DM Note: Uruk remained bubbled, and Méabh is still in Lossal.| DM Note: Uruk remained bubbled, and Méabh is still in Lossal. |
No-one disagreed with Bog, and all were glad to turn and return to the cooler interior of the pyramid, especially Gorfang, who was distinctly uncomfortable in bright sunlight.
Eloy unsheathed Bereloth yet again, checking for secret doors and magic, and Gorfang taunted him, asking if it could Detect Stairs, pointing sarcastically to the flights of the things directly ahead of them. Muttering, Eloy responded that if Gorfang wanted to continue 'detecting for traps' in his usual style he was quite welcome. This didn't appear to appeal to Lynien, who'd taken the brunt of the damage last time an amateur had 'detected' a trap, and she moved up to take point this time.
Bending, she began to examine the stairs for triggers, tripwires, and pressure plates. She hadn't been doing this long before Gorfang suddenly sprinted past her and away up the stairs. Oh well, she thought ruefully, remembering Cheiron, at least it didn't hurt as much as last time.
 Stairs in the Dark |
Gorfang paused at the top of the stairs. It had been worth the risk for the look on their faces. Who was he fooling, he thought. It was worth it for the risk. As the others ascended, he turned to examine the next flight up. It looked as if the structure of four flights between floors was to be repeated.
He started up the next flight at a slower pace, but a quarter of the way up, a warning cry from Lynien stopped him. Stepping rapidly up to where he was, she indicated the next step. Squinting, Gorfang found it difficult to see anything, but for Lynien it was there. A pressure plate, like the ones below, but concealed by an absolute master of the trapmaker's art. Compared to this, the ones below might as well have been made by ... well, orcs, she thought to herself, but wisely did not say.
It seemed nothing more than a pressure plate, so Gorfang carefully stepped over it and carried on. Nothing happened. The others did the same, but just before Lyinen left the trap Gorfang came back and marked the wall over it with a piece of chalk.
At the top of the flight, Bereloth's powerful magic and Gorfang's Mark I Eyeballs both detected a hidden opening at the same time; to be fair it wasn't especially well concealed. In the ceiling over the top of the stairs was a large panel, almost certainly meant to open. The consensus was that this would drop a giant ball of rock to roll down the stairs and crush the unwary, probably when the well-hidden plate was stepped on. Gorfang and Eloy tried to egg each other into opening it, but neither was quite stupid enough for that.
On the third flight, it was Gorfang who noticed the odd pattern on the walls. They turned out to be small holes, 2" across, in a pattern covering the walls floor to ceiling for a distance of around 20'. There were more on the other wall, and it suddenly struck them that the holes on the walls lined up with each other. The popular opinion was that bars or spikes would emerge suddenly to spindle the unwary. Eloy searched futilely for a trigger, while Gorfang stuck his hand in between two of the holes.
No metal bars shot forth, but the orc's brawny arm twisted as his hand was hurled against the wall on his left. He could feel a powerful pressure against his hand, very much like a powerful wind. With a grunt, he dragged his hand free, the steel-backed glove grating across the stone as he did so.
Determinedly, he unpacked some of the assortment of smaller tools he carried with him. These were not the delicate and sophisticated tools Lynien used on traps; they were practical, rough, robust mining tools. None the less, they did the job, as they allowed Gorfang to crack the stonework covering the mechanism of the trap and reveal some of the works.
Each hole had a bronze grommet at the edges, and these turned out to be the ends of pipe buried in the rock of the wall. Touched, these thrummed with vibration from the air rushing through them. Once enough rock was removed from around them, Gorfang found he was able to bend enough of them to create a 'dead' area at floor level through which they should be able to crawl.
Each in turn crawled under the invisible and inaudible ramrods of high-pressure air, to reach safety on the other side. Most managed it, but Bog and Uruk were caught and flung against the wall of the stairwell. Uruk managed to haul himself free, but Bog had to be dragged out.
Finally, they reached the top of the fourth flight of stairs. They emerged into a large hall, with six arched passageways leading off it, and more stairs leading upwards again. Each arch had writing over the lintel in Selasht, and Eloy took his time translating them. Gorfang and Lynien exchanged dubious glances. Were they going to get a reliable translation?
Turning and seeing their expressions, Eloy rather snappishly reeled off the results, as follows:
Opinions were divided, and eventually Gorfang headed down the passage marked Queen Kalra, Eloy and Lyninen went to explore Councillors, and Bog and Uruk took rearguard.
Gorfang marched down his corridor, turned a corner, and saw something ominous, and slowed down. Yes, he'd been right. The passage had collapsed, probably some centuries ago, and was completely blocked. He turned back; all right, then, Princes and Princesses should be lootable as well, he thought.
Meanwhile, Eloy and Lynien had reached a large mausoleum, crowded with the rounded and decortated coffins used by the Khabrans. The work on these, and on the room's walls, was fine, but not as sumptuous as on the temples, and Eloy's translations confirmed that this was the resting place of favoured ministers, wise advisors and skilled politicians of the land of Khabra. Interestingly, the coffins were in rows, and the last row was only half-filled; it seemed that the burials had ceased before the capacity was used up. Did this indicate the end of the realm?
 Funerary Mask |
Lynien, despite Eloy's expressions of concern, shoved the lid of one of the coffins open. Inside was a body, enwrapped in thick bandages and with a heavy death-mask over its face. This latter had some gold inlay on it, and Lynien gleefully began to pry this loose. As the first bit came free, the mummy shockingly moved. Lynien sprang back as it sat up, turned its head and regarded her.
Its' gaze travelled down her body to her feet, where the Sandals of Nebekheshut were. It appeared to change its mind about something. Then it siezed the lid of its' coffin and emphatically pulled it back over itself again with a bang.
Lynien eyed the coffin in surprise for a moment. Then she turned as the sound of running boots approached.
Gorfang's second choice had taken him into a rather impressive tomb. A curving dais stretched around the back and side walls, with steps up facing the door. Mummy-cases of assorted sizes, richly decorated, stood against the walls, and here as well (though he didn't know it) the occupancy did not fill the capacity. What attracted his attention most however was a short pillar opposite the stairs, quite near the door. Rising to the height of his chest, it supported a single object; a golden crown. This is more like it! he thought, approaching it.
Reaching out with both hands, he lifted it from its' place. It was satisfyingly heavy, clearly made of gold just as it had appeared. Probably around 500gp for the metal, but as a worked piece perhaps double that. Gorfang's pleasure was interrupted by a chorus of grinding noises as all the mummy-cases on the dias swung open at once.
 My Crown! - click it for larger image! |
From each stepped a bandaged figure, dusty but driven by some internal power. Gorfang could feel their disapproval of his act radiating strongly in his direction. Without hestitation, the orc clapped the crown on his own head and made a very rude gesture in the general direction of the princes and princesses of Khabra.
One of the mummies took a couple of steps forward, then levelled a finger at Gorfang's head, then pointed it at the plinth. The message was crystal-clear - put it back - but Gorfang was not interested. "No," he said, "it's my crown." Even if the undead had been able to understand his language, which had probably evolved from nothing long after they were dead, they would have been unimpressed. Once more the finger moved from Gorfang's head, to the plinth, and back. Gorfang stood his ground. For a third - and somehow he knew last - time, the finger indicated, and all the mummies started forwards. Gorfang turned and bolted out of the tomb.
Eloy and Lynien met Gorfang just as he reached the archway leading into their passage. Lynien had rebelled at the idea of being trapped in the mausoleum by foes, and headed for the stair hall as offering more options. What she saw when she reached it, however, brought her up short. Gorfang was racing across the hall, hotly pursued by ten mummified undead humans, moving much faster than the mummies they'd seen before in Hightower.
A wild idea came into her head, and she dashed out into the hall, somersaulted between the first two of the crowd of monsters and bounded down the stairs. Four of the lurching monsters changed direction and headed down the stairs after her. The remaining six carried on to attack Eloy and Gorfang.
The two warriors had sensibly remained in the archway, limiting the number of attackers that could face them at once. As the mummies closed, one pointed at Gorfang and rasped "The crown must be returned!". Eloy, thinking to negotiate, responded in Selasht; "We intend to!" Gorfang glanced sharply at him; the first he'd heard of such a plan. However, the mummy's reaction to Eloy put the cappers on that anyway. "Begone, Corrupted One," it ground out, and the undead kept coming.
As
 Attack of the Mummies - click it for larger image! |
Meanwhile, 
Lynien was running down the stairs as fast as she could. She was pretty fast on her feet under most circumstances, but now, when she sought her maximum speed, the sandy walls seemed to blur past her. As she skidded around the corners of the first landing, and realized she was leaving her pursuers far behind, she wondered if the Sandals of Nebekheshut were having anything to do with this.
Careful not to leave them far enough behind to discourage them, she led the mummies down to the air-pressure trap Gorfang had bypassed. Quickly, she slipped through the safe channel before they could see her do it, then poised herself so as to appear as if she'd just reached her current position. As the four mummies reached the top of the flight, she started stumbling along, as if exhausted and unable to go much further. Unsuspecting, the four creatures lurched down the stairs until the first two stepped into the trap.
The results were everything Lynien could have hoped for. The two undead were snatched from their feet as if by a giant hand and smashed against the wall. Their bandages unravelled and the dusty material that made up their bodies began to break up. As it did, it was dragged into the pipes and away, and soon all that was left were the jade scarabs and little golden ornaments that had been woven into the bandages, pressed against the wall by the air pressure.
Lynien eyed them. Now, how to get those down? she thought, as the other two mummies turned and began to return up the stairs.
Above, an epic struggle was unfolding. Gorfang and Eloy had exchange blows with four of the mummies they were facing, and had been rocked back by the force of the blows the undead could deliver 'bare-handed'. When Gorfang finally managed to drop one, Eloy hissed "Hold them off!" and backed away out of combat.
Digging in his pack, he pulled out two flasks of Alchemists' Fire and a tindertwig. Gorfang was holding his ground, and had killed another, when Eloy's firebombs went sailing over his head to smash on the chests of two mummies.
Flames raced up their bodies, and spread to two more, and the pair crashed back to the attack, Veldrin Sk'aal and Bereloth flashing in the flickering flames. The tough fibre of the mummies' forms, and their supernatural nature, meant that the swords were far less effective than they would have been against humans; but in the end, all six were cut down and destroyed.
As the last one fell, Eloy dropped to his knees, coughing and choking. A grey pallor was spreading across his face, the skin of which already appeared rough. He had been afflicted by the dreaded Mummy Rot!
Helplessly, he reached out towards Bog, who had emerged from his safe hiding place at the end of the battle. There was a pause, and then the little Adept reached out and cast a spell. Eloy gasped as the creeping agony faded, and his flesh returned to normal. Bog leaned close and looked into his eyes. "Be careful now;" he said, "me not do that again today."
A moment later, the sound of heavy bandaged feet approaching became audible from the stairwell.
Lynien gave a final, careful twist to the probe buried deep in the mechanism of the trap, and with a gentle clatter the odds and ends of burial treasures dropped to the stairs. Scooping them up, she set off up the stairs after the last two mummies.
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