Guild members Kimly, Tamira, Laethan, and Madian (see PC profiles here), with the bearer Lennard in employment, explored the underground chambers via the entrance in barrow #16.
Exploring to the south and then east, they came upon a chamber wherein the pillars took the forms of men and attacked them, and they retreated.
Proceeding east from there, they broke into the chamber to the north of the one which held the tomb of a dwarf, to find within it a single sarcophagus, the occupant of which rose as an undead and battled them. They were able to vanquish the undead and recover its grave goods.
Proceeding then further eastwards and then south, they came to a chamber, within which was a plinth, upon which a large bronze mirror, held in a gold-leaved ornamental frame, sat. Suspicious of traps, the party observed the room, and found a pit trap before the plinth, and protrusions in the facing stones upon the walls on either side of the chamber.
When the party entered the chamber, the protruding facing stones animated and took the forms of men, and attacked the members. While their weapons had little effect upon the guardians, the party were able to with clever use of ropes trip up the guardians, and then drag them into the pit, and recover the bronze mirror.
Proceeding then back west and then south again, with the intent of returning to the surface via the passage from barrow #20, the members heard the sounds of hammering upon stone. Suspecting unlicensed tomb robbers, the members investigated the source of the sound, and found within a large chamber six men in the act of breaking a white stele inside it. The men would not parley with the members, but immediately attacked them. The party feigned a retreat, and lured their pursuers to a junction, where they were able to trip them with a rope, and then slay two of their members; then, pursuing their erstwhile pursuers back to the chamber, struck down three more of them, and capture their ring-leader, who was a spell-user.
Within the chamber they found the white stele, which was set upon a black stone base. Upon the stele were inscriptions in the ancient Terrinoth tongue, which member Madian could read. The text on the stele, and also upon a stone door to the far side of the room, marked the chamber beyond as the tomb of one Druentes, a holy warrior of Aesodes, the "giver of gifts".
Also upon the floor was a broken black stele, made of a similar stone as the base which the white stele now sat. Upon this black stele the party discerned inscriptions in three scripts: the Terrinoth script, a script similar to it (which guild members have previously seen inscribed upon certain doors in the tombs), and the strange script which was found on the obelisk among the barrows.
The hour being late, the party then returned to the guild with their prisoner via barrow #20, which they discerned was whence the robbers entered the chambers below.
Grave goods recovered were valued at 66 Gros, of which 24 Gros were disbursed to the members according to the contract.
Signed,
Jeras, Guild Chronicler
Addendum: The prisoner, having been incarcerated in the guild cellar, was found dead on the morning after. It is not certain if he had died from the wounds sustained in the affray, or of some other cause. The matter being reported to Sergeant Tarran of Fort Rodric, the prisoner and the five men in his company were judge as tomb robbers upon the lands of the Baron, and the guild acquitted of their deaths.
Addendum 2: The matter of the black stele having been known, Brother Lothar had entered into a negotiation with Guildmaster Hassel-Hoffa for its recovery and purchase by the Church, and the expense for the labour for its recovery from the chamber had been duly approved by the Master.
Prepping and Running the Game
This session saw the addition of two new members to the guild and our group, playing the characters of Laethan and Madian. Both are new to the hobby, but took to the life of tomb-robbers pretty quickly.
With two level-1 PCs in the party, the party wisely ran away from fights they thought they could not win, and used their wits and non-weapon equipment instead. Laethan used the randomly-generated 10' chain as a bola in one fight, and the party used ropes to great effect in two fights.
The encounter with the cultists was something I had planned for for a while now. This encounter will advance the plot of the campaign via the discovery of the "Rosetta Stone", which will allow the party to read some of the inscriptions within Barrowmaze.
This encounter also put the plans of the cultists in jeopardy, as after having been denied the use of barrow #35 as their entry to the complex, I decided that they would use barrow #20; now that #20 has also been denied to them, I will need to find another entrance for them.
I imagine that these events will make the cultists realise that the activities of the guild is now interfering with their work in a way that cannot be ignored. How their leadership will respond to this fact I have yet to decide.
There is no game this coming week, so perhaps I will spend the time getting inside the heads of the cultists and decide what to do...
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ReplyDeletethanks for hosting the game Arjun!