Session Eleven (Graveyard of Empires Summary)

Session 11 – May 28, 2014

In spite of a warning from an ancient dwarven family to curse and afflict us in this life and the next, the party continued into the room.

We found that the doors to the east and west of the bottom of the stairs looped around behind the stairs, and led to the southern door in the room with the rotating bridge. Our lantern was blown out by a rushing of wind when we pushed open that door.

After lighting the lanterns to learn what a “walking” sound was that we heard, we discovered a small “box-like” creature with a shovel-like “nose”. It is the creature that is keeping the floors so neat and shoving things up against the walls.

We attacked it, but it managed to pry open a stone in the floor, so we spiked the stone to wedge it shut. We also spiked the doors on either side of the stairs.

We then went down the east passageway, and came to an set of bars that would fall if triggered. We spiked that into the up position to avoid being trapped. Just past the intersection we found a tapestry with a door behind it. The door had a trap with darts that we assume to be poison, but we blocked the darts with a shield and safely opened the door.

We found that the passageway behind the door was dirty, so the “maid” doesn’t do this area. We went straight through to a door to the east, and ignored alcoves to the north and south each with a brass plate 5′ high.

There was another intersection, so we continued east. We marked another pressure plate trap, and opened a door that was a room with mechanical arms working furiously to build a dwarven automaton from parts in drawers. In one corner was the wrecked remains of what we surmised was one of the automatons we defeated.

We left that room going back west and took the north passage. We came to a room with three sarcophagi. They had clockwork lids and the buttons to activate them. They also had bas reliefs of automatons. We found cubes in the hands of the first dwarf, also missing his head, and when Thorfus tried to take the cube, wrapped in a cloak, the bas reliefs came to life. They were paper thin. Once we defeated them, even though paper thin, they were incredibly heavy. Some strange wizardry on top of the fine craftsmanship.

We smashed all the other bas reliefs before taking cubes from the other two sarcophogi, and there were robes with gold thread and some jewelry.

We went west and took the north passage and came to a room with a pedestal in the middle with an opening in the top big enough for the cubes we just found. It also had buttons around the lip on the outside edge. We put a cube in, but nothing happened. We did not mess with the buttons. We retrieved the cube and went east a bit and found another room with two sarcophogi. Again top of skull gone, and more cubes, gold threaded robes and come jewelry.

When we tried to take the first cube, eleven finely crafted mechanical insects as big as a hand attacked us. The did little damage, but had a paralysis toxin. The toxin was either weak, or weakened with age, as it wore off quickly. It took us a long time to defeat them, but we finally prevailed. We retrieved the remains of all eleven, hoping to sell them for a profit.

Several members of the party were hurt, it was nearing time to rest, and we were running low on oil, so we elected to head to the surface for rest, re-supply, and to sell or trade what we had so far recovered.

We made it back to the area below the sewer cover when we left off. It was about 7:00 pm the 20th of Enrilden, only three more days until the dwarven festival.