TO THE SACRED MOUNTAIN - PART II
14 Warmshade, 4433
Characters:
Gorr, Ranger 4
Robert the Swift, Fighter 3
Suba-Jin, Cleric of Hextor 4
Eric Withakay, Cleric of Solaris 4
Lord Fesgate, Fighter 3 (NPC)
Beneath the Fort
The ruined fort was completely explored. There was nowhere to go but down. Leaving Regetus Rex to guard the painting [Nick was absent this session] the party ventured downwards through the trapdoor, descending a vertical tunnel with handholds cut into the rock. An icy wind blew up at them.
At the bottom of the tunnel, a passage ran back towards the entrance of the fort. The floor & walls were carved into screaming faces, everything was covered in a thin sheen of ice. The next door was an ominously snarling gargoyle's face - but opening it brought no ill effects. They passed through a room with ten skeletal left hands resting on tables, to a pair of great bronze doors graven with a familiar symbol:
Gorr recognized it from the pendant he took from Eralion's corpse [way back in Session 6!].
The great doors opened with a blast of icy air. Inside was the vast and bizarre temple of a strange cult. Stone pews faced a huge open pit yawning in the center - a vertical continuation of the pit in the fortress' courtyard above.
A faint, metallic whining sound could be heard in the distance.
A statue rose behind the pit: a corpulent man-beast with the head and hooves of a goat and spreading bat wings. He raised a great whip high above his head, and pointed a talon forward imperiously. In front of the statue was an offering basin. Gorr looked inside and saw some treasures, but decided not to take them. Robert wasn't so scrupulous, looting a jewelled dagger and a ruby necklace - both looked nice & valuable.
 |
| Like this, but holding a whip |
Colourful and frightening murals circled the walls, depicting bizarre and sometimes repulsive activities. A procession of demons marched, leading a rabble of people engaged in every imaginable act - eating, running, warring, fornicating, etc - a display of rampant humanity. The demon leading the charge was twin to the statue, a man-goat with bat wings. Behind him were a lizardlike being with two primate heads & tentacle-arms; a swirling pillar of eyes; a finely-dressed nobleman with a lewd expression; and a manlike entity with two heads and two serpentine tails instead of legs.
Suba-Jin pondered what he remembered from Hextor's doctrines on demonology, and thought that the pillar of eyes was called "The Faceless Lord," and the one with twin tails was "Abraxas," but he couldn't remember any details.
Beyond the procession the murals got worse. Atrocities rendered in exacting detail: hundreds of women hanged from a single tree, forests of men impaled on pikes, etc. Strangely the victims were either humans with green, purple, blue or copper-orange skin, and a humanoid of unknown type with curving ears, thin limbs and elongated ovoid skulls. Nobody recognized these last creatures.
Player: "Of course we don't recognize them - the people here made them extinct!"
Another Player: "I'll bet those guys sucked The Most."
In one corner lay an ancient, dusty pipe organ with its keys and pipes made from bones - from small fingers up to the thighbones of some massive beast. Gorr tried looking into the pipes and saw a bit of dust and mold, cautioning the others about playing it. Eric opened it up and retrieved something stuck in the works - an odd black stone bowl and a necklace showing the same horned symbol as the door. They seemed valuable. Suba-Jin sat down to play, attempting to duplicate the harp's music upstairs [last session]. After a few tries, he got it and everyone had a brief vision: a man in red robes with a grotesque mask drawing a blueprint of the temple complex.
Deciding not to mess with the organ further, they explored a few other rooms. One was a wrecked library. After a mishap with some sort of trapped magic scroll, Suba-Jin picked up a handful of books, all written in the same runic script as everything else here. Gorr found a map, but without understanding its annotations it wasn't too useful at the moment.
In a ruined bedroom, a secret panel concealed shelf upon shelf of tiny snow globes, each one containing a miniature representation of the fortress on the mountain peak. Each was slightly different - the fortress intact in one, ruined in another, another with tiny human figures visible walking through the snow. The group took one or two and Gorr found an intact velvet glove which he tucked into his belt.
The next door was locked with no way to open it. The offering basin beside it was full of dirty water and - human teeth. Someone had a peryton fang from the last battle, and dropping it in the basin allowed the group to pass through.
The high-pitched whine got louder, now joined by a distant clatter like percussion played to no earthly rhythm.
In an embalming or preparation room, Gorr found a book with diagrams of stitching corpses together into some kind of unholy monster. Thinking some perverse nerd (ie. wizard) would pay for it, he brought it with him.
The party found multiple vast burial-chambers, huge room complexes that smelled of ancient dust with narrow passageways honeycombing through them. Hundreds of corpses, maybe thousands, were interred in these ancient crypts. The group didn't like the look of them, and skipped over these areas after a cursory look.
They did find the skeleton of a dwarf slumped up against a door. He had died of grievous injuries long ago, and was almost completely decayed. He clutched one of the snow-globes in his hand. In his backpack was a contract of mercenary service. His name was Glauron the dwarf, and he had been hired by someone named Issachar Dimorites in the year 4315.
Reading
Another nearby room held something more interesting. Eighteen huge books on pedestals. While the group investigated, Gorr found a small black jeweler's loupe. It allowed him to understand the runic writing used in this place! The group began reading over all the clues they'd found so far:
- The big books were entitled "Chronicle of the Most Consummate Church of Yredelemnul" vols 1-18. They were mostly dry history, but Suba-Jin found a note suggesting possible betrayal by someone named the Red Architect. The last entry of the last book was dated 4265. It outlined fears of the then-Emperor knowing about their activities, predicting he would soon be sending forces after them. It mentioned the existence of many other temples around the world, including one in the Range of Dissension.
- The books Suba-Jin had found in the library were mostly useless, either written in code or full of bizarre esoteric statements like "I commandeth the seventy blasphemies, I speak through the heart of the worms in the grey-black star," etc. One did mention a useful clue: a curse would fall on any who failed to leave a coin in the fountains, or who lied to the Exalted Interrogator.
- Gorr tried to interpret the runes on the old carved pendant he'd found on Eralion's corpse. It was a prayer, saying "I commend myself into your hands, Yredelemnul. Allow me to pass beyond the final gates of death, into your realm of eternal power..."
- The rusty magic bronze axe Robert found had runes too: "Execute The Weak."
Steve: "Sure! Exactly the kind of shit you stencil on the side of your F-18."
The Piper
They found a carving of a great eye covered in ice, its pupil carved into many smaller eyes of all sizes. Beneath it was a basin filled with dirty water. Thinking an offering was necessary, Suba-Jin and Gorr each threw in a coin and were magically affected. Suba-Jin gained a point of Strength, and Gorr lost a point of Wisdom. They passed on by a pair of fountains depicting a group of children vomiting, and left coins there as well to no obvious effect.
Coming around the final corner, the group saw the room shown in the painting! The golden cup and an old book rested on an altar carved with gold lettering. The same skeleton statue loomed over the whole scene. One thing was different: floating gently through the air were hundreds of blue glass spheres filled with liquid.
Before their eyes, a demon appeared in the centre of the room. Looking like an emaciated blackish-red skeleton, it had three heads and six arms. It was playing a bone flute and a drum, creating the otherworldly whistling "music" that permeated the complex!
It introduced itself as Magrometh the Piper, speaking from one of its heads not occupied with fluting. It asked if any "sons of the First Men" had come to speak with it. It explained it had been summoned here in olden days to guard this place. Its song controlled the corpses in the crypts. If it ceased playing, they would "rise from their sleep, to shamble in Yredelemnul's service once more."
"So, when will you stop playing your song?"
"When the time is right... When I am called to by Yredelemnul," responded Magrometh. "Or if a true son of the First Men should ask, then I would also cease."
The group indicated they only wanted the golden cup, which Magrometh said was a prize taken from the cult's old foes. He was not willing to give it up, even if asked nicely. This went back & forth for a while, until Robert the Swift had enough.
"Well, we want the cup. So stop playing." After a moment of Magrometh's penetrating stare, it nodded, flourished its instruments and vanished. The song ceased, and the floating spheres crashed down to the floor in a rain of glass shards and icy blue liquid. Eric managed to save two fist-sized ones for the party to keep.
The golden cup didn't look like much at first glance, covered in the dust & grime of the centuries. But was like the one in the painting, so Robert grabbed it. Worried about the dead in the crypts, the group made their way back up to ground level quickly. The blizzard was worsening outside and they needed a plan.
Eric Alone
This is when things got strange. The group decided to see if the grandfather clock would rewind time for them, the way it had sent Suba-Jin forward [last session]. The whole group agreed and together they wound the hands of the clock back twelve hours.
Eric noticed that nobody else was moving except him. Everything was frozen: his friends, the torches in their hands, even the snowflakes coming through the window were stopped in mid-air. He began to realize that he might be trapped in time for twelve hours all by himself!
Returning downstairs, he explored the room where they'd met Magrometh more carefully. Comparing it to the painting, he realized there should be another door behind the altar, and he noticed that some of the liquid from the shattered globes had drained underneath the wall in that direction. A short search opened a secret door and Eric entered a whole new section of the crypts.
The map Gorr had found in the library showed this new area. With the eyepiece the text was translated and Eric used it to navigate:
Most of these rooms were barred on the outside. Each was the tomb of an undead creature just recently risen from its coffin. The time stop effect allowed Eric to enter, investigate, steal any treasure they had and then attempt to destroy them by beating on their frozen forms with his enchanted mace. It wasn't clear what effect this would have when the flow of time was resumed, but he decided to err on the side of caution when it came to the restless dead!
The Mausoleum of the Slaughterer held a powerfully-built revenant wrapped in rags, lurking on a platform above the door. Its only valuable was an ornate warmask carved into a scowling, horned face.
The Tomb of the Twin Inquisitors held two corpulent, rotted ghouls crawling with huge maggots. Even with time frozen, it took everything Eric had not to lose his lunch as he searched them. He found a platinum goblet and a small wooden box.
The Crypt of the Cloven One was totally empty, its sarcophagus unadorned. Perhaps its chosen occupant had never been buried here?
The Crypt of the Architect was lit by an ornate brass lamp. The sarcophagus was artfully carved in the shape of a great city. The Architect itself wore rich crimson robes and a horned mask. Eric took its mask and the jewelry right off its arms.
The Crypt of the Exalted Interrogator held a withered creature wrapped in rags, with glittering eyes. Eric took its emerald-studded crown.
The Tomb of the Testifier was small, holding only a yellowed corpse with no adornments. Eric found a gold chain in its coffin.
The Throne-Crypt of the Blessed Afflictor held an imposing figure in antique armour resting on a throne. It wore a crown, necklaces & bracelets and held a sceptre, all of which Eric took.
Having looted the remaining foes in the crypts and hopefully disposed of them for good, Eric assembled as much wooden debris and flammable material as he could. He piled it up at the bottom of the ladder and dropped a lit torch on it, hoping the fire would start when time resumed and keep the dead in the crypts from climbing up after them. After this he tried to rest for a while. It was cold and his sleep was troubled by strange & unsettling dreams, but he succeeded in memorizing spells.
The Risen Dead
When the flow of time resumed Eric filled everyone in on what had happened. They decided to brave the blizzard in the dark and loaded up Gorr's sled with all their treasure.
At the entrance to the fort, they were greeted by a chilling sight: the snow outside was beginning to swarm with skeletons! Scores, maybe even hundreds of the restless dead only now beginning to crawl up from their ancient resting places beneath the mountain snows. The group ducked back inside, wondering how they could possibly escape this time...
*****
Monsters defeated:
it is unclear
Treasures:Jewelled dagger
Ruby necklace
Onyx bowl
Necklace with Horned Sigil
Satin glove
Book with diagrams of corpses
Loupe of translation
Some snow-globes
Gold goblet
2 glass spheres of strange liquid
Blessed Afflictor's crown, jewelry & sceptre
Testifier's gold chain
Exalted Interrogator's emerald crown
Red architect's mask & jewelry
Slaughterer's mask
Twin Inquisitors' platinum goblet
Twin Inquisitors' wooden box
