
"Yowch!" Devon yanks the needle out of her hand and licks the wound. The pain is definitely worth the prize, though.
Eli feels the urge to smack Devon for giving in to the temptation to, out of nowhere, open an obviously trapped chest when the riches of Akhentepi's tomb are theirs for the taking! But the urge is nowhere near strong enough to wrestle his eyes and attention away from the sarcophagus. "Gosh darn, it is so pretty I might just cry. This doesn't belong down here, it ought to be on display in a museum. It's so beautiful!"
He won't share how he finds it odd that the Osirians don't just toss the mummified remains into a bog. Might be Osirion has no swamps. Why waste all this wealth on a dead man? The poor wizard just doesn't understand.
Ashira playfully walks over to the hawk that has been hanging around Say'ri. "Mr. Akhentepi, would you mind if I remove this funerary mask?"
"And you don't mind if I wear your old armor, do you?" Devon adds with a sly grin. The rogue looks at the enchanted outfit with an appraising eye before slipping into the previous secret room for some privacy.
After several minutes, she emerges wearing the linen cuirass and kilt. She wraps her arms around herself and shifts a bit uncomfortably, feeling her companions' eyes on her bare shoulders and legs. "I'm used to the more modern styles of Absalom. This... Well, it's showing a lot of skin, isn't it? Are you sure this will really protect me?"
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"This is how armour works in the desert." Say'ri says with a smile. "The less of it there is, the more protected you are. There's a merchant in the square who can sell you a chainmail bikini. Apparently it can protect a woman from just about anything..."
Her sense of humour seems to have improved(?) since dying...
Devon blanches at Say'ri's suggestion. She turns her nose up indignantly. "I'm not a woman," she quietly insists.
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"Let's get all of this out of the tomb and back to my house." Say'ri suggests. "Then we can do a proper inventory and sell what we can alongside reporting in to the Grand Mausoleum."
As the groups strongest member Say'ri packs as much as she can into Devon's favourite chest to make the process easier and then hefts and drags it by turns to get it out of the tomb and back to the Bashere household.
Devon eagerly follows Say'ri, eyes gleaming as she anticipates her first pay day. Her embarrassment is seemingly forgotten, though so too is her dignity--her tail swishes behind her, raising the armor's linen kilt and exposing her curvy backside to Ashira and Eilyajah.