| Session Date | February 24, 2024 |
| Start Date | 21 Reaping, 1273 |
| End Date | 22 Reaping, 1273 |
| Starting Location | Room painted with Chaos |
| Ending Location | Lich's Tomb |
| Player Characters | |
| Base XP Gained | 12375 |
| Player Notes | ZZ's Notes |
Lich:
Mummies:
Lich Tomb:
The party entered the weirdly painted room, though it hurt their eyes to some extent with its garishness. They poked around a bit until a trio of strange Orcs came in from the northeast. They were unarmed, oddly dressed, and carrying flowers. Smiling (as best Orcs can) they hailed the party in guttural Common and claimed that they came in peace and wished no harm. They wished to speak to the party, but Hans told them to stay away, which they did despite seeming somewhat hurt by this churlishness. They merely wished to give the party some flowers and speak to them about the Church of Religious Consciousness. They had food (fungal stuff) that they were willing to share, as well, but lamented that they had no fungal beer or wine to share. Hans claimed to be allergic to flowers but would settle for coins and gems. Alas, they said, they’d given all their wealth to a Bugbear not long ago. They were pleased with doing so, they said, as the Bugbear clearly was pleased by the gifts as he walked away from them laughing loudly. When asked, they said the exchange had been to the northeast of where they now were. Finally, the Orcs parted after being given general directions to the Dark Market, where they said they hoped to turn it from dark to bright and happy.
The party now continued explorations. At one door Deaglan heard a slight squishing sound, Beyond they found a Black Pudding oozing across a large room. They opened up on it with a lot of oil and some torches. Unfortunately, the fire made its only path to safety through the party, but it was unable to harm anyone before it at last succumbed to the flames, leaving only a cloud of noxious smoke. The room had an inset yellow-brown spiral spinning counterclockwise out from the center. Above that point was a small crystal globe inset in the ceiling, casting a dirty yellow light.
At a nearby door, Deaglan noted a very faint chalked ‘X’ marked on it. Entering, the party found two long stone tables atop which sat a dozen large glass jars each filled with liquid and containing an overly large sized human looking brain. The party was hit with strong mental energy, powerful and hostile. Burt fell down from an immense wave of searing agony while Harvey seemed nonplussed for a moment before recovering. Being ordinary glass, the party now began to smash open the jars, spilling the viscous liquid and dumping the brains to the floor where they began to melt away immediately. Bu the mental energy attacks continued. Burt went mad with rage and began to attack Hans, happily without effect, while the latter was overwhelmed by visions and images of an alien landscape. Finally, the last of the jars were destroyed and the mental attacks faded away, and Burt recovered from his madness shortly thereafter. Nothing of further note was found here.
The next significant room they came to was carved all around with bas reliefs depicting robed figures marching around to the north, each heavily hooded but with glimpses of skeletal and corpselike features. The figures converged at a door made of bronze which depicted lines of the figures descending into some sort of dungeon or underworld. The door had an obvious lock so Deaglan went to pick it. However, the weird lock mechanism actually broke his thief tool, though Harvey was able to unlock it after.
The door led to a short passage descending about 10 feet and ending at another door. Beyond that the party found themselves at a large tomb with 14 mummies, already rising from biers to attack. Sirius webbed much of the room but Mordecai was only able to turn 3 of them. Deaglan, invisible to undead by the grace of Larana, got behind one and backstabbed it. With only three facing them, the party began to make quick work of them. And then things went very south. The web suddenly vanished, freeing the other 11 mummies, 9 of whom rushed the party. The other two stayed at the northern end of the room, flanking a skeletal, corpselike figure. The party pulled back slightly as Burt cast minor globe of invulnerability. Meanwhile, Helga was overcome by a mass charm spell which more or less took her out of the fight. When that was set, Burt, Hans and Sirius all threw a fireball into the room, creating a massive inferno, though the party (and two mummies) were protected from the mess. But, the creature at the far end and the two flanking mummies were also unaffected.
Sirius cast magic missiles at the figure while Deaglan shot arrows; the former never reached him but the arrows found a mark. But then the Lich, for Lich it was, threw a delayed blast fireball at the party, killing Hans instantly and nearly killing several others. With the party decimated by the blast, Burt invoked the last remaining wish on the ring he possessed to undo the Lich’s fireball, thereby saving Hans and probably several others. The lich followed that up with a cone of cold that also managed to do some serious damage, though nothing like his thwarted fireball. After this spell, the Lich was suddenly engulfed in a shimmering sphere of reddish light.
The party made a few spell and missile attacks against this sphere but were unable to gauge the results. Mordecai summoned a powerful air elemental and sent that into the sphere but, again, without seeing any results. Finally, ZZ slipped off the main axis and drew a rod of cancellation from the bag of holding. Rushing forward, he struck the sphere and it vanished immediately, revealing the Lich, his two mummies, and a petrified glob of stone (the late air elemental). Now revealed, Sirius hit the enemy (and ZZ0 with a slow spell as ZZ charged them, followed by Deaglan. At this point, the game was all but over. The Lich soon fell, and his two mummy guards moments later. The party soon discovered a secret door to an inner crypt where they recovered a rather sizable treasure, the most notable item of which was a magic longsword named Hither and Yon which was intelligent and had a number of powers, not the least of which was an ability to teleport the wielder once per day.
The party decided to rest in the crypt as they were in sore shape despite undoing the fireball. After taking precautions, they camped for the night. Hans, however, was troubled by intense nightmares and could not rest well at all. But the party was undisturbed and used the tie to identify several other magic items they’d acquired from the Lich…