Session 34

Note
There was so much potential for metagaming in this session. It was awesome. You guys really did a great job of making my life easier with all the knowledge you had that your characters didn't. With that in mind, I am going to take some liberties with the 4th wall in this session blog.

Members

 * Bob


 * Damian
 * Grimweld (kinda)

Previously on the Henderbeards
A blast from the past arrived at your headquarters and gave some information about a strange old cult named the Jezulians, or Mud Sorcerers. Researching them in the library, Henderbeard and Fitz found that the cult was destroyed centuries ago, but their artifacts started appearing more frequently in the past two decades.

With the knowledge that many cultists predicted that the cult would rise again in the future, the party headed out to one of the lost tombs that supposedly held a cult leader. Finding the tomb and entering it, the door closed, with no visible means of opening it.

You have encountered some strange creatures that occasionally appear when you cast elemental magic. Mud Grues are not your friends. We begin today's session in the Naga Lair. Before Damian killed her, she mentioned the stairs to the north go down to the second level, and that there were traps to the south.

The Adventure
We began our adventure in the lair of Cenixil the naga. Damian and Bob stepped over to check out the automaton that you came across at the end of last session. They noticed a key hole on the neck and tried the black key, but it did not fit. Damian noticed a door, and to his surprise, the door was open.

Inside they found a thick book titled Codissus il Yurushyui Ittemmet. (OOC, we will just assume Henderbeard translates these things). In common that translates to "Manual of Yurushyu's Automaton". Both Bob and Damian looked over the book, but having failed the DC 15 Int check found nothing. They did enjoy looking at the pictures though, and one of them did seem to show a rather large gem somewhere in the chest area of the automaton.

They decided to leave the automaton for another day and moved down the hallway. Damian found a door on the north wall, and went through it. Inside were two long shallow pools. Bob almost got hypnotized by the swimming patterns of a group of rainbow colored fish in the larger pool. He shrugged it off though. Then he noticed a key in the other pool. The western wall had another large carved face (Figure 3).

He gritted his teeth, reached in, and grabbed it from the coins that lay at the bottom. Damian wanted nothing to do with those coins (first thing that made me scratch my head ... When has Damian ever ignored loot like this?)

Checking the north hallway, The party found a room with a huge mosaic of the first Mud Sorcerer's symbol on the floor. Bob cast dispel magic, but the vestiges of an illusion spell were still there. Later on, Damian pieced together that this was the room that was referred to in an earlier hint (from last session).

The party backed out and left the room. Next up was heading down the last hallway off the room. He went east, then turned south. Painted into the mural on the wall was the following hint:


 * MS_Handout_5.jpgPig or camel bring only woe 
 * Hippo clears the way to go. 

Moving south, then west, the party came to a dead end. Bob and Damian had their suspicions of a secret door, but neither of them could spot it, so they turned around and headed back to the Ceremonial Chamber.

Being careful to avoid the rug, Damian headed south and Bob headed around to the north. Damian tried to light a candle from one of the mysteriously flaming braziers, and as he did, a red hot coal shot out and singed his arm. Bob took over lighting the rest of them with his druidcraft. When all the black candles were lit, she finally lit the red candle. A strange pink smoke blew to the outline of a previously undetectable secret door.

Damian grabbed a small box off the alter and got a small blast of cold. The alter was freezing. Damian gritted his teeth and grabbed the rest of the stuff off the alter, freezing his fingertips in the process.

The most interesting thing they found was a small box that contained a tiny snake. The snake said hello, but because of its small size, Damian had to hold it to his ear to hear anything else. The snake offered to answer any three questions about the tomb. (Do you guys remember what the questions were?)  Damian asked one question right away, and then they closed the box and saved the last for later.

Moving out of the room, they headed to the south, down the last corridor they knew of. Part way down, there was another stone face. You had seen this before from behind the locked door of the mummy room. Damian reached into the ears and found a key in one and a trap in the other. A blast of wind drove him down the hallway, and would have been lethal had Damian not fallen to the ground before he hit the many daggers that protruded from the gate.

Moving past that, Damian came across a large green basalt pillar. There he found a small key hole that fit the key he just found perfectly. Inside the pillar was a coffin. Bob and Damian dragged it out of the pillar and opened it. Inside was the corpse of a male half-elf. It died through strangulation.

At some point here, Bob asked the snake two more questions, on the third question the snake attacked, then turned into a statue. In the coffin was a necklace and another clue. After looking things over, Damian found a thin rope in the column and Bob pulled on it. An audible click was soon followed by a huge crashing sound. The core of the column fell. Good thing nobody was in there.

Damian then tried the necklace on. He thought it was a necklace of protection, but it turns out that this cursed item was a necklace of strangulation! Damian fell over. Bob began frantically praying to her god to change her spells. She was bestowed Remove Curse and got the necklace off in a nick of time.

Damian also checked the box that the snake used to live in and he found a strange clay ring. It radiated a great magical Dweomer. Throwing caution to the wind, he slipped it on. His vision went dark, and he saw a vision of an towering earth elemental rising to do his bidding. He knew that this was Bwimb, an evil entity of elemental earth and water, the creator of the Mud Ring.

Having found just about all there was to find on this level, the small party headed northwest to the naga lair and the stairs heading deeper into the tomb. Damian was the first down the steps. Bob waited outside of the room. On the north wall was a particularly large depiction of the fourth mud sorcerer symbol. Damian stepped up to touch it, the door closed and he was teleported to an identical room in a different area.

Bob rushed ahead and opened the door to find an empty room. Damian had no idea what happened, until Bob teleported into the room right next to him. Moving south, they found that they were in a different area of the tomb. Opening the door triggered a magical storm of swirling blades. It nailed Damian and Bob, but Damian managed to jump away from full damage. Bob then cast dispel magic and the trap was disarmed.

Moving to the next room, the party encountered Ulzaada, an evil and grotesque hag. The hag got in a huge shot and slashed Damian's neck open, dropping him to 0 HP, but he managed to overcome the death blow with his relentless rage and beat the hag so hard that he did some brain trauma. She went invisible and then tried to attack Bob. Using some unique techniques, Damian killed the hag. This is where we ended our adventure.

XP
Current session: 10,000 XP each

Total XP: 140,000

Current level: 13

Loot

 * Mud Ring


 * Green key
 * Small copper key
 * Bronze key ring with 20 keys on it.


 * Necklace of Strangulation (Enchanted to identify as a +1 necklace of protection)


 * Large thick book titled Codissus il Yurushyui Ittemmet:  "Manual of Yurushyu's Automaton"
 * Obsidian dagger (15 gp)
 * Small piece of torn green silk
 * Four 4‐inch‐wide octagonal disks, each with a different mud sorcerer symbol etched on it.
 * 2 More hints written in Taleese (Note - all hints are under the 'Handouts' section in your journal.)