Tomb of Horrors Part 10

Here we are, faithful readers.  We have come a long way and it is finally time to end our time in the Tomb of Horrors.  Tomorrow, I'll be talking a little bit about my thoughts on the Tomb, and also some of the interesting differences it has shown me in terms of the mindset of "how to play" so to speak.

When last we left off, we were in an anti-magic room.

He found nothing else, so we decided to open up the smoking urn.  Aegon unfortunately was unable to do that, so Theo stepped in and successfully opened it.  Out came a plume of smoke and a red skinned man appeared in the room, demanding to know who freed it.

Phenomenal Cosmic Power!

We all pointed at Theo and said that he had opened the urn.  He thanked us and began to walk away.  I stepped forward and said, "Hey, aren't genies supposed to grant wishes?"  He just kept going, I kind of rolled miserably on my diplomacy check...plus I wasn't really trying to role-play any particularly persuasive argument.  Theo tried to ask for a wish as well, much more eloquently, but he still was unable to convince the creature.  It simply disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Well, Aegon then decided to smash the urn open with his crowbar to see if anything was inside...but nothing was.  We then opened up the sarcophagus and found just ruined items, jewelry, and a staff in pieces.  Aegon brushed that away and tore apart the sarcophagus bottom, but still found nothing.

So the only thing left is the statues.  Gruk-Gruk moved up to the first statue and pulled it over, and in doing so revealed a pull ring underneath it.  Gruk-Gruk continues destroying statues, while Aegon explored the tunnel revealed by opening the pull ring door.  He found a small hole in the wall, which ended up being a keyhole.

The hallway led to two doors side by side.  Aegon opened the left door, inside was a small room with another door, which led to another door, which led to the four way corridor from before, where we fought the Juggernaut.  Most of the party went through there, leaving myself, Gruk-Gruk and Sainrith alone.  When they didn't return, I opened the other door, but it only revealed a similar set-up (room with another door).  So we followed and found that once we did follow, the doorway disappeared behind us!  So we were stuck going back through.

Unfortunately, this brought us back to the puzzle door that we hadn't been able to figure it out.  The one with the three holes.  Theo suggested inserting swords, but we were almost stuck forever due to the fact that only myself and he had swords.  Luckily I remembered that we picked up scimitars from the bone golem.  We put three swords in and the door rumbled open.  We continued on back to the room with the mithril doors and Aegon used the silver end of the scepter to open it.  Turns out that was the wrong one and he disappeared in a wink.

I picked up the scepter and pressed the gold end to the door and it opened.  Now we were feeling all kinds of freaked out since our rogue was dead and we had no real method of exploring for traps or anything.  We decided to press on after a rousing pep talk from our DM and I put the gold key into the keyhole that Aegon had found.  It revealed a new chamber, a rather plain one with a square indentation in the middle. Gruk-Gruk moved forward and found a small keyhole in the middle of the indentation.  I gave him the second key, and he put it in the keyhole.  When he started turning it, nothing happened.  He made a full rotation and nothing happened.  So we all told him to just keep turning until something happened.

He heard a rumbling noise and he tried to dive out of the room.  Unfortunately, he failed his reflex save and his lower half was smashed into the ceiling as the floor slammed up into the ceiling.  I healed him and the rest of the party up to full and we entered this new chamber.

Alright...finally, the last room.  The treasure room!  Now, at this point, I would like to take the time to point out that our party was not at full strength.  Yes we had lost Aegon to the door trap, but we also had a few players who weren't able to make it that night.  Arkhan, Gaudric and Thalin (the new wizard) were not there.  Which left us with myself, Albert the Cleric, Sainrith the Sorcerer, Gruk-Gruk the Barbarian, Theo the Paladin and Lightfoot the Monk.

I cast Detect Magic and found quite a bit of it lying around.  The skull and lots of various items in the treasure.  The others had various ideas for how to best get the treasure without actually going into the room, one of which was tying a rope to a bag and dragging the bag through the room.  This was rather unsuccessful.  Finally, Theo and I entered the room.  As soon as we did, a ghostly creature appeared in the room, which I successfully identified as a ghost.  Well, I used Greater Turning and managed to get the highest possible roll on my check.  It disintegrated into dust and we all began to celebrate.  Until...

The skull rose up off the table it was sitting on.  It stared at me and before we could do anything else, I dissolved into a pile of corrupt ooze and one of it's gem teeth began to glow.  I failed my fortitude save pretty miserably...so yeah.

Well, the others moved up and began to try to attack the creature with physical weapons, but most of them didn't really effect it much.  After the game was over, the DM told us it had a physical DR of 20.  Sainrith cast blur on Theo, but the skull moved up and ate his soul as well.  Sainrith dissolved into corruption and another tooth began to glow on the skull.  Theo dug through my pack and took out some scrolls, Dispel Evil and Holy Sword.  He cast Holy Sword on himself and began to attack the skull with Holy Might.  The skull tried to take Theo's soul, but luckily he was able to make his saves rather easily.  Gruk-Gruk raged and started using power attack, which was unfortunate since Lightfoot had just decided to grapple the skull.  So Gruk-Gruk plowed his great-axe into our monk.

Tenaciously though he kept attacking the skull and managed to get some really good hits in.  It was about that time that the skull decided to stop trying to eat Theo's soul and turned his attention to Gruk-Gruk.  We all were thinking it was going to be okay, what with a barbarian and his fortitude save being one of the best.  And he failed.  By one.  So, Gruk-Gruk turned into a pile of corruption and another tooth began to gleam.

Theo kept attacking the skull with Divine Might and Lightfoot searched the treasure for something to use against the skull.  He picked up a staff and tried hitting it with it...but that didn't really do anything to it.  Finally though, Theo's damage got through the DR and destroyed the skull.  That was when the real fun began.  Because when the skull is destroyed, those who had their souls taken have to make a final will save.  Sainrith and I passed, but Gruk-Gruk failed and his soul was forever destroyed.

They gathered up some of our remains, so that they could resurrect us later, and collected the treasure as well.  When they made their way back to the entrance, they found Aegon there waiting.  Turns out that the door didn't kill him, simply teleported him naked back to the entrance.

So in the end, we defeated the Tomb of Horrors...but barely.  It was a lot of fun, everyone really enjoyed themselves and I'm hoping we may be able to play some more little one shot dungeon crawls in the future.  As I said, I'll be updating tomorrow with my thoughts on the game and also on some other facets that I've been ruminating on.