The Shadow's Tomb

The party and their caravan had been traveling for days through the eternal night of the subterranean Path of Spirits, far below the Wall of Heaven mountains. Finally, they had reached the fabled Uqtaal Necropolis. This underground temple complex had once been consecrated to the worship of Desna, but sometime in the intervening centuries it had been desecrated by followers of the Tian god, Fumeiyoshi. At the entrance to the complex, two octagonal towers stood guard, and a party of Headless Wardens had emerged from them to challenge the party’s progress.

Sawyer was surrounded by enemies, and that was just the way he liked it. He unleashed a devastating series of attacks from Suishen, and the first of the Wardens dropped. Sandoval rushed in to slice at another, followed by Bella who Pounced on the same one. Both saw that their attacks were doing less damage than normal against the Wardens’ tough, mummified skin, and Sandru saw one of his arrows bounce right off a foe, but Bella’s Spritual Ally had no such problem. Neither did Zhustin’s Scorching Ray, which set one alight.

Spivey flew out of the tower through one of the arrow slits, and cast Channel Positive Energy over the undead clustered below her, and Marie and Koya followed up with Channeling of their own. Shinjiro sent one of the Wardens flying with a flurry of kicks and punches. Sawyer badly injured one of those still standing, then Bella finished it off with a flick of her rapier, as she dashed by to slash at another. Little Spivey took down one with another burst of holy energy, and Sawyer finished off the last with a brutal stab with his ancestral katana.

Luckily, no one seemed to have been infected with Mummy Rot from this encounter with the Wardens. Bella moved cautiously to investigate the right-hand tower. The tower itself was empty, with a spiral stair leading up to a series of balconies giving access to tiers of arrow slits. However, a long, dark passage led farther back into the rock. Zhustin cast a Light spell, and Bella moved in. On either side of the passage were a series of alcoves, each containing a funerary bier and a scattering of ancient grave goods. At the rear was a door, slightly ajar. Bella carefully opened it. Inside was a larger chamber, with three biers. Each of the three walls had long ago been painted with a now-faded mural: a twilit tundra on one side, moonlit mountains in the center, and a starry snowfield on the other. However, these murals had been defaced with crude paintings of the dead rising from their graves to attack the living.

Bella began combing through the artifacts scattered among the burials, finding a variety of small valuable trinkets: bracelets and rings of copper and turquoise, beaten copper burial masks, spirit fetishes of carved bone, and the like. Spivey scolded her for grave robbing, but Bella brushed her off. “These guys attacked us – anything they had is fair game.” The other tower proved to be a mirror-image of the first, and Bella added to her stash of loot.

A deep crevasse split the chamber, separating the area the party was in from the rest of the necropolis. A narrow bridge spanned the gap, barely wide enough for the caravan’s wagons to cross. At each end of the bridge were a pair of stone pillars supporting a flat lintel. The pillars were inset with star-shaped niches, each holding a human skull; like all the other skulls they’d seen, these were defaced with the red-painted demonic face of Fumeiyoshi. As they approached the bridge, they could see runes engraved on the lintel. Only Spivey could decipher the ancient tongue of the Uqtaal: “Here the dead walk. Trouble them not, nor bar their path.”

Zhustin moved forward to cross the bridge, anxious to see what lay beyond. But as he reached its threshold, he felt some strange power holding him back. He was familiar with a Wall of Force, but this felt different, as if something were repelling him. Bella tried next, with similar results. She held her greatspear out before her, and the long shaft had no trouble crossing the threshold, but as soon as Bella reached it, she was pulled up short.

After a bit of investigation, Bella determined that the barrier seemed to only cover the bridge; the rest of the chasm was passable. With multiple means to fly or teleport, the party would have no trouble crossing, but their wagons and yaks were a different story. Hoping that the magical obstacle only blocked humans, Sandru called for one of the wagons to come up, and its driver guided the yak towards the bridge. The beast trudged dumbly along, then gave a bellow of surprise and frustration as its nose collided with the invisible barrier.

Spivey had been studying the magical aura of the barrier. “I think it’s an Anti-Life Shell,” she finally proclaimed. To test her theory, Nicki ordered one of his new servants to cross the bridge. The skeleton obediently shuffled across with no problems. Now that they knew what they were dealing with, they had a chance to defeat it. Zhustin rummaged through his pack, and came out with a Scroll of Dispel Magic. With Koya giving him a Bit of Luck, he read the scroll, and they saw a faint flickering in the air around the bridge. Testing his spell, Zhustin moved forward, and found that he could now cross. The party hurried to get the wagons across quickly, in case the effect was only temporary.

Across the bridge, the chamber quickly narrowed to a passage leading northwest. A few dozen yards on, this passage opened into a vast cavern. In the center of the cavern, at the edge of their light, was a tall, bare-branched tree, seemingly dead. The tree stood in the center of a pool of still water. A faint violet radiance from beneath the pool lit the cavern, reflecting off flecks of mica and quartz in the ceiling like tiny stars in the night sky. At the northern edge of the cavern a broad smooth passage sloped gently upwards, and to the northeast, a series of ledges led up into darkness.

At the sight of the tree, Spivey and Koya grew excited. “It’s the Tree of Life!” Spivey cried, and Koya echoed “It’s real! It’s not just legend!”. Barely able to contain her excitement, Koya explained. “The Tree of Life was one of the holiest relics in the worship of Desna. It was said to be infused with the spirits of all the Desna faithful who came to the Uqtaal Necropolis for burial, and to glow with the holy light of their faith.” Inside Marie’s head, Helgarval was confirming everything the two clerics were saying.

“It looks pretty dead now,” Bella said dismissively. Koya and Spivey exchanged a look, and then nodded to each other. “I think we can revive it,” Koya said excitedly, and Spivey took up the refrain. “I think if the three of us,” looking at Marie, “join hands around the tree and combine the powers of our Channel Positive Energy, we can re-sanctify the tree, and return it to its holy purpose!”

“So you want to go hug a dead tree?” Bella asked skeptically, and Koya and Spivey nodded enthusiastically. Spivey was ready to move now, but everyone else urged caution. They didn’t know what else might be in this cavern, they weren’t sure how deep that pool was or why it was glowing, and Marie’s Detect Magic had discovered a hemisphere of Abjuration magic surrounding the area around the tree itself. Reluctantly, the two clerics agreed to take it one step at a time.

The group moved carefully into the cavern, alert to dangers. As they advanced, they spotted a dead body lying on the far side of the tree, and as they drew within range, Marie’s spell spotted magic with the body. Now Bella was getting itchy, but she, too, stayed with the program. They could see glints of light reflecting off something on the western wall, and they soon saw that there was a door there. Sawyer approached, sword drawn.

The door was graven with an image of the goddess Desna, butterfly wings outstretched. It had once been gilded, but most of the gilt had long ago been scraped off, leaving only a few remnants to catch the light. Like much of the rest of the Desnan trappings here, the door too had been defaced, with Fumeiyoshi’s tusked face painted over Desna’s. Bella advanced to examine the door, and could tell that it had once been magically trapped, but that someone had disarmed (or possibly activated) that trap. Seeing no further dangers, she pushed it open.

The door revealed a hallway, opening into an octagonal room. Unlike the rest of the pitch-black cave, this room was illuminated by dim, flickering light. As Bella crept forward, she could see that its walls were midnight blue, dotted with painted stars. A raised dais stood in the center of the room, holding an ornately carved funeral bier. On it lay a motionless form clad in mirrored armor, a broadsword clutched to its beast and its face concealed beneath a golden mask.

The glitter of gold drew Bella into the room, but she hung back against the wall, wary of approaching the dead body. A small crystal lamp hung above the bier, and a Continual Flame flickered inside it, casting wavering shadows on the walls. Sawyer, Sandoval, and Zhustin cautiously made their way down the hall, ready to back Bella up if need be.

Suddenly, one of the shadows separated itself from the wall and clutched at Bella. Its icy fingers opened no wounds, but she felt her strength being sucked out of her body, and as she raised her rapier to riposte, she found the slender blade almost too heavy to wield. She managed to swing at the creature, but the blade swept through its incorporeal body, barely disturbing it. With a shriek, she scuttled back away from the apparition.

Hearing her cry, Zhustin rushed forward. Even as he did, he had an instant to reflect on how far he had come from the awkward, unsure boy he’d been only a few months earlier. Here he was, running towards the sound of danger, instead of away from it. As soon as he saw the wavering form of the Greater Shadow confronting Bella, he knew that it would be difficult to hit, and was gratified to see his Magic Missiles impact for full effect. Sawyer charged in right on his heels, but only Suishen’s inherent magical powers caused his attack to deal even minor damage to the Shadow.

Spivey flittered forward down the hallway, and unleashed a Channel Positive Energy when she judged she was close enough to catch the attacker. No sooner had she cast the spell, when she heard an anguished cry of “NOOOO!” … from behind her. Nicki had been charging through the door to get his chance to attack, followed faithfully by his three skeletal servants. Unfortunately, they had also been within range of Spivey’s blast of holy power, and now Larry, Moe, and Curley were three piles of dust. Nicki pointed his finger, primed with a spell, directly at Spivey’s back, but at the last second, pulled it down and instead unleashed his stream of Magic Missiles at the Shadow. “I hate the living!” he sobbed.

Shinjiro rushed into the room. Knowing that his normal attacks would be useless against an incorporeal creature, he concentrated his focus into a Ki Strike, imbuing his fists and feet with the powers of magical weapons. Marie summoned a Spiritual Weapon next to the Shadow, and even thought it missed, the undead apparently felt it was outnumbered and outclassed. It passed into the solid stone wall and disappeared.

Not knowing where the thing might reappear, everyone began moving away from the walls to give themselves a little warning room, and Sandoval cast Mirror Image on himself. Spivey looked down at the body lying on the bier. Although the style and inscriptions on the armor resembled the Uqtaal artifacts they’d found elsewhere in the necropolis, the sword was clearly of Tian make, and the gold and jade mask bore the leering tusked image of Fumeiyoshi. “This burial chamber was clearly constructed for a high-priest of Desna, but I think this is a priest of Fumeiyoshi.”

Ameiko and Sandru had been hanging back in the main cavern, outside the door to the tomb where it would be safe. Suddenly, the Greater Shadow swept out of the rock wall behind Sandru and clutched him in its icy embrace. He fell to the ground, too weak to even lift his limbs. As soon as the Shadow appeared in the cavern, the dead body that had been lying undisturbed nearby leapt to its feet with a shriek of rage. It charged at Ameiko with unbelievable speed, slashing her again and again with its claws, grabbing her in its clutches.

Realizing that the battle’s front was suddenly in their rear, everyone in the tomb scrambled to react. Sawyer and Bella charged the Revenant attacking Ameiko, and Nicki hammered it with a volley of Magic Missiles. But even with all of them pounding on her opponent, Ameiko couldn’t escape its grasp. Marie had a solution to that: she activated her Freedom’s Call aura, and suddenly Ameiko was able to slip away. The Revenant let out another shriek of fury, and the party felt their blood chill, but Marie’s Aura kept them from panicking.

The Greater Shadow, seeing no threatening targets outside, sank down into the floor of the cavern. When it re-emerged, it was again behind Bella, apparently holding a special grudge against the person who had first desecrated her tomb. As the rogue felt more of her strength ebb away, she knew she had to escape. She tucked herself into a tight ball and tumbled across the floor, rolling between the Revenant’s legs to come up directly behind it. She poured all of her (admittedly limited) remaining strength into her blow, and rejoiced to see her rapier send the creature’s head spinning to the floor. But to her shock, it seemed unfazed; it calmly picked its head back up, reset it on its neck and turned to face her.

Nicki, still enraged over the destruction of his three amigos, focused all of his powers into a set of Enhanced Magic Missiles. They impacted on the Greater Shadow with a flash of light, scattering its body into an explosion of tiny shadows that quickly evaporated. In the instant that the Greater Shadow fell, the Revenant also collapsed; apparently the evil will of its master was the only thing keeping it animated.

No new threats appeared, and the group breathed easier. Well, except for Sandru, who was still prone on the ground and finding that even the effort of breathing was almost more than he could manage. The clerics began casting Lesser Restorations on Sandru and Bella to restore their lost strength, with a Breath of Life for the injured Ameiko. While they worked on the wounded, Sawyer knelt to search the body of the Revenant. It had a nice rapier and a cloak that was in surprisingly good shape, considering how long the body had obviously been her. It also had an odd set of goggles pushed up on its forehead. Marie confirmed that all three of these were magical. Inside its pack was a pile of gold leaf scrapings, and the pieces fell into place; this was obviously a thief who had been looting the tomb when its resident took exception, turning the would-be robber into its eternal slave.

When Marie saw the gold leaf, she had an idea. “Give me that,” she said, and Sawyer handed it over. Bella, who still needed the cleric to restore a good deal of her strength, could only sputter helplessly. Casting a Make Whole spell, Marie carefully applied the gold leaf to the door, and soon the image of Desna glittered like new.

The sight of the renewed tomb door turned the clerics’ attention back to the Tree of Life. They had already used quite a bit of their daily allotment of Channeling in their battles with undead today, but if they didn’t have enough to resanctify the Tree today, they could always continue tomorrow; the group needed to rest soon anyway. While the rest of the group stayed back by the tomb (and with Spivey pointedly commanding Nicki to stay far away) the three women approached the tree. The area of abjuration magic that Marie had detected proved to be no hindrance to them, and the pool of water was only ankle-deep. They took up positions around the tree; although its bare branches spread wide above them, its trunk was slender, and the three of them had no trouble joining hands around it. They looked at each other, took at deep breath, and in unison called forth the holy power of Desna.

As the goddess’s power washed out of them, the violet radiance of the pool took on a darker hue, and the Tree’s branches began to thrash as if in a windstorm. With an anguished moan, a pair of Spectres emerged from the Tree!

The PCs earned 5,200 XP for the night, putting them at 93,455 XP with 105,000 required for Level 10. We’ll be at Joette & Rich’s next week, although Roger will be schmoozing it up in Hartford.