The players are gonna be so pissed when they realize I already left this puzzle solved!
First post for 2026 (first post written for 2025... I can't seem to get into the groove to play games at the moment). A continuation of the last session. So, I prepared for them to clear the floor so I though it was enough to read only that... no, they of course decide to get down to the second floor immediately. I also recalled the fact that spells like teleportation or such things malfunctions and takes them to a room filled with rotten corpses and an eye stalk that they would appear like the trash-compactor monster in Star Wars (making them think that the whole chamber would crush them). Sadly I read up on it and it's only if they try to teleport out of the tomb, things like shadow-step and arcane gate works just fine. And they won't get to try the black hole lever.
So on the second floor they find the second warning and also notices a skeleton with a decapitated head. In actuality they are trying to find the skeleton keys to open the door on the fifth floor (one key per floor), but I thought it would be funny if the keys are already taken and put into the door by someone, for example the one trapped in the chamber behind the final boss, for example Toby that would lead into the next adventure as he soloed the dungeon. Cause Toby is the best!
Still, they look around and find the door to the south the most interesting to enter. They hear the gurgling moans from some zombies that are chained to the door. Hope uses her sun sword to chase them away that opens the door... or that is what I interpreted the chains doing due to the second warning about the undead disliking sunlight. The less battles the faster the games goes anyway and they wanted faster games.
Inside they see transparent cauldrons with bones in them, a sarcophagus and four statues. They pretty much say f*** this and looks for something and finds a hidden door leading to a corridor that leads into another room. In that corridor they also finds a bottle. They inspect the bottle and it talks something they don't understand. Hope uses Comprehend Languages that allows her to understand that the dao in the bottle wants to be freed and will give them riches if they do so. Greed gets the better of them, they open the bottle and are in fact rewarded with several gemstones making the trek at least profitable (if they get out). They enter the next room and finds a pentagram in salt with a sarcophagus in the middle. In reality an invisible grey slaad hides in the pentagram, trapped by the salt and if you disturb the pentagram it will be released and attack. Since Immeral and Hope already met an invisible slaad I actually gave them a hint that they felt the same creepiness as back in the Amber Temple so they decided to avoid the room for now.
Back in the corridor they backtrack and enters the eastern corridor until they reach the intersection. They find the body to the north and get the journal and treasures (especially the staff of striking that Immeral intends to attune to so that Freya can get the magical spear without knowing that the staff curses the attuned wearer to become a half-goat, gonna be fun next session) and decides to continue and appears at the intersection again, but the body to the north is gone. They tie a rope and head back, but this time the rope is gone from the south. They go south and suddenly the rope appears in front of them and behind them. Destinova deduces that it must a dimensional gate here. So now the game halts for 15 minutes as everyone tries to grasp what this means. They decide to continue east at the intersection without the dead body where they find the room smelling with wine and a glittering chest in sunlight. As they check and find that the sunlight is an illusion Immeral uses their ring of storing with dispel magic to take away the light. I assume that works since it's an illusion and they open the chest with the words "drown your sorrow" and nothing happens... they are a bit disappointed with the room and head back. They go back to the staircase and check the northern passage that leads to the room with a mask on the floor... nothing else there. They go back and check the pentagram room and stumbles upon the bottled dao again and open it and gets a double set of jewels. Head back through the ring and the jewels disappears in a puff of smoke telling them that the dimension door isn't quite real and get that this is the "real world". They redo all the stuff in the wine room (I almost made them forget to turn off the sunlight) and since the same exact thing happened there was nothing there either.
Now they went back to the first floor and headed north until they reached the room with the magnetized shield. First they see another decapitated skeleton and then Freya is the only one to fail her saving throw and getting slammed into the shield taking 15 damage. No damage to any metal equipment since she wasn't carry anything. North they find a fountain, no one dares drink the waters which is a shame. They go south and finds a dead end. Searching they find two hidden doors. They enter the south door first and finds a room which they saw earlier last session through a crystal window. You are supposed to cover the eyes on a bronze disk to avoid the wights awake and attack them and then use the masks to open the sarcophagus. I let them cover the disk while being seen since I just don't feel like battle right now. Hope unlocks the sarcophagus and they finally have a magical cursed item in their reach. Immeral picks it up and instantly gets possessed by the Zorbo god, meaning she's even more risk averse, but she got a ring of protection that boosts his AC and saving throws with +1. That and he can now attune to 4 magic items. They don't really have that many, but there is a couple to get in the tomb. They look around and find another hidden door made of flint. Freya opens it and it ignites a gas cloud that knocks her down a bit. They head back to the fountain and rests for the night.
They return next moring and look across the waters. First they follow the river till they reach a waterfall with a ledge across it and a treasure chest. Using their daily arcane gate they can reach it without jumping across. Since it's a mimic it attacks them as they try to see if it's dangerous so they say f that and return back to the origin of the river, finding another chest hanging across the pool of water. Hope hop upon Freya's shoulders and unlocks the chest and get everything from it without triggering the trap. They check the other hidden door in the corridors and see some dwarves creating a tomb guardian and decide that they better retreat. They enter the other northern passage of the first floor and avoid setting of the fan trap and finds another sarcophagus and three chests. After a while they figure out that they need put someone in a chest so that they can turn the key to make a button appear on the sarcophagus to activate a trap and the unlocking mechanism. Freya enters the iron rusted chest and since she have no non-magical metal on her she is pretty much fine. She then enters the onyx one, but survives the trap with 1 HP intact. Also kinda funny that Freya was 6 foot meaning she was a bit cramped in the 5 foot chests.
They put Destinova in the final chest of silver and frost. He only took 39 damage so he didn't get bloodied, although that just 1 HP away. Pushing the buttons now make the sarcophagus to be transparent and crystaline. They see a mummy and a mace in it. Hope picks up her crowbar and swings at it and the whole sarcophagus cracks and the mummy awakens, ending this session. Next session they wanted some maps since they are really bad at localize themselves in their minds. Also, gotta get Immeral to feel itching to start the curse that transform him into a half-goat... hehe and Immeral wanted to get cursed, but that was by a were-tiger hehe, the player gets what she wanted! Hehehe!
