Initiative:
While Seben and Diorio provide cover, Lueck, Indus and Sobekhotep position themselves around the large stone wheel and begin pushing.
At first, they struggle in vain against the weight of the massive stone circle. Then, slowly, the wheel begins to roll, revealing a doorway leading to a dark chamber.
No immediate threat emerges from the darkness. Only a faint gush of air that smells like decades of dust and stale decay.
Then…
With all eyes concentrated on the stone wheel, no one sees the real threat coming from an unexpected angle. Not even the Sacred Ibis notices the lone pale scorpion the size of a small dog creeping through the cemetery towards the opened tomb.
In a blur of motion, the almost translucent scorpion rushes forwards, clawing and jabbing at Diorio. The agile swordsman is caught completely by surprise and fails to evade the sudden ambush. He feels searing pain as the stinger pumps deadly poison into his side and one of the claws tears at his left calf.
This is a Ghost Scorpion. So named for their eerie, translucent carapaces, ghost scorpions are nocturnal desert hunters. This one has likely been roused by the digging in the sand to clear the tomb doors.
They have darkvision and tremorsense and their poison deals strength damage.
The scorpion attack causes a moment of total confusion in the crowded tomb. Lueck, Indus and Sobekhotep are all painfully aware that they need to maintain control of the stone wheel to avoid a serious mishap.
>
-
-
Seben is shocked when the ghost scorpion comes out of nowhere and stabs her ally.
"Diorio! No!"
“Squaaaak!”*
The Sacred Ibis regally strides forward and tries to get all up in the scorpion's grill.
"C'mon... C'mon..."
Reacting as a deadly duo, Seben and her animal companion (or divine overseer, depending on your point of view) spring into action to dispatch the large scorpion.
Seben's arrow catches it in the eye and it collapses in the sand.
As the stone wheel slams aside to fully reveal the doorway, Diorio feels the room spin, dizzy from the physical injury and the poison in his bloodstream.
"Diorio, are you ok?" Indus asks worryingly, sweat drenching his hair and forehead.
Seben drops her bow in a panic, letting it clatter to the ground, rushing to Diorio's side.
"Diorio! Oh no, oh no, please be okay!"
With the stone rolled away and seeing Seben tending to Diorio's wounds, Indus starts lighting a torch. Once done he draws his barbed whip and keep watch at the entrance to the deeper tomb.
"Yow! Son of a...!
"Gads! I never saw it coming. I've been stabbed before, but never like that. What is that thing?"
When Diorio does not suffer any debilitating effects from the scorpion sting, Indus proceeds through the doorway that was covered by the stone wheel.
The square room beyond is starkly devoid of any markings or adornment. In the center of the chamber’s floor, a 10 ft square shaft drops straight down into darkness. A faint musty odor rises from the pit.
A single piton has been hammered into the stone floor by the northeast corner of the pit, and a dusty length of rope dangles from the piton into the darkness of the shaft.
"I've heard it's the small scorpions you should worry most about. The big ones don't need a potent venom to kill you..." Indus says trying to encourage Diorio.
"Hey, it looks like someone's been here before us..."
Indus inspects the ground leading to the hole and peers down into the hole if he doesn't discover anything of interest.
The shaft is an example of superior masonry, deliberatly constructed to be difficult to climb.
The rope is thoroughly rotted and extends only 5 ft into the shaft before ending in a clean cut.
No other signs of recent activity. You are likely the first living creatures to enter this chamber in decades.
While waiting for the others, Indus tries to gauge the depth to the bottom ... if it is visible in the light from his torch.
The shaft extends deeper than the 40 ft of torchlight can illuminate.
With his enhanced vision, Sobekhotep can see that the shaft is about 60 ft deep and seems to winden into a larger chamber after about 50 ft.
The old rope crumbles at the slightest touch, but the piton is well preserved in the dry climate and firmly lodged in place, if you want to use that to anchor a rope.
"I have more rope," Indus says with a nod. "The walls look very smooth. Should we knot the rope to make the descent safer for everyone?"
Seeing that he can't see the bottom, Indus drops his lit torch into the hole - it would be hazardous to try to climb on a robe with it in hand anyway - before finding his own rope and tying it to Sobek's coil of rope.
"Gads! I never saw it coming. I've been stabbed before, but never like that. What is that thing?"
"Diorio! I'm so sorry! It was all my fault. I was supposed to be guarding the rear! I mean I... I mean, I was so intent on what was in front of us, I just...didn't think. Thank goodness you're okay!"
Sobekhotep gives Diorio a puzzled look.
"Haven't you ever seen a scorpion before? I grant you, that one was particularly large, but it is still just a vermin."
Seben looks surprised. She was half-certain it was some kind of vengeful spirit-bug from the afterlife. But then again, it did fall to an ordinary arrow...
She watches as the Sacred Ibis does his best imitation of a T-Rex, gripping the carapace of the scorpion in its beak, swinging it side to side. He smacks it against the outer tomb wall a couple times for good measure just to make sure its dead before flinging it into a pile of sand outside.
"Squak!"
[A Few Minutes later...]
"Hey, it looks like someone's been here before us..."
.
With great apprehension, Seben inches her way through the open passageway and into the inner tomb, staring at the yawning pit before them.
". . . I'm guessing the same people who used a crowbar to muscle open the tomb doors before us."
"At this point, I'm not sure what to hope for. If they've already plundered the tomb and beat us by a century, that's bad. . ."
She shudders. "But if they failed. . . because the tomb was somehow defended. . . that's really bad."
"Hmm... Did anyone else bring rope? We will need to knot two lengths together to have a decent chance of reaching the bottom easily."
.
"I have one," says Seben. She unshoulders her pack and digs it out. She delivers it to Sobek.
Anyone going down the rope, give me four seperate climb checks. Three at DC 0 for the first 50 ft, one at DC 5 for the last 10 ft.
"Let me climb down first, Sobek. I would hate for something to happen to you down there."
Unless Sobek insists, Indus quickly descends the rope with experienced ease and takes up a watchful position at the bottom with torch in one hand and whip in the other.
Moving carefully down the knotted rope, Indus decends into the shaft, emerging in a square chamber. The opening of the shaft is in the center of the ceiling, 10 feet up with no adjoining walls, making it next to impossible to climb back out without a well-secured rope at the top of the shaft.
On the west wall, mirrored images of a warrior in side profile, facing inward, are carved on an ornate pair of stone doors. The figure is depicted wearing padded armor, with a scarab-shaped shield on the arm facing the viewer, and a raised khopesh held aloft in the other. This is likely a depiction of Ahkentepi as a younger man.
A crumpled humanoid body is slumped up against the doors. The body is mostly skeletal, with a thin layer of desiccated tissue. A hint of decay hangs in the air, and a dried stain mars the stone floor under the body.
Through careful observation, Sobekhotep determins that the doors are unlocked and can be pushed open with sufficent effort. He does not find any traps.
The body is that of a male human or half-elf, with injuries consistent of a fall from a great height. Both legs are broken and he appears to have dragged himself to the doors before dying.
The corpse's gear has suffered decades of rot and rust and is mostly unusable. Sobekhotep's careful search manages to uncover five metal pitons, a usable hammer and two vials of alchemist fire that have miraculously survived the impact from the fall.
|
"Well, I have to grant that he had tenacity - this poor soul - a half-elf, based on the gracile long bones and the rugged human jaw - fell from the top, breaking both his legs, and then *still* managed to crawl to the door before expiring."
Sobekhotep carefully squirrels away the recovered item, and then carefully cracks the door open, sending flickering torchlight cascading into the area beyond.
Seben calls down the shaft. "Everybody okay down there?"
.
Not a bad idea. Neither the outside doors nor the stone wheel can be opened from the inside if shut, so caution is definitly warrented. And rigging the bell and fishing wire into a simple alarm should not be too difficult. Let’s say a DC 10 Survival or Disable Device to set the alarm, DC 15 if you want it hidden.
This might be a good job for a certain avian companion. I’d advise against splitting the party, but it’s up to you.
The odds of me messing with you are always at least 85% or higher. :-)
But in general, I’d always like you to specify who is carrying loot that you find. This also goes for the potion of neutralize poison you got from Rashid. You know, if another scorpion shows up or something ;-)
I’m going to pause the action a bit until Diorio and Lueck have a chance to catch up.
"If someone undoes our rope, we wouldn't be trapped. I could climb up and reattach another. We seem to have plenty of rope." To make his plan clear, he waves the toe suckers of one foot at her.
"Diorio! I'm so sorry! It was all my fault. I was supposed to be guarding the rear! I mean I... I mean, I was so intent on what was in front of us, I just...didn't think. Thank goodness you're okay!"
"Some kind of scorpion indeed! Never seen one so big...Not your fault at all. We all were focused on the same thing...which I guess is a lesson of sorts. I'm just glad I pulled away in time before that thing injected me with poison. Thanks for the aid. I feel better already."
"If someone undoes our rope, we wouldn't be trapped. I could climb up and reattach another. We seem to have plenty of rope." To make his plan clear, he waves the toe suckers of one foot at her.
"Brilliant Lueck! I was thinking the same thing as Seben. Good to know we can get back up this shaft if there are dishonerables around. Of course, if they shut that door behind us we may get really dusty as well. I wonder if those Voices of the Spire will patrol for shady doings like that?"
Diorio will carefully descend the rope. When he sees the skeletal remains of the tomb robber he states drily
Seben does her best to enact her plan to prepare a hidden bell alarm.
When it's complete Seben adds a single sacred ibis feather, tethered to the (hopefully) hidden bell, like a signature.
She gives it a little test, just to remind herself of what it will sound like, and then hurries back to the others.
"If someone undoes our rope, we wouldn't be trapped. I could climb up and reattach another. We seem to have plenty of rope." To make his plan clear, he waves the toe suckers of one foot at her.
Seben's eyes widen. "Remind me when this is over to buy Luek some boots."
The Sacred Ibis ignores the monkeys' rope and performs a dive bomb, straight down the shaft. At the last moment, he spreads his wings and pulls out of the dive, turning on a dime.
For a second, the dust in the lower level whips up like a storm but then slowly begins to subside once again.
Hearing the discussion from above about being trapped in a tomb for eternity sounds somewhat unpleasant to Indus, who calls up from below. "Eh, maybe we should find a way to prevent the stone wheel from accidentally rolling back in place? Maybe one of these pitons, that Sobek found on the unfortunate earlier visitor?"
With an expert display of wilderness skills, Seben rigs a carefully concealed tripwire through the upper section of the tomb. Positioning the bell just inside the shaft, the sound is amplified by the natural stone acoustics, making the improvised alarm quite loud.
The pitons could certainly be hammered into the ground, holding both door and wheel open until removed. Coupled with Seben’s masterful alarm, this sould give you ample time to react if someone tampers with the doors.
Working as an effective team, the Smokin' Bask Brigade spend a good half hour rigging alarm systems and securing their escape route to the outside world.
Then they assemble in the lower chamber and watch in tense anticipation as Indus and Sobekhotep push open the doors depicting Ahkentepi.
Beyond, they find a ten-foot-wide corridor stretching about 40 ft. The walls feature bas-relief carvings of great battles. Armies with spears and shields clash at the direction of generals, while other leaders direct troops from chariots that are ruthlessly overrunning their enemies.
At the western end of the hallway, another set of engraved stone double doors block further passage. The engravings on these doors resemble those in the chamber with the shaft, except that Akhentepi is depicted as an older man riding in a chariot. He carries the same scarab shield, but his other arm points at his own reflected depiction on the opposite door.
Immediatly before the western door, the vigilant scouts pause as they discover the faint tell-tale outline of a pressure plate, no doubt rigged to a nasty trap of some sort.
Bathed in the erie emerald glow from her bow-light, Seben mutters the wording from the hieroglyphs from the entry chamber.
“Akhentepi’s tomb is well defended, and those who defile it tempt the wrath of the gods... Oh boy.”