| Session Date | January 8, 2022 |
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| Base XP Gained | Carry Over |
he three weird ravens slain, ZZ began to feel a heavy weight on his shoulders and a sense of disquiet he could not identify. Regardless, the party took stock of the tomb entrances along the east side of the canyon wall. They were all very much identical, a hundred feet or so separated from each other. All were double doors framed by carvings to represent gnarled trees and topped by a leering demonic face with trailing tentacles wrapping the whole. Two sinewy dragons in bas relief were around shields are on each door. The party went to the southernmost one and Burt tried to open it but found it magically held. Knar then cast knock and the party entered, going down a short staircase into a tomb. Four large pillars of black stone flanked the room, partially set into half-round alcoves and covered with indecipherable runes. There were passages off this larger chamber in all the cardinal directions. The party split,half checking the north, half south. But when Hans decided to move from one group to the other, he fell in a pit trap. As he began to levitate out, figures rose up from biers in alcoves to north and south, Wights coming at the party. Burt was surprised and almost struck but got lucky and began to hold them off to the south. ZZ turned those to the south and Mordecai to the north, but neither was able to turn all of the six coming. Additionally, there was noise of more approaching from the east. Seeing they were outnumbered, the party fell back en masse to the entrance, as Knar cast web at those to the south. As they reformed on the steps, Knar struck the eastern group with a lightning bolt. Meanwhile, Jarrik went to fire arrows - in his haste, he shot himself rather badly in the foot! Alas for Jarrik Arrowfoot! (two ones on two rolls, one a critical miss that rolled into a critical hit on himself!). A fireball from a wand took care of the remaining Wights without any serious injury to the party, aside from Jarrik's foot.
Returning to the tomb area, Mordecai cast find traps, locating as second pit trap in the same room. The party now used a wand of secret door and trap detection to aid a manual search for secret doors, but found none in the three rooms off of the main chamber, nor any in the main chamber itself. Curious about the carved pillars, Knar cast comprehend languages and began to read one. He quickly ascertained that the writing was a paean to demons and that clearly whoever was buried here had once been demon worshipers. Knar moved to check another pillar to see if it was the same, and it was. however, behind it he found a scroll that had miraculously survived the fireball (and a few that clearly had not). It proved to be a scroll of cleric spells. In the second pit trap they found the corpse of a long-dead elf, his gear rotted and rusted away except for a very fine elven dagger. The party decided a rest was in order, so Jarrik went outside and ensured that their tracks leading to the tomb were hidden. The door was left slightly wedged open as the wizard lock had not been broken. As they prepared to camp in the tomb, they renewed their search for secret doors, this time finding one at the end of he northern passage off the main tomb. The party opted not to open it, though Mordecai placed a glyph of warding in front of it for protection.
Around midnight, ZZ felt a heavy weight descend on him, while the thrall mark of the Earth Dragon around his neck began to glow with a dull purple light. He began to have strange visions with his eyes open of the Earth Dragon, while also hearing horrible whispers (this was certainly impacting his ability to function, but not completely).
After resting up, the party proceeded through the secret door which brought them further east into the hill, climbing a short stair. One room they found was empty, but entering it, the party felt a dim unease. Another chamber they passed through showed signs of a long-ago fight, with pock marks and burns in the walls. They eventually came to a very large hall running east-west, with a high ceiling. The southern end closest to them was blocked by a large reddish-black curtain. They peeked behind this finding only a short extension of the hall ending in a great bas relief demon face with a wide open mouth of pure blackness. Jarrik had a strong compulsion to leap into the mouth, but resisted it. A side door a little further east opened to a room, but Mordecai sensed the entire room was a trap so they avoided it. Further east the party found doors to the north and south; further on was a great portcullis of steel that blocked the entire width of this hall. It was rather rust and there was a good deal of rust on the ground, as if the portcullis had fallen hard in the not too distant past.
The party decided to try the southern door first. Beyond was a small room with a very large open pit dropping to blackness, from which came warm air carrying a slight smell of decay and death. The party was considering how to explore this feature (with Hans levitating) when the party found was accosted by a large party of Hobgoblins! Jarrik did some quick talking (forgot exactly what he said but I remember it was good) and the Hobgoblins opted to parley rather than fight (there were 27 of them). They were in the employ of the Wizard Gold, they admitted, but were bored and decided to do some exploration on their own of this place. They told the party that Gold pretty much ignored this area as far as they could tell, so if they happened on any treasures they felt they were fair game for them. The party asked how they'd got there and the Hobgoblins informed them they came through the door opposite to the north. There was an army of zombies there, they said, but they were non-hostile and could be passed without any hindrance. They then asked if the party had any leads on loot, and Jarrik directed them to check out the demon-faced room so the west! They seemed pleased at that and headed off to what,the party hoped, would be their doom.
Before checking out the path the Hobgoblins had mentioned, the party decided to check out the portcullised area first. Since the thing was 30' wide, most everyone in the party combined their efforts to lift it, and Mordecai then slipped under to scout since his detect traps was still in effect. There was a slight narrowing and a wide staircase down into a larger space. However, he had not gotten very far when two huge creatures descended from the ceiling and attacked. They were unlike anything he'd seen before, very large with bodies sort of like a skate or manta ray and four huge tentacles. Worse, they began shooting beams of light from their mouth at Mordecai, who fled back under the portcullis as fast as he could. The party let the portcullis drop and quickly got out of range of the mouth-rays.
The party now decided to try the Hobgoblin path and went through the door to the north. Beyond was a very long hall, 30 feet wide. Within were perhaps five score zombies, all in ornate copper armor and marching in a complex parade, like a changing of the guard or some other ceremony. Drums and cymbals clashed as they marched, a horrible noise as the instruments seemed to be very old and in very poor repair. In the center of the hall was a ballista and zombie crew, its ropes rotted with age and unusable. As they'd been told, the party was able to thread through the zombie march without any reaction from them. As they came to the far end of the hall, there was a space, across which was a reviewing stand of sorts with three zombies apparently watching the parade with only slight turns of their head. Seeing a door beyond, the party moved towards it, only to trigger a very wide pit trap just before the reviewing stand (I am not sure who fell, nor do I see any damage to anyone from it...have to figure that out next time). Recovering, the party prepared to open that northern door to proceed...