Session 91: Vault of the of Damed.

Session 91 Report

The Companions of the Shining Eclipse pressed onward into the second level of the Ziggurat known as the Tomb of the Broken Sun. Shaken by the earthquake that struck in the previous chamber, they slipped into the fourth room—only to discover a place where time itself felt broken.

Before them loomed an enormous clockwork sun, a massive brass-and-gold mechanism shaped like a radiant disk. It hung half-collapsed from the ceiling, its shattered gears and chains spilling across the floor in a tangled ruin. Beneath its weight lay heaps of rotting corpses—pilgrims and priests, half-mummified, their remains crushed and entangled in the machine’s cogs as though offered up to time itself. Flies drifted lazily in the air, yet no stench of decay followed, as if rot had been suspended mid-breath. From deep within the construct came a faint, uneven ticking—slowing, then quickening again—like a heartbeat gone wrong.

Sensing danger, the companions moved carefully. Arceven checked for traps, while Jasmal’s primal instincts flared with warnings of something lurking among the wreckage. Yet the chamber itself was the snare. The moment the companions touched anything connected to the mechanism, a temporal backlash surged outward.

Reality buckled. Polarity inverted.

The backlash warped time around the party, twisting perception and cause-and-effect. Karrin looked upon Marik and saw not a companion, but an Egyptian warlord threatening his life. He lashed out to defend himself—only to find that his blows healed Marik instead of wounding him. Dagon, seeing what he believed to be a black dragon attacking Marik, rushed to heal him—only for his magic to harm rather than restore. Cause had become effect, aid had become injury, and trust was poisoned by illusion.

Amid the chaos, the backlash released a far greater threat: a Mummy Lord, its body long trapped in the sun’s gears. With spells warped and allies misled, the battle drained the companions of hard-earned resources—but at last, the undead guardian was struck down.

Exhausted yet resolute, the party pressed into the next chamber.

Here, the Ziggurat revealed something wholly alien—a space that felt less like a room and more like a fragment of the night sky buried underground. The walls, floor, and vaulted dome were carved entirely from black obsidian, polished to a mirror’s shine. Across the ceiling, dozens of tiny pinpricks of light blinked open like lazy, watchful stars—eyes that followed every movement. The air was cold, heavy with the taste of iron and the bitterness of burnt incense. At the center of the floor stretched a cracked mosaic: a once-radiant sun now consumed in total eclipse, coiled about by shadow.

Upon this mosaic knelt two towering figures, clad head to toe in cracked, blackened plate armor. Their forms were skeletal, yet their bearing was regal and grim. On their tabards gleamed a crest that none could mistake—the sigil of Abraham Harker.

The skeletal knights rose in unison. Their empty sockets turned toward the companions, and as they raised their swords in a Roman salute, they cried out in one voice:
“For the glory of the Black Legion!”

The battle was brutal. Radiant power—normally a weapon against the undead—faltered here, the magic swallowed by the room’s curse. Still, the companions fought with determination and at last laid the death knights to rest.

When the last blow was struck, the chamber shifted. Arceven suddenly felt a heartbeat within him—alien, steady, and not his own. Light pierced the darkness as though the eclipse were undone. The obsidian chamber brightened, and with it appeared a shimmering transparent dome of protective force. Jasmal and Arceven recognized it at once: Leomund’s Tiny Hut—a spell of sanctuary powerful enough to shield the entire room.

No caster revealed themselves, no source of this magic could be found. Yet its presence was undeniable. With safety at last secured, the companions chose to rest, tending their wounds and restoring their strength—knowing that the Tomb of the Broken Sun still held greater dangers in the hours ahead.