Campaign Journal Chapter Two
[XP earned per character = 750, TOTAL = 1,287.5 ]
Starday, Reaping 1, CY 595
On the way back to the mine office, the party is charged by a monstrous scorpion, as big as a man. Grimm slays the scorpion with one mighty blow. The party arrives back at the mine office in the early afternoon. After some preparation, they head in the supposed direction of the Whispering Cairn.
Loren discovers an entrance to a long dark hallway after clearing away some brush and debris. Cracker finds no sign of traps or life around the entrance. Grimm leads the party carefully down the hallway, using his darkvision to scout ahead. As they proceed they hear sibilant whispers. Forstall notices tiny holes throughout a hozizontal band of geometric patterns running along the walls. Cracker can find no purpose for the holes. Further ahead the party finds a moldy bedroll in an alcove. Forstall discovers wood carvings on the ground around the bedroll. Upon kicking the bedroll, it cracks apart. Grimm notices a faint green light flickering to the north.
In a further alcove the party finds some kind of arcane apparatus on top of a marble platform. It looks like a fragment of a dressing mirror. Runes and glyphs carved on the frame and platform are incomprehensible to Forstall and Loren. Shards of a stony black substance are found on the ground around the object. The opposite alcove is blocked with rubble from top to bottom.
As Grimm enters a large chamber with wings to the east and west, three wolves charge from the east wing, out of a pile of rubble. One of the wolves is especailly large, while the other two are quite scrawny. The wolves bite at Grimm; one of the smaller wolves chomps on Grimm, and trips him to the ground.Yesterday rats; today wolves, bring down the mighty Grimm Loren arrives on the scene and slays one of the smaller wolves with his sword. The wolves attack Grimm again as he rises to his feet. Dodging the attacks, Grimm lands a blow on the large wolf, and Loren finishes it off. The last wolf is quickly dispatched by the party. Cracker is able to squeeze through the rubble, and discovers the wolf den. Under a pile of bones, Cracker finds a backpack, and discovers inside an elaborate lantern of indigo metal inset with indigo glass panels. In another part of the den Cracker finds an elven crafted armband. In the rubble he also finds a marble finger. In the opposite wing, the party sees a faded fresco. The mural depicts a massive room with seven short hallways radiating outward from a central point. A lantern hangs from the ceiling at the end of each hallway. Each lantern is a different color; clockwise, they are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Loren remarks that the colors in that order remind him of a rainbow. A large arch in the north wall of the chamber is choked with spider webs. A grren glow is now quite apparent beyond the spider webs. Cracker casts a torch at the webs, and in a few moments, the web is melted away, and dozens of tiny spiders are destroyed. The whispering heard earlier in the passage, has become an eerie chrous in this big chamber.
With the cobwebs removed, the group is able to descend a wide stairway into an immense stone chamber. Seven short tunnels branch from the room in all directions. Five colored lanterns hang at the end of saome of the passages, but two hold none. Clockwise from the stairs the pattern is empty, orange, yellow, green (lit), blue, empty and violet. A five foot diameter groove is observed in the floor at the end of each passage. A high domed ceiling flecked with glass and metal chips reflects the green light around the chamber like starlight and and falling snow. In the middle of the chamber is a marble sarcophagus, with a white bas-relief figure on the lid. This room is silent, unlike the rest of the cairn.
The party investigates the sarcophagus. Cracker detects no obvious traps around the platform. He positions the marble finger on the right hand of the figure (the finger is missing), but nothing happens. The party notices there is a stylized arrow surronding the figure, and that the head of the arrow is pointing towards the orange passage. Loren thinks the glyph on the figure's amulet is a sign for some kind of powerful elemental entity. The lit green lantern is found to have a torch burrning inside - how long has it been burning? It does not appear that there has been much activity in this chamber for a long time. Grimm tries to budge the sarcophagus, and with great effort, he is able to move it - it clicks one passage clockwise, to point at yellow. To the surprise of the party, a a rumbling is heard from below, as and then a metal cylinder rises from the ground at the end of the yellow passage. Two thin doors slide open, revealing a small empty chamber. Grimm pushes the sarcophagus one more click to the right, facing green.The cylinder in yellow, disaapears back into the floor. A terrible cacaphony of stone creaking against stone comes from the green passage. Nervously, Grimm promptly pushes the arrow platform towards blue. The ceiling at the end of the blue passage is higher than the others, and lost in the darkness. Forstall discovers a skeleton on the fllor here. He notices the bones are crushed, as if this person had fallen from a great height. No other effect is observed from the arrow pointing at blue. Finally, the sarcophagus is pushed towards indigo. Another cylinder rises from the ground; the doors open to reveal crushed bones and moldy clothes inside.
Eventually, the party decides to turn the arrow platform back around to the other colors, trying different positions with lit/unlit lanterns, but this seems not to change the effects, and the same results are observed on each click of the second rotation of the sarcophagus around the circle. On a third rotation, the party stops to consider the cylinder at yellow again. It is decided to enter the chamber. Cracker volunteers to try, and Loren discovers he is just skinny enough to join him. No one wants to leave Cracker alone to whatever fate awaits him in the chamber. Loren and Cracker move into the chamber together and it descends back down into the ground. The doors open , and Loren and Cracker observe a room with walls covered with more bas-relief figures like the one found on the sarcophagus. An arch leading to a dark passage beyond, is blocked mostly by a large stone block. When Lorne and Cracker get out of the chamber, the doors close and the cylinder rises up to above. A button on the wall is observed - when it is depressed, the cylinder returns down to this room.
One by one, Forstall and Grimm join the others down below. Cracker squeezes up to the top of the stone slab, to glimpse the passage beyond. He notices a long hallway, with opposing alcoves set at ten -foot intervals. Try as he might, Cracker is unalbe to squeeze over the slab to the other side. Grimm notices a large niche in the ceiling about the same size of the stone slab, 10 feet above it. The party tries to budge the slab, and with a great combined effort, the slab is nudged away to the riight of the arach. Immediately, green gas fills the room, coming out of the mouths of the bas-relief figures. Grimm ad Forstall are noticeably weakend by the green gas.
With the slab repositioned, the party is able to continue down the passage, with Grimm in the lead. Each alcove contains a seven foot tall humanoid figure with hands cupped. When Forstall places some gold coins in one set of hands the coins are observed to float just above the hands. No other effect is observed. Upon passing a second set of alcoves, a disgusting monstrosity lunges out at Grimm - it looks like two giant eyeballs, connected by a cord of muscle. It floats above the ground, directing an eye ray at Grimm to no apparent effect. The monster fails to wrap itself around Cracker's neck, and is soon slain by Grimm.
The party enters a large chamber; a stone pillar reaches from floor to ceiling. A wide chamber to the south houses a large stone slab like a bed against the wall. Another bas-relief figure is observed above the stone slab. An amulet on the figure's neck displays a glyph like a stylized arrow. Back in the larger chamber, a big blotch of orange sludge overflows from a fountain on the north wall of the pillar, covering most of the fllor on the north side. It is unnaturally cold when the party approaches near the sludge. From a distance, Forstall throws a torch into the sludge. Almost instantly, the area of the sludge doubles in size, and Forstall is overcome by the extreme cold. The party drags his unconscious form away from the area. Other rooms are visible, but access is now blocked by the orange sludge. It is decided that they should return to the upper floor. Loren casts a cure spell to revive Forstall.
Back in the big domed chamber, the party experiments again with rotating the sarcophagus. On reaching the green hall, the terrilbe rumbling is followed by the floor at the end of the hall collapsing away. Moments later, the sound of what must be many insects is heard, getting closer each second. Loren is badly shaken by the sound of insects; Grimm and Loren retreat towards the exit of the cairn, readying flasks of oil. Forstall retreats up the stairs while Cracker remains near the sarcophagus. Cracker observes a horrible aberration emerge from the floor; it has six sharp legs sprouting from a central body that is little more than a disgusting eye. It races towards Cracker at a frightening pace; Cracker backs up to stay at far range. A large swarm of beetles emerges from the floor behind the aberration, and crawls towards Cracker. A flask of alchemical fire is thrown at the monster by Cracker, but misses the mark. Cracker aims ranged weapons at the monster, careful to keep his distance as it advances towards him. Forstall lobs arrow fire. Cracker and Forstall retreat back down the main passage. When they reach Loren and Grimm, they stand and finally defeat the charging monster. Soon, the beetle swarm is upon them; a pool of oil in the hall is lit on fire, as the swarm advances. A final flask of alchemical fire is thrown by Cracker at the swarm doing good damage, yet the swarm continues to advance. With no other tools in the aresnal to fight the swarm, the party exits the cairn. The beetles do not follow the group out into the daylight.
Loren is terrbily shaken by this battle. Forstall becomes the third party member in 24 hours to be knocked unconscious. The party decides to return to the mine office to regroup. The adventuring life is proving to be more dangerous than anyone expected. Still the party feels as though they have obtained invaluable expereince, and that with a little more training, perhaps they will be better qualified for a return to the Whispering Cairn. The group needs to advance, but they are seriously lacking the resources and contacts to improve.