Session 39 - "The Tomb of Narmer" Report

Venen 9, 1247

The Fate-Steppers set off towards Valsáth, but before they leave they gather up some supplies.

Foenix buys gunpowder and bullets enough for six shots and baking supplies. Thais buys two healing potions, leather harnesses, and leashes for the wyrmlings. She also takes the time to check on the last wyrmling egg. It's close to hatching she notices, but not quite there yet.

Having completed their stock-ups, the party heads off towards the mountains.

Venen 11, 1247

The Fate-Steppers are on the outer edges of the Letalis Jungle when they cross paths with a young Black Rose by the name of Ambrose Praxidice. He's a Cactsian, and is looking for a tomb dedicated to an architect Narmer. He says that the last of the embalmers who prepared Narmer and his tomb confessed on his deathbed to Narmer's crime.

Servants were slaughtered and entombed with Narmer, to guard him even after death. Ambrose is travelling to the tomb to cleanse it and put these souls to rest - and he asks if the party would assist him.

The adventurer's justification for tomb raiding, as he gives it, is this place is too cursed and unholy for the treasures within it to be worthy of staying in this final resting place. The party decides to help him out, eventually finding the tomb just as the sun is setting.

They decide to enter in the morning, and so Foenix is able to show off his new abilities with a magical, portable kitchen and his weasel familiar assistant.

Finally, the next day they descend the staircase, entering into a circular room with a statue of an angel in the middle, its head bowed. Tears steadily flow from the corners of its closed eyes, trickling in small rivulets down into a shallow basin held in its hands at waist height. The bowl appears to remain full, but does not overflow.

Below the angel's feet is a raised platform with a stone pressure plate. On the pressure plate sit three empty, silver decanters, beautifully adorned with elvish script and filigree. Each one is a different size: large, medium, and small. Upon close inspection, the bottom of the decanters have numbers on them: 7, 5, and 3.

The largest of the decanters weighs down a note, which Foenix uses mage hand to fetch. It reads as follows:

In the greatest decanter
shall be served wine for friends
Just enough for the four of us
For our fifth has met their end.

Foenix reads it once and immediately solves the puzzle: using the mid-sized decanter, he fills it to the brim with the water from the angel statue. He siphons off three out of the full five cups of water the decanter can hold with the smallest of the decanters, then pours the remain two cups into the largest decanter. He repeats this process once more, then sets the large decanter on the pressure plate. It sinks down and the party hears the various doors unlock.

They head to the eastern door first, the only one made of wood. They head into a chamber full of suits of armor along the walls - all of which are similar in nature, except for two: one in the middle that seems quite a bit fancier than the others, and then another that seems to be made of solid metal, with no room for a body within.

The oddest thing about that second suit of armor is a round divot in its chest, with runic markings around the inside that match the same orb found in the wizard's tower. In fact, as they already suspect that the orb is a power source of some variety, Thais suggests that they put it in the armor.

What follows is a long debate over whether that's a good idea. But eventually, they decide that they can always destroy the automaton pretty easily if things go wrong. So they settle the orb in the housing and step back to watch what happens.

As the automaton begins to power back up, it's clear it's badly damaged. Wires spark from a damaged portion in the back of its head, and it speaks in stuttering, stammering sentences and cannot remember many things about its own creation. It is able to introduce itself as H011-3 . It is clearly in distress, and Ambrose attempts to comfort it by using mending to patch over the hole in its head.

A sudden jerk of movement from the ostentatious suit of armor in the middle of the room makes the entire party start - and with good reason, for it declares them all trespassers and moves to attack them.

Thais answers the challenge with deadly precision. One strike bites deep into the armor and the second, when she realizes it will hit with devastating force (critical hit), she channels her divine smite into the blade, bisecting the armor and the desiccated corpse within, ending combat before it can begin.

After a moment of silence, it is suggested that everyone continue to explore the tomb.

Jacob and Olena enter into a small room paneled with wood through the southern most hallway off the fountain room and through the eastern passage. There are portraits here of a black dragonborn (presumably Narmer) and others who are probably family members. Incense bowls full of sweet smelling ash and letters of remembrance lay on the short table.

They also find a set of heavy, finely stitched leather saddlebags with a set of nine small glass vials. Each vial seems like it previously contained a different rare and valuable spice, from common spices like salt and cinnamon to far more exotic flavors.

These leaded-glass vials are hand blown, and a small papyrus tag dangles from each stopper. The tags describe the former contents and are hand lettered in the Common tongue with a small, neat, feminine script. In another of the saddlebag's many pouches, they discover more than a dozen badly tarnished silver spoons and table knives set.

Each of the utensils has a long handle, the head of which has been carved to resemble a different exotic animal. Though years of soot and tarnish obscure the details, the skill of the artist is apparent; the spoon with a giraffe's head is particularly well sculpted and lifelike

As Jacob and Olena explore the family antechamber, Ambrose and Thais continue to try and comfort H011-3. Through this, it is soon revealed that they are both Cactsian, something that Thais is deeply uncomfortable with - even more so when H011-3 also mentions its own creator being Cacstian as well. Ambrose notices (critical success), but does not push the paladin on the matter.

The rest of the party catches up to Jacob and Olena, who are continuing eastward before encountering a locked wooden door. It's no problem for Foenix, who opens it and lets them all through into a room with a series of three doors on the far end and an iron door on right side of the wall. The room slopes down gradually, like an indoor pool, towards the doors.

Ambrose takes the opportunity to cast light on his censer to give some illumination to the space. Something about his movements or speech causes Foenix to grow suspicious, and he asks the masked and hooded cleric how old he is. Ambrose casually answers that he's 20 years old, perfectly frank and truthful despite his attire that completely hides his face and form.

Thais opens one of the doors on the far side of the room, and discovers that they all let out into the same area: a series of catacombs, laid out in rows that each door opens directly opposite of (though there is an open space between the doors and rows, allowing anyone to choose which row to walk down). The rightmost row takes a sharp U turn at the end of the row instead of a dead end like the others, bending back into itself by a hooded statue that is parallel with the other rows and continuing on back towards the room the Fate-Steppers had just left. It is too dark to see what is in these catacombs at the moment, however.

She closes her eyes, allowing her divine sense to expand out. As she suspected, there are SEVERAL undead lurking in the catacombs.

Foenix volunteers to go first, slipping towards the rightmost hall. He can hear something at the end of it, by the start of the u-turn and statue. Something... crunching. After stealing himself, he darts forward.

As the gloom alleviates in front of him as he moves, the source of the sound becomes clear: a large two-headed dog, gnawing on the bones of a human corpse. It looks up at him, turning towards him and letting the bone drop with a growl - fresher meat has become clear. A movement in his periphery makes him turn his head, and there, lying in an empty loculus, is a mummified cat. It is not dead and stiff, or, at least, it's not stiff, for it also stands as it becomes aware of Foenix's presence.

Foenix uses misty step and teleports back to the rest of the party, with the death dog in pursuit, running up just as Foenix reappears. Foenix hears its claws scratching on the rough floor, and turns just in time to dodge the first bite attempt, but the second one sinks into his shoulder. It's horrible mouth is rife with disease and illness, but thankfully Foenix is able to stave off any contraction of the sickness carried by this undead monster.

Olena readies her lance and swings it around, yelling a battle cry as she rages and with her expertise as great weapon master and swinging as recklessly as she can, she making to hit the death dog twice, the second attack spearing through its head and killing it (a second time, I suppose).

The sound of shuffling footsteps gets louder, and from around the corner of the u-turn a horde of mummies come running towards the party, but the mummified cat gets there first and leaps for Ambrose, claws and teeth extended. The cleric puts out an arm to protect himself, but that just gives its teeth something to clamp down on, and they do, knocking Ambrose to the ground with the mummified cat on top of him, teeth still gripping onto his arm.

Thais comes to his rescue, her sun blade scoring the bandages with radiant fire as two blows burn the undead feline.

Meanwhile, H011-3 attempts to use its unstable magical abilities to cast a sorcerous blast at one of the mummies, but even with its luck bending skills, it still whizzes past the mummies' heads and leaves a scorch mark on the walls.

Jacob follows up his sorcerous cousin with thunderous shatter effect on a cluster of three mummies, rattling their dry bones but not downing them (yet).

Ambrose, yelling in pain, manages to get his left hand free from under his body (the other still held tight in the jaws of the mummified cat), and reaches out, grabbing onto the cat's face and channeling a sacred flame into the cat. It works, burning the undead so fiercely that whatever force was animating it is burned away and it collapses on top of him. Ambrose pushes the now-still corpse off of him and stands up, wincing and holding his bleeding arm.

Olena charges towards the cluster of mummies and swings at one of the ones rocked by Jacob's shatter and sends one scattering in a pile of bones and bandages. She turns to another and roars, kicking it with her foot towards a wall where it hits and also collapses into dust. Foenix uses the commotion to hide behind Thais.

The remaining mummies, eyes burning red and hateful advance. Olena, Ambrose, and Jacob happen to get a glimpse at their dread glare, but are uncowed - even Olena, who is struck twice by their rotting fists and even as the disease threatens to seep below her skin, shakes it off and continues fighting.

Thais runs forward and attacks one of the undamaged mummies, hitting twice but not hitting hard enough to kill either of them while H011-3 tries using sorcerous blast again, concocting a firey blast that incinerates that mummy.

Jacob spins up in his hands a chromatic orb of fire, seeing how effectively H011-3's blast worked, and sends off the orb towards two mummies (able to target them both due to his twinned spell ability), hitting them and killing them. He quickens his hands and spins up another orb and sends it at the last mummy, and it goes down in an orange inferno.

As they stand over the for-good dead corpses (and Foenix begins to hunt for any burial items in the catacombs that they can loot), Ambrose turns to H011-3.

"Do you mind if we call you Holly?"

Meanwhile, Foenix has found an empty chest, about the height of a dog and decorated in amazingly detailed relief showing the life cycle of a forest. Animals hunt in the fictional forest, with important details on them highlighted by gold leaf or thin sheets of hammered silver foil, and lurking at the back of one of the loculi is a small ceramic pot, about a palm's width in height and half that broad. The pot is painted with green leaves and birds and the lid is tightly stoppered. Opening the lid reveals a thick, herbal burn salve of great potency.