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We began our Mummy's Mask campaign in September of 2015, so I have a bit of catching up to do to get this up to our latest session from 3 days ago. Here goes.
Player-characters:
Azzaria - female nagaji bloodrager
Koori - female tengu investigator
Sula - female suli-jann druid
Uto - male half-orc shaman
Nyema - lioness, Sula's animal companion
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09/20/2015
Session 1
The Ruby Scarabs formed in the Osirion city of Wati, where they prepared to participate in the lottery to explore the ancient Necropolis. Koori and Sula had already met in the Mwangi Expanse near Kho Rarme Pass, and had traveled to Wati together. Azzaria and Uto were strangers to them and to each other before agreeing to join together as the Ruby Scarabs to explore the long-sealed Necropolis.
Azzaria, Koori, and Sula were staying at the Tooth & Hookah prior to the beginning of the event. Uto, a local, had his own lodging. On the day before the lottery, Sula had a brief encounter with three fierce dogs that menaced her lioness companion, Nyema. The dogs turned out to belong to a group of halflings led by one known as “Mad Dog”. Mad Dog and his companions were part of an experienced adventuring group called the Dog Soldiers. The Scarabs were also introduced to several other adventuring groups who were planning to join in probing the mysteries of the Necropolis: the Crypt Finders, the Daughters of the Desert, the Sand Scorpions, and the Scorched Hand.
The group also met a priest of Pharasma, Ptemenib, who answered their questions about the lottery process. Ptemenib explained that the drawing was not to decide who would be permitted to enter the Necropolis; any adventuring band that had picked up a token from the Temple of Pharasma would be allowed to explore. The drawing was to determine what area of the Necropolis the group would be searching. Each group would be permitted to explore a total of three designated locations – assuming they survived. Ptemenib also told them the three cardinal rules the Church of Pharasma had set out for this event: 1) remember the origin of the Necropolis: it is a holy site and those who treat it with disrespect will be cursed; 2) do not desecrate or vandalize the tombs; and 3) honor the dead.
Following their conversation with Ptemenib, the Scarabs discussed what gear they had in their possession and what they thought they might need for their exploration effort. They planned to visit the marketplace the next morning to purchase additional equipment.
At the market on the following day, the group encountered a man named Fangrim who was part of a group called the Flickering Four. He was also shopping for supplies, but after telling the Scarabs that he thought fire was the best solution for any challenge, he decided he no longer needed his shopping list and abandoned it. Koori picked it up, and the companions decided to use it as a guideline for their purchases. They pooled their funds to buy a shovel, several potions of alchemist fire and acid, vials of antitoxin, holy water, a collapsible plank, and flasks of oil.
The next day they joined the other adventuring bands at the Grand Mausoleum, where High Priestess Sebti the Crocodile said a prayer for their endeavor. When the prayer was done, her acolytes drew tokens from a jar. The Sand Scorpions were the first team to be drawn, followed by the Ruby Scarabs. The Scarabs were assigned the tomb of Akhan-tepi as their first location to examine. The tomb had existed prior to the plague that led to the creation of the Necropolis, and lay on the far side of the walled area that enclosed the ancient burial ground. The Dog Soldiers and a group named the Four Lanterns drew locations close to the tomb. The three teams agreed to enter the Necropolis together and look out for each other until they split up to head for their assigned locations.
At dawn on the following morning the adventurers entered the Necropolis through the Gate of Dawn. As the Scarabs and their companions headed toward the opposite side of the Necropolis where their assigned sites lay, they heard a hiss from above and spotted a gaunt, fanged creature that Azzaria identified as a ghast. Several of the adventurers fired arrows at it, but the creature dodged them and fled.
Shortly afterward the three groups separated and the Ruby Scarabs proceeded on to the tomb of Akhan-tepi. Its heavy stone doors were buried in sand, which they took turns shoveling away until the doors could be pushed open. While they worked they heard a distant scream, but couldn’t identify which direction it came from.
The doors opened into an empty chamber with stone masks representing Pharasma set in the four corners. Against the wall opposite the entrance stood a huge stone disk resting in a track in the floor. This disk appeared to be a doorway. Uto cast a spell to detect magical effects and examined the room, finding nothing magical. Koori scanned for traps and also found the chamber clear. They lit torches and set them in the brackets behind the four masks, hoping that might activate the disk door, but nothing happened. Azzaria and Uto then combined their strength to push the stone aside.
The stale air that issued from the next room smelled of death to Koori. In the center of the next room was a 10’ square pit, which proved to be an opening into a shaft some 75’ deep. Uto dropped a torch down the shaft so they could see the bottom. At the edge of the opening a piton had been hammered between the stones of the floor, and a length of rope was tied to the eye of the piton, the other end descending into the shaft. But on examination the group discovered that the rope had been cut about five feet from the piton.
As the team were examining the shaft chamber, they suddenly heard a hiss from the outer doorway. Everyone went out into the entry chamber to find out what it was. A scorpion the size of a small dog, its carapace translucent, had entered the tomb chamber. When Sula and Nyema approached, it rushed Nyema and grabbed the lioness with its claws. Sula struck it with her club and Azzaria struck it as well, leaving it crushed and expiring on the tomb floor. Sula identified it as a ghost scorpion. It had probably entered the tomb chamber seeking shelter during the day. After this brief incident, the Ruby Scarabs returned to the shaft room.
Koori checked the room for traps and found none. The Scarabs had brought three lengths of rope with them, each 50’ long. They decided to cut one length in half and tie the two pieces to the other two coils, creating two ropes that would be long enough to descend the shaft. They attached one rope to the existing piton and set a second piton of their own for the second rope. Because Nyema couldn’t climb down a rope, Sula had her remain on guard at the edge of the shaft opening. Then the four companions climbed down to the bottom of the shaft. Koori descended first. On arriving at the bottom the tengu saw a patch of dried blood, a corpse, and a coil of rope. The corpse was desiccated and had probably been there for a century or more. The legs lay at unnatural angles, indicating that the person’s legs had probably been broken in the fall when the rope was cut. Azzaria bemoaned that this might indicate the corpse’s compatriots had taken all of the valuable treasures from the tomb.
After searching the corpse and finding two vials of alchemist fire that had somehow survived the fall, Koori proceeded to the next door, which lay at the end of a short corridor. Despite carefully searching for traps, the tengu managed to activate one that caused darts to fire from channels in the walls. Koori and Azzaria were struck by darts. Sula quickly cast a spell to detect poison and assured them that the projectiles were not poisoned. Koori feared that this trap might be one that could reset. The group gathered their heaviest equipment in Uto’s pack, tied the length of aged rope from the corpse to it, and tried to use it to set off the dart trap again while they stood back out of range. But the pack proved too light. They then hit on a plan to use Sula’s spear to push open the next door, laying the collapsible plank they had brought across the trigger to allow them to safely step over it.
The room beyond the dart trap contained a large tapestry that appeared to depict Akhan-tepi and his family. Koori took a moment to consult with the spirits and asked them if there were any hidden doorways. She was told there were none. The tapestry chamber had two exits, one to the party’s left and the other to their right. When they opened the right-hand doorway they found a staircase descending into darkness. The left-hand exit revealed an identical scene. Concerned that they might need rope again and the old rope they’d found with the corpse was getting too frayed, Azzaria went back to the shaft to get the second length of rope they had left hanging into the vertical shaft. After she returned they passed through the door to their left.
They were led to a room containing statues of Anubis and Pharasma, and a large mirror. When they looked into the mirror they suddenly realized that the image showed five people, not four. The fifth person was Akhan-tepi himself. His image wore an expression of displeasure. Azzaria began trying to determine where he could be standing to create the reflection, and she spoke to him, trying to reassure him that the Scarabs did not mean to desecrate his burial place. Sula stared at his image intently for several moments, and suddenly felt a pain in her forehead. At the same time, Koori realized that the word “thief” had been branded on Sula’s head in Osirion script. Uto recognized that this type of brand would fade in a week, but until then while it could be covered it could not be removed.
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9/27/2015
Session 2
As they stood in the reflecting chamber, the Ruby Scarabs heard scuttling sounds from the next room. Azzaria looked into that room, which proved to be designed for preparation of mummies, and saw two camel spiders moving toward the doorway. She and Sula moved into the doorway to meet them. Sula crushed one spider with her club, but the second spider wounded her twice with its pincers, which when combined with her injury from the cursed brand caused her to lose consciousness.
Azzaria killed the second spider, and Uto then channeled positive energy to provide some healing to Sula. When she had recovered enough to move on the Scarabs opened another set of doors exiting from the mirror room and found a long descending staircase. The passage at the bottom of the stairs was full of sand, which Koori recognized was not natural sand. Suddenly a creature composed of sand rose up from the floor, and the group members realized it must be some type of elemental. Uto created water to drench it, which temporarily slowed it, but no one was able to communicate with it and the creature seemed unfriendly. Sula hurled a fistful of flames at it, and then the elemental struck Koori with such force that she was near death. Sula cast a curative spell to prevent Koori from dying. The elemental then withdrew through a series of small holes in the walls.
The Scarabs then decided that they were overmatched and in need of more healing, and that it would be wise to withdraw until they were at full strength again. They returned to the surface and made their way back out of the Necropolis without incident.
At the Grand Mausoleum, they told the chroniclers what they had experienced thus far in the tomb in exchange for healing. Afterward they returned to the Tooth and Hookah to rest. They heard rumors that two of the other adventuring bands hadn’t returned from the Necropolis, but no one knew which groups. They also learned that the Dog Soldiers had lost two of their dogs to a gelatinous cube, and heard a heroic tale from Falto of the Crypt Keepers that both Azzaria and Sula suspected was untrue.
While they were resting, the group members decided they needed some additional supplies to continue their investigation of Akhan-tepi's tomb. They traded the two vials of alchemist fire they had found on the corpse of the tomb robber for a scroll containing a spell to heal wounds. They also purchased another length of rope so they could make a harness to lower Nyema down the shaft and have her accompany them when they returned to the tomb.
The next morning the Ruby Scarabs returned to the tomb of Akhan-tepi. They found that nothing appeared to have been disturbed in their absence. They lowered Nyema down the shaft with Sula accompanying her on a second rope. On the way through the first chambers, they picked up their collapsible plank which had been left over a trapped floor tile and replaced it with a door that they had removed. They then returned to the mirror room and opened a door decorated with gilded scarabs which they had seen the previous day.
The scarab door led into a large room decorated with a tapestry. Columns sculpted in the forms of warriors stood in the four corners. All of the floor tiles were painted black with the spiral symbol of Pharasma in white in the center of each tile. The doors leading out of this room also bore Pharasma’s emblem.
To the right of the party was a locked door, which Koori easily unlocked. This opened onto another descending stairway. The door at the bottom of the stairs was not locked, and when opened revealed another stairwell leading up. The door at the top of those stairs was also open. It admitted them into a large room with a stone sarcophagus standing on a plinth in the center. Four pillars flanked the plinth, as did two statues of Anubis. Uto detected no magic within the chamber. Koori scanned it carefully and identified two trapped areas, one beneath the plinth that held the sarcophagus, and the other along one wall to the side of the platform. She saw evidence that the columns would also do something. Azzaria noticed a lever overhead. Koori then suggested that the others wait outside the room while she tried to disable the traps. Azzaria, Sula, Nyema, and Uto went outside into the stairwell.
While her companions waited, Koori tried setting her pack on a tile she had identified as a trigger. The doors, which were the only entrance to the chamber, suddenly slammed shut and locked. Electricity arced out of the statues of Anubis. Then water began to flow into the chamber, and the sarcophagus rose up and approached Koori. It slammed her to the ground, leaving her life hanging by a thread. The water covered the floor of the chamber and rose up toward the plinth. Koori crawled up onto the platform to escape the rising water, but the animated sarcophagus followed and attacked her again.
Her companions became alarmed when the doors closed and immediately began attempting to pry them open. Working together using the crowbar they had brought along, Azzaria and Sula were finally able to pry the doors open with great effort. When the doors broke and burst open everyone but Nyema was knocked down by the sudden flood that poured out of the chamber. Inside the room they saw no sign of Koori, only her burnt pack. Then they noticed a bit of black cloth protruding from under the lid of the sarcophagus, which still stood in its original position. Sula rushed up onto the plinth to rescue Koori from the sarcophagus, and it animated once again.
Azzaria attacked the sarcophagus with her crowbar, while Sula struck it with her club and Nyema clawed and bit at it. Despite being animated it was still made of stone and was very tough. But at last their attacks overcame it and the Scarabs were able to pry it open. Sadly, it was too late for Koori. After being beaten, electrocuted, drowned, and suffocated, she had not survived.
The rest of the group were too disheartened by this loss to continue exploring the tomb. After Uto healed some of their injuries they gathered up Koori’s body and carried her back to the Grand Mausoleum to be prepared by the priests of Pharasma. They told the chroniclers what they had found and what details they knew of the manner of Koori’s death. Then Azzaria, Sula, and Uto went to Bargetown to tell Koori’s relatives of her death. The matriarch of the tengu, Aruk, was not very friendly toward the Scarabs, but seemed genuinely saddened by the loss of Koori. After Uto gave Aruk the bag containing the baubles Koori had valued, the three companions returned to the Tooth and Hookah to have a few drinks together in private and mourn the loss of their friend.
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10-4-2015
Session 3
New character: Kaa - male tengu monk (unchained)
The morning after Koori's death, Azzaria, Sula, and Uto met at the Tooth and Hookah to discuss what to do next. Sula decided to remain in Osirion and continue the exploration with them. They were approached by Ptemenib, the priest of Pharasma they had met before, who was accompanied by another tengu. Ptemenib introduced the tengu to them as someone seeking a group to join to participate in the exploration of the Necropolis. The tengu, whose name was Kaa, told them that he had been set to join another group, but his arrival in Wati had been delayed and his companions had left without him. Ptemenib explained that the band Kaa had originally planned to join was one of the groups that had not been heard of again after the first day of the lottery. After asking what skills Kaa had and learning that he came from an order of monks who specialized in creating and disabling traps, the Ruby Scarabs agreed to permit him to join their group. Uto gave each of the others a magic berry that could provide sustenance and heal minor injuries, and Kaa provided them each with a whistle. He also showed that that he had a magical stone that would orbit his head and shed a continuous light.
As they passed among the ruins on the way back to Akhan-tepi's tomb, the Scarabs heard scuffling sounds coming from one structure, but on listening closer they realized that there were no sounds of weapons, voices, or even heavy breathing. They decided to go on without investigating further.
On arriving at the tomb, they decided to bring up the corpse at the bottom of the entry shaft so they could take it to the temple of Pharasma later. Then they sent Sula and Nyema down first. They showed Kaa the trap that Koori had found previously, which he was able to disarm. Then they led him through the chambers they had already explored to the false burial chamber where Koori had died.
They found that the hallway outside the chamber, which was lower than the chamber itself, was still full of the water that had rushed out of the false burial chamber the day before. They had to swim across to enter. Kaa disabled a trapped floor tile on one side of the room, while the others examined the sarcophagus construct and realized that it was coated with a thin layer of genuine gold. Kaa discovered a secret door leading out of the chamber, which was not locked. Beyond lay a lavishly decorated hall containing an image of Akhan-tepi. There were no traps. A staircase led to another unlocked set of doors.
Beyond the next doors the Scarabs found a chamber full of chests and jars. Kaa found no locks or traps there. Among the containers were several potions, a jar of perfume, a bow and arrows, a holy symbol of Pharasma, a silver mirror, and a clasp in the form of a scarab. On the other side of the room Azzaria spotted another secret door. Uto detected something magical about it but couldn't determine what it was. As Kaa examined the scarab symbol on the door, a flood of scarab beetles suddenly spilled into the room. Sula hurled a flask of acid onto the beetles, and Azzaria and Uto followed suit. Kaa and Sula then ran out of the room. Azzaria was nauseated by the scarabs, but just as suddenly as they had appeared, they vanished. Uto channeled energy to heal the injuries caused by acid splashing on everyone.
The door was no longer magical, and Kaa found no more traps. This door opened into a chamber occupied by a gold-covered sarcophagus, two ornate chests, and two large urns. Uto detected something magical in one of the chests and assured his companions that there were no undead in the chamber. Kaa ascertained that there were no traps. Suddenly the sun symbol on the end of the sarcophagus shot out, releasing a cobra-like snake that appeared to be made of metal. It struck Kaa immediately, biting him and injecting poison. Sula and Nyema set upon it and were quickly joined by Azzaria. It bit Kaa again, and Azzaria flew into a rage. At last Azzaria was able to smash the snake to bits, then she sat down on a chest in exhaustion. Kaa had been weakened by poison and he also sat down. Uto recovered some of the poisonous liquid that oozed out of the snake construct. Sula cast a spell on Kaa to heal some of his injuries.
After they had all recovered from the struggle with the snake, Kaa again checked for traps and Uto for magic. In one of the chests they found a suit of padded armor. The other containers produced gold, potions, a pendant, and a bag of semiprecious gems. The sarcophagus itself was covered in gold. Inside it the mummy wore a gold funerary mask, which they removed before replacing the sarcophagus lid. They then removed the gold coating from the exterior. Afterward they went back to the false burial chamber and removed the gold leaf from the outside of that sarcophagus as well, feeling that the tomb had thus far proved far more deadly than enriching.
Near the burial chambers the group found a room with shelves full of mummies, who had probably been Akhan-tepi's slaves in life. They continued on to a door they had found the previous day but hadn't opened. When Kaa opened it they saw a greenish light bobbing. The passage beyond led down some steps to a blank wall, and the passage appeared unfinished. Suddenly the bobbing light moved closer, revealing two mining beetles approaching. Kaa shut the door, but the beetles tunneled through the stone wall. Sula and Nyema slew one, and Azzaria destroyed the other. Sula recalled that the beetles' glowing antennae would sometimes continue providing light for several days, so the Scarabs removed the antennae.
In the hall beyond the door, Kaa revealed another secret door, but it proved to be impossible to open from that side. The team worked their way back through the tomb's passageways until they found another corridor that led to the other side of secret door. These tunnels seemed to have been made for the priests who prepared the mummies, so they could avoid the traps on their way out of the tomb.
During their circuit back through the tomb, Kaa located a chamber near the entry that the others had missed. It proved to hold an intact ancient chariot and a very ornate chest. There was also a display of animal hides, apparently Akhan-tepi's hunting trophies. The chariot room led into a short hallway with four gold masks of Pharasma, Abaddar, Sekhmet, and Osiris on the walls. At the end of the hall was a room containing racks of weapons and a table covered with small wooden figurines of soldiers. When the members of the Scarabs entered the weapon room, the small soldiers leaped off the table and attacked them. Thinking the constructs might be valuable, Uto and Azzaria tried to trap some under a bucket and an iron pot, while Kaa grabbed one. Sula and Nyema attacked the tiny constructs. Eventually several of the tiny figures were destroyed, but the group managed to capture three of them.
Besides the tiny constructs, the Scarabs found an assortment of high-quality weapons, gold and silver coins, scrolls, and books. They decided that they would take their acquisitions back to the temple of Pharasma, then return to get the chariot and tapestries.
Later, Kaa claimed a bag of gems as part of his portion of the treasure and took it to Bargetown to give to Koori's family. In return, the matriarch gave him a small wooden statue of a deity and told him that he must find a golden statue and replace it with this statue, then bring the golden statue back to Bargetown. The Scarabs also received their next token from the priests of Pharasma, which would send them to the estate of Pentheru in the wealthy district of the Necropolis.
Loot acquired:
+1 staunching padded armor (+3 initiative 1/day)
2 potions of darkvision
2 potions of cure light wounds
Scarab clasp
ornate chest worth 200gp
chariot worth 100gp
scarab shield - +1 light steel shield, 1/day +2 sacred bonus to saves vs fear & death for 3 minutes, or as a swift action heal 1d8+3 damage instead of the save bonus
two books with gold-covered metal pages, 300gp each
assorted scrolls worth 250gp total
gold funerary mask worth 500gp
2 jars of nard perfume 75gp each
longbow
10 cold iron arrows
composite shortbow
masterwork kopesh
masterwork spear
600 gold pieces
42 silver pieces
bag of assorted semiprecious gemstones 55gp
2 potions of silversheen
gold leaf worth 200gp
pendant 70gp
darkwood coffer 50gp
3 wooden constructs, inert
4 gold deity masks
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10-11-2015
Session 4
Character level: 2nd
At the Tooth and Hookah that evening, the Ruby Scarabs witnessed some of the other treasure-hunters returning from the Necropolis afflicted with black splotches. These they recognized as evidence of a curse, similar to the brand Sula had received in Akhan-tepi’s tomb. Kaa wanted to offer aid to these afflicted folk, but Azzaria recommended that he save his gold for things that would serve the Ruby Scarabs.
On the following day, the members of the group sold much of what they had acquired from the tomb and used the proceeds to purchase additional supplies. Kaa took the books they had found to a scribe to have copies made, and the scribe agreed to purchase the originals. Sula purchased two potions of alchemist fire with her proceeds from the treasure. She also used the silversheen crystal she had acquired to coat 10 sling bullets with the substance.
Later the Scarabs heard more news about the other adventurers engaged in exploring the Necropolis. Uto and Azzaria learned that the cursed band were called the Contract of Sin and were from Cheliax. Their leader was even reputed to be a devil-binder. The Scarabs also heard of another group that had not returned to town and were believed missing.
Once they had supplied themselves and rested, the team set off to the Necropolis to investigate their next destination: the House of Pentheru. On the way they found some odd tracks that they could not identify. The House of Pentheru proved to be surrounded by a 10-foot wall, within which stood a 2-story house. The gates of the house appeared to have been bashed in long ago by something trying to enter from outside. As the Scarabs examined these gates, several of them heard the sounds of an angry mob, the gates being battered, and a woman’s voice crying out, “Hold the gates!” Only Kaa, Sula, and Uto heard these sounds, which they understood even though the words were spoken in Ancient Osiriani. Kaa realized that these noises were due to a haunt, but despite this he was panicked by the effect of the haunt and fled toward the house. Uto channeled positive energy to temporarily dispel the haunt’s effect. As the rest of the group proceeded after Kaa, they approached a long-dry pool.
Suddenly an enormous centipede rose out of the pool, lashing at them with its long hooked tail. The centipede bit Azzaria, injecting her with poison, but she was able to withstand its effect. Her companions attacked the centipede with their weapons and were able to render it unconscious, at which point Azzaria slew it. Uto then cast healing magic to repair her injury, and suggested that she take the scarab shield they had found in Akhan-tepi’s tomb, since it had magical healing properties.
When Kaa recovered from the panic caused by the haunt, he found that the front doors of the house were open and were not trapped. The Ruby Scarabs observed a crypt nearby, but decided not to approach it just yet. They entered the house instead. Inside they saw an atrium overlooked by a balcony, and a dining area in which a table was still set with 6 silver platters and matching goblets. Curiously, a skull rested in each of the goblets. Uto scanned the area for magical auras, but found none. Just as he affirmed this to his companions, the skulls rose into the air and floated toward the party of adventurers. Uto channeled positive energy to harm them, assuming them to be some form of undead creatures, while his companions attacked them with weapons and the skulls attempted to bite the party members. After all of the skulls had been smashed to pieces, the group searched the room. While they were engaged in this activity, they heard a feminine voice calling from the atrium.
In the atrium they met a woman who appeared to be made of sand. She told them she was the spirit of the house. When Kaa spoke to her in the language of earth creatures and asked her if she wanted to be free of her ties to the house, she suddenly transformed into a swirling mass of sand. Azzaria and Kaa collapsed, overcome by sleep. Sula shook Kaa awake again as the sand creature slammed into Uto. Uto summoned magically-created water in an attempt to slow the sand monster, but it had no effect on her. Azzaria woke, but as soon as she was attacked by the creature she fell asleep again. Sula struck at the creature with her club, and her last blow turned it to a heap of inanimate sand.
In the next room the group observed three armed and armored skeletons waiting. Kaa spotted a gold coin among the detritus on the floor of the atrium. To the east of the atrium they saw a small shrine room. They proceeded into the room occupied by the skeletons. As soon as they entered the skeletons reacted by attacking. As they combated the skeletons they heard screams and the sounds of the doors shuddering under some assault from outside. Azzaria, Kaa, and Sula destroyed the three attacking skeletons. Azzaria then began to shout incoherently and gesticulate wildly under the influence of a new haunt in the room. Uto and Kaa grabbed her, and she became enraged and struck Uto. As she was carried unwillingly into the next room, the malign influence ceased and she recovered her senses.
The next chamber proved to be a bath, with a privy next door. On the privy the group found a disturbing sight: a corpse that was clearly too recent to be one of the house’s original occupants, his head ripped from his body. The skull was missing. At the same time Sula, who was still in the room with the bath, felt a hot breath on her neck. Unnerved, she went on to meet her companions as they searched the rooms beyond the bath. Nyema noticed something and Sula uncovered 2 platinum pieces and a suit of scale armor.
The shrine proved to be dedicated to Abadar, Pharasma, and Sarenrae, but all of the symbols of the gods had been desecrated. From the shrine they could see into the kitchen, where another skeleton lay upon the floor. The shrine held nothing of value. When they moved on into the kitchen the skeleton on the floor did not rise up to attack them. A door led outside the house to a small structure that had apparently served as a pantry, its contents long decayed. After examining it briefly, the Scarabs returned to the atrium to search it more thoroughly. Among the rubbish there they uncovered an enchanted crossbow, 5 crossbow bolts of cold iron, 10 ordinary bolts, a golden holy symbol of Sarenrae, 3 platinum pieces, and 37 gold pieces. Uto’s scan for sources of magic had also revealed that the bronze taps in the bathroom were enchanted to provide water, but the group determined that they couldn’t be removed without destroying the magic.
After they had thoroughly searched the rest of the ground floor, the Ruby Scarabs moved into the room where the staircase to the second floor stood. Azzaria found a silver anklet set with gems there, while Kaa located a diamond ring. Then Nyema, Azzaria, and Kaa experienced yet another haunting. Kaa felt unusually hot, and he and Azzaria saw a vision of a young couple who appeared to be discussing the very ring Kaa had just discovered. Uto revealed that the ring provided protection to the wearer, but because it was tied to the haunting in the stairwell, it could only be used to dispel the haunt if it was presented to someone out of love. Otherwise the haunt would be triggered again on the following day.
Loot acquired:
6 silver plates
6 silver goblets
37 gold pieces
5 platinum pieces
Magic crossbow
5 cold iron crossbow bolts
10 crossbow bolts
Scale mail
Silver bracelet with gemstones
Diamond ring of protection +1
Golden holy symbol of Sarenrae
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10-18-2015
Session 5
Character level: 2nd
While the Scarabs still stood in the stairwell area, Kaa glimpsed what appeared to be a dirty young human boy running into the kitchen. Azzaria also saw the child. They followed him through the kitchen and dining area and outside near the pantry, where Azzaria spotted a camel spider lurking on the ceiling. Sula and Uto joined their comrades, and realized that the purported child had left no footprints in the sand on the floor. The group searched the kitchen again, finding nothing new, then decided to proceed upstairs.
Upon arriving on the second floor of the house, they found a relatively recent corpse in one of the sleeping rooms. This corpse was headless like the one in the privy. Oddly there were clumps of hair nearby, and though they judged that the corpse had only been there about a year, it had decomposed in a strange way. The body wore a gold ring with an affectionate inscription inside. Its clothing didn’t look like what an adventurer or treasure-seeker might have worn. Uto found nothing magical on the body, but he sensed something magical in one of the other rooms.
While the others were looking at the corpse, Sula noticed Nyema gazing up at the opening of the atrium. Just as Kaa entered the room where Uto had detected a magical aura, two disembodied skull-like heads with bat wings instead of ears swooped through the atrium opening and attacked. Uto uttered a blessing to aid his companions. One of the skull-creatures let out a shriek and Nyema froze in her tracks, unable to move as the creature flew down to her and fastened its tentacle-festooned lips on her. Suddenly Azzaria spotted a third flying head, but this one had multiple sets of horns rather than bat-wings. This creature told her to drop her weapon and grab her companion, but she resisted its compulsion. Sula attempted to strike the creature attacking Nyema, but missed her aim. Uto caused one of the bat-winged creatures to fall asleep and plummet to the ground floor of the atrium. Its collision with the ground awakened it and it flew back up beside its compatriot. The horned head meanwhile vanished from sight.
As Azzaria and Sula fought with the winged skulls, Kaa moved to the other side of the balcony, where he was bitten by the horned entity when it abruptly reappeared. He attempted to stun it with a blow of his fist, but his attack failed to succeed. The two winged creatures meanwhile moved out of range of weapons. Sula took out one of her silverhseen slingstones and tried to hit one of the creatures with it but overshot it. Azzaria gave a crushing blow to one of the skull-things, while the other flew at Uto and bit him. Sula hit the horned creature with a sling stone, but it seemed to do it no harm. Azzaria hit the winged skull that Uto had previously caused to fall, sending it plunging to the ground once more. Several members of the group attempted to unsuccessfully to strike the horned head, and Azzaria then grabbed it. She suggested that one of her companions stab it with one of the cold iron arrows she carried, but the head sneered that it wouldn’t work. Sula then picked up her club again, cast a spell on it to give it magical properties, and wielded it in both hands to strike the head a powerful blow. Afterward Uto took out a bucket, filling it with magically summoned water, and Azzaria immersed the horned creature. As it began to drown, Sula struck it once more with her club and it died.
Uto gathered up all three of the creatures to take them back to the priests of Pharasma. The group entered the room where Uto had sensed something magical. There Kaa found that a wooden chest actually contained a carefully locked and trapped bronze chest within it. Inside the bronze chest was the seal of the sultan who had ruled in Wati during the plague of madness that resulted in the creation of the Necropolis. The chest also held 25 ingots of gold and some disintegrated papers, but it contained nothing magical. The magic item was found to be a headband secreted within an abandoned hornets’ nest.
After opening the chest, the party members also found a lacquer box that held a fragile silk wedding gown. Underneath the gown Uto detected another magical object, but the gown was so delicate that it could not be moved without destroying it. As the dress appeared to be valuable, the Scarabs decided not to touch it until the next day, when Uto could use his magic to mend it. They moved on to the next room, where they found a rusty dagger, some marbles, and an old game of some sort in a small lacquer box. The room after that one had been an office, but its contents had all decayed.
When they had completed their examination of the upstairs, the Scarabs went downstairs and outside into the yard where they had earlier found the pantry. There were several other outbuildings located there, as well as a granary. In the first outbuilding they found two skeletons, one lying on the ruins of a bed, the other on the floor. As soon as Uto entered the space, the two skeletons arose. He backed out and Azzaria and Sula destroyed the two skeletons when they tried to emerge. In the next room Uto found a very large pair of dogs, which after an instant he realized was actually only one dog with two heads. One of the dog’s heads bit both Kaa and Azzaria, and Azzaria warned that it might carry disease. It lunged and knocked Azzaria down. Sula exchanged her club and shield for her spear to strike the two-headed canine. Azzaria struck it from where she lay, then got to her feet as it collapsed, unconscious. It was swiftly dispatched. In the nearby area the group found 7 gold pieces, 3 silver pieces, 12 copper pieces, and a turquoise earring.
Sula at this time noticed that Nyema seemed unwell, but could not identify the cause. The big cat appeared to be more comfortable in the sunlight than in the shade. Azzaria then climbed up onto the roof of the granary and lifted the lid to see what was inside. Immediately a mass of cockroaches rushed up toward her. She slammed the lid again quickly, but not before she glimpsed a flail that looked to be valuable and a number of skeletons lying at the bottom of the granary.
The party members discussed for a short while how to get rid of the cockroaches. They decided to have Azzaria pull open the door on the front of the granary to release the roaches. They would then set fire to the emerging swarm of insects using potions of alchemical fire. Uto first cast a spell on everyone to give them guidance, and Azzaria then opened the granary and allowed the roaches to rush out. Some of the party members suffered burns from the alchemist fire that splashed when they hurled their potions, but they were able to destroy the roaches. Inside the granary they found 3 skeletons, and a heavy flail made of adamantine. Two of the skeletons lacked heads.
At first the group thought they would go to explore the crypt next, but when Sula noticed that Nyema was losing clumps of hair, they decided to return to town and seek aid from the priests of Pharasma instead. They disregarded the hawkers at the Gates of Dawn who tried to sell them curatives. At the Grand Mausoleum, the priests agreed to use their divine magic to remove the disease afflicting the lioness when they saw the three creatures Uto had carried out of the Necropolis. The two winged ones proved to be varguoilles, which Nyema would eventually have become also without the goddess’s healing magic. The other creature was a type of minor devil called a duro div, which had likely been fomenting evil in Wati for years.
While Sula and Nyema waited in the sunshine, the rest of the Ruby Scarabs narrated the tale of that day’s adventures to the priests and handed over Pentheru’s signet. The temple donated holy water to Uto to help the shaman remove the haunts afflicting Pentheru’s estate. The priests also provided the name of a craftsman who could repair the estate’s front gate, as that was needed to eliminate the haunt the Scarabs had experienced outside the house. On the following morning Uto used his magic to repair the wedding gown in the lacquer chest, under which they found a jar of enchanted kohl.
Loot acquired:
Engraved gold ring
20 gold ingots, 25gp each
Headband of +2 Intimidate
Small lacquer game box
Adamantine heavy flail
Bronze trapped chest
Lacquer hope chest
Silk wedding gown
Kohl of uncanny discernment
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11-8-2015
Session 6
Character level: 3rd
After revealing the magical content of the chest, Uto then distributed coins and gems to the rest of the Ruby Scarabs. Each member received 411 gold pieces, 1 silver piece, and 3 copper pieces. Uto decided to use some of his gains to purchase a wand that could contain a spell to disrupt undead for use against haunts.
The Scarabs then returned to the Tooth and Hookah’s common room to hear the latest news about the other groups engaged in exploring the Necropolis. They learned that the Sand Scorpions hadn’t returned and were presumed dead, and the Dog Soldiers had lost more dogs and suffered some serious injuries. They were also approached by members of the Amethyst Dragons, who tried to purchase the Scarabs’ token, but the Scarabs declined to sell it. The leader of the Scorched Hand asked them if they had been given a place called the Erudite Eye to search, but lost interest when she learned they had yet to receive their third location.
After finishing their business in the town, the Scarabs returned to the Necropolis to re-enter the House of Pentheru. They climbed the outer wall to avoid triggering the exterior haunt. They then proceeded through the entrance of the mausoleum and down the stairs to a chamber containing four statues and an altar dedicated to Pharasma.
Suddenly they heard noise from the darkness, and what appeared to be a mummy rushed out. When Kaa attacked the mummy, his fist adhered to it and he couldn’t pull free. Uto recognized it as a type of undead creature known as an Adherer for its sticky properties. He advised his companions that fire would be effective against the Adherer, but when Sula summoned a flame to her hand and tried to set it ablaze, she found that the creature was resistant to magic. Azzaria poured a flask of alchemist fire on it and struck it with her sword, finding an edged weapon more effective. Kaa managed to pull himself free of the Adherer but became stuck again when he attacked it a second time. Azzaria emptied a flask of oil on the Adherer to stoke the flames. Kaa tore loose once again and used his kopesh against the creature and it collapsed.
After the Adherer was destroyed, Kaa discovered a pressure plate trap leading into the next passageway, which he disabled. At the end of the passage he found a trap that would launch spears and realized that the trap was actually intended to strike tomb robbers leaving the mausoleum rather than people entering.
Beyond the trapped hall, the group found the mummy preparation chamber. It contained nothing of value but for two large bronze urns that were too big to transport easily. The next room beyond appeared unfinished, its walls and floor still rough. There were several small chambers that appeared to have been roughed in but never completed, presumably intended for the burials of the rest of Pentheru’s family.
As the Ruby Scarabs approached another staircase descending toward Pentheru’s burial chamber, a swarm of mummified cats rushed out of a side room to attack them. Uto was nauseated and Sula suffered injuries from the undead felines, but the party quickly destroyed most of the cats and the rest of the creatures fled.
The double doors leading to the burial chamber were neither locked nor trapped. Inside the chamber the group saw a sarcophagus covered in gold and gems, and Uto detected something magical within it. The party approached the sarcophagus cautiously, fearing an animated trap similar to the one they had found at the tomb of Akhan-tepi. But Pentheru’s burial proved less elaborate. His sarcophagus was covered in only a thin layer of gold and the gems were not of the finest quality. When they had removed the lid they saw Pentheru’s mummy wearing a gold funeral mask and a scarab pendant of gold and turquoise. There was also a guardian cat figure, the presence of which left everyone shaken. They were fortunate that the figure’s effect had only a short duration. When they had recovered, they removed the mask and scarab pendant, as well as the gold and gemstones from the lid.
After taking the valuables from the sarcophagus, the group returned to the house to recover the bodies of Pentheru’s long-dead guards and carried them to the mausoleum to bury them in some of the incomplete rooms. This action would remove some of the haunts affecting the house.
When they had left the Necropolis behind and returned to town, it was discovered that Azzaria had contracted a fever from the mummified cats.
Before returning to the Tooth and Hookah, the team received their third and final token from the temple of Pharasma – which proved to be for the Sanctum of the Erudite Eye, a temple to Nethys that the Scorched Hand members had been eager to find. The Scarabs decided that if they were accosted by the Scorched Hand, they would tell them nothing.
During their time away from the Necropolis, the Scarabs learned that prices for artifacts had dropped even further, as several of the other adventuring groups had already completed their third location. They also heard of an auction planned for the end of the week at which they might be able to sell some of their acquisitions. In addition, they made arrangements for a mason to repair the gates of Pentheru’s house, which would eliminate the last of the haunts. Uto also went in search of a woman named Panhet, whose lover Akar’s body had been one of the headless corpses found in the house. He returned the engraved gold ring found on Akar’s body, and Panhet rewarded him 150 gold pieces.
The next morning the group set out for the Sanctum of the Erudite Eye. On their way through the Necropolis they detected some movement ahead, and realized that it was an ambush set by a group of living men. Sula and Nyema ran into a ruined building after one of the attackers, while the rest of the Scarabs met the ambushers in the street. Though the ambush party was larger than the Scarabs group, the Ruby Scarabs had relatively little difficulty in overpowering them. Uto put one man to sleep with magic, and another man was so frightened of Nyema that he fled. After the rest of the group had been rendered unconscious or surrendered, they revealed that they had been hired by a woman to slow the Scarabs down. Further questioning made it apparent that the woman in question was the leader of the Scorched Hand. The Scarabs decided to strip and bind their captives before sending them back to the gate of the Necropolis. They acquired 5 bows, several kopeshes, and two nets from the ambushers. They also heard a scream and crunching sounds coming from the direction the fleeing man had run, which encouraged the captured men to get out of the Necropolis as quickly as possible.
Loot acquired:
Gold mask worth 150 gp
Scarab pendant worth 50 gp
Gold and gems, 50 gp
5 Masterwork bows
5 Kopeshes
2 Nets
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11-15-2015
Session 7
Character level: 3rd
The Ruby Scarabs had finally reached the Sanctum of the Erudite Eye. There they saw a structure some 20 feet tall, still intact, and lacking any doors. As they entered the first chamber they observed footprints on the floor. The tracks indicated that a group of perhaps six humanoids and several dog-like creatures had been present. They also found traces of blood.
As they investigated, they found themselves suddenly under attack from five skeletal jackals. Azzaria and Kaa rapidly destroyed the beasts, after which the Scarabs found some jackal hides and flesh in a corner of the large entrance chamber. The group went on to search for enemies, which led them to two people, one of whom spoke, saying, “The altar has been defiled, help us.” The Scarabs detected two sources of magic in the area. They were attacked by the two people, who proved to be undead. After they sent the undead back to death again, they found a small private chapel in which they recovered a silver knife.
Further exploration led them to what appeared to be a dormitory for the acolytes serving the temple. The chamber held several curtained alcoves. Uto created an unseen servant and had it open the decayed curtains. Somewhere nearby the Scarabs heard moans and shuffling sounds. Curiously, they found that all of the beds in the dormitory were fastened securely to the floor.
Suddenly three undead humanoids appeared, which proved to be a type of zombie. The Scarabs destroyed them quickly and moved on to a set of stone doors. They found more curtained alcoves that seemed to be monastic cubicles for study or meditation. In these cubicles they discovered two corpses, one a skeleton and the other a dismembered zombie. Moving on, they came to another door with a warning written on it in ancient Osirion, warning that the chamber beyond was for the use of the high priest only and all others were forbidden to enter. Kaa observed that the lock on the door had been recently picked. He unlocked it again.
Uto sent his unseen servant to open several other doors, revealing a bedroom and a room containing a writing desk. One door couldn’t be opened, but the next door admitted them to a library, where Uto sensed something radiating an aura of magic. There were several scrolls scattered on the floor. Sula noticed signs that four other people had recently entered the library. Then the door abruptly slammed shut and locked. An arm shot out of the wall and struck Nyema. The door opened again and the strange creature in the wall vanished. It reappeared at the door the Scarabs had yet to open. It hit Sula, pushing her toward the already open door. Uto healed her injury, and she and Azzaria attacked the creature, causing it to withdraw. Kaa then unlocked the unopened door, which led into a hallway where the tengu spotted signs of a trap and traces of blood.
After Uto provided further healing to Sula and Nyema, they moved on. Kaa unlocked another door, which Uto then commanded his servant to open. This doorway led into an octagonal room containing a metal chest and another exit. Heiroglyphs instructed them that to go beyond the next door they must leave any magic items in the chest.
The next door led into a descending stairway, which someone else had recently used. They climbed down, finding no traps on the stair, but at the bottom it was barred by a set of locked bronze gates. Beyond the bars they could see black tiles on the floor, a stone bench, and a statue of the god of magic, Nethys, the patron of the temple. When Kaa opened the bars, the statue stepped down from its plinth. The bronze gate slammed and locked, trapping Sula on the other side from her companions. Azzaria explained to her friends that the statue was a construct.
Frighteningly, the statue was able to use magic. It cast haste upon itself and struck Azzaria and Kaa with the staff it held, knocking Azzaria unconscious, then it attacked Uto. Sula could only watch helplessly from beyond the locked gate as the rapidly moving statue battled her comrades. Kaa managed to trip the statue, giving Uto time to heal all three of them before it rose to its feet again. Kaa attempted to trip it again but the second time it kept its feet. Then it struck Azzaria a fearsome blow and she fell dead to the floor.
Kaa managed to get the gate open again. Sula cast barkskin on herself, and Uto began to levitate. He dropped the wand he had used by Sula. She moved into the chamber to stab the statue with her spear. The statue then struck both Sula and Kaa. Uto threw a tanglefoot bag at the statue, causing it to adhere to the ground. Kaa then picked up Azzaria’s flail and smashed it. Once the statue was no longer a threat, the remaining Scarabs picked up its bladed staff and Azzaria’s body and went back upstairs.
In the library they gathered up the scrolls that had fallen to the floor. They also uncovered a hidden panel, behind which they found several tablets and scrolls, but something flew out of the compartment and attacked Uto, wrapping itself around his head and suffocating him. Sula tried to burn it but was unable to hit it with her flames. Kaa managed to pull it off of Uto’s head, after which Uto summoned a blade of flame to strike it. It was Kaa who finally slew it. Once Uto was free of the creature, they found that a tablet from the secret compartment was magical, and they also discovered a wand in the compartment. One of the magic tablets contained a warning about a place they had never heard of, keeping something safe, and hiding a scandal that involved a pharaoh. The priests of Nethys had left an arcane mark upon the tablet.
Loot acquired:
Silver dagger
Bladed staff
Tablet of languages lost
Scroll of align weapon
Scroll of halt undead
Scroll of knock
Wand of lesser restoration – 10 charges
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12-6-2015
Session 8
Character level: 3rd
The Ruby Scarabs learned that the tablet they had found in the Sanctum of the Erudite Eye was a royal decree by Pharaoh Djeret II ordering someone to take something to “where asp and crook join”, where it was to be hidden but not destroyed and kept secret until this shameful secret could be taken care of.
After finding the hidden compartment, the Scarabs left the Sanctum and returned to the temple of Pharasma. A vendor outside the Necropolis lent them a cart to transport Azzaria’s body. At Pharasma’s temple they waited to meet with high priestess Sebti the Crocodile and the priest Ptemenib. Ptemenib healed all of the injuries they hadn’t healed themselves. They gave the tablet they had found to the priests of Pharasma and asked if it would be possible for the priests to raise Azzaria, as they were reluctant to lose yet another comrade.
They also presented the evidence to the priests that the members of the Scorched Hand had gone to the Sanctum of the Erudite Eye instead of to their assigned location, in defiance of the instructions they had been given. The priests wanted the Ruby Scarabs to bring the Scorched Hand back to the temple of Pharasma for punishment, or deal with them themselves, as the temple’s resources were unable to deal with the issue at this time. The priests also explained that they would be willing to ask Azzaria’s spirit if she would return. If her spirit refused, they would handle the interment of her body. The Scarabs took Azzaria’s possessions to a waiting room to await the result of the priests’ actions, while Sula took Nyema outside of the town to spend the waiting period in less urban surroundings.
Later Uto and Kaa learned that Azzaria’s spirit had been willing to return and the priests had raised her. But she had suffered negative effects from her demise and would require two spells to help her recover, spells that would need 1,000 gold pieces worth of diamonds. They also learned that the temple had purchased a great deal of the treasures that had been brought out of the Necropolis, and that in a few days there would be an auction held where the adventurers could sell more of the items they had acquired.
The Temple of Pharasma provided the Ruby Scarabs with a writ to permit them to deal as they saw fit with the members of the Scorched Hand. The Scarabs also looked into acquiring magical weapons. But as they were leaving the temple, an initiate suddenly called to the guards to stop them. They were taken back to see an archivist, who told them that the headband they had previously recovered at Pentheru’s house was cursed. If one died while wearing it, the person would transform into a monster. The archivist gave them 200 gold pieces in exchange for the cursed headband.
Later, Sula purchased a magical spear and a flask of alchemist fire at the market, and the Scarabs learned more about the Scorched Hand. The leader of the group was Velriana Hipaxis, a Taldan wizard. Her companions were Kelru, a priest of Nethys; Idorii, a half-elf warrior; and Azaz Arafe, also a wizard.
On the following day the Ruby Scarabs returned to the Necropolis. While they were still on the way there they received a note from Ptemenib telling them that the day before the Scorched Hand had entered the Necropolis but had not left it before dark. The guard’s records showed that this group hadn’t passed through the Gates of Dawn since the previous day.
The Scarabs reached the Sanctum of the Erudite Eye again without meeting any difficulty. They found no sign of new living visitors to the temple, though there was evidence that ghouls had entered and eaten the jackals they had slain the day before. The doors were still locked, the trap on the stair still set, and the bronze gate still closed. The statue of Nethys had been returned to its plinth, but it was now broken and the pieces had been laid on its base. There was no blood anywhere, but they found scratches and marks on the door leading away from the statue chamber.
Beyond that door was a hallway, where the Scarabs discovered a ‘secret’ door that had been left slightly ajar. Uto peeked inside and saw a stone figure and a bench. Kaa continued on down the hallway, observing a light ahead and hearing low voices. In a room ahead the tengu found the members of the Scorched Hand, along with two local men from Wati. One of the local men heard something and went to check on the noise. Kaa crept stealthily away to warn his companions as the Scorched Hand group exited the chamber.
The Ruby Scarabs prepared to meet their foes. Uto cast bless on the group, and Sula armored herself with barkskin. They heard the sound of someone casting a bull’s strength spell. The half-elf, Idorii, appeared in a doorway. Kaa fired his crossbow at her. Velriana cast glitterdust, and Azaz send a flaming sphere toward Sula. Azzaria attacked Idorii, while Uto caused Azaz and the local man to fall asleep. The second local man appeared and woke Azaz. Velriana cast color spray, but all of the Scarabs resisted her magic. Azzaria killed the cleric of Nethys, Kelru. Kaa stunned Idorii. Velriana directed a burning hands spell at Azzaria, Kaa, and Nyema; and then surrounded herself with six mirror images. Azzaria destroyed one image while Sula and Nyema rendered Idorii unconscious. Kaa caused three more images to vanish. After Azzaria destroyed another image, Velriana used a wand of scorching ray against her and Azzaria collapsed. Uto channeled positive energy to heal her, but was unable to prevent the healing energy from also affecting the Scorched Hands. Velriana then attempted to distract Kaa with a trinket, but failed, and instead escaped by slipping through a small gap in the opposition. Sula attacked the second local man, while Nyema again brought down Azaz. Velriana vanished. Sula eliminated the first local and closed the gate to prevent Velriana from escaping. She heard the unseen wizard casting warding weapon. Uto swung his weapon at the location from which the voice had come. Nyema and Azzaria also attacked that area. Nyema missed, but Azzaria’s attack struck home. Velriana attempted to negotiate with the Scarabs to save herself, but Azzaria struck her again and she fell unconscious. Before Uto could heal her, she died. Only the two local men and Idorii had survived.
The Ruby Scarabs recovered three masterwork kopeshes, a kukri, a suit of magical leather armor, three chakrams, a flask of acid, two flasks of alchemist fire, a set of thieves tools, two sunrods, and 5 gold pieces from the bodies of their fallen foes. From Velriana they took two wands and two scrolls, a pair of magic bracelets and an enchanted gem, a dagger, a light crossbow, a signet ring, a silver holy symbol of Nethys, and her spellbook. On the body of Azaz they found several scrolls, 2 potions, 2 wands, 2 daggers, a holy symbol, and a spellbook. From Kelru the priest they took more scrolls; a curative wand; 2 flasks of alchemist fire, 2 vials of holy water, a suit of scale mail, a quarterstaff, an everburning torch, and 29 gold pieces.
Leaving Nyema to guard their two prisoners, the Scarabs went on to explore the rest of the Sanctum of the Erudite Eye. They found a hall with an ornately tiled floor and a room containing the tomb of the temple’s founder. Inside the sarcophagus they found a human mummy and also a mummified rat, as well as canopic jars. Behind the mummy’s knees the discovered a magical stone.
During their investigation Kaa accidentally set off a magical trap which struck them with electricity. Uto healed them, and they went on to find a magic ring and a pearl, as well as the decayed remnants of a spellbook.
After they had completed their exploration of the temple’s subterranean level, they returned to question their prisoners. Idorii told them that Velriana had only sought power, not any specific object. She did not know what had animated the skeletal jackals in the main hall; it had not been done by anyone in her group. The Scorched Hand had only slain the jackals while they were still living. They had encountered a giant eye creature hiding behind the statue of Nethys in the main shrine. She also knew that the creature that had emerged from the walls was some sort of earth elemental bound to the temple, which kept it repaired. Idorii went on to tell the Scarabs that Velriana had found a non-magical scroll that had interested her, and that she did not know where the blood on the stairs had come from as they had disabled the trap there. They had avoided the guardian in the shrine, and Velriana hadn’t wanted to open the sarcophagus.
The group went on through the remainder of the temple, finding a room with a pool where an illusory blue flame burned. Drinking from the pool would give the drinker a blessing from Nethys for 24 hours. They uncovered a secret door that revealed the stele the earth elemental was bound to. In a room containing a summoning circle set into the floor, they saw a dais and four columns carved as fantastical creatures. They continued on to meet the shrine’s guardian, an undead creature which was able to resist Uto’s positive energy. When destroyed it yielded up a mithral shirt and an enchanted spear. Afterward they found a lacquer cabinet containing 50 gold pieces and the keys to all of the temple’s doors.
In the temple catacombs the Ruby Scarabs found the burials of the Sanctum’s high priests. There they recovered six gold masks. In a secret vault they found a pair of magical gloves, several potions and curatives, and 6 rubies.
Another secret chamber revealed more details relating to the scroll and tablet they had found previously. Messages inscribed in the chamber warned against disturbing the reliquary of the Forgotten Pharoah. Something necromantic had once occupied the chamber but was no longer present. There was blood on the floor, and the Scarabs observed a faceless statue that appeared to have formerly worn some sort of headdress.
Loot acquired:
3 masterwork kopeshes
Kukri
3 chakrams
Acid flask
Alchemist fire - 3
2 sunrods
284 gp
Wand of scorching ray – 5 charges
Scroll of charm person
Scroll of magic missile - 2
Wand of shield – 9 charges
Bracelets of armor +1
Dagger
Light crossbow & 10 bolts
Signet ring
Silver holy symbol of Nethys
2 spellbooks
Scroll of burning hands
Scroll of identify
Scroll of levitate
Scroll of shocking grasp
Wand of grease – 10 charges
Wand of vanish
Potion of cure light wounds
Potion of hide from undead
2 daggers
Scroll of bless – 2
Scroll of cure moderate wounds
Scroll of effortless armor
Scroll of hold person
Scroll of magic weapon
Scroll of sound burst
Wand of cure light wounds – 26 charges
Holy water – 2
Scale mail
Leather armor
Masterwork quarterstaff
Everburning torch
Mithral shirt
Spear of the Watchful Guardian
6 gold masks – 100 gp each
Apprentice’s cheating gloves
Potion of bull’s strength
Potion of Cure moderate wounds – 2
6 rubies – 25 gp each
Ring of the grasping grave
Pearl of power level 1
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4/3/2016
Session 9
Character level: 4th
Previously: The Ruby Scarabs realized that someone else must have been in the Sanctum of the Erudite Eye while they were pursuing the Scorched Hand. Someone turned the dead jackals into undead, was injured by the trap on the staircase, and took the headdress from the secret room. But when the Scarabs shared this information with the priests at the temple of Pharasma, the priests knew nothing about the shameful secret referred to in the letter from Pharaoh Djederet II that they had recovered from the hidden chamber.
The party members received 453 gold pieces each from the treasure they had recovered at the Sanctum of the Erudite Eye.
As the date of the auction of relics approached, the Scarabs sold off some of the mundane items they had acquired from the Scorched Hands. They also worked with the Canny Jackal auction house preparing the items they wanted to sell. Many visitors from the capital city of Sothis were expected to come for the auction, as well as patrons from Wati's sister city Tephu. When they realized they had failed to pick up any of the books or scrolls from the library in the Sanctum of the Erudite Eye, they persuaded the the priests of Pharasma to allow them to return to the Necropolis one more time.
While Uto spent some time with his mentor, the rest of the Scarabs returned to the Necropolis. The guards at the Gate of Dawn warned them that there had been more activity inside the Necropolis over the past two days. On the way to the Sanctum, Kaa and Sula noticed a small figure hiding from them. Kaa called out and tried to convince the being that the Scarabs meant no harm to it, but the ceature ran into a nearb building. At the same time, several ghasts appeared and attacked the Scarabs. Both Kaa and Sula were badly bitten but managed to avoid being paralyzed by the ghasts' attacks.
After slaying the first two ghasts, the Scarabs saw that several skeletons and another ghast had the small being pinned down inside a ruined building. They swiftly destroyed the skeletons and ghast, then offered healing to the odd-looking creature. Kaa realized that the creature spoke Undercommon. It managed to communicate in broken Common, introducing itself as Ioki and telling the group that it was trying to find others of its people who had come up from their subterranean home. The Scarabs tried to convince Ioki that being in the Necropolis at night was even more dangerous than during the day, but he insisted that he would be safer in the darkness and departed to find a hiding place until nightfall.
The Ruby Scarabs arrived at the Sanctum of the Erudite Eye without further trouble and recovered a quantity of books that they estimated were worth at least a thousand gold pieces. They returned to Wati safely, then went to the temple of Pharasma to have the priests cure the ghoul fever that Kaa and Sula had been infected with by the ghasts. Afterward they visited the Canny Jackal and added the books to the items to be sold at auction.
After their final foray into the Necropolis, they also viewed the items to be sold that had been brought out of the Necropolis by other treasure-hunting bands. Kaa and Sula were both attracted by a crocodile headdress and a magical cloak of crocodile hide, and agreed that instead of competing for it they would try to acquire it, then decide who would own it.
The auction proceeded normally, with the Ruby Scarabs' items bringing them each 1,400 gold pieces. Kaa and Sula won the crocodile headress and cloak, which Kaa ultimately claimed for his own. But as the auction was wrapping up, Uto began to feel that something strange was happening. He warned one of the guards and cast a detect undead spell, which did not find any haunts in the area.
Kaa also noticed that the priest Ptemenib had left before the auction finished, and that he behaved as though he was following someone. Kaa decided to follow the priest to see what he was doing. But shortly after he left the Canny Jackal building he lost track of Ptemenib and had to return to the auction house.
Back at the Canny Jackal, Uto warned his companions of the strangeness he'd felt. Moments later there was a loud boom as something struck the doors. Then the doors burst open and zombies swarmed into the auction house! The patrons began to flee, along with many of the guards and the leader of a group called the Four Lanterns who had reportedly been traumatized by encounters with undead in the Necropolis. The Ruby Scarabs rushed toward the doorway to block the zombies from getting into the building.
Azzaria looked outside and saw an ox cart overrun by zombies smash into a pillar in the marketplace, toppling the pillar and spilling a collection of severed thieves' hands onto the ground. As soon as the severed hands landed, they came to life and began to scramble toward the Canny Jackal.
Sula summoned the magic of her newly-acquired spear to combat the zombies, and Nyema rushed inside to aid her master. Both she and Nyema were badly wounded by the zombies, but were healed of some of their injuries when Uto channeled positivie energy. Azzaria stepped outside to the aid of some of the auction patrons who had tried to flee but had become trapped under a collapsed scaffold.
Abruptly most of the zombies and dismembered hands melted. The Scarabs didn't know what had caused this. But Kaa heard screams from a back room and ran into a storage area to help. He found some of the auction patrons who had gone to hide there being menaced by a female mummy. He shouted for help as the mummy started toward the exit from the storeroom.
Sula and Nyema tried to block the doorway to prevent the mummy from escaping, but Sula was paralyzed by the mummy's aura of despair. Nyema remained by her side to guard her. Kaa then used his ki power to direct a ray of flames at the mummy, which caused her to charge him. Nyema bit and clawed at the mummy as it moved away from her. Kaa blasted the mummy with his flames two more times until she collapsed into dust. Outside the Canny Jackal, the sounds of the disturbance moved into the distance.
Loot acquired:
1,853 gold each
crocodile headress
cloak of fangs
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4-10-2016
Session 10
Character level: 4th
New character introduction:
Igby Marsh – male, human, inquisitor
As the sounds of trouble receded into the distance and the Ruby Scarabs caught their breath, they realized they would have to leave the Canny Jackal auction house to investigate what was happening in the rest of Wati. One of the members of the Four Lanterns group, Igby Marsh, offered to accompany them. Uto chose to remain at the auction house looking after the auction participants who were still there.
When they entered the streets beyond the marketplace, the Scarabs heard distant sounds of distress. They followed a trail of destruction until they came to an intersection where a group of half a dozen zombies had congregated around a wagon. One of the zombies was devouring a corpse, presumably that of the wagon driver, while others were consuming the horse that had drawn it. Igby stepped into the intersection, presenting an immediate target for the zombies. Kaa charged one of the undead and with a slash of his kopesh it collapsed.
Sula produced a sphere of fire and sent it rolling toward a zombie, which burst into flame and was destroyed. Two zombies moved toward Igby, and two more approached Kaa. Sula moved her flaming sphere toward one of the zombies threatening Kaa, but this one proved resistant to the fire. She directed Nyema to attack a zombie that was trying to harm Igby, and the lioness’s claws brought it down. Kaa then destroyed the zombie nearest him that was not the target of Sula’s spell. Sula moved up beside Nyema to defend her while continuing to direct the flaming sphere against the other zombies, and drew out the curative wand she had recently acquired.
Nyema brought down a second zombie, while Igby and Kaa also slew their second opponents. All of the zombies were now gone. In the aftermath of the fight, Azzaria noticed that there was a dark compartment in the wagon. The wagon’s contents also seemed odd: a few poor quality pottery pieces, some long-dried paint, and moldering grain. She called out in case someone was hiding in the compartment, which was large enough to contain several people. But no one responded. Examination of the driver’s remains revealed that he wore a heavy, valuable silver chain around his wrist, which seemed significant, but no one present knew what it might mean. Azzaria also found that the driver had a fine silk pouch in his money belt that contained 50 gold pieces, in addition to seven silver pieces that were outside the silk pouch. Kaa then discovered a second hidden compartment in the wagon, this one near the driver’s seat. Inside the compartment he found a necklace with a mummified hand for a pendant, and some fine jewelry estimated to be worth 850 gold pieces. The jewelry resembled the funerary jewelry the Scarabs had seen in the Necropolis. They began to suspect that the compartment in the back of the wagon had been used to smuggle the zombies into Wati, but these zombies clearly hadn’t come from the ancient Necropolis; they appeared to be ordinary citizens of Wati, recently deceased.
Concerned that the corpses might rise as zombies, Kaa decapitated the wagon driver and the horse. The Scarabs could still hear noises to the northeast that sounded like more trouble. But they decided to return to the Canny Jackal instead of investigating the sounds. When they arrived, Uto told them that nothing else untoward had happened in the auction house after their departure. He also recognized the silver chain taken from the wagon driver’s wrist: it was the symbol of the Silver Chain gang, known for grave robbing and smuggling artifacts from the Necropolis. The group reviewed the items they had recovered from the wagon and determined that the mummified hand necklace radiated protection magic, but were unable to determine exactly what it did. Kaa decided to put it on anyway. The tengu didn’t find it as disgusting as his companions did.
After discussing what they had experienced, the Ruby Scarabs disagreed over what to do next. Uto wanted to remain at the Canny Jackal for the rest of the night, but there were two people present who wanted to go to the Sanctum of Silver and Gold, the temple of Nethys that stood near the Grand Mausoleum of Pharasma. These two were priests of Nethys and wanted to return to their temple. The Scarabs agreed to escort them back to the Sanctum.
As they crossed the marketplace, the group heard the sounds of something moving slowly in the darkness, and noises that resembled something heavy being dragged. They did not investigate the source of the sounds.
At the Sanctum of Silver and Gold, the guards outside checked the new arrivals carefully before admitting them, taking a second look at Kaa’s new necklace, but when the two priests vouched for the Scarabs the guards admitted them to the temple. Inside they found a few devotees of Nethys who had taken refuge there. The Scarabs and the two priests narrated their experiences to a senior priest. This priest identified the mummified hand as a Hand of an Honest Man, which would protect the wearer from being cursed.
When they finished talking with the priest, the Scarabs spoke with some of the other people in the temple. One person told a story of someone he knew being carried off by a giant mosquito prior to the zombie attack, but Sula felt this incident had no relationship to the appearance of the zombies, as giant mosquitoes did sometimes attack people. After they had learned what they could from the people in Nethys’ temple, the Ruby Scarabs decided to go on to the Pharasma temple to talk to the priests there. Kaa told them how he had seen Ptemenib leaving the auction, apparently following someone, and had followed but lost the trail. The priests at the temple expressed concern as Ptemenib hadn’t returned and his whereabouts were unknown.
That night they rested at the Grand Mausoleum. The next morning they learned that the troubles had continued throughout the night and were still ongoing. The town of Wati felt abandoned; the streets were empty and quiet. The Scarabs agreed to escort some of the people who had been at the auction back to their homes. Igby persuaded some of the wealthier folk to make a donation of a hundred gold pieces in return for this service.
When the group arrived at one of the homes in the wealthy district of town, they learned that noises could be heard coming from within the family crypt, and the crypt door had been barred. They also observed that a house not far away was issuing black smoke. At first they intended to go to investigate the apparently burning house, but they then decided to return to the Canny Jackal instead.
While on their way back to the auction house, they heard a thunderclap, which Azzaria recognized was an illusion. The group came upon a mob of local people surrounding a woman with a cart. A zombie had been lashed to the cart. The woman appeared frightened, and the crowd were accusing her of causing the appearance of all the zombies. Uto and Azzaria stepped in to reason with the crowd, and Uto cast a spell to calm them. Not all the members of the mob were affected by the magic, but Uto was able to persuade the people to let the woman alone and leave. The woman continued to be frightened and upset. She revealed that the zombie tied to the wagon was her recently dead husband. She was convinced that the gods had brought him back to her, and that if she could get him home she could use her magic to restore him to true life. She refused to take him to the temple of Pharasma. Finally Kaa stunned her with a blow, and then the others bound her with rope so they could take her and the zombie to the priests of Pharasma. Once they arrived at the temple, the priests told them that this was not an unknown occurrence. They had encountered other people who saw their newly dead relatives rising as zombies not as a curse but a blessing.
After leaving the distraught woman with the priests, the Scarabs decided to continue their escort duty, taking more people back to their homes. Along the way they encountered the adventuring band known as the Dog Soldiers fighting some ghouls, and they gave the Dog Soldiers their aid. The leader of the Dog Soldiers sadly told them that he had lost more of his dogs. The Ruby Scarabs had learned from the priests that people who died since the appearance of the zombies were also rising again as zombies, so they advised the Dog Soldiers to be sure to decapitate any dogs that died.
Several hours later, the Ruby Scarabs had delivered all the people from the Canny Jackal who wanted to go home back to their residences. They returned to the temple of Pharasma, where they learned that more outsiders like the duro div they had encountered in Pentheru’s house had been spotted in the town. The priests also told them that they had received no messages from the guards at the gate of the Necropolis, and couldn’t spare anyone to go and check. The Scarabs then offered to go themselves.
When they arrived at the Gate of Dawn, they could see through the openings in the gate that there were hundreds of undead congregated around the base of Pharasma’s Needle, the obelisk that stood just inside the Necropolis. Only the priestess Balthemm, who they had met there before, was present with two guards; the rest of the guards had stayed home to look after their families.
Suddenly, a dark insubstantial shape passed through the gate and moved toward Balthemm. When it touched her she screamed and went gray. Sula laid a hand on Nyema and imbued one of her paws with magic that would help her fight such creatures, as one of her companions had identified the thing as a shadow, which could only be affected by magic weapons. Uto then channeled positive energy toward the gate, affecting some of the undead beyond but also damaging the shadow. Balthemm stumbled away from it, and Sula moved to lay a hand on her to restore some of her lost strength. The two guards fled in terror. Despite her weakness, Balthemm was able to bless the Scarabs to aid them against the shadow.
The shadow touched Igby, but he wasn’t affected as much as Balthemm had been and was able to remain standing. He, Kaa, an enraged Azzaria, and Nyema all attacked the creature with their magically enhanced weapons. Uto then used a wand the group had found to direct a missile of force at the shadow, and it vanished. After the shadow had gone, one of the guards returned. Balthemm then asked if the Scarabs would take a message to the Grand Mausoleum to ask for help. Before the group left, Uto levitated to the top of the Necropolis wall and positioned himself so that he could direct several bursts of positive energy at the undead below. While he was looking into the Necropolis, he saw a glint of metal and movement a short distance away. He then threw two vials of alchemist's fire at the undead before returning to his companions.
Once he had returned to the ground, Uto gave Balthemm a wand to use while the Scarabs returned to the temple of Pharasma to deliver her plea for aid. The companions also helped her remove her armor, which was too heavy for her to wear in her current weakened state.
Back at the temple, Igby received healing to recover the strength he had lost to the shadow’s touch. Uto asked for another wand like the one he had lent to Balthemm, and was told he might be able to acquire one from Nethys’ temple. The Ruby Scarabs also discussed the possibility of checking the Necropolis walls that stood outside the town, as the Silver Chain members had clearly been able to get into the Necropolis somehow. They came to the conclusion that the Silver Chain hadn’t smuggled actual zombies into Wati, but instead had been smuggling corpses which had become zombies after the unknown magic had taken effect.
The Ruby Scarabs returned to the Gate of Dawn later to find more guards with Balthemm. They gave her the supplies the temple had provided, and in return she presented Uto with an unused healing wand. She also gave the group a reward that had been collected by local residents, which included five platinum pieces, 483 gold pieces, 358 silver pieces, a gold ring, and an outlandish but expensive silk hat that was promptly claimed by Kaa.
When they had completed their business at the Gate of Dawn, the group discussed patrolling the streets to find out if the undead were everywhere or only in certain areas. They hoped this would help them identify the source of the magic that was raising the dead. As they were talking, a strange-looking bird wearing a mask suddenly appeared out of the air and began to babble at them frantically in what sounded like numerous languages. Uto realized the bird was actually a creature called a nosoi psychopomp, a denizen of the outer planes and steward of the undead. Uto managed to calm the creature enough that it could speak intelligibly. It then explained that it was a helper and guide to the priest Ptemenib, and that Ptemenib had been captured by the Silver Chain gang and was being held in an abandoned warehouse near the waterfront.
Loot acquired:
Wand of disrupt undead
Wand of cure light wounds, fully charged
5 platinum
438 gold
358 silver
Gold ring
Silk hat worth 75 gold
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4-17-2016
Session 11
Character level: 4th
Qasin the psychopomp led the Ruby Scarabs to the burnt-out remains of an old brickworks near the waterfront. It was nearly dark by the time they arrived. Kaa scouted the ruined building and heard several voices from within. He attempted to use the magic in his gloves to distract them and make the people inside think that the Scarabs were zombies approaching. But one man emerged from the building and spotted the rest of the group waiting outside. He told them to leave. When Azzaria questioned him and demanded to know where Ptemenib was, it became apparent that he knew who she was talking about. Kaa then warned that he saw another man threatening with a hand crossbow. When a second man with a hand crossbow was spotted, a fight began.
The man who had come out to talk withdrew into the interior of the structure. Kaa burned the first crossbowman with a ray of scorching fire from his hands. Igby moved in to face the second crossbowman, and Sula and Nyema joined him. Azzaria attacked the man who Kaa had burned, wounding him so badly that he surrendered. Kaa then scorched another of the men. That man moved to stab Nyema, but missed. On a second attempt he managed to connect with the lion, using a punching dagger. Sula and Nyema then attacked the assailant. After both of them injured him he fled. The third man also surrendered to Igby.
Once the Silver Chain members had surrendered, the Scarabs stripped them of all of their armor, weapons, and equipment. One of the prisoners told the Scarabs that Ptemenib was being held in an underground area beneath the old brickworks. He estimated that there were half a dozen men in that area. He also explained that the Silver Chain gang had been able to dig a tunnel into the Necropolis to accomplish their grave-robbing. Under further questioning he revealed that the gang had recently come under new leadership, and the new leader had brought in some masked people he described as ‘zealots’. He knew little about these people, or what had happened to the gang’s previous leader. After he showed the Scarabs where to find the stairway leading down, they released him.
Kaa unlocked a well-secured door to gain access to the stairs, but he didn’t discover a trap on the staircase until a pit opened up beneath him. He was able to avoid falling in, and to reset the trap and jam it so the rest of the group could pass safely over the pit. Despite this noise and the creaky stairs, no one came to investigate their entrance into the underground lair.
At the bottom of the staircase they came to a chamber full of sump wells, where overflow from the river could be redirected during flood season. Ptemenib was in one of the currently dry wells. He appeared to have been badly beaten, and at first Kaa feared he was dead. But after the tengu climbed down into the well he was able to rouse the priest and help him climb out. The Scarabs then decided it would be best to return to the temple of Pharasma so Ptemenib could be healed.
Ptemenib’s fellow priests healed him of his injuries, and he then asked the Ruby Scarabs to return to the Silver Chain lair. The Scarabs also wanted to pick up whatever loot they could take from the thieves, so they borrowed the handcart the troubled woman had used to transport her undead husband and went back to the brickworks. On arriving in the stairway, Kaa detected that someone had done something to the pit trap he had jammed. The group continued downstairs, this time turning right instead of left toward a large room. Kaa threw his expensive new hat into the room and someone inside shot it with a crossbow bolt. Kaa rushed inside, followed first by Igby.
Inside the room, the Scarabs saw numerous crates, urns, and bales of goods that the Silver Chain gang had stolen or smuggled. Kaa faced a red-robed figure wearing a golden funerary mask, while Igby attacked the wielder of the crossbow who had shot Kaa’s hat. Kaa stunned the masked figure. Sula and Nyema then entered the room, as well as Azzaria. A second masked figure appeared and touched Azzaria with a shocking grasp spell. Igby then called upon the gods and his sword burst into flame. The crossbowman threw a flask of alchemist’s fire at Igby but missed his aim, after which he fled through an exit on the far side of the room. Just as he was about to escape, Uto cast a spell that left him immobilized in the doorway.
Suddenly Azzaria heard an urn shatter on the other side of the storeroom, and she saw something that looked like a cluster of internal organs rising off the floor. She approached to attack the gruesome aberration. Sula had summoned fire to her hand and threw it at the thing, but it seemed to do little harm. The second masked figure, a woman, had moved near to where the organ creature was and had collapsed due to the wounds Azzaria inflicted on her. Now the organ thing descended on her, ripping out her intestines and incorporating them into itself!
After absorbing new organs into its body, the horrible thing lashed out with trailing entrails at Azzaria, Kaa, and Sula, then moved away from them. Kaa and Sula were injured by its blows and felt weakened. Igby meanwhile had run after the man who fled. Finding the fellow unable to move, Igby killed him. Kaa, Sula, and Nyema attacked the organ monstrosity, with little success. Igby joined them in trying to destroy it. Uto cast a spell to prevent the masked man from dying so he could be questioned later. The organ monster then moved to slam into Uto.
Two men and a hyena appeared through the far door. The hyena lunged toward Igby, and Uto cast a spell on it to calm it, but the spell failed to affect it. Sula then sent Nyema after the hyena and the lioness slew it. The men then fired their crossbows at Nyema. Meanwhile the horrid monster attacked Sula. Igby ran to engage the two newcomers, while Uto healed Sula. Sula hurled her last handful of flames at one of the men and directed Nyema to attack the creature. The creature then grappled Kaa. Azzaria, Sula, and Nyema all attacked it again, and Kaa struggled free of its grasp. The monster fled toward the door through which the Scarabs had entered, and Igby struck the final blow to kill it, while Kaa finished off the last of the Silver Chain men.
The party members searched the bodies of the fallen masked people and Silver Chain members, and came away with a significant quantity of armor, weapons, potions, and magic items. They also examined what was in the storeroom, though that proved to be mostly mundane items and some mummified corpses. After they had completed their examination of the storeroom, the Scarabs found a door that had been boarded up. A passageway led to another door that was also blocked. Kaa was concerned that there might be undead imprisoned on the other side, as the door showed evidence of only recently having been blocked. But he heard no sounds coming through the door.
The team then approached a door that lay beyond the sump wells. This door was unlocked. As they entered the room beyond, they found themselves facing another masked man, this one holding a glowing red sword. The man immediately ordered his two companions to kill the Scarabs.
One of the man's two female comrades sent a cone of flame from her hands at Azzaria, Sula, and Nyema, but it had little effect. The other woman touched Azzaria with shocking grasp. Kaa acrobatically moved past his friends to stun one of the women with his fist, while Sula attacked one woman with her spear and Nyema clawed at the other. Uto killed one of the women. Their leader withdrew further into the chamber. Azzaria pursued him and killed him.
After the masked man died, Uto was able to identify his glowing red blade as the Natron Fang, made of mineral salts that would allow it to overcome mummies. Kaa uncovered the secret door leading to the tunnel that connected with the Necropolis. In a chest in the room, the Scarabs found jewelry and gems worth thousands of gold pieces, as well as a magic haversack. A small chest held priestly vestments like those worn by Ptemenib. In one crate were four triangular stones representing the four elements, but these were not magical and no one knew what purpose they served. Finally, they found on the leader's body a note advising him to work with the Silver Chain gang to help him find a mask that would facilitate the resurrection of Hakotep. The note also mentioned the Sky Pharaoh, who some of the Scarabs thought was the same person as Hakotep. The note was signed Meret-Hetef, a name no one recognized.
Loot acquired:
Leather armor +1
5 hand crossbows
5 punching daggers
masterwork thieves tools
5 antitoxins
5 silver chains worth 50 gp
5 potions of cure light wounds
5 flasks of alchemist's fire
4 flasks of holy water
5 climber's kits
5 saps
5 sunrods
5 crowbars
2 spellbooks: cantrips (all), mage armor, shocking grasp, burning hands, disguise self
2 potions of undetectable alignment
2 scrolls of whispering wind
5 flasks of oil of taggit
5 daggers
10 darts
2 shortswords
2 cloaks of resistance +1
2 sets of thieves tools
2 brass masks worth 25 gold each
8 gold pieces
6 turquoise worth 10 gold each
Natron Fang sword
amulet of natual armor +1
5 jars of ancient honeyed wine
3 kegs of saffron worth 150 gold each
Tin bird with 3 bird feather tokens
Gems and jewelry worth 3,765 gold
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4-24-2016
Session 12
The Ruby Scarabs loaded their borrowed cart with all the items they had taken from the Silver Chain gang and their mysterious allies, and returned to the temple of Pharasma. On arriving they found that there were too many people there for them to find a place to store all of their items. They decided to go to the Tooth and Hookah, where several of the group had rooms, and leave the items there.
They found the inn's entrance blocked by several zombies and a large ooze, which was in the process of consuming a zombie. Kaa crept around to the rear of the inn to see if there was a back entrance, but found it had been boarded up from within. He spoke with someone inside, who told him the Tooth and Hookah was full of refugees, some of them injured, and that they were running low on food and the water supply had gone bad. The people inside were reluctant to let anyone else in, but indicated they would if the Scarabs could get rid of the creatures at the front door. While Kaa was convesing with the people inside the inn, Sula spotted three strange creatures with long clawed arms seemingly floating along a street nearby.
Kaa returned to the group to share his information with them. The Scarabs then decided to take shelter for the night inside the stable, not wanted to confront the zombies when they were weary and their magic was depleted. Unfortunately one of the zombies noticed them pushing the cart into the stable and followed them, and it was followed in turn by the ooze. The ooze had already attacked a second zombie, but it was evidently still hungry. Kaa directed his scorching flames at it, and the creature rushed at him with startling speed. The zombie also moved toward Kaa. Igby stepped up and slew the zombie. The ooze grabbed the fallen zombie and then reached for Kaa with its pseudopod. Azzaria sliced the ooze in half, but it reformed as two oozes. Sula imbued her club with the element of fire and struck the first ooze, while Igby borrowed Azzaria's mace to smash it. The first ooze died and dissolved into a puddle that seeped into the ground. Kaa sent another ray of scorching flame at the second ooze and it quickly followed its other half.
After the oozes were destroyed, two of the strange creatures Sula had seen earlier appeared. They stopped some distance away and seemed to be watching. After a moment they were joined by a third. Kaa called out to them in the tongue of the Abyss, telling them that they could find better meat elsewhere. The three creatures appeared to confer with one another for a short time, then drifted away.
The Scarabs persuaded the people within the Tooth and Hookah to admit them, but were obliged to leave much of their loot in the stable as there was no space for it inside. One man mentioned that some sort of "feral man" had attempted to talk his way into the inn earlier, while others told of being attacked by zombies. Igby cast healing spells on some of the injured people, several of whom had contracted ghoul fever. Sula examined the water and determined that something dead seemed to be contaminating it.
The next morning, members of one of the other adventuring groups at the inn agreed to escort some of the people back to their homes. The Scarabs lent them their cart to carry those who were unable to walk. Uto created water several times to supply the inn. The Scarabs themselves planned to go and investigate the well to see if they could purify the water supply.
When they reached the well, the Scarabs found a number of dismembered bodies that appeared to have been slain and partly eaten by zombies. Sula and Kaa both sensed something unusual in the area. There was a rustling sound, and suddenly Qasin the psychopomp reappeared. He praised them for rescuing Ptemenib, and in gratitude gifted them with a ushabti of the willing servant, which could summon an invisible servant. He also told them that the temple needed their help.
The Ruby Scarabs decided to complete their investigation at the well before returning to the temple of Pharasma. Uto discovered that the well had been poisoned, but could find no way within his power to remove the poison. The group headed back toward the temple, finding that there were a few merchants in the marketplace, though not many customers. When they arrived at the temple they found fewer people there than on the previous day. They were greeted by the armorer Minya the Whip, who had purchased Akhan-tepi's chariot at the auction. Minya expressed gratitude to them for rescuing Ptemenib, and presented them with a suit of mist mail. He also told them that should they visit his shop he would always offer them a 25% discount on his wares.
Igby was approached by Amber, one of the other members of the Four Lanterns, who told him that the rest of the group were going back to Andor with their leader Marcus, who had been traumatized by his encounters with the undead in the Necropolis. Before wishing Igby farewell, Amber gave him four spell scrolls, as well as a finely crafted dagger.
At the temple the Scarabs learned that there was trouble in the Asp district of Wati, though the information was second-hand and somewhat incomplete. The report said that some dog-like creatures were attacking zombies and the living alike. The group headed off to the Asp district to find out for themselves. As they entered the district they heard sounds of fighting, and found two somewhat dog-like beasts fighting with several zombies. As they watched, they saw one of these creatures bite into a zombie and seemingly pull the ka spirit from its body. Thought the creatures had canine bodies, their heads were the skulls of crocodiles. Uto recognized that these were esobok, another type of psychopomp, which came from Pharasman's plane and specialized in stripping the ka from those whose spirits were not whole, such as undead.
Because the esobok didn't seem to care whether their targets were living or undead, the Scarabs decided they were a menace and attacked. Uto tried speaking to them to discourage them, but one of the esobok charged Kaa. Kaa was able to stun it with his fists. Igby set his sword blade aflame and struck one of the creatures, which seemed vulnerable to the flames. Azzaria then killed it, and its body disappeared. The second esobok howled when its companion vanished, then pulled the ka from a zombie.
As Sula moved in to attack the second esobok, one of the zombies attacked her, wounding her. Azzaria, realizing by the first esobok's disappearance that it had been summoned by someone, shouted to get the attention of the summoner. No one responded. Sula bashed at the esobok with her club, which had little effect. Uto healed most of the damage the zombie had done to her, but the zombie hit her a second time doing even more injury. The esobok grabbed Igby and began trying to extract his ka. Seeing that her club was little use, Sula called on Nyema to attack the zombie, while Uto healed Sula again.
When the zombies and the second esobok were finally gone, the Scarabs realized that the zombies were all recent dead wearing symbols of the old god Maat, and all of them had had their left eyes torn out by a claw. One zombie wore the robes of an official of the court. The group decided to follow the direction of blood smears leading away from the spot where they had encountered the zombies.
The blood trail let them to the court of Maat. On the steps they met a living man whose left eye had been torn out. He fainted before he could tell them anything. They entered the courtroom to find the judge's seat occupied by a bloody skeleton wearing a fez. This skeleton greeted them, accusing them of contempt of court and challenging them to defend themselves against the charge. Skeletal bailiffs stepped forward to take them prisoner. Uto put himself forward to speak for the party, hoping that if he could convince the skeletal judge that he didn't belong there, he might leave without more bloodshed. He had recognized this judge as the infamous Sotenre, famed for his use of enucleation as punishment for defying the Pharaoh generations ago.
After Uto presented his arguments, Sotenre finally seemed to understand that his day was long past. The skeleton crumbed to dust, as did all the bailiffs who had been buried with him beneath the courtroom floor so long ago. Sotenre left behind only his fez and a magical circlet, but no one in the group could discover what the circlet's power was.
Once the court of Maat had been cleared of undead, the Scarabs escorted the injured man to his home and told him they would try to arrange for food and supplies to be delivered to his family. They then made their way back to the temple to report what they had seen. Along the way the met a group of Voices of the Spire, the militant arm of the church of Pharasma. After they told these people about the esoboks, it seemed that the Voices knew who might have summoned them, but would not say.
When the Scarabs arrived at the temple and told this story to the priests, they were taken to see high priestess Sebti the Crocodile, who was disturbed when she heard about the psychopomps. She called for the commander of the Voices of the Spire, Nakht Shepses, to join them. Shepses admitted he had summoned the creatures. He believed it was the best way to deal with the zombies, and if the esoboks killed a few innocents in the process, that was acceptable. He and Sebti had a heated argument, until finally another priest was forced to step in and remind them that they should stand together in this time of crisis.
Sebti then asked if the Ruby Scarabs would be willing to enter the Necropolis again to seek the source of the power raising the dead, as she believed it to still be within the walls of the dead city. Shepses sneered at this, and continued to insist that sending the esobok after the undead was a better solution. Finally he agreed that if the Scarabs could defeat a creature he summoned, they could enter the Necropolis. As they watched, he summoned another kind of psychopomp, a grey and sinister creature wielding a scythe.
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Unfortunately my notes for Session 13 are missing. The Ruby Scarabs handily defeated the psychopomp summoned by Nakht Shepses, and convinced the commander of the Voices of the Spire that they were capable of assisting in the battle against the undead. Sebti the Crocodile and Nakht Shepses then told the Scarabs about the Elegiac Compasses, devices for detecting necromantic energy. It was believed that there were still five of the devices functioning inside the Necropolis.
6.12.2016
Session 14
The Ruby Scarabs began preparations to re-enter the Necropolis through the secret passage created by the Silver Chain gang. There they would seek out the remaining Elegiac Compasses that Sebti the Crocodile had told them about.
Uto decided to sell Akhan-tepe's armor, sword, and shield that he had acquired after the auction. Kaa gave him the mist armor that the armorer had presented to the group after they rescued Ptemenib from the Silver Chain gang. Kaa also purchased a 9-ring sword from the same armorer, and Sula bought a better suit of leather lamellar armor than she previously had, as well as a specially reinforced wicker shield. Every member of the group received a distribution of 1,250 gold pieces from items sold.
Sebti had explained to the Scarabs that the Elegiac Compasses were large mechanical devices with rotating parts. There had been 30 of them when the Necropolis was newly created, and they were capable of detecting the largest source of necromantic energy within a range of approximately 3 miles. But now to the knowledge of the church of Pharasma, only 5 compasses remained within the walls of the city of the dead, though this information was not recent.
Nakht Shepses of the Voices of the Spire also told the Scarabs that there were 3 lamias residing within the Necropolis at the Cenotaph of the Cynic, which was a memorial for burials of those who followed no gods.
It was recommended that the Scarabs visit a group of darkfolk who were living in the Necropolis in the estate of Asatiti. The priests thought that the darkfolk might have more information about what was happening inside the Necropolis since they lived there. The darkfolk were friendly to Ptemenib, and since the Scarabs had aided one of their people they might get a warmer reception.
When the Ruby Scarabs were ready, they returned to the Silver Chain headquarters at the waterfront. There they found a recovered Bal-them in charge of the guards watching the location. She was unhappy to be there, but when Uto explained to her that she was not only watching the warehouse but making sure that no undead emerged from the tunnel, her discontent was relieved.
The group emerged from the end of the tunnel inside the walls of the Necropolis to find that part of the ceiling had collapsed, crushing the Elegiac Compass that had stood there for generations. A mass of snakes had found this spot conducive to sunbathing. Sula advised that there was no reason to bother the snakes since they weren't attacking, and the band continued on their way.
When they arrived in the area that had come to be known as the Ghoul Market, they glimpsed 4 ghouls that seemed to be focused on the door of a former shop. Curious as to what could have attracted the ghouls, they paused a moment for Uto to bless them and then attacked. Kaa hurled a rock to distract the ghouls, and Uto took to the air. Azzaria invoked her rage. Within a short time all 4 ghouls had been slain, and no one had suffered any ill effects from their touch, although Azzaria had received a scratch which Uto healed.
The door of the shop appeard to have been opened recently. Uto called out to anyone inside, and in response a voice shouted back, "Is this a trick?" The door opened, revealing a human woman. The Scarabs recognized her as Date Palm, one of the members of the adventuring group called the Sunrise Fellows, who had gone missing during the first week of exploration. Everyone had assumed they were dead. Her companions Worm and Oshwit were with her in the front room of the shop. The Scarabs observed that all 3 of them appeared uneasy with their visitors. They seemed unconcerned by the ghouls that had been trying to get in to slay them. They told the Scarabs that they had been busy researching, and that they had plenty of food and water. Azzaria asked them if they had see an Elegiac Compass, as there was supposed to be one very near to the shop. Oshwit drew something in the sand on the floor. Date Palm appeared increasingly anxious, and Oshwit and Worm exchanged glances as though they were signalling each other.
Kaa moved to look at what Oshwit had drawn, but realized he had started to move into the zone of a trap and quickly stepped back. Igby then cast bane. Oshwit pulled a lever and flames flared up near a table. Date Palm drew a knife and threw it at Kaa. At Sula's direction, Nyema leaped up on the table to claw at Date Palm. Oshwit also threw a knife at Kaa but missed, and Kaa responded with a scorching ray. Uto also turned on Oshwit. Azzaria followed Nyema's example by jumping on the table and flew into a rage, dropping Oshwit with a blow. Igby meanwhile faced off with Worm, while Date Palm drew a mace and tried to strike Sula. Worm moved toward a curtained doorway at the rear of the shop, striking Nyema as he passed. But Uto was using his magic to take part of the wound himself while healing his companions and most of her injury was cured.
Azzaria's attack caused Date Palm to collapse. Worm slipped through the curtain into the back. Kaa ran after him, checking for further traps. In a room beyond the curtain he found an alchemy lab, remains of mummies, and a cloaked figure. The figure demanded, "Why are you bothering us? Did the temple send you?" Kaa burned the mummy on the table with a scorching ray. Uto moved in to the alchemist's lab after Kaa, detecting a foul chemical odor in the area. Sula and Nyema followed him in, and Sula realized that the cloaked individual was a ghast and warned her friends. Azzaria and Igby joined them to combat the ghast.
Igby has summoned a flaming sword to fight the creature. Worm was still fighting the Scarabs, and managed to injure Nyema. The ghast sent a cone of flame at Igby, Kaa, and Uto, which Uto blocked with a stone shield. Oshwit had regained his feet and came to the aid of his companions, suffering a bite from Nyema. Sule shoved the table aside to gain better access to the ghast. Oshwit missed a blow at Nyema and collapsed again when she attacked him as he tried to get past her to obey the directions of the ghast. Kaa tried to strike the ghast with flurry of sword slashes. Uto's hair suddenly grew tremendously long and stretched out to use a healing wand on Azzaria. Sula jumped up on the table to gain higher ground and stabbed downward at the ghast, while Nyema bit him at the same time. Igby flanked with Sula's position, and it was his attack that finally carried the ghast into death.
Inside the alchemist's shop the Scarabs found the remains of the disassembled Elegiac Compass. Some of the parts were missing. They determined that the Sunrise Fellows had been using the lab to make the illegal drug mummia from mummies. They were actually members of a local drug-distribution gang known as the Fading, and had used the treasure-hunting event to gain access to more materials for their drugs. Among the items found on their bodies were armor, weapons, potions and vials of alchemical elixirs. The ghast proved to have a magical robe and pair of bracers, as well as an assortment of potions and a formulary.
Date Palm and Oshwit were still alive, and the Ruby Scarabs decided to take them back to Wati and turn them over to the temple of Pharasma for judgement. They blindfolded their captives to prevent them from seeing the tunnel, and avoided a group of 20 or so zombies that were roaming the Necropolis. At the warehouse they handed the prisoners over to Bal-themm. They also sent a message to the priests of Pharasma that two of the Elegiac Compasses that were thought to remain in the Necropolis had been destroyed.
Once everyone's hurts had been healed by wands or potions, they returned to the Necropolis and headed for the Marid's Carress, a bathhouse where the next compass was supposed to sit. The bathhouse's plumbing had leaked, turning it into a swamp. The compass there had been crushed by a collapsed wall. They found a few pieces among the rubble, including a large round lens of glass that radiated magic, although no one could determine what it was for beyond some type of divination.
After finding the third compass destroyed, the Scarabs decided to visit the darkfolk. They made their way to Asatiti's estate unmolested by undead. The darkfolk who met them outside were unfriendly until they mentioned Ptemenib. One of the darkfolk guards went to fetch their leader, Unwrapped Harmony. She asked the Scarabs to complete a task for her in exchange for information: her apprentice, Gaunt Cadaver, had left to form his own clan and had been experimenting with transforming his clan members into undead. The darkfolk were fascinated by mummies and mummification because when they died they simply vanished, leaving no remains. But Unwrapped Harmony felt that Gaunt Cadaver had gone too far in his exploration of undeath. She wanted the Ruby Scarabs to kill him and bring back a magic stone that he had ingested as proof. She requested that they avoid killing any of the other darkfolk if possible, and return them to her. The Scarabs agreed to this request. When they had finished eating a midday meal with the darkfolk, they set off for Kawab Villa to find Gaunt Cadaver.
Loot:
3 catching capes
3 potions - cure moderate wounds
3 potions - unknown
6 vials - alchemist's fire
6 bottles - holy water
3 masterwork heavy maces
3 sets of studded leather armor
3 sets of thieves' tools
3 onyx rings
9 gold pieces
6 vials of greenblood oil
robe of needles
alchemist's kit
alchemist's formula book
pair of magical bracers - unknown
3 potions - hide from undead
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6.26.2016
Session 15
At about noon, the Ruby Scarabs headed toward Kawab Villa to find Gaunt Cadaver and his followers. As they passed along a walled area, Uto heard sounds like rending flesh and cracking bones and became concerned that someone might be under attack. He levitated to see over the wall. Beyond it he observed a huge mass of flesh and bone that seemed to have been fused or stitched together somehow. Even more disturbing, it appeared that something was burrowing its way through this mass from underneath. That was the source of the noise he had heard. A very large vaguely dog-like creature emerged from the mass of body parts, covered in bits of flesh. At that point Uto decided that this creature, whatever it was, was too dangerous for the Ruby Scarabs to face and they quickly moved on toward their destination.
At Kawab Villa they found another partially ruined large house. Before they could approach it they had to pass through an overgrown outer courtyard with a broken fountain. Suddenly Kaa felt vibration from beneath his taloned feet. Before he could warn his companions, two insectoid creatures as large as horses burst through the earth, one beside him and the other next to Uto. The creature that emerged by Uto instantly grasped him in its pincers. Azzaria recognized the creatures as ankhegs and warned her comrades that they might spit acid.
Sula turned to smash the ankheg that had grabbed Uto with her club, while Kaa and Azzaria attacked the one nearest them. Kaa used his cloak of the crocodile to grow teeth and bite the ankheg when it tried to grapple him. It did not take long for the four companions to slay both creatures. Azzaria dealt both beasts the final blow. Once they were definitively dead Sula attempted to remove their acid sacs at Uto's request, but was unable to cut them free without rupturing them, though she avoided getting any acid on her skin. She also removed some plates of chitin from the carcasses, hoping to have it converted into a shield and armor.
The Scarabs worried briefly that there might be more ankhegs in the area, but Azzaria told them that such creatures ordinarily did not come in swarms like tiny insects and it was unlikely there were any more. Since the bodies hadn't vanished on death, they knew that no one had used magic to summon the ankhegs. They left the remains in the courtyard and approached the front entrance of the villa.
The villa had two doors, both of which were unlocked. Kaa went in first. He found a dank, smelly chamber set up as a dining area, which was littered with rubbish and rotting food. Inside he glimpsed 3 darkfolk near the table, one on each side and the third partly hidden beneath it. Kaa spoke to them in the common tongue, saying, "We come from Unwrapped Harmony," but they didn't respond. When he moved closer to them, the pair on either side of the table called to each other in a language he didn't understand and rushed at him, drawing knives. One of them shouted in common, "Don't let them steal our secrets!"
Uto entered the chamber and put one of the darkfolk to sleep with a spell. Abruptly the entire room fell into impenetrable darkness, leaving everyone but Uto blind. Kaa drew out his ioun stone of continual light, but it was not enough to penetrate the darkness. Azzaria smashed a window, letting weak illumination into the room, though it didn't extend far enough for anyone to see the darkfolk or even each other. Sula and Nyema tried to move up to Kaa's side, and Nyema was able to smell one of the darkfolk nearby but couldn't find him to bite him. One of the darkfolk sliced Kaa and he felt the burning of poison in the wound. The darkfolk Uto had put to sleep awoke again, though Uto was still the only one who could actually observe this.
In the darkness Sula heard Nyema grunt in pain when one of the darkfolk stabbed her twice. A scuffling sound on wood indicated that one of them had jumped onto the table. Sula swept that area with her spear point but couldn't make contact with her target. Nyema also unsuccessfully snapped at the darkfolk. Since Unwrapped Harmony had asked that the other folk besides Gaunt Cadaver be returned safely, Uto attempted to stun one of them with a blow of his fist. He also activated his healing on behalf of his friends. Azzaria managed to land a strike on one of the 3 darkfolk and knocked him unconscious, and Nyema brought another one down.
It was a long struggle to subdue the 3 darkfolk in the pitch black, but when they had all been rendered unconscious and healed so that they would survive, Uto shaped the stone of the wall to hold them while the Scarabs explored the rest of the villa. He gave Azzaria and Kaa each a healing potion to use if they needed it. At that point both Azzaria and Sula suddenly remembered that they were carrying potions that would have allowed them to see in the dark, much to their embarrassment. Since the effects of the potions would last for some time, they decided to drink them right away in case any more darkfolk used their innate darkness ability in other parts of the villa. This left only Kaa still unable to see in the dark, as he had no potion and no one could cast a spell on him.
The Scarabs healed some of their wounds, then searched the chamber they were in. They found some lapis lazuli and gold jewelry worth 500 gold pieces amid the rubbish, as well as 4 fine quality crossbow bolts. In a side room beneath a loose stone, Uto discovered 3 potions, 2 of them curatives. He gave one curative to Sula and kept the other for himself. The third potion went to Kaa.
As they moved on beyond the first chamber, they were surprised to find the corpses of three darkfolk. All had died of the same wound near the heart, apparently as part of a necromantic ritual that had occurred within the past week.
After finding the darkfolk bodies, they came to a heavy locked door. It had no enchantments or traps on it. Kaa listened and heard the sound of chanting voices coming from beyond it, though he couldn't understand what they chanted. Before he opened the door, Uto blessed everyone, Sula armored her skin with magical bark, and cast a spell on Nyema's teeth and claws to sharpen them.
As soon as they entered the room they all smelled a sour scent. The room appeared to be a kitchen that had been converted into a combination laboratory and surgery. There were other doors leading out of the kitchen. On a table at one end of the kitchen they saw a figure that was in the midst of being operated upon by a small person swathed in dark robes who they suspected was Gaunt Cadaver. Three other darkfolk in the room all appeared to be undead. Gaunt Cadaver screeched, "Intruders! Kill them!" and the 3 darkfolk rushed out toward the Scarabs. Part of the room fell into darkness.
Uto had been the first to actually enter the room. He was cut by a poisoned knife wielded by one of the undead darkfolk. There was a second table sitting haphazardly in the middle of the room, and Azzaria jumped onto its top. The three undead were zombies, but they moved much more quickly that ordinary zombies. Azzaria realized that they were a special variety that might explode and release negative energy on being slain.
While the Scarabs fought with the 3 zombies, Gaunt Cadaver cast a spell and a spectral hand appeared. Azzaria recognized that he had cast a cold spell and would be able to use the hand to deliver the spell to his targets. He called out something, which Uto was able to understand via magic as, "Strike and pull back!" He warned his companions that the zombies were being given instructions. Knowing that zombies were usually resistant to anything but slashing weapons, Sula activated the magic of her spear so she could overcome their resistance to other types of damage.
Then Uto channeled positive energy to harm the zombies, and all 3 exploded, sending out a wave of negative energy that affected everyone except Kaa. The subject on the makeshift operating table also died, but when it exploded it caused a flare of brilliant light that left Azzaria dazed. Uto channeled again to heal his comrades, but was unable to exclude Gaunt Cadaver from receiving the benefit of his magic.
When Azzaria recovered from being momentarily dazed, she attacked Gaunt Cadaver. Kaa and Uto joined her. It was Uto's blow that caused him to fall. Azzaria then cut off his head to be sure he was dead. At that point he too exploded in a burst of light, leaving Azzaria, Sula, and Uto blind for a few moments.
Once everyone had recovered their sight, they searched the kitchen. The found 3 daggers, a kukri, a spell scroll, a quality buckler, a healer's kit, surgeon's tools, 3 doses of black smear poison, a bolt of Qadiran silk worth, 3 pounds of giant bee royal jelly, 20 ivory ushabti figurines, a pair of gold and onyx earrings and a matching necklace, a lapis bracelet, and a cache of gold, silver, and copper coins.
Having assured themselves there was nothing else to find in the kitchen, the Scarabs opened the door to what they assumed was the villa's central atrium. It was locked and Kaa unfastened it. In the atrium he saw a broken fountain still spurting silt and water, but he was immediately confronted by a large clearly undead creature that appeared to be made of parts from many corpses stitched together. Kaa responded by directing a blast of fire at it, which seemed to slow its movements.
Sula then stepped forward and charged her spear with elemental energy to attack it, but she chose to use electricity rather than fire. To her dismay this negated the effect of Kaa's flames and allowed the creature to move much faster. It slammed her with both of its mismatched fists. Uto healed her of some of the damage and drank a potion to recover from the injuries that effort did to him. Sula tried to attack the creature again, but its stench nauseated her so she could only stumble backward a few steps. Nyema refused to approach it. The creature, which was some sort of golem, followed Sula when she moved and struck her again. Kaa scorched it a second time and it slowed down. Sula raised her shield to defend herself, finding herself recovered from the effect of its horrible odor. Azzaria then struck it a massive blow and it fell in a heap.
The Ruby Scarabs returned to the Asatiti estate and showed the stone they had recovered from Gaunt Cadaver's remains to Unwrapped Harmony. They took the three surviving darkfolk captives with them. The stone they had found proved to be magical; Unwrapped Harmony told them it could prevent the bearer from suffering harm when dealt injuries by certain types of precision attacks, but in order to do so the bearer had to swallow it. Since the stone was the size of a small apple, was unusually heavy for its size, and was only usable once, it hardly seemed worth the discomfort of doing so. Unwrapped Harmony had only wanted the stone as proof of Gaunt Cadaver's demise, so she gave it to the Scarabs as part of their reward.
She also informed them that one of Gaunt Cadaver's followers had seen a figure wearing a gold mask with a long chin, who was arguing with a brass cage. This person had dropped a tattered star chart, which had been recovered and which Unwrapped Harmony now presented to the adventurers. The chart was too damaged to tell what its original purpose had been, but it showed the night sky of summer over Wati.
After they left Kawab Villa, Uto had detected that the golem had inflicted filth fever on Sula. Kaa also wanted to learn more of the darkfolk language, so the party asked if they could stay overnight at the Asatiti estate. This would allow both Uto and Sula to prepare remove disease spells the next day. Unwrapped Harmony agreed and told them they could stay in one of the outbuildings, if they would explain the purpose of the building to the darkfolk.
Loot:
lapis lazuli & gold jewelry (500 gold)
4 fine quality crossbow bolts
2 potions of cure moderate wounds
potion of blur
3 daggers
kukri
scroll of speak with dead
quality buckler
healer's kit
surgeon's tools
3 doses of black smear poison
bolt of Qadiran silk (400 gold)
3 lbs giant bee royal jelly (300 gold)
20 ivory ushabti figurines (15 gold each)
gold & onyx earrings (100 gold) & matching necklace (250)
lapis bracelet (50 gold)
240 gold coins
345 silver coins
75 copper pieces
magic stone
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12.4.2016
Session 16
Before departing from Kawab Villa the next day, the Ruby Scarabs realized that their next option to get more information would be to visit the Anushet, the trio of lamia sister living in the Cenotaph of the Cynic. They needed to know if the three lamias knew anything about who was causing the dead to rise, or who the gold-masked figures the Darkfolk had seen might be. It was even possible that the lamias themselves were responsible for the increase in undead activity inside the Necropolis.
Sula and Uto both prepared spells that morning to allow them to relieve the effects of filth fever from Sula and Kaa. Once they had taken care of this, they set off for the location of the next Elegiac Compass that they had yet to check. They decided to avoid encounters with any undead if possible. Their map of the compass locations took them to an unknown building, which was marked with the symbols of Pharasma and of House Matya.
Once they had entered the building, Kaa spotted a trap door in the floor. There were signs that someone had tried to pry it open. The trap door led down into a small but well-appointed burial chamber. Next to a wooden sarcophagus stood the remnants of the Elegiac Compass, but all of the useful parts had been removed. Signs in the tomb chamber made the Scarabs think that the removal had been done recently. Disappointed, the group decided to investigate the sarcophagus. It proved to be trapped with a device that would emit a ball of fire on being triggered, but Kaa disabled it. Within the sarcophagus lay the well-preserved mummy of a man. He had clearly been preserved with magic to prevent him from rising from the dead. After examining him briefly, the group restored the sarcophagus lid. Uto took a few white hairs to make a wax fetish of the man who lay there.
When they had left House Matya behind, the Scarabs headed for the Cenotaph of the Cynic. This structure proved to be a large, impressive building with a domed roof. It had been built as a memorial for those who had died during the madness, but had been repurposed as a resting place for people who worshipped no gods. Some of the symbols of the gods decorating the building had been defaced.
The front of the building had two sets of doors. Kaa tried the first set on the right, but was unable to unlock them. The left-hand doors proved easier to open. The chamber beyond the doors had once held four pillars, but one of them had fallen. It also held an extremely large cobra, which raised up and flared its hood at them. Its hood had been decorated with gold rings inserted through piercings along the edges, indicating that the snake was a pet or sentry. The Scarabs had no desire to antagonize the Anushet, so Sula ordered Nyema to stay outside while she stepped into the room and tried to persuade the cobra to let them alone. She was able to convince the emperor cobra that not only should it ignore the Scarabs, but it should also slither over to one side of the room so they could enter without getting too close to it.
The cobra watched them as they proceeded toward the next set of doors, but it made no move toward them. The next doors were neither locked nor trapped, and admitted them to a narrow curving hallway lined with many doors. These doors opened on small alcoves in which many bodies in various states of mummification had been stacked. A little farther down the hallway Kaa found a larger room that was lined with cushions and shelves of books, and emitted a strong odor of perfume that could only partly mask an underlying animal scent. But the room was not currently occupied.
Not far from the doors that had admitted them to the hallway was another set of doors, in the opposite wall from the mummy alcoves. Nyema alerted that she detected something on the other side of those doors, as she and Sula were standing right in front of them. Suddenly one of the doors flew open, revealing a large circular chamber containing two very large lions, and an angry human man. The man appeared to be wearing the armor of the city guard, but it fit him poorly. He began to insist that the Scarabs should leave immediately. Then one of the lions pounced at Nyema.
Uto immediately cast a spell, causing the man to slump to the floor in slumber. The lion’s attack had hurt Nyema badly, so Sula stepped in front of her companion and raised her spear. Kaa darted inside the circular chamber and maneuvered himself so that he could blast one lion from behind with fire. The lion turned to face its attacker. Uto had linked his own life force with those of his comrades and absorbed some of the injury done to them by the lions. Azzaria’s body began to appear blurred as she moved to attack the lion that Kaa had burned, while Igby and Sula faced the second lion. Within a few moments both lions had fallen to the Scarabs’ blows. Still reluctant to rouse the ire of the lamias, Sula used her magic to prevent both lions from breathing their last breath.
The room in which the Ruby Scarabs now found themselves was full of objects: books, cushions, tapestries, clockwork devices, trinkets and jewels. Uto went to check the man he had put to sleep and found that some strong enchantment lay upon him, likely placed there by one of the Anushet, as the Scarabs had been told that the lamias sometimes took paramours from among the male population of Wati. A moment later the man awoke and began shouting for his ‘beloved’ Hepsushep, but no one responded to his cries. Igby slapped him and told him to be quiet and tell the party where the lamias were.
At one side of the room was a semi-circular raised platform, separated by its own door. Kaa stepped up to this platform, and after politely knocking as he’d done at all of the other doors, he opened it. Inside he saw a dais covered with cushions, on which sat a lamia. She seemed unperturbed by the sudden intrusion. Uto stepped forward, addressing the lamia courteously and telling her that the Scarabs had no desire to offend her and pointing out that they had spared the lives of the lions and her paramour when attacked by them. She reacted with a friendly attitude, commenting that she was growing bored with Tarek, her current paramour, and indicating that she thought Uto might be a suitable replacement. Uto responded that he wasn’t opposed to that idea as long as the decision was his own to make and he could finish his mission to stop the rise of the undead first. When Hepsushep agreed to provide what information she could in exchange for a gift, the party members readily agreed to give her the bolt of Qadiran silk they had recently acquired.
As he was conversing with Hepsushep, Uto suddenly realized that the figure he addressed was an illusion. Inside the chamber where the illusion sat was an iron stair leading up to an enclosed balcony. He suspected the real Hepsushep was inside. He did not give away what he had discovered and continued speaking to the illusion as though he thought it real. Hepsushep told the Scarabs that she knew nothing about the masked figures the Darkfolk had seen, nor the Elegiac Compasses, though she showed interest when told the compasses were clockwork. Uto then offered to fully heal the two lions, but Hepsushep declined the offer. Azzaria spoke up, offering any aid the Ruby Scarabs could offer to the Anushet, after which Hepsushep told the group to take a tome on the history of Wati that she thought might be of use to them. She also mentioned that her sisters were out hunting, and the group unanimously decided that they did not need to wait to meet the other two lamias.
After the Scarabs took their leave of Hepsushep, they turned their steps in the direction of the last unexamined Elegiac Compass. According to the map they had been given, it stood near a shop that had once sold glassware, by the name of Shiny Baubles. They found the shop long since looted, broken bits of its wares scattered in the street outside. Kaa was distracted by trying to pick up some of the glass bits. While Kaa was busy, Uto glimpsed a cracked wall at about the spot where the compass was meant to be, and he magically levitated himself to get a better look. Through the crack in the wall he saw something that might be the compass. He also observed that while there were some buildings next to the glassware shop, behind it was an empty space.
The shop was still structurally sound enough that Azzaria could climb the ladder up to the roof and look down into the small walled enclosure. The rest of the group climbed up to join her. Inside the walled area stood the final Elegiac Compass, its mechanism stil intact but its power supply crystal missing. There was evidence that something else had been on the rooftop recently: they spotted tracks that looked like the tracks of a dragon, but they were no bigger than the prints of a large dog. It was possible they were the tracks of a drake, but as drakes were not intelligent creatures, Sula wondered if it might have been a juvenile dragon.
Looking down beyond the compass enclosure, the Scarabs saw that a sinkhole had opened up in the ground. They could see a bit of bright blue silk scattered with coins at the bottom. Curious what might lie at the bottom of the sinkhole and hopeful that they would find the missing crystal there, the group climbed down into the depression. Uto used his prehensile hair to lift Nyema down while he himself flew into the pit. At the bottom he saw what clearly appeared to be a dragon's hoard: jewelry, armor, weapons, potions, vials of perfume, coins, goblets and serving dishes of silver, and many other treasures. Suddenly a feminine voice exclaimed, "Who dares despoil my lair?" The Scarabs all turned to look and found themselves staring at a young dragon, its body covered in glittering crystalline scales.
Uto attempted to speak diplomatically to the dragon, but she was possessive of her hoard and hostile toward the uninvited visitors. As she and Uto were talking, Kaa noticed a large crystal almost entirely encased in copper wire and realized that it must be the power source for the compass. The dragon spied him looking at it, and hoping to improve her hoard, offered to sell the crystal in exchange for gems or jewels worth at least 800 gold pieces. As it happened, the Scarabs had come into possession of some gold and lapis jewelry and a matching necklace and earrings of gold and onyx which had a combined value close to what the dragon demanded. When they offered these to her, she seemed pleased to accept them in exchange for the power crystal. This trade improved her attitude toward the Scarabs enough that she told them her name, Shardizad, and even offered to sell them other items from her hoard if they would bring her more gems.
When the Ruby Scarabs climbed back up to the compass enclosure, they began the task of trying to reconnect the crystal to the compass mechanism. Because they were not familiar with the workings of the compasses, this took some time. Kaa was standing watch near the ladder on the shop roof as dusk fell, while Sula and Uto were working on attaching the crystal. Kaa heard something moving on the ladder below. Something was climbing up to the roof. As the figure rose high enough for him to see, Kaa was startled to recognize Velriana Hypaxis, leader of the Scorched Hand, for he knew she had died in the underground chamber beneath the temple of Nethys. She was clearly undead now.
Just as Velriana climbed up the ladder, Sula and Uto got the compass working. A light shone out from it, in the direction of the ancient sealed gate that once had led out of the Necropolis. But it was too dark to tell precisely what location the compass was pointing to. Then the undead Velriana let out a horrific shriek. Kaa cowered helplessly in response to her awful scream. The rest of the Scarabs managed to escape the worst effect of this shriek. Sula sent a sphere of flame to burn the undead woman, while Uto blessed everyone with the power of the gods. Azzaria recognized that Velriana had beecome a revenant, a particularly vicious type of undead that would not rest until it had exacted revenge for its own death.
It was Velriana's misfortune that she didn't know which of the Scarabs had actually dealt her the final blow in the temple. Now all of the Scarabs but Kaa swarmed on her, and after a moment he recovered his composure and joined them. Within a very short time Velriana Hypaxis had died a second, final death.
The Scarabs examined her body and were surprised to find that whle she was waiting for an opportunity to exact vengeance she must also have been looting the Necropolis. She wore a magic belt that could transform into almost any variety of slashing weapon, as well as six gold bracelets, a gold necklace set with smoky quartz, and a ruby diadem. Perhaps the diadem was meant to replace the showy hat she had worn in life, which Kaa had claimed after her death.
As it was fully dark by this time, the Scarabs decided to leave the Necropolis through the smugglers' tunnel and rest beyond its walls for the night. In the morning they would return and determine what building the compass pointed to.
Loot
Tome of history
Blade belt
6 gold bracelets
gold and smoky topaz necklace
gold and ruby diadem
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01.01.2017
Session 17
Character level: 6th
Igby’s player absent
The Ruby Scarabs departed from the Necropolis via the smugglers’ tunnel and returned to the Grand Mausoleum in Wati, where they told the priests of Pharasma about the condition of the Elegiac Compasses. In return, the priests gave them information about various locations which lay along the line that the lone active Compass had pointed toward. Some of these locations overlapped with places where the Darkfolk had observed the golden-masked strangers. The list of places included the following:
• The Archives of the Ibis
• The Temple of the Risen Osiris
• The Ghoul Market
• The Tomb of Maatya
• The Woven Reed
• The Pyramid of Arithmetic Bliss
• The Dust Parlor
• The Observatory of Truth and Wisdom
Sula took the opportunity to hand the ankheg chitin she had been carrying over to an armorer and ask him to craft her armor and a shield from it. She also spent some time in the form of a young lioness, getting accustomed to her new ability. She claimed six gold bracelets from the items the group had acquired in the Necropolis. Because Uto had newly developed the ability to clothe himself in magical armor, it was decided that the magical mail he had been wearing would be sold, and part of the proceeds used to purchase a curative wand from the temple. The party members each bought vials of antitoxin and anti-plague preparations as well, and some members picked up bottles of alchemist’s fire.
On the following day, the Scarabs returned to the Necropolis, but they decided not to go back through the tunnel. They wanted to save their energy and spells for other foes rather than fighting the crowd of undead at the main entrance, so they made the choice to walk around the outside of the Necropolis walls to the gate on the far side and climb over the wall, aided by Uto’s levitation and ropes. A harness was prepared to allow them to lift Nyema over the wall, though the lioness clearly didn’t enjoy the experience.
They had already been to the Ghoul Market and the tomb of Maatya and crossed those off their list. They decided to investigate the Pyramid of Arithmetic Bliss first. The list of places where the masked cultists had been seen and the list provided by the temple of Pharasma both included this place, and it was a possible location from which the star chart the Darkfolk had found might have come. They Pyramid proved not to be an actual pyramid; it was the former headquarters of a stonemason’s guild, and the roof of the building was in the form of a pyramid. The Scarabs found that there were several small outbuildings that showed signs of having been broken open from inside. These were the burial places of those who had died at the Pyramid during the time of madness. But the undead that had escaped their tombs were not lingering around the main building. They had apparently all wandered off to join the gathering by the main gate between the Necropolis and Wati.
The Scarabs searched the grounds around the building, but the only thing of significance they found was footprints of shod feed leading in and out of the entrance to the grounds. These had been partially obscured later by the prints of the risen dead, so it seemed that if the cultists had come here, they had since departed. As the group prepared to enter the main structure, Kaa checked the porch for traps but found none. The doors were also unlocked. Inside the building they saw a long corridor lined with niches. They also heard whispering voices that seemed to be raving like madmen.
There were scrolls and scraps of papyrus scattered everywhere, which excited Uto. He began using his prehensile hair to pick them up. As the party made their way down the corridor to a large chamber centered around a stone table, two ghostly dark figures appeared. These were the source of the mad ravings the party members had heard. They were quickly identified as allips, and Uto warned everyone to avoid being touched by the things lest they begin muttering insane ravings too. One of the allips was swiftly dispatched by Kaa, while the combined attacks of Uto, Azzaria, and Kaa eliminated the second. After their enemies had been destroyed, Uto used a wand to treat Kaa and Sula, who had both suffered the caresses of the allips.
The large chamber appeared to be a hall of records and workshop. The remains of a campsite had been left behind there, and Uto suspected that the visitors had been searching for something, hence the scattered scrolls and papers everywhere. There were also several sarcophagi lining the room, interring more of the victims of the madness. It was very dark in the area, so Igby summoned a light. Then the group heard shuffling sounds, and Kaa spied a mummy approaching.
Azzaria heard more noises and went to investigate, discovering that a second mummy had arrived. Azzaria reminded her companions that they were vulnerable to fire, but Uto pleaded with his comrades not to use fire against them for fear it would damage the ancient documents the shaman was attempting to collect. To his great dismay, his companions ignored him. Kaa scorched one of the mummies with a ray of fire, while Sula sheathed her spear in flames to stab at a mummy. Uto called water to pour over the flames and sent out a wave of positive energy to aid his friends. One mummy exploded when Sula slashed it with her spear. When it was gone she ran to help Azzaria fight the second mummy. But Azzaria hardly needed the assistance and made short work of the other mummy.
With the mummies gone, the Scarabs returned to examining the remnants of the camp. It showed evidence that four to six people had stayed there briefly while they searched. It had been abandoned only a few days ago. In an open sarcophagus the group found five falchions of high quality. They also discovered a magical ring that had been left behind in the campsite. A corpse wearing a golden mask was found nearby, which still had in its possession a pouch full of spell components and three turquoise stones.
Once Uto was satisfied that he had gathered up all the documents that he could, the Scarabs decided to depart from the Pyramid of Arithmetic Bliss and go next to the Observatory of Truth and Wisdom.
The Observatory was a single-story building with an attached tower that stood three stories tall. It was dedicated to the ancient gods Maat and Thoth. On entering the building the party quickly found star charts similar to the one the Darkfolk had given them. As they examined the entry chamber, which had been inscribed with the tenets of Pharasma’s faith, Uto suddenly realized that a key portion was missing – not removed or defaced, but simply omitted. This seemed very odd to him. While he was looking at this, the other members of the group realized there was a door in the center of the floor, in the middle of the spiral emblem of Pharasma. Kaa could find no mechanism to open it. Uto had a moment of inspiration and recited the missing phrase out loud. Then the trapdoor opened, revealing a spiral staircase descending into darkness.
Before they descended, the members of the Scarabs swallowed the anti-plague potions they had purchased in Wati. Sula also armored herself with bark-like skin, and Uto surrounded himself with his new armor, which took the form of spirits swirling around him to defend him from harm. The stairs led them down into a pillared room occupied by a reflecting pool and jackal-headed statues. Enchanted lights that never dimmed kept the room bright. On the opposite side of the room were four sets of bronze doors. The reflecting pool was murky, but proved to contain a number of silver rods that had perhaps been placed there to purify it. Kaa used a spell from his gloves to lift several of them out, then Uto summoned his invisible servant to attend to that task. Uto also detected two magical objects in the pool. These proved to be a pair of bronze armbands.
Kaa then checked the bronze doors and found no locks or traps. He opened one door in the center, which revealed that what lay beyond was a large chamber with a very high ceiling, its walls lined with curtained alcoves. In the center of the chamber stood an altar that had clearly been desecrated, as it was covered with stains and residue of something unpleasant. There were also a number of zombies chained to the walls, as well as a dozen zombies roaming freely that immediately headed for the open door.
The Ruby Scarabs quickly decided that they would not open any of the other doors and would stand their ground in front of the door Kaa had opened. They hoped this plan would allow them to eliminate the zombies one by one. Uto sent a wave of positive energy through the doorway, destroying many zombies at once. But then the party members heard movement on the stairs behind them. A group of masked cultists had appeared. Sula turned and lobbed a handful of flames at one of the cultists. Uto used his hair to eliminate the last zombie, then shut the door and turned to join his companions in facing the cultists. Azzaria heard singing coming from the top of the stairs and suggested that Sula send Nyema up to attack the singer, but Sula was reluctant to send her companion out of her line of sight. The cultist Sula had burned sent a cone of fire at Azzaria, revealing that the cultists were also magic-users. Two of the other cultists sheathed their hands in lightning and one of them moved toward Azzaria, quickly followed by the other. Azzaria swung her weapon and one of the two fell.
Sula heard someone reciting the words of a spell to summon another creature into the chamber. The voice seemed to be coming from an alcove under the staircase. She warned her comrades. Azzaria moved into the alcove and swung at the unseen spellcaster, managing to hit the person and causing the spell to fail. Uto knocked another cultist unconscious and that person fell into the reflecting pool. The unseen spellcaster tried to afflict Azzaria with uncontrollable laughter, but failed. Then another person appeared. At the same time Kaa eliminated two of the cultists. Sula aimed her flames at the woman under the stairs. The cultist who had fallen into the pool stood up, and Nyema promptly afflicted a fatal wound on him with her teeth. Azzaria then became enraged and directed her fury at the unseen woman by the stair, who she realized had also been the singer up above. The woman’s invisibility faded, and Uto grabbed her with his hair, intending to make her prisoner and question her about the cult’s intentions. She attempted to cast another spell from within the binding of hair but was unsuccessful.
With the woman taken captive, the fight was over. Three of the other cultists were severely wounded, and one was dead. Uto used his magic to prevent the wounded people from bleeding to death. Afterward the Scarabs searched them and removed all of the belongings, finding that each one carried the same equipment: a dagger, five darts, a shortsword, a magical cloak, thieves’ tools, a brass mask, several turquoises, and a small amount of coin. They also had five magical scrolls containing the same spell, five vials of poison, and five magic potions with the same effect.
The woman they had taken captive had a different variety of objects in her possession indicating that she might have been the leader of the small group, or at least a person of greater status. She had a scroll of a different spell, a wand, a set of magical leather armor, a buckler, a dagger, a fine quality sickle, a magical tome, two lapis bracelets, a mask of gold rather than brass, and a larger quantity of coin. When questioned she was reluctant to speak, but she did mention the Sky Pharaoh, and enough to make it apparent that the cultists were trying to find a mask. The Ruby Scarabs realized that more than one group of people appeared to be pursuing the same mask – perhaps the mask that had been taken from the hidden room beneath the Sanctum of the Erudite Eye. But they still did not know why these groups desired the mask, or who the other group were.
After the woman was questioned, Uto took one of the scrolls her companions had carried and used it to send a message to the priests of Pharasma in Wati, telling them briefly what had transpired. Afterward the Scarabs bound their prisoners, intending to leave them in the reflecting pool chamber while they explored the desecrated temple further.
Loot:
5 masterwork falchions
Spell component pouch
Several silver rods
Ring of feather fall
Bracers of armor +1
5 daggers
20 darts
4 shortswords
5 brass masks
4 cloaks of resistance +1
4 sets of thieves’ tools
15 turquoise gemstones
4 scrolls of whispering wind
5 potions of undetectable alignment
5 vials of taggit poison
33 gold pieces
Gold mask 50gp
Masterwork sickle
Potion of cure light wounds
Scroll of expeditious retreat
Wand of invisibility, 11 charges
+1 studded leather armor
+1 buckler
Tome of lesser extended summoning (evil)
2 lapis lazuli bracelets 35gp
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01.22.2017
Session 18
Character level: 6th
The Ruby Scarabs continued their exploration of the subterranean parts of the Observatory of Truth and Wisdom by examining the altar in the center of the room where the chained zombies stood. They had already seen that the altar had been desecrated by having unidentified foul substances smeared on it. But they were able to discern that underneath the filth the altar was dedicated to Pharasma, and had a silver disc bearing the seal of House Shepses inset into its surface.
Kaa examined the altar for hidden panels and found one, which opened a compartment containing a light wooden shield. When Uto checked the shield for magical properties, he found that it had a leather strip on the back that could be used to inscribe a single spell. After a short discussion, it was decided that for the present Sula should take the shield, although it probably belonged to House Shepses and the Scarabs planned to show it to Nakht Shepses when they returned to the Grand Mausoleum in Wati.
There were no secret buttons or levers on the altar and Kaa found no other hidden compartments. The members of the Scarabs conferred and determined that they could remove the desecration of the altar by cleaning away the grime. It was Uto’s idea to use water from the sanctified reflecting pool in the next room. Once the altar had been washed clean of the muck, everyone felt a sense of relief and the chained zombies all collapsed, robbed of the life force that had unnaturally sustained them. Uto detected no other magic in the chamber besides that the party members themselves carried. Having completed their examination of the altar room, the Scarabs decided to continue on through the bronze doors on the opposite side of the chamber.
As was customary, Kaa checked the doors for traps. The doors themselves were not trapped or locked, but when he stepped into the short hallway beyond them, the tengu monk realized that it contained a plate in the floor which would cause a section of the ceiling to collapse when triggered. There was nothing else in the hallway but a robed statue. Kaa disabled the floor plate so the rest of the group could enter. Beyond the short hallway there was a larger corridor running parallel to it, which turned sharp corners to the left and right so that what lay beyond was not visible from the entryway. Two doorways faced the party from the wall opposite the trapped entrance. Kaa went for the door to his left, and found it held no traps. He decided to check all of the other doorways down the left-hand corridor as well and those also proved not to be trapped. While he was examining all the doors, the party heard a voice that seemed to be chanting or babbling, though they couldn’t make out the words.
When Kaa returned, he opened the left-hand door he had checked first. It revealed a room full of shelves with small labeled compartments and a single heavy table. But the attention of the Scarabs was immediately drawn to the presence of three armed and armored animated skeletons, and an animated severed head of an old woman that was enclosed in a cage. As soon as the head spied them it screeched, “Living! Living! Kill them!” and the skeletons moved to attack the Ruby Scarabs. The head also began to chant the words of a spell, which Uto realized was meant to blind or deafen the target. Fortunately its victim, Kaa, was able to resist the full force of the magic, though he was disoriented by the after-effect of the spell. One of the skeletons grasped a chain that was attached to the cage holding the head and began to swing the cage as an improvised flail, though this did little to disrupt the head’s spellcasting. The party members discovered that the head’s vicious glare had a dismaying effect, but they were able to overcome it and continue fighting the skeletons. Nyema bit into the skeleton that stood furthest from the head. The head cast another spell, and Kaa stopped moving. Uto channeled positive energy to injure the head, and at the same moment Azzaria’s adamantine flail shattered one skeleton and it crumbled to the floor. Sula then stepped behind the immobilized Kaa and maneuvered him out of the way. Igby and Azzaria attacked the skeleton that was not holding the cage and disposed of it. Now only the head and the skeleton holding it remained.
The old woman’s head attempted to cause Azzaria to attack her own comrades but failed. Azzaria, Igby, and Nyema surrounded the skeleton grasping the chain, and Sula climbed onto the table to attack it from the other side. The head directed a spell at Uto, but in response he destroyed the skeleton that held the chain. The caged head fell to the floor, but somehow the head was still able to move by rolling about. Azzaria dropped her flail and drew both of her other weapons to attack the cage. Sula could not reach the cage from her vantage on the table, so she kicked the chair out of the way and jumped to the floor to strike at it with her club. Uto made an effort to sunder the cage so that the group could more easily access the vile head. Sula grabbed for the chain to control it but missed her grip. Nyema managed to claw the head through the cage. The head in the meantime continued spellcasting and finally succeeded in robbing Igby of his sight.
Uto cast a healing spell at the head, which he knew would injure it. At the same time, Kaa, who had recovered from the spell that had affected him, attacked the head and destroyed it. With the head and its minions out of the way, the Scarabs could now examine the room. It resembled a Catalog of Last Days such as would be found in the Grand Mausoleum of Pharasma, but this one was a catalog of births, marriages, and other joyous occasions instead of deaths. To their surprise, they found that the information was still being kept current! Kaa found his own birth recorded there, though to his disappointment it did not include the name of his unknown father. It seemed that someone of the Shepses family was coming to the Necropolis to maintain the records. While they looked around the room, the Scarabs also noticed that the skeleton that had been holding the head had ink stains on its finger bones. There were numerous scribbled notes on the table. Uto looked at the notes and realized that the old woman’s head had been dictating and the skeleton had scribed the notes for her.
The notes told that the woman’s name in life had been Neferekhu and she had been a seer. She had experienced visions of the cursed Mask of the Forgotten Pharaoh. Her grandson Nebtah Khufre had become extremely interested in these visions. It seemed likely that her grandson had become proficient in necromancy and had reanimated his grandmother’s head when she died. Neferekhu’s tale told that Nebtah Khufre had been banished from Wati’s sister town of Tephu and had come to Wati. She also mentioned that her grandson had a shadowy mentor, a creature she believed had come from another plane of existence.
Other than Neferekhu’s notes, there was nothing of value in the Catalog of Days, so the Ruby Scarabs decided to move on to the doorways down the left side corridor. The first door they opened admitted them to a room lined with sarcophagi and full of food and other offerings for the dead. But as soon as they opened the door, an undead creature rushed toward them, one they recognized as something called a festrog. It charged Uto, who created a magical stone shield to protect himself. Another door down the hallway opened and several more festrogs spilled out, rushing to attack the Scarabs. One of them clawed and bit Azzaria. The battle with the festrogs was quick but disgusting, for the creatures were covered in oozing pustules that exploded if they were struck by edged weapons. It took little time for the Scarabs to destroy them all, but in the process one of them clawed Nyema and when the fighting was done Uto determined that she had probably been infected by the disease the creatures carried. Neither he nor Sula had prepared a spell that could treat the disease and they had already expended their anti-plague potions; they would have to wait for the following day to address it.
When the Scarabs examined the Hall of Immortal Dead, they found evidence that some of the dead in the sarcophagi might have been transformed into undead and clawed their way out. There was no indication that anyone had opened any of the sarcophagi from outside. They left the sarcophagus room and went into the section of hallway they had yet to explore, passing by a set of magical doors and a descending staircase. Opposite the Hall of Immortal Dead stood the Hall of Immortal Beasts, which contained many preserved animals, even an elephant. After looking briefly into that hall, the party then located a room where the records of deaths were stored. In it Kaa found a spell scroll in a hidden compartment.
Once that level of the Observatory’s underground structure had been explored to their satisfaction, the Ruby Scarabs took the stairway down to the next level below. At the bottom of the stairs they encountered a foyer with floor tiles displaying the spiral symbol of Pharasma in bright blue glaze. This floor radiated transmutation magic. Kaa clambered across the wall of the foyer like a spider to reach the door on the opposite side, searching for a trigger to deactivate the magic trap he suspected the blue-tiled floor contained. When he reached the door and tried to open it, the tiles rose up from the floor and launched themselves at him. He leaped into the room beyond the door. Azzaria smashed one of the floating tiles with her weapon. Uto grabbed a tile and carried it up the stairs to see what would happen. Once it was away from the foyer it stopped floating. Azzaria followed his example and took a tile, and the other tiles settled back onto the floor. When Uto returned to the room, the tiles rose again and one of them dealt him a serious blow to the head.
Uto realized that what allowed a person to cross the foyer safely was probably a symbol of Pharasma, so he and Azzaria held tiles in front of them and the floor settled down once more. Azzaria took another tile and gave it to Sula, and Sula was able to persuade Nyema to hold a tile in her mouth. Azzaria took charge of blind Igby as they crossed the foyer. Once everyone else had moved beyond the blue-tiled floor, Kaa took a tile and went back to check for hidden doors. He found a small unconcealed room that contained a supply of extra tiles and an odd coin. He also discovered a secret panel that opened to a slightly larger room full of additional tiles. He took enough of these for each member of the group to have one. Then the Scarabs replaced all the tiles they had taken from the floor, planning to use the spare tiles to help them get back across the foyer when they returned.
Sula examined the unusual coin that Kaa had found, and learned that it was a magical talisman that would randomly enhance a person’s ability for one hour three times a day, as long as the person was human, half-elf, or half-orc. As Uto was the only member of the group who could make use of it, it was not very interesting to the Scarabs. But Kaa kept it.
By this time the party members were all weary and their spells and magical abilities were depleted. They decided it would be best to rest before continuing their investigation of the Observatory. The hidden room that held the store of extra tiles was large enough to accommodate them, so they decided to take refuge there as it appeared that no one had opened it for a long time and they suspected the current users of the underground chambers did not know it existed.
When the Ruby Scarabs had rested sufficiently to prepare new spells, both Uto and Sula prepared a spell to remove diseases and Sula used hers to treat Nyema. Uto also used a spell to restore Igby’s sight. They used their tiles to allow them to cross the tiled foyer safely and entered a large chamber with a statue more than twice the height of a man at its center. The statue represented Pharasma, portrayed as a matronly woman with long hair holding a sprig of an herb often used in childbirth. There were two tables in the main chamber with the statue, and the walls were lined by curtained alcoves. Kaa began checking the area for traps, while Uto scanned for traces of magic. A pair of doors beyond the statue displayed a magical aura when Uto examined them. Kaa found no traps. He located another chamber at the end of short hallway, which appeared to be a room for the preparation of mummies. A second short hallway led to what he assumed to be a kitchen, as this area appeared to be living space for the priests, but Kaa did not go down the hallway to look at the second room’s contents. There was a third hallway that he did not follow, and another descending staircase.
Uto began to check the curtained alcoves to see what they contained. The first alcove he opened revealed an undead creature that he was able to identify as a crypt thing. When he recognized it he remembered that it had the ability to teleport other creatures a great distance to random locations. His comrades were all within reach of this ability as he recalled it, so he shouted, “Run!” But instead of fleeing, his companions remained. Igby moved to place himself between Uto and the crypt thing, and cast a blessing on the party. Azzaria also moved toward the crypt thing. Uto then tried to harm before it could use its ability, by using his prehensile hair to convey a healing spell to its unliving flesh. The crypt thing hissed and stepped out of the alcove. As it did so a pulse of energy expanded outward from it to fill the room, but it appeared to have no effect on the Scarabs, and an instant later the crypt thing itself vanished.
A moment after the crypt thing disappeared, the Scarabs heard a roar from the mummy preparation room. Igby ran into the room to see what was there and found himself facing a female ghast. Everyone else moved closer to the entrance of that room as Igby reported that the crypt thing had appeared at the back of the preparation room. Kaa shot a ray of fire at the crypt thing from the doorway where he stood behind Igby. The ghast roared again and leaped toward Igby, paralyzing him with a rake of its claw. Azzaria struck the ghast a fierce blow, and then the crypt thing moved forward. It was surrounded by a baleful aura, which frightened Nyema and caused the young lioness to flee into the presumed kitchen area. Kaa attacked the ghast, which struck at Azzaria and then she too was paralyzed. Uto responded by sending out healing energies to wound the ghast. This energy destroyed the crypt thing, but the ghast remained.
Kaa attempted to move the immobile Azzaria out of the way but was unable to shift her. The ghast then directed its attack at him. Sula summoned flames to her hand and hurled them at the ghast, but it had cover behind her friends and she missed. Uto then remembered that he had a magic rod in his pack that would allow him to send a spell a greater distance that it could usually reach. He used it to cast another healing spell at the ghast. Kaa followed by raining a flurry of punches on it and it collapsed.
Once the ghast was gone, Uto realized that the paralysis it had inflicted wouldn’t last long. Igby had already recovered. Nyema had also recovered from the fear the crypt thing had caused and had returned to Sula’s side. The Scarabs entered the mummy preparation room to look around. It had clearly been used more recently than the long-ago disaster that created the Necropolis, but it hadn’t been in use for a number of years and all of the herbs and supplies were too old to be of any value. This was apparently the Shepses family tomb, where their members were prepared for burial.
The room Nyema had fled to proved to be visitors’ chambers rather than a kitchen. There were several bedrooms off to one side of the room. The third bedroom appeared to have been recently occupied, for there was food in it that was still in the process of decay. There were also some scribbled notes. The Scarabs began to wonder if this was where Nebtah Khufre had been staying. Disturbingly, one of the other rooms held two recent corpses of attractive women who bore tattoos representing the goddess Calistria. They had apparently died of exposure in the desert, and there were indications that magic had been used to prevent them from decaying. It seemed likely that someone had intended to raise them as undead. The women both wore very expensive jewelry, which the Scarabs took.
All that was left to explore were the magical doors, one hallway, and the staircase. A fresh aroma rose up from whatever lay at the bottom of the stairs, but the group decided to investigate the hallway first. It led them into a high-ceilinged room in which they found a diorama portraying the whole of Wati and the Necropolis laid out in miniature. A black obelisk as tall as the statue of Pharasma stood where the Grand Mausoleum would be in the real Wati. There were no other visible exits from the diorama room, but Uto felt a powerful magical aura above the point of the obelisk. When he indicated this, he and his companions looked up to find a glowing orb, nearly as large as the obelisk was tall. In the center of this orb was a dark creature that had features resembling both a bat and a spider. Uto recognized it as an entity from another plane, known by the unpronounceable name of ‘sceaduinar’. As the Scarabs looked up at this creature, they silently wondered if this could be the ‘shadowy mentor’ mentioned in Neferukha’s notes. Uto’s memory told him that although the sceaduinar was not a physically strong creature, it had otherworldly powers that would make it very difficult for the Scarabs to kill it without suffering great losses themselves if they were not blessed with good fortune.
Uto decided to address the creature and ask it what it was doing there. It replied that it had come “to watch the war between life and death.” It also stated that it had “found a vessel to bring that war.” When questioned further it seemed very confident that its ‘vessel’ was far more powerful than the Ruby Scarabs and that there was no way to prevent the war it predicted. After he had spoken to it for a short time, Uto looked at his friends and they all left the diorama chamber to talk. They decided that it would be unwise to attack the sceaduinar. Instead they would complete their exploration of the Observatory’s subterranean levels and see what else they could discover.
Loot:
30 silver rods (50 gp each)
Caster’s shield
Coin of the untrodden road
Scroll of death ward
Jewelry worth 2,400 gp
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02.12.2017
Session 19
Character level: 6th
The Ruby Scarabs returned to the priests’ living area where they had fought with the crypt thing. There was a set of doors they had yet to open, which they had already learned were magically enhanced. Kaa checked the doors for traps and found none. The doors were securely locked, and after several attempts the tengu was unable to unlock them. Even a prayer to Pharasma didn’t provide any assistance. Igby realized that the magical effect on the doors was an abjuration effect, which likely was contributing to the difficulty in picking the lock. At this point Azzaria decided it was time for a different approach. She took out her adamantine flail and bashed the doors open. This dissipated the magic effect, confirming Igby’s opinion.
On the other side of the doors lay a short staircase leading down. At the bottom of the stairs could be seen a small fountain, and beyond it a pair of stone feet. When the Scarabs descended the stairs they found themselves in a small antechamber that was unusually quiet, its vaulted ceiling muffling the sound of the burbling water from the fountain at its center. On either side of the chamber a pit appeared. On the opposite side of the fountain from the stairs stood a tall statue of Anubis and another door. As the Scarabs had already had an unpleasant encounter with a ‘statue’ that turned out to be a magical construct beneath the Sanctum of the Erudite Eye, they were wary when they realized that the statue of Anubis blocked the doors exiting from the opposite side of the antechamber. They also noticed that the statue didn’t stand on a base or plinth, which made them even more suspicious of it.
As soon as the Scarabs entered the antechamber, the statue moved, clearly casting a spell. Several members of the group realized that the spell was one that would increase the construct’s speed, which was also familiar from the construct in the temple of Nethys. Azzaria, remembering how that construct had actually taken her life, stepped forward to swing her flail at the figure of Anubis. Igby chanted a blessing. Sula realized that her weapons and Nyema’s fangs and claws would be of no use against the construct, so she called on the spirit of lightning to blast the construct from above. Kaa swung his fists at the figure but his blows didn’t connect, and he was rewarded by a return blow from the construct. Sula brought another lightning bolt down on its head. Igby moved forward to strike it, but like Kaa he couldn’t make a mark on it. Then Azzaria’s flail struck it full in the chest. The construct’s torso cracked in two and the upper half fell into one of the pits. The statue ceased moving.
The Scarabs were surprised by how quickly they had been able to defeat the construct. But they returned their attention to exploring the underground structure. The door that the statue had guarded bore an inscription in the language of the celestial beings, which none of them could read. Uto took out a tablet he carried that could allow a person to read such languages and read the inscription. It stated that if a supplicant put a piece of silver worth 50 gold pieces in the fountain, it would transform the water into holy water. Uto was carrying the 30 silver rods taken from the pool in the first underground room they had entered, and he knew that these rods were worth about 50 gold. He put one of them in the fountain basin and filled two water skins with the resulting holy water.
The door the construct had guarded was not locked. The Scarabs looked through it into a large circular room with a platform in the center in the form of a truncated pyramid. An elevated walkway ran around the perimeter of the room, beside columns carved in the shape of Pharasma. The circular chamber’s floor was scattered with corpses, some that looked very old and others more recent. On the platform, seated on a throne-like chair, was a living man wearing a golden funerary mask that bore an unusually animated expression.
When he saw the intruders the man rose to his feet, demanding, “Why are there always interruptions?” He gestured and two mummies moved to stand at his sides. Then a pulse of energy issued from the platform, and many of the bodies on the floor rose to their feet and began to shuffle toward the Ruby Scarabs. The masked man, who the Scarabs assumed to be Nebtah-Khufre, rose into the air, his hands moving in spellcasting gestures that they recognized as the same spell of haste that the construct in the antechamber had used. Sula still had access to the lightning she had called on the construct, so she sent a bolt at Nebtah-Khufre.
The two mummies rushed forward with unnatural speed to confront the group at the doorway. The aura of despair they carried with them paralyzed Sula, leaving her helpless, though she was still able to control the lightning. Nyema and her comrades were able to resist the mummies’ aura. Wings suddenly sprouted from Kaa’s back, but before the tengu could take flight one of the mummies struck him and he collapsed. Uto drew a spell scroll from his pack and began to read it.
Nebtah-Khufre swooped toward the party at the doorway and spoke the words of another spell, but none of the Scarabs could recognize it. The floor beneath them transformed into molten glass, scorching everyone and then cooling to form knife-like shards of obsidian. As the glass cooled it trapped their legs. Most of the group were able to break free by exerting their strength, but Sula was still paralyzed and remained trapped in the solidified glass. Once Nyema pulled herself free the lioness began to claw at the glass encasing her master’s feet.
Uto completed reading the spell from his scroll. In the air near Nebtah-Khufre a winged figure wielding a scythe appeared, a vanth psychopomp that Uto had summoned. It immediately attacked the mummy standing nearest to Azzaria, for its mandate was to slay undead. Uto then sent a wave of positive energy to heal his companions of the burns inflicted by the molten glass. In the meantime more zombies approached the Scarabs and Igby killed one, while the vanth slew another.
Nebtah-Khufre shot a ray of energy at the vanth but it had no effect. Uto issued another wave of healing energy, restoring the paralyzed Sula to full health. Kaa, who had been rendered near death by the mummy’s attack and the molten glass, was able to regain his feet. Nebtah-Khufre summoned two balls of lightning and sent them at Azzaria and Igby, but Igby resisted the magic and one sphere vanished.
Though it left his own health much depleted, Uto healed his friends again. Kaa flew into the circular chamber, blasting Nebtah-Khufre with scorching flames, but his attack seemed to have no effect on the necromancer. Nebtah-Khufre flew up beside Kaa and send out a burst of gray energy that made everyone’s heart race with fear, though all but Igby were able to withstand the desire to flee. Only Igby panicked and raced out of the room. Nyema had clawed Sula free of the obsidian, but even though the druid had been trapped and paralyzed, she had been able to shower three more lightning bolts on Nebtah-Khufre. Now the paralyzing effect faded and Sula was able to move again.
The vanth destroyed the last remaining zombie and flew up to attack Nebtah-Khufre. Kaa struck the necromancer a blow that stunned him, causing him to drop the gilded femur he held. The vanth then attacked him again, followed by another attack from Kaa. The necromancer’s skin had a stony appearance, so the group concentrated on causing damage to deplete his magical protection. Nebtah-Khufre responded by drawing a wand and issuing a charge from it at the vanth, but it again had no effect on the psychopomp. Sula could not reach the flying necromancer with her usual weapons, so she took out her sling and hurled a stone at him.
Uto’s hair shot out and grabbed hold of Nebtah-Khufre. As his was held in the grip of the hair, Kaa pummeled him until he fell unconscious and began to float gently toward the floor. Uto wanted to question him about the Forgotten Pharaoh, so he used his magic to prevent the necromancer from bleeding to death, then bound him. Igby recovered from his fear and returned, covered in blue tile shards. He fastened manacles on the captive. Afterward, they searched Nebtah-Khufre and removed everything he carried. He had on his person two curative potions; a spell scroll; a wand; a magic ring; a wizard’s spellbook; a pouch of diamond dust; a quantity of onyx stones used for raising zombies; holy symbols of Anubis, Pharasma, and Urgathoa; and the gold mask he wore over his face.
While the group searched him, Nebtah-Khufre expired. Uto realized that he must have been fortifying himself with magic, and that had ceased, leading to his death by the wounds he had suffered. Further examination of the room revealed that an ornate sarcophagus on the platform had been desecrated. It seemed that Nebtah-Khufre had been trying to raise the occupant of the sarcophagus as an especially powerful mummy. The Scarabs used some of the holy water from the fountain to clean the sarcophagus as best they could. In the process they realized it was the sarcophagus of the original Nakht Shepses, ancestor of the priest they knew.
The Scarabs gathered up Nebtah-Khufre’s body and the items they had taken from him and left the Observatory. They were able to return to Wati without difficulty, and took the body to the Grand Mausoleum. Shortly afterward the most senior priests of the temple were summoned to hear the story the Ruby Scarabs told. Two high priests from the temple of Nethys also came to hear. The priests had never heard of the Forgotten Pharaoh and could not explain why Nebtah-Khufre was so interested in acquiring his mask. When they examined the mask they found that it contained the ka spirit of a powerful person, probably a pharaoh, but they did not understand how such an artifact could be made. The mask revealed that it had different properties depending upon whether the wearer was a person of a good or evil nature. It could also be used to raise the dead, which was clearly how Nebtah-Khufre had raised the zombies in the circular chamber. The priests also identified all of the other magical items the Scarabs had taken from the necromancer.
The priests could not agree on what should be done with the mask. They argued over it for two days. At last they called the Scarabs back to the Grand Mausoleum, and asked if they would take charge of it and research the Forgotten Pharaoh. They recommended that the Scarabs go to the nearby city of Tephu, which had an extensive library that might hold information about the mask’s mysterious owner. Kaa then asked if the priests would pay them for that service. This led to a long discussion of how many valuable items the Scarabs had taken from the Necropolis and whether the temples ought to at least give them enough gold to pay for the river ferry to Tephu. Nakht Shepses also expressed displeasure that they had taken the magical shield from his family altar under the Observatory, though he hadn’t known it existed prior to their showing it to him. The Scarabs pointed out that they were willing to return it to him, but Sebti the Crocodile suggested that they ought to keep it as part of their reward for removing the necromancer from the Shepses family mortuary temple.
In the end, the Scarabs kept the shield and all of the things they had taken from the Observatory and from Nebtah-Khufre. In addition the temples gave them 100 gold pieces to pay for the ferry to Tephu. Though the adventurers found it strange that they should have the responsibility of finding out just who the Forgotten Pharaoh was, they accepted it and agreed that they would pursue the answer to that question.
Loot:
2 potions of cure light wounds
Scroll of stinking cloud
Ring of sustenance
Spellbook
Diamond dust worth 500 gold
Onyxes worth 500 gold
Silver holy symbol of Anubis
Silver holy symbol of Pharasma
Silver unholy symbol of Urgathoa
Rod of lesser disruptive metamagic
Mask of the Forgotten Pharaoh