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"Tch...maybe the Pharasmins should seal up some of these pits, too," Tsamara remarks when their exploration beyond the Bone Gate ends rather abruptly. "Who knows what might decide to come crawling out one day?"
Still, the catfolk's demeanor remains relatively cheerful. "At least we shouldn't have too many other places to check now. We'll be back topside soon enough!"
She seems ready to backtrack and continue on.
With no way forwards, you turn back.
Leaving Esme and her handmaidens behind, you check the spiral stair. It ascends for around sixty feet before ending at a small landing with a door. The door leads into the upper levels of the Ossuary, in a secluded area. What's more, the door is practically undetectable from the other side; this must be how Tripe came and went on his body-snatching expeditions. And it's a fast and safe way for you to leave the lower level. But you're not ready to leave yet.
Back on the lower level, you enter the room with the heavy drapes. The large double door seems impassible, until you notice that the depression in the centre of it matches the peculiar device that you found in the stone library. It turns out that the device is a key. When the key is placed into the depression between the two doors, the stone changes to a rippling mass of flesh. Moments later, a bloody wound opens in the middle of the fleshy mass as the doors pull themselves apart to allow egress into the neighbouring room.
In front of you is a statue - just as Djahan's phantom had reported to you earlier - depicting a tall feather emblazoned with a large open eye. Though apparently carved from stone, the statue gleams with a golden-green iridescence.
Just beyond the statue an inscription is carved into the floor. It reads:
“Though veiled behind the plumage of the soul, the Eye still sees, unblinking, through all the ages, from the beginning to the end of time. When the Three are One, and the spirit becomes flesh, the Seal may be opened and the Sleepers awakened. And the glorious apocalypse shall consume us all.”
Phantom
You detect magic from the door ahead - and recall that you needed to use the Chime of Opening to get through a similar door at the start of your mission.
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"How strange," Tsamara remarks, marveling a bit at the feather statue. "I wonder what it's meant to represent?"
When it becomes apparent that using the Chime is an option, she looks thoughtful. "We should have three charges left. I know we would need one to get back out the way we came in, but now that we know how Tripe got in and out of here, making sure we save a charge is less of a concern."
She looks to the others and shrugs. "We could open it to save ourselves and anyone else that comes down here the trouble of walking all the way around, I suppose?"
Opting to save the Chime's limited charges, you backtrack again.
You enter the cathedral-like space at the heart of this level of the Ossuary.
The ceiling of this cavernous chamber vaults to a height of sixty feet, forming an architectural wonder unsupported by any visible columns or buttresses. Forty feet overhead, a wide stone bridge with an elaborately carved railing arches over the chamber from north to south, joining two sets of massive bronze doors at either end. The central portion of the chamber contains an inlaid spiral symbol and is recessed into the floor, with eight staircases leading up to a wide ledge that encircles the room ten feet above. On this ledge stand bronze doors to the east and west. Eight larger-than-life statues stand upon the ledge as well, evenly spaced around the room’s circumference—seven carved from white stone, and the eighth carved from black stone.
DC20
The eighth statue (in the south-southeast part of the room) is carved from dark diorite and is threefold in form, portraying a tall woman with three faces looking in three different directions. One side has a kind face and cradles a baby in its arms, while a second side displays a more stern expression and holds an hourglass. The third face has a crazed look; its hands are empty, but thornless roses twine up both arms.
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"Dedicated to Pharasma," Tsamara offers as she gazes around the central chamber. "The architectural style is old, though...but I suppose that isn't surprising. This place was surely built ages and ages ago."
Curious, she approaches the eighth statue, captivated by the depicted imagery.
"Oh! This represents Pharasma in her three aspects: the midwife, the reaper, and the prophet," she exclaims. "Once again, very archaic representation."
Somehow - perhaps a result of the many spirits that inhabit him, or maybe some property of the rune armour he now wears - Djahan is able to identify the runelords of Thassilon.
A tall man with gems set in his forehead, wielding a flaming glaive (Karzoug, Runelord of Greed); a beautiful woman with wild hair, holding a ranseur (Alaznist, Runelord of Wrath); a voluptuous, nude woman wielding a two-headed guisarme (Sorshen, Runelord of Lust); a short, smiling man holding a longspear (Krune, Runelord of Sloth); an obese man with rotting flesh, wielding a scythe (Zutha, Runelord of Gluttony); a handsome, bearded man in extravagant clothes, wielding a lucerne hammer (Xanderghul, Runelord of Pride); and an imperious, heavyset woman holding a mirror and a halberd (Belimarius, Runelord of Envy).
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"Oh...well. I hope they're just rumors," she replies, looking a little nervous. "Ah...anyway...do the locations of these statues match the sections of this place where we found information about these Runelords? I know Demm tad-draguni pointed out several rooms along the way that seemed dedicated to one Runelord or another..."
You remember that you passed through a complex of rooms associated with the seven "rewards of rule", or Thassilonian Sins, and that you emerged into a secret crypt where you fought a skeletal guardian. Djahan's Phantom then found a secret door that emerged into this central chamber - and that was behind the statue of Alaznist, Runelord of Wrath.
Data looks for a way into a possible "crypt of Lust" - who knows what he hopes to find there - and as he squeezes by the statue of Sorshen he brushes against it (perhaps deliberately).
The statue flashes with crackling lightning, blasting the lusty android!
Data ducks and barely gets singed.
The flash of lightning outlines a possible hidden door behind the statue.
FZZZZT!
Tsamara gets zapped in similar fashion.
And her fur stands on end as she is badly singed.
As with the previous flash around Sorshen and Data, the blast highlights a probably portal behind Xanderghul.
Onye notices faint scuffs on the floor. It looks like the statue might glide across to the side if pushed in the right direction. But he cannot tell what triggers the lightning blasts, nor how to prevent them.
Party status
Data, -2hp
Djahan, -2hp
Tsamara, -4hp
With a divination and some concentration, Tsamara notices that each statue in the great hall bears two faint magical auras.
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The little kobold studies the auras. For several minutes he nods and mumbles to himself.
"All statues am protected. Probably am to keep them clean and not age. The Runelord statues am trapped with attack magic. Goddess of dead have different trap. Am effects mind or will. Compel you to do something."
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"Well, that answers that," Tsamara remarks. "But I have no talent for removing traps, magical *or* mundane. Unless someone else does, we may just have to leave things here as they are."
She rubs at the small electrical burns she sustained a few moments ago. "Either that or suffer the shocks and try to move the statues aside. But I don't like that idea much..."
The phantom passes through the walls to investigate behind the statues.
Behind Xanderghul, Runelord of Pride: "A luxurious crypt, warm and carpeted, with soft light."
Behind Zutha, Runelord of Gluttony: "A crypt decorated with carvings of feasting human."
Behind Krune, Runelord of Sloth: "Alarm! A creature of melted flesh approaches!"
Phantom
surprise round
Djahan
Onye
Tsamara
Data
Felix
DFM
Demm
Melty thing
The bold may act!
Leaving Melty Man well alone, the phantom continues scouting.
Sorshen, Runelord of Lust: "It's full of naked humans, frozen in acts of fornication." The phantom glares at Data in apparent disgust.
Karzoug, Runelord of Greed: "An empty crypt."
Pharasma, Lady of Graves: "An empty crypt."
Belimarius, Runelord of Envy: "A frozen crypt, the walls rimed with ice."
Unwilling to risk getting zapped repeatedly, you exit the central chamber through the doors opposite those you entered by. You follow the wide outer corridor, avoiding the Iridian Fold armour and turning east opposite the library of stone tablets. You reach two doors on opposite sides of the corridor. The phantom investigates.
"A circular chamber surrounded by mirrors" it declares after entering the northern room. "Another chamber of mirrors, much the same" it remarks after viewing the southern room.
Ahead of you the corridor continues to the east.
You venture down the wide corridor and enter a long vestry decorated with large carvings of religious ceremonies and priests handing down judgments to the common people. Stone benches are lined up before a podium at the southern end of the room.
An undead flying head swoops down to attack, but is quickly hacked apart.
Passing through the vestry, the phantom encounters a short, cloaked figure who cowers from him. But when the rest of you enter the room you are plunged into darkness. By the time the light is restored the small, frightened figure has vanished.
Another door leads you to an encounter with Yrix, a wormfolk mystic, in a room depicting Pharasma's Judgement in the afterlife. Yrix offers you information - for a price - but as you've explored the whole of this level of the ossuary and already dispatched Svilennius Tripe and his undead servants, you decline her offer and leave her in peace.
Your mission completed, you return to the surface and locate Valanthe Nerissia, your employer. "My thanks to you, Pathfinders" she breathes a sigh of relief. "You have succeeded beyond my expectations, and earned your pay! I must seek out Miss Feathers and convey my gratitude to her. But now, there is more urgent work for me to attend to. The handful of monsters that you have left below will need dealing with, especially that undead monstrosity that Tripe created! Such unholy heresy! All Who Live Must Face Her Judgement!"