Four Pharaohs - Session Three

After spending a cautious night in the keep, you discussed the best way to get to the marked location of the four pyramids on your map from Reagos. The debate was how best to counter the heat and fatigue of hiking through dozens, scores or perhaps hundreds of miles of dunes in the desert heat. Leo's eyes lit up and he said, "Hold on. We don't have to walk at all!" You found yourselves at the 'X' on your map a couple of wind walk spells and 15 hours later. You set up camp and stayed the night.

The next morning you decided Powduc would be the one to put the mask on. He put it to his face and winced a bit as the magic activated. He found it difficult to remove. After some contemplation, he thought about the pyramid appearing and it did. Powduc saw the pyramid coalesce from the nether. The rest of the group saw the pyramid rise from the sands.

As you were deciding how to reach the entrance some way up the side, a large heirosphinx flew over a nearby dune and charged the group. It viciously attacked Schweitzer but soon turned its fury to Powduc, who was wearing the mask. As the beast fell, Powduc and no one else heard the beast say, "Do not enter the pyramid of the Four Pharaohs."

You 'carpetted' up to the entrance some 300 feet up the smooth green veinstone exterior (identical to the small green stones you 'lost' at the auction). The shaft descended deep into the interior where it eventually leveled off. The hallway was made from jet black stone and had runes carved on the floor, walls and ceiling. Pip could tell they were mathematical formulas. As you went further in, the runes started to glow brighter and brighter. Heeding Raegos' tale, you averted your eyes as much as possible. You came to an archway. Schweitzer and Iam had to look through it to see what was on the other side and when they did, the runes on the archway flashed. They saw one of the runes Reagos told you about.

After traveling a short distance through the columned halls, you encountered what some quickly recognized as Seratin, the ranger turned mummy from Reagos' tale. The narrowness of the hall and the columns made it hard to completely surround the beast, but it was quickly dealt with. Descending a short stair you opened a door into a large room. The floor was empty but the walls were lined with shelves and held scores if not hundreds of ceramic vases. You cautiously approached a door opposite when a shattering noise filled the room and broke all the vases. Embalmed body parts poured out of many of the broken vessels and coalesced into swarms if writhing digits, organs, and pieces of flesh. The wriggled directly to Schweitzer, who was wearing his mask. The wisdom of wearing the mask was quickly brought into question as the swarms not only clawed and scratched, but started to cling and constrict. Most weapons proved less effective and all Schweitzer could do was to attempt to remove the parts that were trying to squeeze and strangle him. Area of effect spells started flying and Leo finally was able to get in and successfully turned the undead swarms. 10 rounds of wands and other area spells didn't kill the masses. They returned to Schweitzer and started their gruesome attack anew. Powduc was now in place and punched the swarms. You quickly realized that the swarms were not resistant to bludgeoning attacks. You made short order of them from that point. Zoltan scanned the room for magic and saw that one disembodied finger was wearing a magic ring. Or rather the pearl in the ring was magical. Upon examining it closer, a symbol on the pearl flashed. Zoltan had seen one of the symbols. An identify revealed the pearl to be a pearl of power for 3rd level spells.

Exiting the room you passed a shaft and heard a scraping noise. Cautiously waiting, you saw a stone construct slowly climbing down the shaft; it's arms and hands above its head as if were a platform of a sort. It kept descending.

You explored a bit further on this level and found a room that appeared empty. Thinking about the last 'empty' room you declined to enter. Heading back to the shaft, you climbed on the 'elevator' as the construct was making its way back up from somewhere below. It stopped at an opening and started back down. You all hopped off and found yourself in a long narrow hallway with windows on one side. As you passed a window, Iam noticed a warm desert breeze and realized that the windows that appeared to look out onto a dessert oasis were actually on the 'interior' wall of the pyramid. He closed his eyes and attempted to touch the window with his sword. It past through. Zoltan noticed this and attempted to disbelieve the illusion only to have the window vanish to reveal another symbol flash on the blank wall behind where the illusion was. Zoltan had seen two symbols.

Ignoring the windows, you continued. The hall turned to the right and to the right again after a distance. There was an opening in the wall toward the interior of the pyramid.Tthe group approached and saw a beautiful woman wrapped in decaying linens from the neck down sitting on a stone throne on the far side of the room. Beside her stood a large metal construct. A couple fighters entered the room. Iam charged only to run into an invisible wall dividing the large room in half. She stood and said, "So, you wish to play my game." The construct entered the other half of the room and the floors on either side of the wall became unbalanced by nearly five feet. It punched its fists through one the the many glass windows that lined this room like the halls outside, reached in and set a large flat veinstone weight on the floor. The floors became more unbalanced by about a foot. As others scrambled into the room, Zoltan launched a disintegrate at the wall only to have it reflected back at him. He too climbed into the room. During the brief confusion, she cast a spell from a scroll summoning an earth elemental which began to assist the construct. Its weight alone caused the floors to shift even more.

Deciding the game was on, Leo enlarged himself and others 'assisted' by helping smash windows and set weights on the floor. With nearly all the group helping you made almost completely steady 'progress' of adding more weight than the elemental and construct. However, on three occasions, as people grabbed weights, a symbol on the weight a person removed from the alcove flashed. By the time your half of the room reached the bottom and you heard a deafening crunch of metal Pip, Alorian and Leo (?) had each seen a symbol. The floors soon balanced themselves and all that remained on the floor was a crumpled mass of metal. The wall of force and the radiant woman were gone. A jet black stone ladder could be seen behind the throne she first sat on.

You gathered you resolve and headed to the ladder.

'Till next time.