NT's Mummy's Mask: The Half Dead City

[SwordChucks]

"So we're all clear, I'm fine with being behind you." Victoria says impishly. After Anai checks around the tapestry, Vic inspects it, seeing if there is anything behind the frame.

[digiman619]

Boru paid closer attention to the walls, eyeing the pillars Anai mentioned earlier.

Spoiler: Perception

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(1d20+8)[25]

[NikolaTesla]

After poking around the room for a couple minutes you're fairly satisfied that there are no traps in the room, though any ranger coming through after you will be thoroughly confused by your marks/tracks in the dust and sand. Vic finds the tapestry to be very stiff, but after carefully lifting it up a little she can discern nothing special about the wall behind it. Without finding anything particularly special about the room, you decide to go north.

The northern doors open upon a dusty staircase that descends to another set of double doors, these ones pitch black except for a huge white spiral that takes up nearly 70% of the total surface area. Boru pushes open the doors, breaking the spiral in the middle, only to reveal yet ANOTHER set of doors, these ones inscribed with various warnings and cursings against intruders. There's some hesitation and quick discussion among the group, but it's quickly decided that that's a pretty obvious indicator that you're going in the right direction. Boru opens the door.

Spoiler: The room

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The center of this large octagonal room is a raised square platform a few inches above the floor, with a stone pillar at each corner. A gold-trimmed sarcophagus sits in the center of the platform, flanked by two statues of humanoid beings with canine heads, each of which holds an ankh in one of its crossed arms. Another set of stone doors is visible to the north.

Map with tokens

[digiman619]

"Yeah, I see what you mean, Anai. There's definitely something odd about those pillars, but I can't put my finger on it."

[digiman619]

Boru decided that if there was something odd about these pillars, he'd best interact with them rather than one of the girls and placed his hand the closest pillar.

[SwordChucks]

With a rope tied around her waist, Victoria enters the room. She winces as she steps on each tile leadind up to the plinth. When nothing happens after a moment she turns around and shugs at the rest of the group.

[NikolaTesla]

Boru lays his hand on the south east pillar, hair standing on end as he braced himself... and nothing happens. Even rapping it with his knuckle a few times fails to solicit a response from the stoic brown stone. The only movement he can see is the flickering reflection of the torch on the sarcophagus' golden exterior.

Gingerly, the rest of the party gets off the steps and into the room, and the light illuminates more of the walls, which you find to be exquisitely decorated. On one wall, a woman towers high above obiescent spirits. A mural at the back contains various heavenly beings, while on the third wall, a man is shown in a variety of poses and a actions, though the prominent paintings of canopic jars in several of the images lead you to believe it either has something to do with burial rite itself or perhaps the actions of the buried individual after his death and subsequent embarkment through the boneyard. The torch holders on the wall are undecorated (unlike the fancy ones hidden in the deific heads earlier) but blend in relatively well; you can tell that the artists planned the art so that the lights would add rather than detract from the aesthetics of the room.

[MesiDoomstalker]

Anai takes a turn around the room and jumps away from the platform with a start. No one stand on the platform! The pillars are enscribed with arcane symbols for electricity. Stepping on the platform probably causes them to shock you. Ilepy, think you can handle those? She gestures to the pillars. There also seems to be a hidden door here, to the east. The west wall has a lock buried into it. I should be able to pry the west wall open though. She held the crowbar in her hands, testing its weight. I'll wait till your finished Ilepy. One step at a time.

[Kagari1605]

Ilepy nodded and looked around the room. Yeah let me take a look at the pillars She moves up to stand next to the platform and inspects the pillars one by one being very careful not to touch the platform that they are resting on. Eventually she finds a mechanism that seems like it would disable the trap. I think I found a way to disarm the trap, give me a few minutes Ilepy began working on the exposed mechanism and eventually she was able to disable the trap successfully Well, that was a bit trickier than I thought but the trap should be disabled now Ilepy then turns her attention to the rest of the room exploring it more in depth

[MesiDoomstalker]

Anai let out a breath she didn't realize she was holding. Good. Now, if my theory is correct. She jammed the crowbar into the gap in the eastern wall. This isn't the true burial chamber. This is the trapped, decoy room. She grunted as she strained to pry the concealed door open with the dry sound of stone grinding on stone.

[NikolaTesla]

There's a spark as Ilepy defuses the trap, but nothing dangerous happens.

Hearts beating a little faster than normal, the group gathers around the hidden door as Anai wedges the crowbar into the gap between the doors, and with a little wiggling, manages to get the right door to open far enough to grab with her hand. She grabs the edge of the door, and as she opens it 4 mummies fall on top of her, knocking her to the ground with them on top of her!

The mummies make no effort to get off... in fact, they seem completely, well, dead.

For any that care to look in, the doors open on a little 8x8 closet with no other apparent doors.

[MesiDoomstalker]

Anai blinks, paralyzed for a few moments. Soon a huge grin breaks across her face. In an excited whisper These mummies were slaves that helped build this tomb. Likely, for their service they were given full rites of mummification and entombed here as well, to give their souls proper rest. She spoke slowly, trying her best to not disturb the long-dead corpses. Please removing them gently. We need to keep them preserved for the Ministry!

[digiman619]

Boru snapped into action, stabbing his spear forward. Thankfully, he realized that the mummies were simply the remains of the dead and not anything untoward in time; if he damaged one of the bodies and contaminated the evidence, Anai would bend his ear about it for months. Still, he was unsure on how much help was required at this juncture, if any. "You okay down there? Do you need the bodies moved off you, or would you rather we drag you out and leave them untouched?"

[Kagari1605]

Ilepy readied to draw her sword as the mummies fell onto Anai. She let out a sigh of relief when they didn't move as Anai explained who they probably were. She then walked over to her friend and helped move the mummies off of her carefully as to not damage them.

She then turned her attention to the door on the other side of the room. After inspecting the lock she quickly got to work and with ease picked it open. Hey this door is unlocked
I'm ready to open when you guys are

[SwordChucks]

Victoria hops back as the bodies fall on Anai.

After taking a moment to calm down, she helps to extricate Anai from her predicament and asks aloud "What's the procedure in this case? Do we need to put them back where we found them or would it be better to leave them be?"

[MesiDoomstalker]

Anai hopped to her feet once she was free. She took a longing glance at the trio of mummies, promising herself they'd be studied in detail later. Alright Ilepy, lets go. No time like the present.

[NikolaTesla]

Once Anai had been extricated from the pile of Mummy's, Ilepy made her way to the other side of the room to try her hand at picking the locked door. After a moment of fiddling around, there's a click, then a twang, and the door pops open slightly, revealing another 10x10 area, only this one has another set of doors inscribed with a giant spiral, the symbol of Pharasma. At this point Boru steps back to the front in case it's trapped, and opens it carefully, revealing another 15ft of hallway, with a 10ft wide staircase descending to the right. The air seems a little damp, but there's no sign of movement or traps (made perception rolls for you guys, highest roll was a 23).

[digiman619]

Boru whispered a prayer as he opened the doors. He looked around the hallway, his keen eyes scanning the room. He sees something odd in one of the walls and goes to investigate it. Upon closer inspection, he sees the telltale straight line of a door in the side of the wall, and a indentation that seemed to be a handle, but but it failed to budge. "Illepys, look at this. I think there's a door here, but it doesn't seem to open. Think you can take a crack at it?"

[NikolaTesla]

Ilepy goes to fiddle with the door, but to no avail. The first attempt results in one of her tools jammed in the lock, the second time there's a click but no open door; just some metal pieces that come tumbling out. Meanwhile, Vic was holding the torch over Anai's shoulder so she could add to the map:

Spoiler: Map

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She turned as she heard Ilepy cursing under her breath, inquiring if Ilepy could get the door open. Vic walked over and started saying something about hammering pitons into a few places that she marked with chalk with her free hand, but Anai was studying the map. She interrupted, saying that she though the group might be able to access whatever was behind the hidden door if they doubled back through the "false" burial room and tapestry room and tried the west door there. Realizing that getting through on this side would be an arduous and extremely noisy process, they agreed.

And so, passing by the raised platform and the sarcophagus, back up the stairs and into the tapestry room with it's 4 pillars carved with warriors in bas-relief, the group opens those western doors on a 10x15 hallway that converges to a 5ft wide staircase going down. There's no other doors immediately apparent that might lead to the secret area found before, but you do notice a faint glow coming from down the staircase.

[MesiDoomstalker]

Well whatever was behind that hidden door, it is either small or a passage that turns sharply. Either way, we'll save it for later. Since we're here, this staircase likely leads to the same area as the previous so we'll likely circle around just by going forward. A note of annoyance had crept into Anai's chipper voice. Maybe field work isn't all its cracked up to be. I have a feeling, given how many further passages branch off from that sarcophagus chamber, that it's a fake chamber to fool impatient tomb raiders. And kill them with that trap, without desecrating the proper resting place. So keep an eye out for more hidden passages. Anai motioned for the group to continue onwards, down the staircase.

Spoiler

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Perception for whatever; traps hidden doors, etc

(1d20+6)[11]

[digiman619]

Boru once again looked at the walls and once again found a door on the side. This one didn't have a handle or lock per se, but it was very clearly one way. He brought this up with his team, but he was reticent to go through with it until they had cleared more of the chambers.

[MesiDoomstalker]

Awesome Boru! I missed that! Vic, lets note it on the map. We'll check it out after we search down the stairs here.

[NikolaTesla]

While Anai pulls out her map, Boru squints down the stairs trying to ascertain the source of light. As he gets closer, he sees two holes/cracks in the stone, one at the bottom and one on the right wall. They're too big for a man to fit through, but perhaps a slender halfling would be able to squeeze through the openings. He doesn't make it far down the stairs though before there's noise of loud buzzing that echos off the walls and reverberates in your skulls. Two flashes of light dart out of the holes, and you're assailed by two glowing beetles the size of large house cats!

One of them flies straight for Boru's face, while the other one lands on the wall, turning it's powerful mandible to the stone and beginning to burrow through (will do so on it's turn).

The Initiative order and the order attacks will be resolved is as follows:

Beetle
Vic
Anai
Boru (flat-footed to first beetle attack)
Ilepy
Both beetles

Mandible for Boru's head! (1d20+3)[18]
Damage: (1d4+2)[6]

[SwordChucks]

"Mining Beetles! They aren't very special but their bite can be deadly and their glands glow for awhile after death." Vic Calls out.

She takes a shot with her destructive blast at the beetle on the wall.

Spoiler: Combat

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Standard Action: Spending an SP on D. Blast: (1d20+2)[19], (2d6+1)[9] bludgeoning damage.
Move Action: 5ft Step to the North-East.

[MesiDoomstalker]

Oh come on! Stupid pests! Anai grabbed the longbow slung across her back. She lined up a shot, and then another, fighting to find a shot around Boru before letting lose a clumsy shot.

Spoiler: vs Beastie 1

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(1d20-4)[16]
[rolll]1d8[/roll] 8

[SwordChucks]

"Well at least that didn't go on much longer."

After patching up Boru's wound, Vic draws her knife and sets to harvesting the luminous glands of the beetles.

"Nice shot by the way." she says with a smile.

[MesiDoomstalker]

Er... thanks. Anai made a point of keeping her distance from the corpses and the resulting glowing butts. Lets go back to the first room and go through the opposite door. See if it loops back around to the false sarcophagi.

[digiman619]

"Well, that was fast. I barely knew what was happening before it was over. Thanks." he says, nodding to Vic. "Lets hope that next time I can do my job without just blocking it with my face." He then sees what Vic is doing and tilts his head. "Um, I don't claim to be a biologist, but I'm pretty sure that the glowing parts of these bugs are pretty much only glow when they're alive. I don't think they'll last long enough to be useful."

[NikolaTesla]

As Vic cuts into the beetles she quickly discovers the source of the luminosity: several fluid filled sacs in the abdomen. Unfortunately, a knife is not quite a surgical instrument and most of them popped in her attempts to liberate them from the corpses, but she did manage to free a couple of the gooey glowing and somewhat gelatinous orbs, which continued to glow as they did in the beetle.

OOC: You got 3 orbs, each one sheds light as a candle, but you don't know how long they'll continue to do so. They are delicate: Hardness 0 Hp 1.

With the beetles dispatched you're free to make your way to the bottom of the stairs, which end rather abruptly in rough hewn stone, as if there was intention to continue but construction stopped part way. The holes the beetles came out of remain quiet.

[NikolaTesla]

Having found the way blocked on the stairs, the group found it's way back into the pillared room with the tapestry. As Anai studied her map, she realized that there were quite a number of branching paths before the staircase past the sarcophagus room. She pointed this out, and there were some uncomfortable shufflings at the idea of nasty critters like the beetles sneaking up behind them while they were investigating deeper down into the tomb. Still, Ahkentepi didn't seem obscenely rich like a Pharaoh, so his tomb couldn't be that big. After some discussion, it was decided that it would be worthwhile to backtrack a little bit more and at least investigate the other slightly ajar door in the mirror room; there were actual tracks leading to it after all.

You all enter the mirror room, your reflections and the bronze Osirian man stern as ever as you pass, and arrive at the open door. Gently pushing it open, you see the largest chamber except for the sarcophagus room you've seen yet in the tomb. Pillars line the walls of this 20x30 chamber, interspersed with stone jackal heads extending from the walls. A stone altar, covered in a layer of dust, sits at the eastern end of the room.

Feel free to make whatever skill checks you like, just let me know where in the room you go.