| Forgotten Realms Campaign 2001 2 July, 2001 |
Player Characters
Starting off on the morning of 9 Eleasis, the party headed back to the Polyandrium. Arriving at the outskirts of the graveyard near noon, the party peeked through the trees from the eastern side. A red dragon, about 20 foot long, was seen landing on the Tower of Bones. Then it took off again, evidently doing an aerial patrol of the area.
Since no Cultists were visible on this side of the Polyandrium, Sam sneaked out to reconnoiter the closest crypts. The rune-sealed (sun-shaped rune)Crypt of Orbakh was the first one he examined. Finding no way in, he sneaked over to Crypt of Rothilion, which was also rune-sealed (star-shaped rune).
The next crypt he invesigated had already been cleaned out by the Cultists, so Sam continued on to the Crypt of Kesefehon. The Cult of the Dragon had already attempted to enter this crypt, and the rune of the wolf needed to open it was in a small box by the door. Written on the door in chalk was the message: "Dangerous! Wait until Shamoor is available!"
The Crypt of Kesefehon kept Sam busy dodging glyphs of warding blasting lightning and searching for (and sometimes finding) traps. A spear trap shot first Mills, then Hoshi as Sam first attempted to disable it, and then when he opened the door after triggering it the first time. A poison gas trap Sam missed in the fake sarcophagus made Thartok cough a bit, and stunk up the air a bit, but otherwise caused no harm.
Sam did find the secret door that led to the true sarcophagus, which turned out to be guarded by the mummy of Kesefehon. Thartok and Fraugh succombed to the mummy's fearsome presence and were unable to act at first. The mummy attacked Mills and afflicted the cleric with mummy rot disease. Mills and Hoshi beat on the mummy, while Sam used his wand of magic missiles. The mummy was defeated shortly, though Mills looked sick afterward. Very pale and winded.
Leaving Kesefehon's crypt, the party noticed that another crypt further along the northern edge of the Polyandrium had a couple of wagons pulled up to it. Sam sneaked over to investigate and found that though the Cult of the Dragon was prepared to begin ransacking the crypt, they had not yet begun. Remains of a large statue were blocking the door. Thartok and Mills moved the blocks out of the way, revealing that the door of the crypt was propped open with a small stone. Sam's search indicated that the door had been propped open over a year before.
As the party explored the crypt, they found evidence of previous searchers. Mostly, the evidence was in what they weren't finding: much of anything. Finally, the body of a dead gnome was found impaled on a spear-trap behind an illusory wall. The chamber behind the illusory wall held a magical sword with the holy symbol of Lathander on it, floating in a blue flame. Mills took the sword, burning himself in the process.
Further along, in another room the previous explorers had evidently not entered, another magical sword was on raised dais. The dais was surrounded by a hundred or more 2-foot high terracota statues of elven soldiers. Hoshi amused himself by destroying the small statues while Sam searched. Finding no traps on the dais, Sam climbed up and grabbed the sword. The statues then animated and began attacking the party.
Hoshi and Fraugh were quickly surrounded by little clay statues poking them with their spears. Thartok and Mills were close to the door, and benefited from the destruction Hoshi had made before the statues began attacking. Fraugh took the worst of the battle until he unleashed burning hands and cleared out a good portion of the statues. Otherwise, the battle was over quickly.
This sword had some odd grooves running the length of the blade and Hoshi speculated that it might be a key. Dusting themselves off, the party continued on into a small room where they were attacked by a small group of skeletons wearing armor and weilding longswords.
Mills's turned a couple of the skeletons, but the cramped quarters of the room caused the turn to be disrupted. Sam found out that his preferred attack method of throwing his dagger had no effect on the skeletons so he whipped out his trusty wand of magic missiles once again and opened fire. Fraugh watched the battle from the door as Hoshi and Thartok took out one and moved to help Mills with the other two.
Having explored the upper areas of the crypt, the party headed down, down into a series of rooms flooded by water seepage to a depth of 2 feet. Sam, being a halfling, refused walk in water that deep. So he pulled on a pair of slippers of spider climbing and moved around on the walls and ceiling as the party walked through the water. In the water of the antechamber, the party found the floating remains of the previous group of explorers. Searching the bodies, the party found another sword that had identical grooves running along its length.
A stone door at the far end of the room was found to have 2 slots that matched the shape of the "key" swords. By inserting them, Thartok and Mills were able to lift the large door smoothly, revealing the sarcophagus.
While searching the sarcophagus and it's surroundings for traps, Sam found a secret door on the wall behind it. The hallway behind the door extended straight for as far as Sam could see. The party decided to check the sarcophagus before the hallway.
No mummy was waiting in the sarcophagus this time, but it did contain the rune of stars (needed for the Crypt of Rothilion). Grabbing that, the party headed down the hallway. After 300 feet the hallway was still heading straight (northeasterly) and the party decided to head back to the woods to camp and take care of their wounds.
Checking out a side room on the way out, the party faced a large group of undead skeletons. Mills's turn attempt destroyed nearly half of the skeletons, and after that it was short work by Hoshi and Thartok.
Coming out of the crypt, the party found a group of Cultists waiting for them. A necromancer with a group of soldiers and the small red dragon they had seen flying around before. The necromancer demanded their surrender.
The party began to panic and discussed running back down into the crypt. The necromancer got impatient and had the archers fire. The supreme ineffectiveness of the volley of arrows caught the party offguard and they decided to fight. Mills cast his protective ward, while Thartok took out his bow and shot at one of the Cultist archers. Then the dragon breathed flame, catching Mills and Thartok.
Mills cast doom on the dragon, as Thartok raged and rushed forward to attack the wizard. The dragon bit Thartok as he closed in. Thartok decided against the attack and drank a potion fo cure light wounds instead. The necromancer stared him down and doused himself with a magical oil. Fraugh cast dimension door and transported himself, Sam, and Hoshi to just behind the wizard.
The dragon attacked Thartok, then tail-slapped Sam as the halfling backed up and threw his dagger at the wizard from behind. Sam was staggered but his blow killed the wizard. Hoshi moved to attack the wizard's guard, who moved to attack Fraugh in turn. Fraugh managed to kill the guard by unloading a wand of magic missiles into him at close range. Sam took a few seconds to quaff a couple potions of cure light wounds.
Thartok attacked the dragon again, severely hurting it. The dragon breathed fire again, catching Thartok, Hoshi, and Mills plus a handful of the remaining Cultists. Then the dragon took off and flew away quickly. The dragon swooped back down and breathed fire again, killing off the remaining Cultists and dropping Thartok in his tracks, dying. Fraugh attacked the dragon as it flew away with his wand of magic missiles, damaging it further as it flew away once more, while Sam rushed to bind wounds on Thartok and keep him from dying.
Quickly looting the bodies of obvious magical items and valuables, the party doused each other with potions. With Thartok back on his feet, they took off into the trees, heading north.
Everyone received 3500 XP. Sam became Level 7. [an error occurred while processing this directive]