Is Every Mouth in This Place Dangerous?

The Thursday Game, Recap of July the 16th – We tentatively explore the darkened room within the devil skull. The Warlock’s mage hand floats into the mouth towards the dark figure flickering within. The hand slaps the figure, but it does not seem to connect with anything substantial. The Cleric brings out the ghost lantern and asks the woman within if she knows anything. She relays that one of her adventuring party went in and was almost killed before stumbling out. The Warlock peers into the room and blasts the figure. With a wail, the shadow demon exits the room. After a brief battle, the Paladin slays the demon. The Warlock explores the room which has silence and darkness spells that even dispel magic cannot end. The Warlock finds nothing in the room.

Returning to the area where we found the second warning, passages go north, south and east. A few feet in the north passage is corpse riddled with ax marks and cross bolts.  On the body is a journal of Devlin Bashir, an ink pot, and a staff and spell book which the Warlock takes.

The Monk and the Paladin experiment walking the passages halls north and south to find they make a complete circle, but they seem to come back to a different version. Heading east, the party enters a room that smells of wine. A gold coffin lays in the middle of a brightly lit room. On the walls, there are four statues of gargoyle heads with large gaping mouths. The spirit of Moa whispers to the Warlock that this room does not match the symbolism of the other gods. We spend a lot of time trying to figure out the north/south hall puzzle to see if the circular passage is the ring that leads to another tomb as stated in the warning, but the solution eludes us. The spirits of the gods who inhabit some party members seem increasingly uncomfortable, so we leave the puzzle for now. During our experimentation, we come upon a tomb dwarf whom we promptly kill before he even sees us. Sorry, dude, but we don’t roll with undead.

We follow the Paladin who heads north from the Grand Hall into a room containing a large devil statue. Forlorn cries issue from the open mouth. Reaching his hand into the mouth, the Paladin finds it is magically darkened. The Druid dispels the darkness revealing a shaft downward. With a rope, the Monk descends. Hieroglyphs appear on the floor upon which is a corpse. Purple mold, from which creepy eyes appear, encircles parts of the room. In the middle of the room, a gold barge stands on a dais while a passage flanked with carvings of fangs leads south. After sending a fireball down the shaft destroying the mold, the Monk lands on the dais to discover the sarcophagus of I’jin the almiraj. He searches and attempts to open it, but the lid is too heavy.

As the Paladin comes down to assist, he falls on a tile on the floor which triggers a swarm of locust from the mouths of the sphinx statues placed throughout the room. The Monk flees up the shaft. The Paladin misty steps to the room south through the fangs and sees a snarling jackal head on the wall.  A hall meets up with the lower level of the Grand Hall. On his way, he passes a plaque and reads Acererak’s Third Warning:

Walk through water with weapon in hand.
Slake your shadow at the font.
The vulture is the first step.
Right the gods.
The walls of history tell all.

He also passes a door with three oval holes in which appear three human heads chained together. He does not stop to explore this new weirdness. As he reunites with the rest of the party, we take a long rest in the devil statue room; thus, ending a day that brought more new questions than answers.

Respectfully submitted,

Marigold Underbite, Cleric – May Pelor light your way!