The Saturday Game 5/25/19 – Groundhog Day
We hear a rumble in the fortress. In the back of the room, the three archways begin to glow; portals, but to where? The Luchador flings himself into one and the rest of the party follows. We find ourselves in an identical room trapped behind a magical transparent energy barrier. A ceremony is going on in front of the ziggurat. Four Yuan-Ti priests stand at each corner with human prisoners who are climbing the ziggurat only to fade away at the top. In the front of the ziggurat stands a bier with a human corpse on it and another priest who shouts, “You are too late! Sertrous is reborn in the body of the Fallen King!” We attempt to cast spells through the barrier, but nothing goes through. Frustrated, the party enters a different portal.
With a wrenching sensation, we are pulled into a wide-open swampy area. Before us is a structure that looks exactly like the ziggurat scaled up by a factor of hundreds. Again, there are four priests at each corner with several human prisoners chained together. Eight priests in total are engaged in the ritual. Looking up to the top of the pyramid, we are horrified to see a giant snake monster with five heads! Behind us, we see no portals out of here. Guess we are fighting!
As spell casters start sending out damage spells, they are surrounded by a weird glow. The Druid casts his dire wolves and one of them knocks an enemy prone. Alas, the priests do another sacrifice. With a hit, the Princess Warrior falls dead. At that moment, the priests slit the throats of six prisoners. It is clear we must kill the priests before the sacrifices are complete. The Sorcerer casts spare the dying on the Princess Warrior and casts her spiritual weapon. The Bard is hit, but her hellish rebuke takes out a previously wounded foe. The Cleric kills the next enemy. After the third round of sacrifices, we notice the five headed snake begins to rise and the ziggurat begins to rumble. We must stop these sacrifices! In rapid succession, the newly revived Warrior Princess, Cleric and Sorcerer each kill one. As one priest falls on his sword, a blast of energy shoots out of Sertrous killing a final sacrifice.
Some party members begin freeing the remaining prisoners. Others start making their way up the ziggurat sustaining damage on the way. As the Sorcerer frees the last prisoner, Sertrous releases a furious cry and sinks back into the ziggurat unable to escape his prison. A wave of stone from the ziggurat ripples out leaving only a flat patch of obsidian.
The party is wounded and exhausted (and makes the milestone for level seven!) We make camp to take a long rest. Some mean to keeps watch, but we all fall asleep and have the same dream: A vision of a room filled with treasure with an hourglass that has fallen and shattered on the floor. We awaken no longer on the swampy plain, but near a low flat hill that has large black rocks arranged in the shape of a human skull. After exploring a few dead ends, we dig out the corridor in the nose (ed.: Gross!) to find a tunnel with a mosaic of bright tiles leading in a winding path. This corridor is vividly illustrated with pictures of workers in rooms including a library and what appears to be a torture chamber. At the twenty feet mark, in front of a box protruding from the wall, we detect a pit trap which is the first of five we avoid.
Along the path in the corridor, we can make out the following from runes written on red tiles:
Acererak congratulates you on your powers of observation, so make of this whatever you wish for you will be mine in the end no matter what.
Go back to the tormentor or through the arch,
and the second great hall you’ll discover.
Shun green if you can, but night’s good color
is for those of great valor.
If shades of red stand for blood the wise
will not need sacrifice aught but a loop of
magical metal – you’re well along your march.
Two pits along the way will be found to lead
to a fortuitous fall, so check the wall.
These keys and those are most important of all,
and beware of trembling hands and what will maul.
If you find the false you find the true
and into the columned hall you’ll come,
and there the throne that’s key and keyed.
The iron men of visage grim do more than
meets the viewer’s eye.
You’ve left and left and found my Tomb,
and now your soul will die.
At the end of the corridor is an archway with three stones set into the stone: yellow left, blue center, orange right. A head of a devil is depicted with a black mouth. One by one, we step through the mist pouring out of the archway and crowd into a five-foot square room with no visible means of exit. Three levers on the wall can be moved horizontally or vertically.
Pushing the levers up reveals a trap door in the ceiling with a crawl space. The Gnome Wizard explores the path leading from it which goes forty feet, turns east, then north then heads up ending in the ceiling dead end.
When the remaining party members try pushing the levers down, the walls collapse, and the floor disappears. We fall several hundred feet and all splat except for the Cleric, Luchador and the Wizard stuck in the crawl space. They try to revive and rescue the other party members, but exactly six hours after we first woke up, everything fades to black. Everyone, including those who were killed, awaken outside again near the low flat hill. We all remember what happened to us, but otherwise everything in the physical location has reset to exactly as it was when we first awoke. What powerful malevolent magic has transported us to this place and what need we do to defeat it?