[DnD] Tomb of Horrors (GFF D&D Adventure X)

1 Die Roll ARCANA CHECK YOU SAY

Slim tosses one of the dead piranha into the orange fog, only for the fish to be flung right back out immediately. It's not been cooked, but it has undergone a transformation stranger still. While remaining quite dead, the fish has returned through the mists adorned with a tiny battle-axe and a miniature horned helm on its head. In addition, an eensy little loincloth is tied around its midsection.

Garold pops in and gives the altar a close looking-over. Despite the inherent suspicious of the thing, he doesn't spot anything particularly remarkable that the others had missed.

Sam puts the skull on the altar. Still, nothing happens. Nothing unusual results from sitting in the chair, either.

"That won't do anything either", the skull chuckles. "I've been dead for quite some time, so it won't respond to... ah, I've said too much. If you want some bad ideas, though, I'll gladly help with that."

Beefi checks the south wall, carrying his lantern with him. In a the southeast corner, he spots a tiny slot carved into the wall at roughly waist height. It's large enough to insert a large coin, perhaps.

Yeah that other spot's just a glitch

Gra-fa-zut drops his Treeform Box on the altar next to the skull and the ring. Nothing happens.

"What if you put me in the box?", Murray suggests. "That's probably the solution. It definitely won't result in you being murdered by a skull-faced tree demon."

Thoroughly suspicious, Gra-fa-zut examines the altar for any sign of arcane dickery. Indeed, the thing is riddled with the characteristic runes of a lightning trap. And then, on top of those, the runes for a fireball trap. Someone was very enthusiastic.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

The Five dive for cover as Slim flings the Tiny Fishbarian toward the altar. It lands on the enchanted relic with a meaty splat, and there is a long breathless silence as the Five await the tremendous blast that must surely be nigh.

But nothing happens.

"The fish is dead already. Dead things don't work. We went over this." Murray sounds particularly exasperated, but this may only be because he's upside-down on the floor after Slim hit him with a stick.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Beefi slides the extremely valuable ring into the slot. It rolls down the slot into darkness, falling quite far before landing on the other side of the wall with a faint clatter. Somewhere in the distance, a chime rings out.

Just then, a massive slab of grey stone smashes through the ceiling, pulverizing that section of the wall completely. For a scant moment, Beefi sees an impossibly deep pit before him — but the slab of rock slams down into it, a gigantic peg designed to fit a preposterously huge hole. There is a terrible roar as the slab hurtles into its appointed place, slamming into position with an earthshaking thud that shakes at least, the room — and most likely the entire tomb. It's a good thing they'd already taken the paintings down.

A few minutes later, after the massive clouds of dust and debris have settled, the way forward lies open. With the pit filled, the ring passage looks to open onto a narrow corridor leading west — and the ring itself, alas, is almost certainly smashed beneath several hundred tons of solid rock.

Gra-fa-zut pokes his head into the orange mists, but nothing remarkable results; he feels a mild desire to strangle his companions, but this is not in itself unusual. He does get a look at the room on the other side of the arch; it's just a 10 by 10 by 10 foot empty cube, devoid of any furnishings or decoration of any kind. Absolutely bare. How odd.

"Throw me in there, man!" shouts Murray. "What's the worst that could happen?"

Most amazing jew boots

Garold, Beefi and Sam investigate the newly-opened corridor, with the seeker and his lit sunrod leading the way forward. It's only a few feet down the hall when Beefi discovers the pits he's looking out for: two gaping holes sit open in the corridor floor, with no attempt having been made to disguise their presence. How sloppy. The pits are 10 foot square; the nearest pit, at least, is roughly 30 feet deep. The pit lacks the rusty spikes of the pits in the tomb's entrance hall; their absence has been compensated by a vicious-looking swarm of mangy rats milling around in the bottom of the pit. The contents of the next pit (if any) are impossible to determine at this distance.

The corridor continues on for at least another 60 feet to the west; the sunrod provides no illumination past such a distance. There's nothing remarkable about the corridor walls, despite Beefi's suspicions; just the same featureless gray stone that makes up the floors.

The addition of a hat to his rather limited physical form seems to improve Murray's mood considerably, and he freely offers some observations. "Rabid, the lot of them. Rumor is there's a few wererats down there too, but I think they'd be smart enough to climb out somehow. They're roughly people-sized, aren't they? I've never met one personally. I suppose if a wererat bit, say, a pixie, you'd get a pixie-sized wererat. You wouldn't be able to tell, right? Damn, lycanthropy is complicated."

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

5 Dice Rolls Garold's save vs disease

Beefi's attempt to scare the rats away with his lantern is unsuccessful, and the group resorts to Plan B Plan A: kill everything with swords and explosions. A column of fire, blood, tiny bones and fur erupts from the pit.

After the gory cloud settles, there's not a single living rat in sight. The mayhem doesn't seen to have provoked anything, and as far as can be seen there aren't any passages in the bottom of the pit (unless they're buried under rat gore, anyway). Converting the filthy rats into an airborne disease vector, however, may have its own unfortunate consequences...

Sam, Uxig and Gra-fa-zut all contract Stage 1 Wererat Filth Fever (-2 to Will).

Sam isn't any more successful at finding something interesting about the wall than Beefi had been.

FELIPE NO

Having made the leap without trouble, Garold peers down into the second pit. The bottom of this pit cannot be seen — it is filled nearly to the top with a opaque green sludge. Large bubbles lazily break the surface of the slime as Garold watches, swelling to nearly the size of his head before silently deflating. Another 75 feet beyond this pit, the light of the sunrod reveals a third one; no more attempt has been made to disguise this one than the others.

Descending down the rope into the smoking heap of rat offal, Slim searches the remains for anything of interest. He finds a small statue of a seahorse, carved of precious jade, as well as a fine tapestry depicting a unicorn at play. No, wait. He doesn't find anything but rat hair and blood. Rolled on the wrong table, sorry.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

4 Dice Rolls disease check

Effortlessly leaping the second pit, Garold cautiously makes his way to the third — spotting nothing untoward along the way. The third pit is filled near to the brim with what looks to be ordinary (if stagnant) water. Having sat so long undisturbed, the top of the pool sports several colonies of algae; at least 5 different species had made their home here, by Garold's eye, though none of them are immediately familiar to him.

Through the gaps in the algae, the water is translucent; the bottom of the pool cannot be seen, but the light penetrates to a depth of at least 10 feet.

Only a few feet past the pool, the passage turns the corner and leads abruptly to the north. Very faintly, Garold can overhear the merry sounds of music, song and laughter from that direction. Behind him, the minotaur leaps over the first pit and pulls the kobold up without incident.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

3 Dice Rolls gfz's future bluff check =(

With the kobold rushing ahead, Samwise and Gra-fa-zut hustle to keep up. They both clear the now-empty rat's nest without trouble, but Sam splashes into the algae pool and Gra-fa-zut plunges into the slime pit far behind him.

A moment later, the genasi's irritated face breaks the surface of the sludge, not much the worse for wear. The slime is acidic, but a fairly mild concoction as these things go. Muttering darkly, the swordmage wipes the slime from his armor and proceeds toward the algae pool.

13 acid damage to Gra-fa-zut

A meaty hand seizes Sam by the wrist, and Beefi hauls the halfling out of the algae pool. Though wet and bedraggled, the halfling seems unharmed. As Sam spits out a mouthful of colorful algae, however, he becomes aware of a vague sense of nausea and vertigo. Ugh. Just a little water in the lungs. It'd pass.

Sam contracts Tumbledown; -2 to Acrobatics and Athletics until cured. See post #239 for Sam's jump rolls and the disease attack.

Uxig peers up the northern corridor, which terminates in a pair of doors roughly 55 feet ahead. Built of sturdy wood, the doors are bound together with heavy chains. A warning is etched into the door in glowing blue letters:

PRIVATE PARTY
NO ADMITTANCE

Warm, inviting firelight pours under the door, illuminating a few feet of the corridor. The happy sounds of merrymaking beyond the door are unmistakable. There's a band of troubadours playing Uxig's favorite song.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Samwise busts out his lockpicks, but there's no locks to be found; no clasps, no keyholes, no nothing. On closer inspection all the heavy chains are just built into the door.

Happily, Gra-fa-zut's disturbing ruse is more effective (though he's offering to "do the shimmy again" by the time someone actually responds).

"GUYS! Guys, cut the music, there's somebody at the door."

The lovely music ends abruptly, though there is some quiet conversation. There is a brief clatter from the other side of the doors as the locks are unlocked, and the doors part ever-so-slightly. A visibly inebriated orc pokes his head through the gap, smiling at the Five with some bemusement. He's wearing a human skull as a hat; rather than holding it in place with a strap, the skull seems to be affixed to his head with a liberal dollop of reddish paste. The orc has, evidently, foregone proper party attire; he is clad in what appears to be a particularly voluminous grey linen chemise, though one of the shoulder straps has gone missing.

"Damn, five of you? We only ordered two dancers, man. We're not paying extra. We can sort that shit out later, though. You guys look rough. Did you have some trouble finding the place? Come in and get yourself cleaned up, the guest of honor's gonna be here any minute."

From what little can be seen around the orc's boozy grin, the room on the other side of the door is utterly dark. Neither Garold's sunrod nor Uxig's natural night vision can pierce the unnatural blackness.

"Watch your step, guys!", shouts the orc as he stumbles back into the party (leaving the doors wide open). "We could only afford the one scroll of Utter Darkness, and we're not going to dispel it until Dave gets here. It's like a surprise, you know?"

"This party seems, er, really boring", Murray stammers, his normally sarcastic voice taking on an odd nervousness. "We should probably find something more interesting to do."

The band starts up again, and the Five are left staring into the inky darkness beyond the doorway. Somewhere in the dark, a small clamor breaks out when a man demands to know who a hand belongs to (only to be informed that the offending object was not, in fact, a hand). There is much laughter.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

5 Dice Rolls Uxig init

Beefi meanders along the wall to the west, not encountering much of anything (or anyone). Judging by the noise the room was quite well stocked with both beverages and company, but finding either in the dark was troublesome.

Sam lurks by the door, lying in wait to ambush the guest of honor. Murray ignores his question, instead muttering a panoply of curses under his breath. It seems unusually warm here, but then after tromping around in a dungeon dripping wet most anything would.

Garold wanders in, faintly gobsmacked by the absurdity of it all. Quite abruptly, the utterly dark chamber is flooded with light. Perhaps too much light, really. There is no party, and no orcs. If they were ever there in the first place, they'd been magicked away. The northern wall of the chamber is comprised entirely of a massive archway, much like the smaller archways encountered earlier in the tomb. Other than the size, this portal offers another significant departure from its smaller cousins: the destination is quite clearly on display. On the other side of the archway, a blasted landscape of fire and lava roils menacingly. The portal is clearly a two-way affair; half the floor of the room has been engulfed in hot magma flowing from the portal, and the remaining stone floor in the southern half of the room is rapidly heating underfoot.

Though this is unpleasant, it's not much of an immediate threat in itself (and brings on the happy upshot that Sam's clothes are dried within a matter of moments). Things take a turn for the worse, however, when the floor begins to rumble underfoot. Struggling to keep their footing, the Five immediately reach a startling realization — both the portal chamber and the corridor beyond (in which Gra-fa-zut and Uxig remain) are tilting northward, threatening to dump them all unceremoniously into the magma. The corridor was rapidly becoming a steep cliff to be scaled, and hungry tongues of fire lash out from the portal as though impatient for their meal.

"Another fine mess you've gotten us into", Murray snarls.

SKILL CHALLENGE: TRY TO NOT DIE
No quota of successes to meet: skill challenge ends when all of the Five are safe from the elemental portal (or killed by it).
Proceed in order of initiative. This is a primarily Physical challenge; each character may use one Social or Mental skill during the challenge.
Failed checks cause the character to slide 2 squares toward the portal; successful checks move the character away from the portal at half speed.
Once you reach DP-3 or DP-2 your character is safe. Characters in row DC or higher will begin taking fire damage.

DC 17

Beefi 19, Sam 12, Garold 10, Uxig 9, Gra-fa-zut 8

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

4 Dice Rolls elementals init

Nimbly pulling himself upward through the doorway, Sam grimaces as Uxig tumbles past him. The minotaur and the shifter had slid closer to the magma as well. Only Sam and Gra-fa-zut were making progress, the swordmage grimly hauling himself up the slope with his brute strength. At least the kobold hadn't burst into flames yet; the furry contingent downhill were both visibly smoldering. This wasn't the worst of their problems; four blazing figures had entered through the portal, slowly wading through the magma toward the Five. The four of them seemed composed entirely of fire and molten rock, maintaining only the rudest semblance of a humanoid shape.

13 fire damage to Beefi and Garold

Elementals: AC 14 Fort 15 Ref 14 Will 12

Beefi 19, Sam 12, Garold 10, Uxig 9, Gra-fa-zut 8, Lesser Magma Elenentals 5

Most amazing jew boots

1 Die Roll burn a cow,more

Beefi continues to struggle, his hooves finding little purchase on the superheated stones. He slides even further away from the Five, only a few scant feet from plunging irrevocably into the roiling magma. Though it slows down his own progress (and spends his canteen), Sam takes a moment to wedge the end of his rope between a pair of loose stones in the wall. He flung the rest of the cord behind him, hoping his allies could make use of it. Dampened or not, the rope wouldn't last long in the searing heat.

DC becomes 15 for the remainder of this round and the next (since it's damp); then rope is hella burnt up.

Just as he's about to tumble toward the magma as well, the rope hurtles down toward Garold. Reflexively, the shifter seizes the rope in his teeth at the very moment his feet slip away from the floor below. Though he's momentarily embarrassed by his primal instincts, there's no time to dwell on it; he hauls himself up the rope, with Uxig beside him scaling the stones with his claws dug into the deliquescent rock.

Hauling himself up the slope, Gra-fa-zut glances over his shoulder to see the others far behind. What was keeping them? Perhaps they didn't know just how dangerous the magma was.

"You know, a similar portal to the Elemental Chaos opened over the Freeport region millennia ago. Of course, at that time it was just more open sea. It's only thanks to the millions of tons of molten rock that Freeport is such a prosperous port today. Can you even imagine? Surviving records say the resulting cloud of smoke and steam blotted out the sun for nearly a year!"

The swordmage smiled in satisfaction as his companions redoubled their efforts. It was complete bullshit, of course: Pirate Isle had been formed when a particularly bold band of seagoing knaves stole all the earth and stone from an ancient minor kingdom known for its cruelty, and spitefully dumped it into the sea. The resulting crevasse rapidly filled with seawater, creating an inlet to the river Lis and opening a trade route to the Moonsea, which —

Gra-fa-zut frowns as the stink of burning cowhide reaches his nostrils. Not the best time to reminisce on his studies.

For the rest of the encounter, successful checks move you upward at half speed +1

The magma elementals continue to slog slowly through the molten rock, getting alarmingly close to Beefi. At least they didn't seem to pose any threat at range, but they were clearly gaining on the Five.

Beefi 19, Sam 12, Garold 10, Uxig 9, Gra-fa-zut 8, Lesser Magma Elenentals 5

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Rallying his companions on, Gra-fa-zut spared a moment to glance at the goal. The corridor was practically vertical now; within moments they'd be facing a rock wall instead of a difficult climb. Flinging his sword toward the precipice above, Gra-fa-zut put his faith in an oft under-appreciated aspect of the swordbond. True, you could always will the blade to return to you. But were the way obscured — say, if there were a wall between — you'd just have to make the trip yourself. Laying a hand each on the shoulders of Uxig and Garold as they approached from behind, Gra-fa-zut grit his teeth and waited. He'd never tried teleporting through a wall before, but in theory it should work.

A brief, terrifying moment later, the three of them were sprawled in a heap in the southern corner where the tilting hallway met the hall of the three pits. Seconds after, the kobold and the halfling scrambled through a tiny gap barely large enough for their small forms, tumbling down what was now a jagged wall of rock blocking all access to the passage. They'd not be getting back in there without some pickaxes or a hearty supply of blasting powder — not that they'd want to, really.

You were all outrunning the mag-men handily; might as well skip a bunch of rolling with no real drama or risk. 570 XP (114 each). Oh wait that is precisely the amount you need to level up how convenient.

FELIPE NO

3 Dice Rolls perception (gfz)

Once again lost in a fugue of some sort, Gra-fa-zut passively allows himself to be lashed to the 10' pole. As a watersoul, he's at no risk of drowning, and he has the good sense to keep his mouth shut as his head is dunked under the algae coating the surface of the pool. Almost immediately after his feet have been submerged with the rest of him, Gra-fa-zut's face gently collides with some kind of grimy obstruction. Curiously wiping the slime away from the apparently shallow bottom of the pool, he discovers his own face peering back at him. It seems the algae pool sits atop nothing more durable than a mirror. Nothing else interesting makes itself apparent, though Gra-fa-zut notices with mixed feelings that the dead rat he captured earlier was, in fact, just napping until being submerged (at which point it promptly drowned).

Not for the first time today, Beefi scours the walls and floors around him in search of some hidden secret. But in this search he is rewarded. With great excitement he spies a scrap of parchment peeking between two of the floor stones. In need of reading material to pass the time while Gra-fa-zut plumbs the depths, Beefi cautiously pries up the loose stones and retrieves the scroll. Carefully-inked letters on the scroll's containing ribbon identify it immediately: Beefi's found a ritual scroll of Easy Climb.

Murray's mocking laughter travels quite a distance. Somewhere above, an elf in a tastefully-decorated subterranean apartment drops another copper coin into a jar labeled "lava first". There's another jar next to it, labeled "scroll first" — but this jar is nearly empty.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

4 Dice Rolls break fall

Slim heedlessly bashes away at the mysterious blockage. Happily, Gra-fa-zut is significantly more durable than the mirror; it smashes apart after only 3 such collisions, dumping the stagnant water into a corridor below. Of course, with the precipitous loss of pressure, Gra-fa-zut is sucked down as well — and Uxig, holding the pole, along with him. They fall 20 feet into a dark hallway; the floor underfoot is raw iron, long ago given over to a thorough coating of flaking rust. The corridor continues south past the range of Slim's darkvision; other than the algal puddle they're sprawled in, no other interesting features present themselves.

Uxig gets to his feet, spitting out a mouthful of bushy grey plants; Gra-fa-zut remains prone, tied to the 10' pole and looking mildly cross.

7 fall damage to Gra-fa-zut
1 fall damage to Uxig, and he contracts Tumbledown

Jam it back in, in the dark.

The rest of the Five make their way down the chain, and Beefi shakes it free. It's not as though they can get back out of the tomb by retracing their steps at this point; best to hold on to all the supplies they can.

Even before his feet hit the floor, Garold's sharp eyes spot irregularities in the corridor's east wall. Looks to be some kind of door, carefully painted to blend in with the stone wall. It was a pretty good cover, really — the duller senses of his companions would likely never have noticed it. Of course, this door lacked any handle or any other obvious means of opening it, but if needs must they could always tell the kobold it had insulted him.

With Garold's sunrod at hand, the Five can see clear to the southern end of the corridor. Nothing stood between and a turn to the west except more rust.

"Almost there!", Murray offers, his voice oddly cheerful. "Nobody ever gets this far. Wow. You guys are really, really good. I wouldn't be surprised if you took down that lich with no trouble at all!"

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Nothing untoward happens! Satisfied that it's reasonably safe to approach, Beefi puts his ear to the door. It's mostly quiet, but after a few moments he hears a soft bubbling sound like a thick stew on the boil.

Gra-fa-zut seems the most affected of all by the panicked escape from the magma, his blue complexion going oddly pale. It's no surprise at all when he finds the secret door covered practically floor-to-ceiling with wards, curses and conjurations. With the right rituals and the necessary supplies, he could untie these arcane knots — but even then, it could take hours.

Most amazing jew boots

An injured goose flutters down from the hole in the ceiling where the algae pool had been, landing directly in Beefi's outstretched hands. A small ribbon on the goose's neck reads "Howard". Desiring to protect Goose Howard from injury, Beefi gently carries him away from the dangerous door. How odd, that a goose should suddenly appear in this place.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

3 Dice Rolls which one

Murray ponders the question for a moment.

"Well, you figure — I'm not an expert in magic or nothin'. I like swords, mostly. Swords and other pointy things. But the thing about any trap, right, is you set it off and then it's done! So you could throw the goose at it, sure. You'd lose the goose, and it might not accomplish anything, but it's worth a shot. Of course, that thing's got like 8 different traps on it and you only got the one goose."

Beefi does his best to splint the goose's injured wing, but his meaty fingers and generally low knowledge of avian anatomy guarantee that he bungles the job. Howard won't be flying anytime soon — not that there's anywhere to fly to around here.

Garold cautiously creeps round the corner and takes a look. The rusty passageway carries on at least another 100 feet to the west before exceeding the reach of his sunrod. There also appears to be a doorway leading south from the corridor, though Garold cannot see it very clearly. Directly in front of the doorway, a mace lies abandoned on the floor of the hall. It glows with a gentle pink aura, and twinkling sparks of many-colored light seem to orbit the weapon like bees 'round their hive.

Grimacing, Gra-fa-zut presses his hand to the door. This was a dangerous business, but in theory it's just a matter of breaking this line, smudging that rune, and — shit!

Gra-fa-zut immediately realizes his mistake, diving for cover. Perhaps an eighth of the door's many, many arcane inscriptions fade away, and a quantity of sizzling acid manifests abruptly just in front of the door. The acid reacts strangely with the rusty floor, leaving behind a large patch of foul-smelling black goo.

"That's the way! You just gotta be light on your feet, am I right?"

Howard waddles up Beefi's arm and hides atop his backpack, hopefully well out of the reach of anyone experimental-minded.

I was speaking idiomatically.

3 Dice Rolls *zzzap

Despite an impressive leap at the trapped door, Slim's "springing flip kick" results in more of a "fumbling sprained ankle". The kobold does not so much spring away from the door as collapse against it with a dull thud. The rippling bolts of electricity that lash out at him are really just punctuation.

24 damage to Slim, bloodied

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

"If it's any consolation I'm only helping you because you might stumble into some bones I can use. If you just up and died I'd be left lying on the floor for weeks, maybe months until all your gross meaty parts rotted away. I won't touch that stuff. Turns my stomach.

You know what I mean. Hey, what are you — perfectly good booze all over the floor, genius."

I don't understand what you're trying to use Thievery on here, and the Inq. Kit works on Perception so uh Perception check = 27? Not that there's really anything to find!

Garold and Slim trail behind the shamus, the kobold looking much the worse for wear than he had on entering the tomb. There was hardly a spot on him that wasn't bruised, scabby or blistered. He wasn't going to be able to stand up to much more punishment.

As it happens, the corridor abruptly ends only a few feet past the doorway. Bit of a tease, that. The doorway opens onto a brief stairway, which leads down into a square chamber absolutely strewn with bones. A rough pathway, candle-lit, leads through the mounds of skeletal remains toward the golden couch at the south end of the room. A somewhat more intact corpse lies at rest upon the golden couch, clad in rusting scale mail and clutching a broadsword between its leathery hands. A circle of golden runes surrounds the couch, etched into the unfinished stone floor of the chamber (though many of the runes are hidden or obscured by the aforementioned skeleton piles).

"Ho there!"

A confident, manly voice pipes up from the approximate location of the glowing, sparkly mace.

"Hello, gents. Look at your weapons. Now back to me. Now back at your weapons. Now back to me. Sadly, they aren't me. But if you stopped using cheap garbage you found in a gnomish flea market, your weapons could be me. Look down. Back up. Where are you? You're in a tomb, with the mace your weapons could never compare to. What's in your hand? Back at me. I have it. It's an enchanted mace. Look again. The mace is now an intelligent artifact that deals massive damage to the undead. Anything is possible when your mace provides resistance to necrotic damage. I'm on the floor."

The manly mace then whistles a jaunty tune, waiting to be picked up.

Get the Flash Player to play this audio file:

Beefi stays well back, securing Howard on a tether and ruminating on his past experiences. What could his previous excursions into caves and dungeons tell him about this situation? Well, the most important thing where entering any cave was to keep track of your route and know the way back out. He could scratch that one. Failing that, make use of the natural cave ecology and scavenge for food until an escape route or rescue can be found. A sound principle, but they all had plenty of food and water at the moment. Huh. No interesting subterranean life or unusual geological features to speak of, either. Eventually, they'd stumble into an odd fungus or a cave-in or something, though. And then they'll all be quite glad of his extensive spelunking knowledge, yes indeed!

Gra-fa-zut stands alone in the dark, damp and vaguely forlorn.

FELIPE NO

"Why poke me?", chuckles the mace casually. "I'm just a charming, attractive mace. Come, lift me up. Swan dive into the best fights of your lives."

"How did I arrive here? I don't know! Perhaps some brave, handsome rogue dropped me here. Perhaps I just love the smell of adventure."

Despite the evident lack of any nostrils, the mace audibly takes a deep whiff of the tomb's unique bouquet.

"Ah, yes. Bracing."

"HOOOOOONK."

The mace seems more-or-less honest, though of course it lacks all the body language and facial expressiveness that usually indicate such things.

Murray, however, responds to the presence of the mace with little other than a continual low hiss until Sam carries him away to take potshots at the trapped door.

"It is a problem, yes, in the sense that if that thing even touches me I may very well explode. Explode! Into a million little pieces! Bone fragments everywhere. In your eyes! In your teeth! Between your toes! Imagine the horror of it!"

Garold's insightful question subtly reveals the truth: Murray does hate the mace. He hates it so much.

Sam unloads a few rounds into the trapped door, but nothing much seems to happen. The damned thing hasn't got any hinges to speak of, and the slugs don't seem to make much of an impression of the door's surface. Likely it's just a stone slab like all the other hidden doors in the tomb.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Slim was not a man with a great depth of ecclesiastical knowledge. But he did have a keen interest in hitting things and making them explode, and this particular mace was the center of many an intriguing rumor amongst similarly violent types. Granted, the things it caused to explode were generally already dead, but the visual effect was largely the same. Slim had never really expected to lay eyes on it, though: it was considered a red herring by most, consecrated as it supposedly was to a god that most people agreed had never actually existed. Saint Cuthbert, it was said; a god of justice, who punished the unjust by beating them about the head and neck. But if such a deity had ever existed, it was long before the lives of anyone present today.

Before Slim could relay this information to the rest of the Five, Beefi had already lifted the fabled weapon from its resting place.



"Ha-HA!" whooped the mace, ancient dust falling from it in sheets as it glowed ever brighter. "Aren't you the noble one, hesitant even to steal from the venerable dead. I think we do well to work together. I recall little of the last to wield me, but if I lay abandoned there then surely his faith was... insufficient.

I know no more of the traps here than you do, kobold, and likely less. I do see, but as you can imagine I've had nothing interesting to look at for quite some time. But enough talk. Let us crush evil."

Jam it back in, in the dark.

8 Dice Rolls skeletons init

The door listens to Gra-fa-zut's soliloquy with the quiet patience that you can only really get from a door. This wasn't the first time his companions had left him behind, and the door was really a lovely contrast to their boorish ways. At length he reached the end of his explanation, and the door seemed to rattle around in the wall for a bit before issuing a quite-undoorlike moan. Confused and scared, the secret door waddled backward away from Gra-fa-zut and cowered in a corner of the room it was meant to be guarding.

Of course, Gra-fa-zut himself saw none of this, standing alone in the darkness as he was. But he did detect a strange thumping sound, and the rush of stale air escaping from the room beyond. What lay within remained a mystery (dark as it was), but the genasi quickly identified the distinct odors of rotting flesh and hot cheese. Or perhaps hot flesh and rotting cheese. The bubbling sound Beefi had reported was more audible now, too. Perhaps someone was preparing a lovely fondue.


—————


"Murray, is it? That's a good name for... him." The mace's cheerful voice dips into a low snarl of contempt when discussing the talking skull, but its hearty mood quickly recovers. "Kind of you to offer, but I don't think Cuthbert has any churches anymore. That's the problem with being dead, everyone just stops paying attention to you. Now let's get down there and — oh. Don't have to tell you twice."

As soon as Beefi steps foot in the recessed sepulchre, the leathery corpse at rest upon the golden couch abruptly sits upright, swinging its legs to the side and springing to its feet. Skeletal warriors leap out of the bonepiles just as suddenly. Cradling a musty tome in its left arm and a snake-headed scepter in its right hand, the dead thing carelessly allows its rusty sword to fall useless to the floor.

"YOU BEAT EVERYONE!", shouts the long-dead magus, his booming voice much louder than is really necessary in the cramped confines of the tomb. "BEAT ME, AND YOU CAN LEAVE! COME AND DIE."

The Five have a few free moments to act before the living dead become a real threat; despite their quickness to spring to life, the old bones are unused to movement.

"I AM A SLOWPOKE", the magus proclaims in dismay. Howard honks. It is a mocking honk, triumphal.

Defenses:
Corpse Magus AC 26 Fort 24 Ref 22 Will 26
Skeletal Legionnaires AC 23 Fort 20 Ref 20 Will 18

Sam 30, Garold 17, Uxig 17, Gra-fa-zut 16, Beefi 12, Skeletal Legionnaires 11, Corpse Magus 7

There's nowhere I can't reach.

13 Dice Rolls *Achoo

"Nachos?" The skeleton looks around desperately. "Paolo! Hey! You've got some nachos, right? Help me out here." The skeleton to his left responds with disgust. "First of all, Dave, that's racist. Secondly, although I did bring some nachos when I came in here that was at least 50 years ago."

Dave emits a terrified squeak, glancing from Paolo to Uxig and back again, before promptly collapsing back into the bone pile. "¡No huyas, pendejo!", shouts Paolo, as Uxig's hammer whirls past his head. "Hijo de puta!"

"Tu madre chupa la polla Orcus!", Murray cheerfully remarks. "I'm negotiating!", he confides to Sam.

The nine remaining legionnaires pull javelins from their quivers in eerie synchronicity, stepping toward the center of the room. "The negotiations have broken down", Murray sorrowfully reports. Four of the javelins hurtle into Slim; the skeletons have apparently taken his attempt to frighten them rather personally.

28 damage to Slim; marked by Skeleton E (Blue)

"THIS TOMB WILL BE YOUR GRAVE!", thunders the magus. "Tomb? You guys always told me this was a sepulcher", Paolo mutters. "It's all the same shit", hisses another skeleton. "They're synonyms."

The magus strides imperiously toward Slim, throwing open his dusty tome and reading aloud from the vile curses within. Despite his normally fearless nature, the sight of the decaying thing approaching him throws Slim into a mild panic — too busy deciding between fight and flight to make a competent attempt at either.

15 psychic damage to Slim; bloodied, immobilized and -2 to attack for 1 round

With the ridiculous kobold out of the way, the magus turns his attentions to Beefi — and that offensive cudgel. The magus levels his scepter in the minotaur's direction, and the serpent's head spits out a vile spray of toxic filth. It settles on Beefi's armor without much effect.

Sam, Garold, Uxig, Gra-fa-zut, Beefi, Skeletal Legionnaires, Corpse Magus

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.