Alright, here we are again folks with another exciting entry into my groups adventure in the Tomb of Horrors!
So after barely surviving the encounter with that gargoyle mutant thing, we needed some healing badly. Luckily, our sorcerer's cohort Tindell cast a Vigor on us that lasted 24 hours. So basically we could just sit around healing one hit point a round until back at full. Yay!
Looking around the room, we saw that there was two doors, one on the south side and one on the east. We opened the east one first, of course after Ophelia (our rogue) thoroughly checked for traps. Inside we just found a empty room. She did find a trap in the room though, so she set about disarming it. Once she did that, she found a secret door in the room as well though couldn't figure out how to open it. As she attempted to open it, however, the trap she thought she had disarmed went off!
She quickly left that room and went back to the gargoyle room. Now, myself and my cohort were hanging back outside the room, waiting for this all to resolve itself (ie all the bad, nasty aoe (area of effect) traps to go off). Everyone else was in the gargoyle room. So I didn't hear it, but everyone else did hear a clicking noise go off in the room. Then everyone got hit with a magic arrow of minor annoyance. So while my cohort and I, along with the sorcerer and his cohort, waited outside the main room, the rest of the party decided to go after the obvious doors. And in opening the first door, they found another door across from them on the south end of a 10x10 foot room.
And so on. Eventually the doors led them in a circle, at which time they decided to come back to where the sorcerer and I were waiting. After waiting a bit for everyone to heal back up to full (yay for vigor again), we decided to send Sainrith and Ophelia after the secret door, since Sainrith had Knock in his known spells.
I could follow this with a long series of those pictures of that guy getting shot with an arrow, cause that is pretty much what happened. They would check the door, get shot, then have Sainrith cast Knock. Finally, at about the second or third to last door, they decide to actually try to open it by testing different means of manipulating it physically. This was a good idea, however it did mean much more damage was absorbed by Ophelia.
But the gauntlet of arrows was eventually traversed and we found ourselves in a large hallway. There were pictures all along on both sides:
I wish the picture had shown both sides of the hallway, cause I thought it would b neat to see all the magical races. But I will just go ahead and do that for you here...sort of.
Right side of the hallway (facing north):
Pale Blue: Held at shoulder height by a Werewolf
Silver: Held at it's feet by a four-armed gargoyle
Green: Held high above it's head by a Half-Orc
Black: Held at it's feet by a Hydra
Pale Violet: Held at it's shoulder by a Kuo-toa
Red: Held at the waist by a Skeleton
Buff (I'm guessing this is supposed to be like flesh coloured?): Held at feet by a white bearded human wizard
And now the left side of the hallway!
Gold: Held high above it's head by a Naga (Which I don't know how it is holding it since dnd naga's don't have arms...O_o)
Bright Blue: Held at it's feet by a Sahuagin
Pale Green: Held at it's feet by a Medusa
Okay, so that is out of the way. Now for a little more detail on the hallway. There was a destroyed panel halfway down the hallway, the bright blue one. The orange and bronze sphere were bulging out a bit, once we explored them we found they were doors that led to blank walls. Also at the end of the hallway there was another archway, similar to the one in the first hallway, except different colors.
This time the top one was russet colored, the left one citrine and the right one olive. We cast Detect Magic on the hallway and found that the archway glowed magic, as well as the Black, Red and Gold Spheres.
All these colors put me in mind of the clues we had received. Specifically "Look low and high for gold, to hear a tale untold. The archway at the end, and on your way you'll wend." and also the first riddle we had gotten in the first hallway:
"Shun green if you can, but night’s good color
is for those of great valor.
If shades of red stand for blood the wise
will not need sacrifice aught but a loop of
magical metal—you’re well along your march."
We checked the gold orb, and found that it led to a small room with a stationary four-armed gargoyle. This one however, was missing an arm.
We noticed that in the outstretched hands there was small little indentations. I looked at the gems we got from the collar on the living gargoyle and they were about the right size to fit. We placed three gems in the statues hands to see what would happen. It proceeded to crush the gems into dust. Awesome...that was bad enough as it was, however the party saw fit to repeat this two more times...with the same results. The bright blue room led to what looked like a ruined wizard lab full of debris and destroyed alchemical equipment.
We then went through the black sphere door. It led into a small little tunnel that eventually opened up into a large room. This room had a series of murals on the wall of farmers and various other normal things, however everyone was corpses and undead. Also, various symbols of good deities were there as well...which was unusual to say the least. At the end of the room, there was an altar along with another archway, this time with a skeletal corpse pointing towards the archway.
As we approached the altar, it shot a bolt of lightening out at them. Ophelia sat in the chair and walked away talking about the chair talking to her, which we mostly just dismissed as part of her zany insanity. I cast detect magic again, and took a look around, the things that glowed magic was the altar (evocation) and the archway. We noticed as well that the pews had hinges, I opened one and saw it was filled with silver coins.
At about this time, Ophelia was poking around a large urn on the altar...dead set on opening it. She ended up opening it, which released a red mist that proceeded to attack us. I was successful on my knowledge religion check to recognize it as a Blood-Mote Cloud, an undead swarm that can't be turned and drains blood.
Which was bad, since our sorcerer told us that he didn't have any aoe spells to deal with them. So I did the only thing I could think of to do...I ran forward to set off the trap again, I figured it was still armed since it had still glowed with magic after the trap went off the first time. In hindsight, I probably should have sent Ophelia to do it but I decided that there wasn't time to compile a plan. So I ran forward, waited for the swarm to get on me, then set off the trap. This time it wasn't lightening...which I was hoping for since I had some resistance to lightening. Instead it was a fireball, which unfortunately didn't kill the swarm off. Turngald, our monk, followed me, hoping to set off the trap again but twice was the magic number for that trap.
Then, while I was running around trying to get the swarm off of me, the rest of the party was moving around the room. Ophelia threw a flask of alchemist fire at them, which burned them a little bit more. The rest of the party had begun opening the pews to see if there was anything else that would help. Ophelia, however, did open up a pew that set off a trap. The trap set off a poison that drained almost everyone's strength. By this time, Sainrith had time to get off a fireball which killed the swarm off.
So, strength drained and constitution drained, our party decided to call it a night. Sainrith cast Rope Trick and I proceeded to cast Restoration so that everyone would be back up to full. And that is where we called it a night. So until next time, enjoy yourselves.
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