The Tomb of Ervaril I
Party:
♦ Alvana (deva avenger)
♦ Barrus (bugbear rogue)
♦ Elessar (goliath barbarian)
♦ Sergo (half-elf warlord)
♦ Hakumen / Vornafein (drow assassin)
♦ Elera (drow warlock)
The party received a map to the Tomb of Ervaril, and were offered fully equipped ornithopters to take to the location. In the meantime (while the main party had been off on the mission concerning the army of Karaz-Kor), Barrus had been browsing the various valuables of the people in Griffin’s Nest, stealing what seemed shinier and more expensive, while Elessar met with the High King and was introduced to Hakumen and Elera, members of the Spider League. Elessar and Elera decided to forgo the tricky-to-maneuver ornithopters and instead requisitioned griffin mounts. Elessar convinced a black and fierce griffin named Storm to respect him, while Elera accepted a calm beast called Princess, even though she strongly objected to her name.
Near the entrance to the Tomb of Ervaril, we found fallen undead bodies and dead Gloaming Guard elves, but also a dying survivor, a green haired elven woman with a greatbow. She told us that the forces of The Shadow had been there, trying to plunder the tomb, but after a glorious combat, they prevailed. With her dying breath, she warned us of the sphinx inside the tomb. To our knowledge, a sphinx was a powerful magical beast, which was very passionate about riddles, and who were otherwise very powerful creatures, who could fly and cast spells. Alvana performed a religious ritual to set the souls of the Gloaming Guard to rest, remembering the funerary rites of the elves as if from a distant lifetime.
The entrance to Ervaril’s Tomb was a large basalt door decorated with a bas-relief of Ervaril, looking quite haughty, while wearing a crown of laurels. It had to be pushed 10 feet (a deed performed by Elessar and Barrus) until it fell. The first chamber was decorated with ivy all over its walls and well lit with a golden hue. Prominent in the stonework were bas-reliefs depicting Ervaril’s daily life. The room seemed new, although there was a pile of corpses in the corner. On a closer inspection, Alvana realized that those were disabled undead creatures, which looked to have been ripped to shreds by a powerful predator, most likely the sphinx, which presented itself as a statue in the opposite corner of the room.
When we approached the statue it activated, and the leonine creature proclaimed in a booming voice that we had to pass the Test of Wit, and should we fail it, what awaits us is the Test of Brawn. Then he spoke our first riddle:
The kingdom’s soldiers will look like it,
When the headsman gives them a lop.
For then, like it, they will have a neck,
But not a head on top.
Our answer: a bottle.
“Good” the sphinx proclaimed and continued with the following riddle:
With flashing swords and booming cry,
With darkness staining land and sky,
The army comes, prepared to die,
Soldiers fall in glistening dress,
As battles are joined without egress,
Save comfort in the earth’s caress.
Our answer: a storm.
The sphinx agreed our answer was acceptable as well, although he was thinking of rain. “Correct” he said after some deliberation. And finally:
An untiring servant it is,
Carrying loads across the muddy earth
But one thing that cannot be forced
Is a return to its place of birth.
Our answer: a river.
The sphinx then moved aside and revealed a passageway to the next room which he was guarding with his entire body. The next room had a similar door, and once we pushed it aside, we had to deal with a room filled with undead – most notably a Zombie Hulk (which would rise again after being defeated) and Burning Skeletons (which had an aura of fire around them, and could hurl small fireballs at us) – and some Stone Harriers, used to guard objects, who could fly, and slow/immobilize their targets.
After defeating the creatures, we made our way through trapped corridors, decorated with images of Ervaril being flailed by other archmages, and we contracted several diseases (Hakumen fell ill with Foul Rotting, and Alvana subjected herself to a needled trap which made her contract Hell Fever) while deactivating the triggers for the traps. What laid ahead was a door decorated with a bas-relief depicting treasure. Fool's Gold for sure, as Ervaril's tomb was primarily a repository of knowledge, not of actual treasure. In any case, the following chamber was heavily trapped, there was a spiked pit at the entrance, a deep acid pool, statues on the sides which triggered fire blast-zones, a secondary group of two statues which pushed targets towards the treasure or towards the acid pit, and a great pile of treasure, which was quite compelling.
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