| Session Date | January 16, 2022 |
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| Base XP Gained | Carry Over |
Although ZZ remained afflicted by the weirdness of the Earth Dragon thrall mark, the party continued on, leaving the zombie marchers through a door to the north. Beyond was a throne of some sort, made of red stone and with carved demons faces along the sides. A rotted cushion sat atop the seat. The throne sat atop a dais, the risers of which were decorated in a dizzying array of colors and patterns. A door opened to the east, not in keeping with what the party expected (a tomb entry lay west), so they searched for secret doors throughout, but found none. Without further ado, they took the door and went east down a short stair and into a long hallway. They had not gone very far when a figure made himself known to them, a half-orc. He'd apparently lifted Burt Macklin's purse! The half-orc returned it, saying he was an adventurer named Orion wandering (and somewhat lost) in these halls. He asked to join with the party (safety in numbers and all that), pointing out his skill in thievery.
The party now came to a door to the south and took it through a series of doors and small rooms. In one they encountered a floating globe of dull color and providing dim light. It did not move no even react when the party passed it (and threw things at it). But, when they proceeded, it followed. they eventually came to an empty, dead-end room that showed signs of old combat (pocked walls and burns, like they'd seen previously). While here, they discovered a secret door. Beyond was a larger room which was painted red, floor, walls, and ceiling. The air here was also quite warm and smelled faintly of incense. Atop a red table sat three glass flasks with reddish liquid in them, like potions. Each had a carved symbol in the glass: an eye, a star, and a tower respectively. The party took them. meanwhile, Jarrik Arrowfoot threw a sack over the following globe, which did not seem to react to this, either. A second secret door accessed the zombie marching room. The party now backtracked, locking in the bagged globe when they did so (at some point they came back again and found the sack torn; the globe ended up getting locked in the non-secret room.
Continuing down the long east hall, the party opened a door to a short hall leading into a room but with the entry blocked by a heavy black curtain. Orion peeked under and thought he saw some slight movement, but when the party entered in force nothing could be found and there were no indications of an invisible occupant (according to Hans’ special “mouth-sprayed wine invisibility detection system”). The party burned the curtain, producing heavy, foul smoke throughout the area.
The corridor eventually took a rounded turn to the south, again not what was expected by the party. At the outside apex of the curve there was an indentation with a tiny peephole. Orion peeked in and saw a small room with several skeletons or bodies, and what might be coins. There was no apparent way to get there from here. So, the party continued until the very long corridor ended in a door. Beyond it they found a hideous sight, thirteen partially dismembered corpses arranged in a weird spiral pattern on the floor of a large room. Before they could even take this in, a small figure like a child ran from out of one eastern corridor, by the spiral, and thence into another corridor to the east. The party entered with extreme caution but nothing happened and there was no sign of the figure, nor any sounds. But, though the corpses were obviously quite old, the smell of rot and death was much stronger than might be expected.
With Hans and Jarrik watching the norther of the two corridors, the party entered the other…the front rank vanishing the instant they entered it! After some debate, and experimentation with rope and small objects by Han, the entire party followed suit. They found themselves in the room watched by the peephole. They did recover some treasures from the corpses (a nice dagger included), who appear to have died here. A door led from the small room – beyond was a corridor that ended in another door. However, it was blocked by a very strong steel fence and locked gate, two long-dead corpses before it (and one draped on it). Orion tried to check for traps and found one, the hard way, receiving a serious electrical jolt. Knar hen cast knock on it and, though they heard a mechanical noise, the gate did not open. He then successfully used dispel magic on the trap, though Orion could not get it open.
Meanwhile, Bel sensed a secret door at the peephole, but determined that it was somehow unopenable. Hans decided to see what he could beyond and went up to the peephole, only to be hit by an overwhelming, soul-crushing despair. Something was out there and it was not good!
By this time, Knar had cast dimension door and took himself and Orion beyond the gate. The door beyond opened to a larger chamber with a wide stair leading up to a sarcophagus; the walls were painted with a pleasant pastoral scene and the roof as a summer sky. A lever in one wall, when pulled, caused a noise at the steel gate, and they determined that it was a double-locked gate and the spell had only operated whatever lock the lever controlled. They thoroughly searched this area (but without ascending the stairs), finding nothing. The party now spent a great deal of time trying to figure out how to open the gate, with no success. Finally, after a lot of effort, Orion slipped up the stairs to the sarcophagus, and found two keys laying before it!
As he took them, a mist rose up from the sarcophagus and formed the sad face of an old man. In his mind, Orion heard it beg him to release him from his centuries-old prison; a simple benediction was all he asked. The smaller of the two keys proved to work for the steel gate and Mordecai went to the sarcophagus and said some words over it. The mist sighed and vanished while the lid slid off the sarcophagus. Nobody was inside but the party did find a rich crown, diadem, gold necklace, and a ring.
Moving back to the peephole room, the party found that the secret door had swung open to allow them to escape the trap. But, they stepped outside into the presence of something none of them had ever seen, a pulsing group of blackish-brown tendrils that floated above the floor and gave off the strong smell of death and decay. A wave of crushing despair rolled out of this thing, hitting Jarrik, Bel and Knar. Its tendrils lashed out as well, crushing Jarrik and Burt under a terrible apathy. Worst of all, a beam shot from it at Knar and blasted his mind, leaving him a drooling buffoon unable to say more than “hodor.” Fortunately, the party was able to destroy it fairly quickly before it could blast the minds of any more party members. Returning to the corpse room, the party found the teleport traps disabled, but no treasure from where the strange chaos creature had apparently been lurking beyond them.
After some healing, during which ZZ noted he was having difficulty casting spells, the party decided to backtrack the long corridor, having found no other ways forward. They returned to the red chamber (where they tricked the flying globe into the outer room, having found it escaped from the sack! The party rested peacefully and, in the morning, ZZ found that the thrall mark no longer glowed, and his spells were no longer impacted.
The party headed east once more towards the trap room to do a further exploration for secret doors. ZZ cast an augury to see if this made sense – it apparently did not and the party turned back from where’d they come, a little frustrated. But, they were in luck as Bel sensed a previously missed secret door. Beyond, they proceeded down a rough stairway in a natural cave. The party came to a T and turned north, coming now into a large caved with a number of alcoves containing large things wrapped up in what looked like spider webs. At one point they were attacked by a spider-like thing with a human face and human arms instead of spider limbs.
From the tomb-like chamber they turned back east yet again, this time following a single natural cave. One rom contained a huge skull of some titanic monster still embedded in the stone of one wall – it gave off a strange dread and the party slipped by it. A cave a little further on showed a corpse with bent gear along a wall with ding marks, as if they tried to chop their way through the stone. Finally, after descending some additional stairs, the party ran into a dead end occupied by a swirling cloud of what could only be described as Chaos (a very malevolent chaos, as ZZ could sense). The thing attacked with waves of magical energy that hit the entire party. Some of them were vampiric in nature and drained the party for the thing’s benefit; every time they thought they were getting the upper hand it healed in this manner. It was a tough and ugly fight, with confusion striking the party and other effects. But finally, the thing was destroyed.
Someone (?) at this point decided to try on the ring gifted by the shade and discovered it to be a Ring of Three Wishes! (an item I rarely put in the game, but which rolled up randomly, so there you go). With it, the first wish was burned to restore hodor-Knar back to normal. Pleased despite the struggle, the party considered their next course of action…