Carvings of somber women and vulture-headed angels adorn the walls of this chamber, and the smell of cedar, onions, and myyrh is overwhelming. Viscous amber fluids fill glass reservoirs, while stone bins of sand, sawdust, and salt crowd the floor. Hooks, knives, and other grisly-looking tools are neatly stored on several worktables along the walls.
On one of the tables lies an opened ghoul corpse. Her chest has been split apart by a Y incision, the long, leathery flaps of her undead flesh peeled apart to reveal an internal cavity that is just as withered and desiccated as her greenish-purple flesh. Her eyes have been removed, and her long purple tongue hangs down almost to the floor out the side of her slack mouth. Marks with a grease pen have been made along her thighs and pelvis, dotted lines apparently meant to show where to cut next.
Despite knowing that ghouls are inherently evil thanks to the necromantic energies required to animate them, Obadiah detects no evil anywhere in this room. He can quickly surmise, then, that this ghoul has perished for the last time.
Obadiah also knows enough about medicine to know that someone was performing an autopsy on this ghoul. Why anyone would want to perform an autopsy on a ghoul is beyond him; there is little, if anything, that is unknown about ghouls at this point, so far as he is aware.
A quick search finds that while most of the items in this room are incredibly old--most of the tools rusted to the point of uselessness--there is a pile of more recent additions in one corner. In the pile are various personal effects: a belt pouch with small hunks of rotten meat in it, another pouch with a handful of coins totaling 43gp, some chalk, and a dusty locket with a picture too faded to make out. Sitting under all these things is a breastplate of particularly fine make . They lie in a more or less random pile, as if thoughtlessly discarded.
Obadiah picks through the things thoughtfully. "Maybe they were her personal effects in life?"
Melech's face twists in disgust. "I don't know. Let's move on." He leads the others to the double doors to the south of the previous room and checks them.
If there are no concerns, he opens the door and looks into the room beyond.
Ulysses helps!
Neither Melech nor Ulysses find any traps or dangers, and hear nothing in the room beyond.
Pulling open the massive bronze double doors, the party finds themselves in a deathly silent chamber, its vaulted ceiling absorbing any sounds from the surrounding area. A broad walkway leads through, flanked by deep pits. In the center of the walkway stands a quietly bubbling fountain filled with a clear liquid.
Neither of the Peekin' Boos find any traps in the room, but they both find, etched into the side of the fountain, a series of runes in Celestial that glow faintly.
While most of the party is at a loss, Danu immediately and easily reads the runes aloud:
"Give to the Lady of Graves an offering of value
and She shall bless these waters against those abominations
who mock the Cycle."
Beyond the fountain stand another pair of bronze double doors. A massive plaque, far more ornate than any others you have found thus far, reads in Middle Osiriani:
SANCTUARY OF THE GODDESS'S HAND
Melech's eyes go wide at the mention of holy water. In Wati's current state, holy water is worth many times its weight in gold. Even if they don't use it, they can take it back to the Grand Mausoleum; Sebti will surely have uses for it in the struggles elsewhere in the city. He looks at the others. "Take any empty bottles we have and gather as much as we can. Spend as much as we have to."
While the others work, Melech investigates the pits on either side of the room and the doors.
Ulysses finds some empty bottles in his alchemy kits and passes them out to the others, along with enough gold to cover each collection.
The party manages to acquire four more holy waters before the small fountain is more coin than fluids.
Melech finds nothing lurking in the pits. However, when he presses his ear to the door, he can just barely hear the sounds of battle somewhere within. It sounds faint, muffled, as if far away from the doors.
Ulysses stows two of the holy waters in a bandolier and hands the other two to Danu. "For when you run out of spells."
Melech waves the others over. "Fighting on the other side. Be ready." His grip on his falchion tightens, his jaw sets in determination, and he pushes open the door.
If nothing is immediately obvious on the other side, he takes a quick look around before stepping in.
Melech throws open the heavy bronze doors with all his might, quickly scanning the floor before stepping in and finding no danger there. The moment the doors fly open, Obadiah is immediately struck by several powerful evil auras.
A raised, pyramidal platform in the center of this large, circular chamber holds an opulent sarcophagus, bedecked with human skulls and profane symbols scrawled in blood, standing between two braziers burning with blue flame. An elevated walkway runs around the perimeter of the hall, behind massive stone statues of Pharasma and Anubis that support the room's domed ceiling. Elaborately appointed crypts, each fit for royalty, sit beneath each statue's feet. Hundreds of desiccated bodies lie strewn across the chamber's polished floor.
All around the pyramidal platform, battle rages.
A tall, dusky-skinned man in a loincloth wearing the most gorgeous and elaborate funerary mask you have ever seen holds his hands up in a defensive posture, as a woman who seems to be made out of pure shadow bounces her blade off the energy as a massive statue of Anubis rains blows down on her, which she ducks and parries with ease. The whole battle takes place in a dome of shadowy dimness that is not quite darkness.
Down below, battling amidst the dry corpses littering the ground, two mummies slug it out with creatures made of pure shadow, to little avail. However, the shadow creatures' touches seem to do absolutely nothing to the already-dead mummies, creating a stand-off.
The woman, whose visage is heavily wrapped in a sarape, turns in the party's direction before turning back to the human man and hopping away from him. "Reinforcements," she says in broken Taldane. "This is not over. I will try again another day. Your time is up, human."
She vanishes in a wisp of pitch-black smoke. As soon as she's gone, the shadows down below vanish as well.
You immediately recognize her as the caligni woman assaulting Falto in an alley back when you were out looking for Filibus-cum-Dakota. You recalled then how she did something similar, teleporting through shadows. You recall Falto named her as Dark Tapestry.
The man removes the mask portion, leaving the headdress on, and turns to face you, panting heavily. Though he clearly just escaped a grueling battle, he doesn't appear heavily damaged, mostly just a few flesh wounds and one nastier-looking laceration on his ribcage.
"I would thank you for your intervention," the man says in modern Osiriani, "but as I assume you're here to stop the ritual, I will refrain. If you think you can do better than that shadow-spawn against the arcane prowess of Nebta-Khufre, then come. Fail. Die."
He replaces the mask, and the two mummies lumber forward menacingly.
SURPRISE ROUND
BOLD may act.[color=green]
Danu (53/53+8 hp)
Ulysses (55/59 hp, Mutagen Active)
Melech (77/78 hp)
Obadiah (60/60 hp)
[/color]
Yep those are mummies alright. But, they look slightly beefier than your everyday mummy. Advanced, you might say.
The big statue is a graven guardian, a type of construct you have dealt with before, but a very large rendition of it . Each graven guardian has particular powers based on the Domain tied to it via the deity it depicts. You get the sense that this one's power is somehow tied to that flail it's wielding.
[ooc](And I'll give this one to you for free, since you've fought them before.) As a reminder, graven guardians are particularly hard to destroy, possessing Damage Reduction that can only be bypassed by the heavy mass of adamantine.
Danu looks around bewilderedly, then touches herself and casts shield. She's going to need all the defense she can get in here.
"HOLD!"
Obadiah has already seen Melech's tendency to rush in to battle, but he needs the big man to hold back for a few seconds so Bes can help them all.
He grasps his holy symbol and prays for Bes's blessing... of fervor, to be exact.
He turns his back to the room briefly to whisper to his companions, "The mummies need to break through my spell to see you. Ignore them until they force us otherwise."
Ulysses downs his final shield extract for the day.
Why didn't shadow lady stick around to help? Enemy of my enemy and all that? What gives, shadow lady?
Melech shudders. One normal mummy is plenty to deal with, and they are facing two beefy ones. He only hopes that Obadiah's spell holds them off long enough to deal with the other threats first.
Having heard Danu's warning against the statue's defenses, Melech drops his falchion (AGAIN) and draws the +1 adamantine battleaxe. Wielding it with two hands, he begins to wade through the sea of death.
He curses his heavy armor. This is going to take forever.
The battle begins in earnest.
ROUND 1
BOLD may act.[color=green]
Danu (53/53+8 hp)
Ulysses (55/59 hp, Mutagen Active, +2 Atk/Ref/AC)
Statue (?? dmg)
Mummy 1 (0 dmg)
Nebta-Khufre (?? dmg)
Mummy 2 (0 dmg)
Melech (77/78 hp, +2 Atk/Ref/AC)
Obadiah (60/60 hp, +2 Atk/Ref/AC)
[/color]
Danu mutters in the spidery language of magic, and quickly lifts off the ground. Deciding mobility would better serve her off the bat, she lets her adoptive father's magic fill her and rocket up into the air.
Ulysses moves up to the edge of the room and throws a long-distance bomb at Nebta-Khufre.
The bomb strikes true on its target, hitting the man--Nebta-Khufre, presumably--square in the chest and erupting in a gout of flame and smoke. When the dust clears, he stands smirking, with nary a scratch on him, and apparently having dodged the tanglefoot component entirely.
He has some sort of resist fire ability active on him, and appears to protect him from at least 19 damage from any one source. You can guess, then, that he is at least a 7th level spellcaster (the minimum caster level required to gain 20 points of resistance to fire from that spell) or happened to have an unusually powerful potion of fire resistance on him.
He glances at the statue, which does not return the look. It simply lopes down the stairs, headed directly for the nearest target: Melech.
The first mummy looks around in mild confusion, then turns to Nebta-Khufre and shrugs, as if looking for further instruction.
Behind the mask, the voice of the necromancer snarls, "You idiot! They're right in front of you!" He gestures again, and the mummy slouches forward, stopping when it bumps into Melech, then standing there stupidly as if it doesn't understand what just happened.
The necromancer shakes his head, presumably in disgust--you can't tell with the ornate funerary mask on. Even from this distance, both Danu and Obadiah can feel the immensely powerful magic radiating toward the mask, as if energy is seeping off the corpses around the room in invisible trails and is being devoured by the mask. In a way, it feels like it's taking in a deep breath.
Nebta-Khufre flies up into the air and stops above the fracas, then gestures with one hand, and rippling energy spills across the battlefield. Every single one of his minions' movements speed up.
Yup, that was haste.
The second mummy is more willful than its friend, and resists the power of Obadiah's spell easily, rushing forward with freakish speed to stand next to Ulysses and send a fist flying at his face. It finds its home and smashes the poor gnome in the nose, sending a spurt of blood flying across the corpses underfoot . Immediately Ulysses feels a horrible, crushing presence over his body...
He knows something is wrong, though he can't quite place what, exactly.
ROUND 1
BOLD may act.[color=green]
Danu (53/53+8 hp, Fly 90)
Ulysses (41/59 hp, Mutagen Active, +2 Atk/Ref/AC, Mummy Rot)
Statue (?? dmg, Hasted)
Mummy 1 (0 dmg, Hasted)
Nebta-Khufre (?? dmg, Hasted)
Mummy 2 (0 dmg, Hasted)
Melech (77/78 hp, +2 Atk/Ref/AC)
Obadiah (60/60 hp, +2 Atk/Ref/AC)
[/color]
Melech looks the big statue up and down, thankful that the nearby mummy doesn't seem to know that he is there. He swings the battleaxe with two hands, anticipating the satisfying bite that the adamantine will lend to the blow.
Well, that's not good.
Obadiah groans on Ulysses's behalf as the mummy resists his spell and immediately curses the gnome. The other mummy is unaware, though. "Don't touch that one!" he calls to his allies, even as he is loading up his holy symbol with Bes's fury. He points it at the mummy harassing Ulysses and fires the searing light he had the foresight to prepare before coming down here.
Melech lumbers over the mess of bodies, ducking under the massive flail that swings over his head as he approaches, and buries the axe in the... ribs?... of the statue, dealing a solid blow.
Even with his gnomish ally entangled in melee with the lumbering fiend, Obadiah still manages to find his mark and blast a hole clean through the chest of the mummy with a scorching band of holy light. The creature still stands and fights, but that definitely left a serious mark.
ROUND 2
BOLD may act.[color=green]
Danu (53/53+8 hp, Fly 90)
Ulysses (41/59 hp, Mutagen Active, +2 Atk/Ref/AC, Mummy Rot)
Statue (?? dmg, Hasted)
Mummy 1 (0 dmg, Hasted)
Nebta-Khufre (?? dmg, Hasted)
Mummy 2 (28 dmg, Hasted)
Melech (77/78 hp, +2 Atk/Ref/AC)
Obadiah (60/60 hp, +2 Atk/Ref/AC)
[/color]
Danu hovers in the air easily and glarees at the necromancer. "Hey! Over here, you trumped-up corpse peddler!" She draws forth a small figurine made of animal bones in a vaguely humanoid shape. "Shake and rattle, a@%%+#~!"
Nebta-Khufre seems to resist the worst of it as his body vibrates violently, and keeps place, but Danu still did significant damage to him.
ROUND 2
BOLD may act.[color=green]
Danu (53/53+8 hp, Fly 90)
Ulysses (41/59 hp, Mutagen Active, +2 Atk/Ref/AC, Mummy Rot)
Statue (?? dmg, Hasted)
Mummy 1 (0 dmg, Hasted)
Nebta-Khufre (?? dmg, Hasted)
Mummy 2 (28 dmg, Hasted)
Melech (77/78 hp, +2 Atk/Ref/AC)
Obadiah (60/60 hp, +2 Atk/Ref/AC)
[/color]
"Flying dude has fire resistance!"
Ulysses tries to deftly move away from the mummy so he doesn't get smacked again.
Then he throws a bomb at mummy #2, hoping that it doesn't also have the fire resistance.
Despite his misstep, Ulysses still manages to dodge the clumsy swing of the mummy as he backs up and tosses a bomb in its face. When the flames lick away, the mummy is completely unaffected. Whatever is protecting Nebta-Khufre also appears to be affecting the mummies. On the bright side, it took a big old gob of resin on its legs and is stuck in place.
The first mummy continues to wander around and look like the John Travolta meme, shrugging and looking around like, what now, boss?
Nebta-Khufre spits a few vulgarities at his useless minion before flying off to the side, for the moment ignoring the pesky spellcaster to float down to almost ground level and unleash a hideous gray-green cone of light that washes across nearly all the combatants, including his own minions--who, sadly, seem entirely unaffected by it.
The others, though...
Melech, Ulysses, and Obadiah feel a wave of horrid, gut-wrenching terror soak their brains and drown out all coherent thought.
A couple of things happen.
Obadiah weathers the horrific assault on his mind, wrestling his amygdala under control through sheer force of will. Melech and Ulysses are, sadly, not so lucky. Melech, drowning in the horror of past memories surrounded by undead monstrosities, loses all his nerve. Ulysses and Leopold both scream bloody murder at the same time as flames seem to engulf the necromancer and he becomes a burning effigy of horror and death.
Panicked: A panicked creature must drop anything it holds and f lee at top speed from the source of its fear, as well as any other dangers it encounters, along a random path. It can’t take any other actions. In addition, the creature takes a –2 penalty on all saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks. If cornered, a panicked creature cowers and does not attack, typically using the total defense action in combat. A panicked creature can use special abilities, including spells, to f lee; indeed, the creature must use such means if they are the only way to escape.
The graven guardian's wounds heal up slightly as it swings at Melech in lightning-fast succession, trying to pummel the pesky slayer into meat.
Only one of the many swings connects, but it crunches a rib .
Mummy 2 spends some time flexing its sick calves and shatters the resin sticking it in place, lumbering toward the gnome to retaliate.
ROUND 2
BOLD may act.[color=green]
Danu (53/53+8 hp, Fly 90)
Ulysses (41/59 hp, Mutagen Active, +2 Atk/Ref/AC, Mummy Rot, Panicked 7 rds.)
Statue (?? dmg, Hasted)
Mummy 1 (0 dmg, Hasted)
Nebta-Khufre (?? dmg, Hasted)
Mummy 2 (28 dmg, Hasted)
Melech (62/78 hp, +2 Atk/Ref/AC, Panicked 7 rds.)
Obadiah (60/60 hp, +2 Atk/Ref/AC, Shaken 1 rd.)
[/color]
Spells flew and flails smashed. Melech and Ulysses, with the aid of the stout-hearted Obadiah, pushed through Nebta-Khufre's unnatural wave of terror and stood their ground against mummies and living statues. Melech smashed the graven guardian of Anubis, its purpose corrupted by the soulless necromancer, and Ulysses' bombs and Obadiah's holy light shattered the mummies. Turning his own wicked methods against him, Danu sent a phantasmal killer after Nebta-Khufre. Whether her magic was just more potent or the arrogant necromancer wasn't expecting such horrors to be visited upon him, his shell of a body's heart gave out from fright, and he fell back to earth, dead.
But the day wasn't won just yet. Whatever dread ritual Nebta-Khufre had begun upon the interred body of the great cleric Nefru Shepses was still going, and the mask upon the necromancer's face rippled with building energy--another ka pulse was imminent. Thinking fast, the alchemist placed the ornate headdress and mask upon his own face. A hideous, disharmonic tone pierced his soul, but with an effort of will, he changed the tune and a great burst of positive energy exploded from Ulysses. The ritual magic immediately dissipated from the sarcophagus, and all was finally still.
A quick check of the tomb found them in an unexplored map room, where they met Sekuer, a sceaduinar who had apparently been tutoring Nebta-Khufre in the use of negative energy. Sekuer departed with little issue, but such creatures never stay away from evil deeds long; it would not be surprising if the party met the fiend again. After a quick stop in the Zombie Room revealed all the zombies chained to the wall had suffered Final Death, they emerged from the tomb and into the harsh light of late afternoon.
Surely these were some of the most harrowing hours of the party's life, but they have survived surprisingly intact, and with a powerful magic mask of untold power in their possession. A quick word with Sebti back at the Grand Mausoleum convinces the party to leave the mask in her care and let her study it to find out the truth of the thing. She tells them the casting of the spell and subsequent research will take quite some time.
The days after the fall of Nebta-Khufre and the end of the ka pulses see a great deal of excitement and hope flood the city of Wati, which it hasn't felt in several days. The market is still off-kilter but steadily returning to normal, and the undead roving the city are dead. All the undead. Great hordes of zombies and even greater fiends of undeath--including one Devourer--lie in lifeless piles against the front gates of the Dead City. It will likely take weeks to gather all the bodies and reconsecrate them, but at least the Voices of the Spire and the priests of Pharasma can be well assured that undead will not be plaguing the city for quite some time.
It does leave our heroes with some much-needed time for rest, recuperation, and time for introspection.
And time for Ulysses' face and skin to erupt in painful boils and sores as his freaking mummy rot takes effect within moments of stepping out of the tomb.
Ulysses visits Obadiah before they all turn in for the night. His normally unflappable demeanor is flapped. "I... uh. I feel terrible."
Obadiah smiles at the little gnome. "That would be the mummy rot. Bes and I have plans to get you fixed up in the morning. In the meantime, drink lots of water."
The next morning, Ulysses doesn't feel any worse, but the drained feeling from yesterday still lingers. And the blackening, dessicating skin on the backs of his hands is... well, it's alarming.
Obadiah wakes up with the sun and immediately prays for two castings of remove disease and three castings of remove curse. He visits Ulysses in his room, and, after a quick appraisal of the disease's progress (he is pleased to see that it doesn't appear to have gotten worse since yesterday, but he knows it is only a temporary reprieve), asks Ulysses to lay down.
He kneels next to Ulysses, grasps the holy symbol hanging around his neck, and begins a few minutes of silent prayer. This isn't strictly necessary for the spell, but it helps him focus his mind. Once done, he reaches out his other hand to rest on the gnome's shoulder and begins the incantation for remove disease.
The magic that flows through him is so potent, so radiant, that his breath catches in his throat and he has a sudden urge to stop and take a day-long nap. He knows that Bes is powerful, but he has never felt anything quite like that before. He feels exhaustion threatening to overcome him, but he takes a few deep breaths and reminds himself that Bes wouldn't use him as a conduit for more magic than he can handle.
He grasps his holy symbol again, reaches out to touch Ulysses, and invokes remove curse.
For a split second, he feels like he is absolutely certain to explode from the power passing through him. His heart pounds so insistently that he can feel it in his skull. He realizes he is squeezing Ulysses's shoulder quite roughly and lets go of both the gnome and his holy symbol. He drops to his hands and knees and retches, immediately thankful that he didn't eat before visiting Ulysses.
After a few more minutes, he feels like he can stand again. He does so, then looks down at the gnome, who is sleeping peacefully. The skin on his hands has completely healed, and the sunken cheeks and eye sockets have returned to normal. Obadiah smiles, nods, whispers a quick thank you to Bes, collapses in the chair next to the bed, and passes out.
Exhausted from the potency of his god's magic, Obadiah lies down for a nap. He wakes later in the afternoon to see Danu has put out a small bowl of his favorite fruit with a note that just says, "You forgot to eat breakfast before casting powerful magic again. Eat, silly."
For his part, Ulysses still feels nauseous and weak, and still coughs up a bit of blood on occasion, but now it looks clotted and lumpy instead of dark and ominous. The damage to his internal organs will, with luck, heal in a few days. Thanks to Obadiah (and his hardy constitution) the rot wasn't able to ravage his body too far. Under his tummy, Leopold mutters something in German and rolls over in his sleep. It makes the gnome's stomach roll with it, and Ulysses is suddenly glad he, too, hadn't eaten breakfast yet.
Many days of rest lie ahead of the party.
While Ulysses and Obadiah sleep the day away (lazy bones), Melech finds Sebti and shares as much as he can remember from the previous day with her. He provides the location of Nefru Shepses's tomb (and the fact that it is currently partially desecrated and absolutely lousy with dead bodies that someone should probably clean up); indicates that the sceaduinar named Sekuer seems to have been controlling the puppet strings to a certain extent (which probably means that this whole thing isn't over); and tells her at least one more thing that Mike remembers being noteworthy during the play session but can't f!@!ing remember now.
The party is able to find a jeweler with a dearth of rings of protection . The armorers in town are all overwhelmed by orders from the City Watch and the Voices of the Spire to repair the plethora of weapons and armor damaged during the plague of undeath, so none are free that can see to Melech's armor or Obadiah's shield.
However, there is a smith in the Dry Veins district who specializes in weaponry. She's also mostly booked up, but having heard your party is responsible for ending the ka pulses threatening the city and beyond, she convinces her customers to let you slide in ahead of them and immediately starts work on upgrading your falchion.
After a few days' rest recovering from his brush with mummy rot, Ulysses dives into his new book about hobgoblin alchemy. Devious creatures, hobgoblins; he doesn't think he'd necessarily want to be friends with one, but he had heard they have a way to make his fire bombs even more potent, and... well, dog with a bone and all that. After a few hours reading, he thinks he is ready to give it a try.
"Leopold? Fancy a bit of chemistry?" The weird little monkey schlorps off of Ulysses's stomach, gives the gnome a thumbs up, and they go to work. Ulysses downs one of the crafter's fortune extracts he'd prepared earlier, then dives in on his first attempt at creating unstable accelerants.
Dakota Johnson is, he believes, a man who is pretty good at his job. Not great, as recent events made painfully clear, but pretty good. And what he lacks in general skill, he makes up for in survivability.
For example: the fact that he’s successfully out-running four Aspis assassins hot on his trail as he stumble-runs through the crowded streets of Sothis, knocking over women with wash-baskets balanced expertly on their heads and leaving a cloud of dirty linens in his wake. A kris knife tumbles through the air and probably would have landed squarely in his back, were it not for an errant pair of underwear that catches the blade and sends it just off-course. It nicks a middle-aged Osirian woman in the ankle before skipping off the sandstone street, and she cries out once before collapsing to the ground a split second later.
Drow sleep poison, then. They want him alive. That scares him more than murder, actually--he knows what his employers had in store for his previous target, the unconscionably lucky Ulysses Cogkettle. Now it’s probably his turn. To Hells with that.
Dakota clears an intersection of low sandstone buildings before ducking down an alley and pulling out his rapier. He’s not as good with it as he is his whip, but he needs a killing instrument right now. The moment he turns the corner, he slams his back against the wall, rapier pointed down, and tries to remember exactly how far back the closest assassin was. Ten feet? Maybe twelve? He counts to five, then turns toward the mouth of the alley and stabs out.
A tall woman, probably elven, hidden behind layers of black silk from head to toe, darts around the corner and directly into his blade. She tries to turn at the last second but only succeeds in skewering herself in the guts at an angle instead of head-on. She raises a trembling hand toward him, a dagger held in steadily weakening fingers. Dakota easily plucks the dagger from her hand and buries it in the side of her neck. He winces as the arterial blood paints the alley wall. He hates killing, but he knows what’s in store for him if they capture him. Not happening.
He rushes down the alley, banking left at a T intersection, before planting face-first into a dead end. He spins around, heart pounding, to gauge his surroundings. He could backpedal to the T intersection, but he is likely to run into a poisoned blade not unlike what he’d just done to the elf. The walls are fifteen feet high at their lowest point, maybe twenty-four or twenty-five at their highest. He’s not much of a climber, but it will have to do.
He backs up a few paces before rushing at the lowest wall and using his sturdy leather boots to try and run a few steps up the rough sandstone and grab the lip, but the soles are slick with fresh blood and refuse to find purchase. Cursing under his breath, he tries again, with the same result. Just as he’s about to make a third attempt, his instincts scream at him and he ducks into a roll as another kris knife whips through the air where his back had just been.
He comes up from the roll with rapier and whip in hand to see three black-clad figures, two of them dressed similarly to the elf woman he’d just knocked off. The pair, a male and female human by their cheekbones and eyes, have kris knives in each hand and slowly approach him from the intersection some fifteen feet away, with a burly half-orc man in front of them. The human man looks a little on the small side, scrawny and short. Dakota guesses he can’t be older than fifteen. Awfully young to be taking on wetwork.
You weren’t much older when you had your first, he reminds himself absently.
”You’ve made a real mess, Dakota,” the lead half-orc rumbles. He sounds damned familiar; the mithral-plated mask on his forehead, marked with intricate grooves, holds down his black silk hood. A navy blue cloak billows across his black studded leather armor, lined with over a dozen sheaths, all filled with various knives. The only other notable weapon is a hand crossbow at his belt.
Ah, now he recognizes him.
”Harnak,” Dakota says cheerfully between heavy pants. ”Long time, no see, buddy!”
Harnak sneers at Dakota. ”We are not friends, Dakota. Last time I saw you, it was in the throes of seizures from the poison you’d slipped into my drink.”
Dakota scoffs. ”Oh, come on! That was just business! And I didn’t even kill you! I’d think an assassin, of all people, would understand that.”
”Oh, I understand,” Harnak hisses with open malice. ”I understand that I shat and pissed blood for a week. I understand you did permanent damage to my liver, making my favorite pastime fatal to me.” Ah, right. Harnak is a shiver addict. Damages the liver if used too often--and Harnak used to use a whole lot. ”I also understand that the Consortium put a magnificent bounty on your head. I don’t even care why. I offered to do it for half price, just so I could be the one who brings you in to their torture chambers in An.”
Dakota swallows. Harnak might be best at striking from the shadows, but he’s still no slouch in an open fight. Should have stayed in Cheliax studying old ruins from books, he thinks wryly. For an archaeologist, he sure does find himself facing death a lot. ”Okay,” he sighs. ”Come on, big guy, let’s finish this.”
Harnak opens his mouth in another sneer, presumably to respond, when suddenly a shadow looms over the two humans behind him. A man of impossible height and size--easily seven feet tall, maybe more--reaches out and grasps the unaware humans by the tops of their heads with hands that are massive, withered, and wrapped in linen bandages. Without so much as a grunt of effort, the figure squeezes. The humans each manage one gurgling, choked cry, flailing uselessly against the figure, but they might as well be made of cotton and sticks for all the good their flailing does. There are a pair of staccato cracks, and the humans’ heads suddenly collapse in on themselves. Blood spews out their noses and ears like juice from a squeezed orange.
Harnak turns, takes one look at the figure, and throws down a smoke pellet. Thick, cloying clouds of charcoal-gray smoke fill the alley. When it clears, the looming figure still stands holding the crushed skulls of the two assassin lackeys, and Harnak is nowhere to be seen.
A tall, narrow-shouldered man of mixed descent steps out of the intersection and past his enormous friend. The newcomer is middle-aged, with tanned skin, shaved head, and a neatly trimmed goatee. His dark purple robes are of fine satin and etched with the faintest of runes. He gives Dakota what is probably meant to be a welcoming smile, but looks predatory on the man’s face. Dakota doesn’t lower his weapons.
”I believe,” the stranger says with a soft, smooth chuckle, ”that the words you are looking for are ‘thank you.’ Mm?”
After a long, uncertain pause, Dakota lowers his weapons--but doesn’t sheathe them just yet. He eyes the man with open suspicion. ”Uh… yeah. Thanks, Mister…?”
”I have a job offer, Mister Johnson,” the man continues, as if Dakota hadn’t spoken at all. ”It’s come to my attention through my… investigation” he smirks at the word, as if it’s somehow funny to him “that you and I have a common enemy: the individuals with the altogether idiotic title of the ‘Bomb and Blade Crew.’ I think you are familiar.”
Dakota’s jaw involuntarily clenches at the memory of his humiliating failure that got him on the bad side of the Aspis Consortium. ”Yeah,” he grumbles. ”I’m familiar.”
”I have learned a hard lesson at their hands, as well,” the stranger says, and a darkness enters his eyes that gives Dakota pause. Whoever this man is, he is damned scary. And has powerful lackeys, for that matter--the hooded giant still stands with the pulpy remains of two human skulls in his meaty paws, as if waiting for orders before even so much as dropping them. ”I have learned,” the stranger continues, ”that blind obedience is not always the best tool for the job. I could use someone a bit more… clever. And you could use some good old fashioned revenge. Mm?”
”What are you proposing, exactly?” Dakota asks.
”We can discuss the details later.” The stranger finally addresses the tall figure. ”Atomhan, ba tum ilimhut.” Dakota blinks; Ancient Osiriani? Odd choice. The hulking figure finally drops the corpses and lumbers off.
The stranger turns back to Dakota. ”The authorities will be here soon. Come, let us find somewhere quiet and cool to discuss business.” The stranger turns on his heel and starts striding down the alley, taking the direction at the T intersection the hulking figure did not. ”I am Viqir, by the way,” he calls behind him.
Dakota hesitates only a moment before sheathing his weapons and following behind. ”Pleasure,” he mumbles, and feels quite certain it’s going to be anything but.
Three weeks have passed since the ka pulses were put to an end. Three weeks since Melech and Ulysses lost their friend, and gained two new companions. The city is slowly returning to normal, though many of the businesses are now overwhelmed by requests from the city itself for labor and goods: weapons and armor for the city watch and the Voices of the Spire, building materials for destroyed homes and businesses, funerary services for the many new dead… the list goes on.
For the quartet who put down Nebta-Khufre, the rogue necromancer responsible for the terrible crisis, the weeks have been busy as well. Ulysses has spent most of the time with his little tumorous friend creating abominable concoctions to offend the gods . Obadiah has done much to aid the church of Pharasma in gathering the dead and performing funeral rites so their souls may find rest. Danu has been hard at work swelling the number of filled pages in her spellbook, as well as crafting ioun stones for her and her allies.
----
For Melech, however, the days have been restless and agitating. His nights are plagued by dreams that are not quite nightmares, but nonetheless intense and confusing jumbles of images that feel of dire importance, yet he cannot parse their meaning. No one he has asked, not Danu, nor Obadiah, nor Ulysses, nor any of the priests of Pharasma, seem able to tell him what the dreams mean. Not that he was able to speak to any of the priests for more than five minutes at a time; everyone from Sebti the Crocodile on down the church’s hierarchy has been busy. Those below her, with putting the dead in order. Sebti herself, with the strange and powerful mask the group found under the sepulcher, trying every spell she knows in order to discover its origin and meaning. None have been able to help him.
His body is rested, but his mind is not, troubled daily by the strange nightly visions. And in each, a singular figure holds his attention strongest: a sphinx, her torso and face that of a shapely woman, with the arms, legs, tail, and head of a great cat. Her eyes are like infinite pools of color, sometimes the blinding white of the sun glinting off metal, sometimes the endless robin’s-egg of a summer’s day, sometimes vast and empty as the dark between the stars. And ever she calls to him, in a language he cannot understand, though the meaning is plain:
Find me. Come to me. I have what you seek.
----
Ulysses also dreams, but his are less intense and more an attempt at understanding. He sees the mask they pried free of Nebta-Khufre’s face, the one that he placed on his face so that he could launch a counter-pulse and end the dread effects of the ka pulse that the soul-shattered necromancer had started. Every night since then, he sees the funerary mask, clearly crafted for the face of a great pharaoh, solid gold with inlays of onyx, lapis lazuli, and cobalt, with a headdress equally as ornate and beautiful.
The mask also whispers to him, as the sphinx whispers to Melech, but the mask speaks in a language he can understand: Ancient Osiriani. It sounds strange to his ears, and it takes several nights to realize why: no one has spoken it as a native tongue in thousands of years, but the mask speaks it as easily as Ulysses speaks Common.
It promises not power, nor wealth, nor earthly goods. It does not promise immortality, or the pleasures of food or flesh. It promises something far more tempting to Ulysses.
It promises knowledge.
---
Finally, early in the afternoon of Moonday, the 31st of Pharast, as spring blooms full in the Osirian Desert, the four each receive a missive delivered by a runner from the Spire. It is Sebti the Crocodile, Head Priestess of Pharasma in Wati, requesting their presence in her office.
When they arrive, she looks exhausted. Her eyes are bloodshot and baggy, her cheeks are sunken, and she wears none of her ceremonial make-up. She looks as if she has aged a decade in the last month.
”Thank you for coming,” she says. The funerary mask pried from Nebta-Khufre’s corpse rests on her desk facing the group. ”I have spent the last three weeks trying and failing to discover any information on this artifact. All I have discovered is a name. A single name, for which there are no records I can find anywhere in the city: Hakotep I. It is a pharaoh’s name, but no pharaoh has used this name that I can find. Whatever this mask is, it bears powerful anti-divinitory magicks. I must ask of you something I have no right to ask, but must be done. I must ask that you take the mask to Tephu.”
”The Great Library is the best possible location I can think of to continue the search for information. For those who have never been, it has both an Inner and Outer Sanctum. The Outer Sanctum is free to use, though a 5 gold piece donation is customary. Use of the Inner Sanctum is more restricted, and requires a larger donation. Perhaps you will find what you need in the Outer Sanctum, but considering the absolute riddle this blasted thing has been so far, I doubt it. There are other sanctums even deeper within, but access to those is basically impossible without express consent from the haty-a.”
A haty-a is basically like a governor. They are the highest authority in a given city, and answer only to members of the Pharaoh’s court (and of course, Ruby Prince Khemet III himself). They are beholden to no one else, not even haty-a from other cities. The current haty-a of Tephu is also the Head Priestess of the church of Nethys (as is tradition there), a woman named Deka An-Keret.
”Hopefully you will find what you need in the Inner or Outer Sanctum. If not...” She sighs and shrugs helplessly. ”You’ll be on your own, I’m afraid. But you have proven yourselves to be extremely resourceful. I know I am asking a lot. You are not beholden to me, and if you choose to walk away from my request, I will not hold it against you in any way. You have all already done so much for Wati. I can offer you some travel money and a handful of supplies, but that is all. The city’s coffers run dry as it is, what with the rebuilding efforts in full swing.”
She taps a finger on the mask. ”I can tell you this. The mask has many beneficial properties. So far as I can tell, there is no malice in it, though there does seem to be...” She pauses, frowning, as she searches for the right words. ”Not an intellect. An echo? A sort of… awareness that is not quite sapience. More like a copy of memories, feelings. I could not access them myself, but perhaps one of you will have better luck.”
She stands and looks out the window behind her desk, staring at the city of Wati sprawled out below her. ”It can enhance the mind of one who wears it. The sort of enhancement seems to depend on the wearer. Your intellect, your willpower, even your force of personality. Furthermore, it lets you sense the condition of those nearby, and is virtually immune to divination magic.”
She turns back to the group. ”There is more magic in it, but it is unusual. Its other powers seem to depend on the soul of the wearer. Those with malice and hate in their hearts gain power over the undead. Those of pure heart are protected against necromantic effects. Those who are neither are able to choose.”
”You should take the mask with you. It’s a powerful artifact, and may help you on your journey. But I would not wear it all the time; it is clearly the funerary mask of a Pharaoh, if nothing else, and that may buy you trouble if you walk down the street with it on. Still, it is a useful thing to have in case of trouble. There is also these cultists, of course. The ones you mentioned attacking you in the Sepulcher of the Servant. I do not think it was coincidence that cultists wearing funerary masks came to the same sepulcher where a necromancer was using a funerary mask artifact to power his ritual. I expect they will cause you more trouble down the line.”
She pulls out four coin purses and places them on the desk in front of the mask, saying simply ”for travel expenses,” then sits down and begins writing on a piece of parchment.
She finishes the letter, sprinkles sand to dry the ink, then seals it with her wax seal. ”I am not a haty-a, so this letter holds little sway in Tephu, but it might at least get you an audience with An-Keret, even if it does nothing to actually persuade her. But only use this if you need it; our relationship with Tephu is strained as it is, thanks to our many requests for aid over the last weeks. I do not wish to strain it further if it can be helped.”
She looks at each of the four in turn, though admittedly her gaze slides over Melech and Ulysses perhaps just a bit quicker than the other two. ”What do you say? Will you help us?”
Melech can't help but admit that he is invested now. She is right that they are not beholden to her, but something big is going on here, and that something is clearly to do with the undead.
(Besides, it would seem that Viqir has found him and, selfishly, he is safer staying with his powerful new companions than not. He has a mental chuckle with himself on the absurdity of that notion.)
Still, the only reason he is here at all is because Ulysses hired him. Although... he realizes only just now that they haven't discussed their business arrangement in weeks.
He looks at Sebti. "I am definitely in. That is, if my contract with Ulysses is fulfilled."
Ulysses can't take his eyes off the funerary mask the entire time that Sebti is talking. When she sets it on the desk and says that they should take it, it takes all of his willpower not to snatch it immediately. He waits, holding his breath and feeling the blood rise in his cheeks, until it seems like she is done talking, then he steps forward, grabs the mask, and puts it in his pack. He doesn't even look at the purses.
Melech says something and then, after a few seconds of silence, Ulysses realizes that everyone is looking at him. Did Melech ask him a question? He looks up. "What?" Before Melech can repeat himself, Ulysses's brain catches up and finally hears what Melech said. "Oh. Oh, yes, of course." What Melech doesn't know is that the script has been fully flipped; Ulysses will follow Melech wherever he goes. How could he not? His life was so boring before he met Melech. And their two new friends have turned out to be quite intriguing as well.
He notices that everyone else are still looking at him expectantly. "Yes. Yes, I'm in."
Obadiah frowns when Ulysses snatches the mask off the desk. He shoots Danu a glance which he knows she will understand: that is something we will need to keep an eye on.
As to Sebti's request, it's not even a question. They seem to have quelled the problem in Wati -- at least for the moment -- but there is something bigger going on here. And he can sense the evil; it sits at the bottom of his gut like a stone. Once an evil like that is known, it is his duty to do everything he can to eradicate it.
He closes his eyes and gives Sebti a half-bow, then rises and meets her eyes. "I will help." He looks at Danu. "Danu, I cannot ask you to follow me in this endeavor. It will be dangerous; I fear much more dangerous than what we have already faced. You must make the decision of your own volition."
Please say yes.
Danu rolls her eyes, but she's grinning. "Like I'd let you out of my sight with something like this going on, old man! Who's gonna take care of you out there? You're a disaster without me."
Which, to anybody who knows them even remotely, is literally the exact opposite of the truth. It's usually Obadiah dragging Danu's butt out of whatever fire her insatiable curiosity lit.
She turns back to Sebti. "We're in. And thank you for the help," she adds, snatching up the pouches and distributing them. If anyone refuses theirs, she shrugs and sticks their share in her pack for safekeeping. She knows some people get weird about accepting money, but she also knows it could very well come in handy.
Sebti can't quite hide her relief when the party agrees to help. "Thank you. I will answer any questions I can. Otherwise, you had best go prepare for your journey. There isn't any sort of time crunch, that I'm aware of, but the sooner you solve this mystery, the better."
Melech bows his head to Sebti. "Thank you. We will leave first thing tomorrow and report back as soon as we are able."