Upon returning to Muminofrah's barge, the group finds Uthe relaxing lethargically on a pile of pillows with a rounded belly. "Did you find where she went?" she asks with sleepy eyes.
...
As they're walking back to their rooms, the increasingly uncomfortable amurrun puts a hand to her stomach and gently touches Say'ri's arm. "Just a moment," she says with a pained expression. She stands still for a couple of heartbeats before taking two quick steps into a nearby narrow alleyway. There's a coughing sound, followed by a wet splashing. It repeats a couple of times before Uthe returns to her girlfriend's side, wiping her mouth.
"We feel much better now. This custom of a 'buffet'? We have no wish to partake of it again," she says solemnly. "Simple meals are preferred."
~~~~~
Uthe looks back up the way they've descended. "Why would they put knowledge at the bottom of a well? Stupid humans." She shakes her head and then examines the door for auras.
When Say'ri mentions light, Uthe makes a magical gesture and four glowing points of light appear, hovering around the group.
Jazadi winces when she hears Uthe noisily vomiting in the alleyway.
-----------------
"Wait." The archaeologist holds up a hand. "Those doors have some sort of warding glyph on them--Brigh only knows what'll happen if it's set off."
"Yes," Uthe declares as her eyes follow the aura of the magic. "A glyph of some sort set to go off with the opening of the door. How long has it been since someone's been down here that they sent us to it without any warning?"
Her eyes narrow in suspicion before glancing at Jazadi. "If you are unable to disable it with your skill, then we shall attempt to counter the magic with magic."
Jazadi manages to scratch out key elements of the glyph without setting it off, the last line she scratches out (with a little luck on her side) stops the glyph from emanating its magical aura.
The bronze doors open into a cruciform chamber. Three other short corridors slope down from the center of this cruciform chamber, each ending at a wall with a large, carved stone face— one frightened, one sad, and one angry. Tablets, statues, icons, and carvings cram the corridors. A fourth hallway leads west to a set of bronze double doors.
The corridors angle downward at a 45-degree angle and their extremely smooth polished floors are slippery.
A heap of skeletons topped with a crocodile skull, sits in the intersection of the corridors.
Uthe leans sideways towards Say'ri. "We thought you were going to shoot it," she says in a stage whisper. "What is supposed to happen?"
When Uthe comes backn from the alley, Adol regards her with sympathy. "A hairball? Such a rough thing your kind has to live with. I was only one for minutes at most and when I changed back, the fur went with a vengeance..." he laments, looking away with mild embarassment. "Sorry for that show, by the way." He adds to Jazadi and Say'ri.
"And I will get out of the way while you do it." Say'ri says sensibly. "Adol, I suggest you do the same."
"Yeah, I can remember taking a bunch of magical tiles to the face with the last trap. I think I learned my lesseon there - again, that is. Still... if we have permission to be here, why didn't they deactivate the protection on the entrance?" The paladin wonders. "Was Muminofrah displeased with you, Jazadi?"
"This reminds me of gelatinous cubes. They're transparant, and leave very little of their victims. I vote we-" He already has his bow out when Say'ri takes the initiative and fires her gun in the enclosed hallway. He winces and reaches for his ears, putting in the earplugs he'd bought especially for this. Then, he attempts to fire a little higher, using his longbow.
When Uthe comes backn from the alley, Adol regards her with sympathy. "A hairball? Such a rough thing your kind has to live with. I was only one for minutes at most and when I changed back, the fur went with a vengeance..." he laments, looking away with mild embarassment. "Sorry for that show, by the way." He adds to Jazadi and Say'ri.
Uthe looks from Adol to Say'ri and then back. "Are you suggesting that either Say'ri or myself are inept enough at grooming that we get hairballs?" Uthe questions in shock. "We'll have you know that it was the decadent human food we ate that caused that!" She pushes at Say'ri's shoulder. "Tell him!"
Jazadi pinches the bridge of her nose in exasperation.
"Guys..."
"Was Muminofrah displeased with you, Jazadi?"
"I think she was offended by the implication that I find her less appealing than an archive of knowledge kept forbidden to the public." The archaeologist remarks. "I'll be happy to just get what we came here for and never have to hear from her again."
"Are you suggesting that either Say'ri or myself are inept enough at grooming that we get hairballs?"
"What? No, I- Wait, back up! You mean Say'ri *would* get hairballs if she failed to groom well enough? Does that make her an actual cat?" Adol says, backing away from Uthe while thoroughly confused.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"What? No, I- Wait, back up! You mean Say'ri *would* get hairballs if she failed to groom well enough? Does that make her an actual cat?" Adol says, backing away from Uthe while thoroughly confused.
"Don't be silly. We and Say'ri are a couple. We groom ourselves and we groom her. She grooms us and ... well, she grooms herself, but in the lesser human fashion," She holds up a hand to her mouth as if sharing a secret, "With water." The hand drops. "She's not quite limber enough to do it in the proper amurrun fashion. But to suggest that either of us are incompetent enough to lead to hairballs is simply rude."
The ricochet off Say'ri's shot is almost unfortunate as it nearly chips some old carving that might contain vital information, but instead chips the ear of a statue of one of the old gods.
Just as Adol gets close with his swing at thin air to test his theory, the pile of bones stirs and begins to assemble into a hideous human form before his very eyes.
"That's a golem! If you've got adamantine or bludgeoning weapons, bring 'em out because magic's not going to work on it!" Jazadi grimaces and imbues Adol with a burst of heroic magic!
"Let's hope so, as my backup weapon definitely isn't made of a priceless sky metal..." The paladin mutters, glancing at his bec de corbin. He drops the bow and walks to somewhere in front of Say'ri, leaving a line of fire for the others if possible, then readies an attack for if and when it approached.
"A golem?" Uthe questions and then makes a spitting sound. Perhaps a curse? "Most of what we can do is then useless," she says. Instead of attacking, she turns her magic on her companions.
Staying steadfast in the centre of the room, protecting its ground, the golem allows 2 bones from its central mass to soar towards Adol, its nearest foe.
The bones magically duplicate and form a cage around Adol and squeeze tightly inwards.
-10
Being squashed to a pancake wasn't Adol's plan, so he aimed the giant hammer at the bones crushing him - and thus himself - to get out of the situation!
It seemed like a foolproof plan. What could possible go wrong if you swung a lethal weapon in your own general direction?
"Incoming fire, Say'ri," Uthe calls out before lobbing a fragile vial at the construct.
Jazadi turns her heroism-inspiring magic on Say'ri next!
Say'ri's shots shatter a fair few bones in the golem's torso, and Adol manages to free himself from the cage.
The golem comes crashing towards Say'ri, its greatest danger.
-51
Which is when Adol takes the opportunity to strike!
...Or so he thought. Apparently, the bone crush had done a bit more damage than expected, and threw off his aim.
Even with Adol's difficulties trying to incapacitate the golem, Say'ri is in no real danger as the golem's bones shatter and splinter all over the floor making a complete mess.
Amongst the golem's fragments, there is a glint of silver, upon looking at it closely is an otherwise unremarkable silver collar (750gp).
The carvings in this room are so worn after time, that they are unreadable and therefore useless for your research.
The carved face down the southern corridor bears a frightened expression. Perfectly round and about 3 feet across.
The stone face at the end of the eastern corridor is carved with an expression of sadness. Like the other faces, it is about 3 feet across and perfectly round.
The northern corridor ends at a carved stone face twisted in an expression of revulsion.
|
"There's a lot of doors here." Say'ri says, having looked around. "I can't see anything there around the fightened face." "But I probably missed it. There's a door here behind sadness and at least two in this corridor, but we can't open one of them without blocking another. This is going to take some planning!"
After taking a moment to heal himself with the group's healing wand, Adol joins Say'ri in her search. He is unable to spot anything else. Still, he had a hunch he was missing at least one thing... "You're right. Something doesn't feel right about this, as if there should be more. Let's take a better look around before we start touching things."
Uthe follows along as Say'ri investigates the faces on the walls and nods sagely as the woman pronounces her finds. Truth be told, she didn't detect a single thing the gunslinger found, but she doesn't want to appear entirely unobservant.
She does, however, spend some time watching for any magical auras.
The amurrun pauses next to the face of sadness.
"This stone," she says, gesturing at the trigger stone Say'ri indicated. "There's evocation magic upon it. That usually means ..." She mimes an explosion with her hands.
|
|
"We'll do that one last then." Say'ri says. "Ok. Logic. Jazz, Uthe, you're going to see what you can do about that trap. Adol and I are going to go over every inch of this corridor. There has to be something there. Once we've done that we'll move around and check the whole corridor and then try the trapped door, which won't be trapped any more."
She pauses and frowns for a second. "Too many damn doors. We'll start here with Sad Face. Check it and open everything that we can. If there's nothing there we'll move around to Sick Face, and then Scared Face. Got it?"
Jazadi tentatively nods and imbues herself with her own heroic magics before setting to work on the trapped stone.
Uthe watches over Jazadi's shoulder, offering 'helpful' advice from time to time.
Adol chuckles at Say'ri's nicknames for the statues. "Sadness, fright and revulsion... were these built to scare off anyone seeking access? I suppose it is called the Dark Depository for a reason."
Afterwards, he helps Say'ri find the missing doors and enacts his part in her plan.
With some surprisingly helpful advice from Uthe Jazadi is able to disable the evocation trap with some carefully placed scratching and a pinch of lead dust.
Adol and Say'ri take a while longer but eventually conclude an exhaustive search with a total of five different hidden doors. With Jazadi declaring the sad door safe you carefully open the left hand door. It reveals a very small, very cramped passageway, which anyone in the group would have to crawl through. (Where's a halfling when you need one?)
Turning to the right-hand door you find a rubbish-filled room, although Adol spots a headband buried under some particularly putrid refuse.
Following Say'ri plan you turn to the Face of Disgust and slide the door , revealing another room beyond. The walls of this cramped chamber are riddled with shelves, cabinets, and cupboards wreathed in cobwebs. More than a dozen sarcophagi stand against the walls, all with disturbingly blank carved faces.
Quite pleased with herself that Jazadi was wise enough to take her advice, Uthe is a jingling ball of happiness as they open the hidden doors.
Uthe recognizes a couple of runes on the headband. "Wearing this will make one smarter," she says with a grin. "Although, it won't do anything for their sense of fashion." She holds it out for someone else to take, quite happy with the headband she currently wears that she judges to be much more attractive.
"There are other hidden doors in here," she points out, gesturing to a couple of sections of wall.
"Really?" Jazadi tilts her head at Uthe as she examines the headband.
"Can I have it?"
Uthe shrugs and passes the magical jewelry over to the half-elf.
"You're right! Bowl, waves, sideways horseshoe and upright feather..." Adol mutters, reading the runes. "'Knthi' in ancient Osirian script. Knethi? Knathi? Knothi? I wish the ancient Osiriani didn't take some of the vowels for granted... how is one supposed to guess?"
His gaze then trails down the line and he frowns. "Wait. This combination of ruins... I've seen that before. That's the Sky Pharoah, and this other bit means... 'ravished for having researched the sky Pharoah's life too deeply'? Hm... maybe it should be 'punished' instead." He adds, blushing slightly. "Should we open this sarcophagus, then? This Knthi knew something dangerous to him. But it might be a trap, perhaps."
As the pair examine the sarcophagus Say'ri notes that there are signs of it having been opened before - perhaps someone has already beaten you to the information!
Pulling the sarcophagus open reveals a full mummy, wrapped in bandages and scattered with dust. Thanks to Say'ri sharp eyes however, none of you are surprised when the mummy stirs to life and advances on you all!
Jazadi blinks as the mummy emerges from the sarcophagus.
"...wait a pistol-oilin' minute here, that's not a real mummy!" She frowns as she points at the monster. "It's a mummy golem--look at the way it's moving! It's got too much weight behind it!"
"Don't use magic or 'anti-mummy' stuff on it--try something else!" She says before snapping her whip and trying to trip it up!
"A mummy... golem," Adol stated, staring at the thing in disbelief before falling into a combat stance. "Is it resistant to certain forms of damage?" He asks, and quickly grabs his blunt weapon to strike just in case.
"Another golem?" Uthe questions in annoyance. "Someone has a specialty." She follows up with a spell on her companions.
It has DR 10/magic and piercing or magic and slashing.
Say'ri leaps away from the construct and fires a volley into its eerily glowing face, which seems to do considerable damage. Then Uthe speeds her companions, allowing Adol to strike the golem. Sadly his blunted weapon seems to be less effective than he hoped, although the blow is still a heavy one.
Jazadi cracks her whip and gets Say'ri's toes with a rather sharp blow, but in no way inconveniences the golem.
The construct, already badly damaged, lashes out at Adol as its bandages unwind and attempt to suffocate the valiant warrior! Adol finds his head engulfed in bandages, leaving him reeling, bruised and almost unable to breathe!
Golem -41