S06E07: The Gang Infiltrates The Rebranded Tomb of Relaxation

== Aside ==
Um’s dog is possibly eating his own feet, Averlyth’s dog has a mohawk, and Nissa’s dog has feelings about being forced to appear at show and tell. Um has now also clarified that he didn’t intentionally name his dog after Kanye. Everyone’s hair has gained great length, and Um has discovered that apparently Woodhouse has migrated our wiki for us.
While the DM prepares the session, the group fumbles through attempts to remember what happened a month and a half prior (when we first arrived at the creation of the Tomb of Horrors). We consider if it should be canon that the process of time travel induces minor amn
Um: Why can’t we change it while we’re here? Couldn’t it be like, the tomb of relaxation?Averlyth: Wait, why is it still a tomb?
esia, and then we over-consider other time-related things.
==Background==
Previously, we placed two gems into a machine and inadvertently reintroduced time travel mechanics into D&D.
Banrean's unicorn magic combined with said mechanics allowed us to restore her forest to its former glory. In thanks, she gifts us the two gems; Qualish identifies them as parts from the Infernal Machine and promptly installs them into Gearbox to give us a portable time travel machine (with 6 charges per use before a long rest is needed) so he can send us back to a specific space time where he thinks we'll find more parts.
With our newly updated companion, we are transported to the bustling construction site of the Tomb of Horrors.
At a glance, we see an active worker’s camp above 3 tunnels, with Dwarves seemingly hard at work. With Clairvoyance cast in the sky, Averlyth scouted out some workers emerging from one of the tunnels with an unusually large black rock, and depositing them in a pile. She's also able to identify 2 seemingly rival groups of dwarves that don’t seem to like each other very much, just based on the way they're dressed and the various bickering going on. None of the dwarves look like they're super happy about their jobs.
There were also 3 different looking dwarves with long hooked poles and fancy spiked armors, and they led a group of seemingly enchanted umber hulks out of the far left hand tunnel and into the center tunnels, presumably to be used as giant tunneling machines.
==Session==
The group is deciding how to get more information - not only on the pieces of the infernal machine, but also on the location, and potentially the people here. Kanye suggests ways that we may be able to solve this problem with the dwarves in the immediate vicinity.Um: Is that a capital "I" interrogate?Kanye: This is the part I can never decide on!
Sorith is a dwarf but is not really into the "talking to other dwarves" thing.
[The group remembers we’re in the past now and debates whether or not we’ll find out what happened to past Sorith to make him hate dwarves so much.]
Kanye considers disguising himself as an umber hulk, but they’re definitely way bigger.
Nissa quickly confirms with the DM that she didn't misremember what the Infernal Machine was called.
Kanye questions if there’s ANY chance he can pass off as a dwarf. (It’s not likely)
Sorith proposes we pretend we’re a different group of contractors - it's unlikely these dwarves are the only ones employed here, and it's also unlikely they'll care that much or be in the know about everyone else hired by the lich. Nissa suddenly realizes she gets advantage on deception from stuff. Averlyth suggests we pass off Gearbox as a part that we were hired to install (Kanye: Climate Control!).
[The group has decided that the two dwarves groups are Beards Unlimited and Tomb Braiders, which explains why Averlyth was able to distinguish between two groups despite not speaking Dwarvish. Apparently Sorith has mutton chops. Kanye can't really grow facial hair, but he could proudly extend some sideburns or borrow a beard from a dwarf.]
The group decides to spend some time coming up with quick disguises for everyone to pretend we’re a cohesive unit, now also named "Half-Ass Construction".
Kanye disappears into his workshop for a half hour and emerges with... epaulets?
Apparently he also came up with (thankfully blank) name tags and ribbons that aren't too long, after unexpected inspiration from South American paramilitary.Kanye: I want us to look official, but I don't really understand... "contractors"?DM: As yes. Workers.Averlyth scrounges up our previously purchased, non-magical mirrored aviators, since we didn't even get to (remember to) use them against the Medusa.Nissa: Okay, are we all ready?Sorith: We have… five vac suits in the band fund?DM: They’re from, uhhhhhhh the future.[The group tentatively considers what would happen if we were operating by Back to the Future rules and Woodhouse had a photo of the future that would change as we changed the past]Kanye: I’m going to… oh no.Nissa: Oh gross, I’m going to have to walk??With our looks finalized (and Nissa's legs totally not atrophied), the squad strides confidently towards the middle tunnel, trying to look as though we belong. Nissa leads the group with a clipboard, Kanye follows carrying an umbrella, and all the very busy workers pay us absolutely no attention - or at least don't stop us.
As we approach the entrance, a dwarf walks out carrying some tunneling gear.
He looks at Nissa, looks at Kanye, looks at the rest of the crew, and can only go "Who the fuck are you supposed to be??”.
Nissa quickly recognizes it’s not a challenge, he’s just genuinely curious. She curtly responds with “We’re the ones that’ll tell your boss you’re asking questions instead of working”.
The dwarf immediately goes “all right, fuck off” and flips Nissa off as he leaves. She makes a rude gesture back. He flips her off twice. Three of his crewmates stand up and flip us off in solidarity. Nissa keeps her the rudeness flowing from her side.
No one stops us from entering the tunnel.
=== Tomb of Horrors - Entry===
We enter the broad middle tunnel to find it's being shaped into the tomb’s elaborate entryway.
A number of Tiefling artisans are stationed here, working to cover the walls with mosaics and hide the open pits in the floor with tiles. To our right, there's an open doorway, beyond which we hear the sounds of hammering, digging and stone cutting.
The tunnel where we are is well lit, but there are no torches further down, and we can see the room extend into darkness. There is a rumbling sound that we’re guessing is the sound of umber hulks digging.
Averlyth, Kanye and Nissa are too distracted by trying to look official to notice anything suspicious.Averlyth: That’s why we’re Half Ass Construction..Um: Also half ass perceptionKanye: haHA I forgot we called ourselves thatOn the other hand, over the various sounds of construction, Sorith and Um are able to hear an additional sound - rhythmic chanting coming from the south. It’s echoing dimly - they've spent enough time underground to get the sense that the source of the sound is not just down the hall, but bouncing down through many chambers.
There are about 12 muralists working near us, entirely absorbed in their work, and they have a very different attitude compared to the dwarves outside; instead of being surly or grumpy about their employment, they appear to be having a great time. They have a strong vibe of professional artists, they’re humming in satisfaction, occasionally complimenting each other's work. They’re also completely unconcerned with our presence.
[The group considers if the contractors near us know they’re working on the Death Star (or if it’s currently the Tomb of Relaxation and Great Skin Care)]
As we navigate the tomb, Nissa is surreptitiously marking our surroundings with chalk, juuuuust in case there's any maze-like tendencies installed already.
Um is interested in going through the doorway to our right, presuming that it must lead somewhere interesting since its location - smack dab in the middle of an incomplete mural - implies it will eventually be a secret doorway.
Averlyth looks around carefully to see if anyone is operating with a map - the artists appear to be working from a plan within their head. Meanwhile, the murals themselves are painted to show animals grazing, slaves of various races and also of strange human animal hybrids (pigmen, dogmen???). Some of the fresco shows the rooms of some building - torture chamber, wizards workroom, stuff??? No apparent plan or layout that makes sense. Averlyth feels slightly more lost than when she started looking.
Kanye remembers to put away the umbrella now that we’re indoors. As the group decides to enter through the not-yet-secret doorway, he brings up the rear, pausing to make sure no one’s following us, trying to get a sense of if anyone’s watching us. No one appears to react to our movement.
===Tomb of Horrors - Work Room===
Out of habit, Um is alert for hidden pressure plates and tripwires, but it grows increasingly obvious that the tomb in it's current state is relatively safe: any active traps here would endanger the workers, and he can clearly see the soon-to-be traps in half-constructed states (wide open pit traps and incomplete secret entrances, for instance). Apparently Um didn’t expect ancient work sites to be OSHA compliant.
We walk over wooden planks into a hallway that leads us into a work room, currently occupied by 5 human sculptors, who appear to be creating objects to be used in the tomb. The humans are also being watched over/assisted by a girallon. He has torches in 2 of his hands (positioning them carefully to provide light for the sculptors) and handing them tools with the other 2 hands.
As we enter the room, all of them look up at us.
Averlyth and Um notice that while the Dwarves seemed like grouchy contractors and the Tieflings seemed to be happily working on their dream project, these humans look rather poorly. They’re thin, underfed, pale like they haven’t been outside in quite awhile and they look nervous. As we’re looking around, the one furthest from the girallon goes “psst” at us.
Averlyth steps within earshot, and he takes the opportunity to whisper if we're from the outside. Nissa responds "we have been outside", which he takes as confirmation, and immediately states that we have to help them escape from their predicament.
When we hesitate, he claims he can give us information in return and asks why we’re here. Nissa states "We’re to install this MurderBot".
For just a moment, he looks horrified, thinking he may have made a horrible mistake, as if he accidentally asked the boss’s assistant for help. Then he looks at the "MurderBot" and raises an eyebrow. Given our continued lack of interest, he backs down, asking that we just at least don't tell anyone about the escape plan, if we're not interested in helping them out.
Nissa says we’re not narcs we’re cool, claims we didn’t know about mistreatment on site. Apparently all the humans got letters from Mog Hadan with an offer to come for exchange for good payment. Since showing up for the job, no one has been allowed to leave, and no one has been paid either.
Nissa finally says we can help in exchange for information (which he exasperatedly agrees to as it was his own request to begin with). He tells us to go to the Chamber of Spheres to talk to the guy with the actual escape plan, as he was only told to "be ready when the time comes”.
There are three doors to our left (the south side of the room) - 2 on the very southern side, one on the south east corner of the eastern wall. The human points west (where there isn't a door) - then sees our confusion and points to the door on the eastern wall instead, noting that the room is directly on the west side, we'll be going around.
Nissa makes a good show of patting him on the back, loudly approving his work and then walking away. 
===Tomb of Horrors - Chamber of Spheres===
We go through the door he indicated. As promised, it becomes a hallway wrapping around the room we were just in, then clearly opens into another busy worksite. This one contains a number of artisans (more Tieflings) in addition to more stonecutters, also watched by a girallon. This room also extends far down, with large stone and metal spheres every 10 - 15 feet along the two long walls.
Directly across from us, there are 2 doors against the far wall. The hallway to our left extends into the darkness. The only source of light are the torches that the girollan are holding.
Kanye navigates to the work benches and inspects 2 hammers per bench, pocketing one and putting one back. Apparently he wants to steal nails to make a dent in the site so future him - if he returns for some reason - knows what’s up. He accidentally drops a hammer at the fourth workbench and a few stolen nails drop out of his sleeves. The closest human stone mason hisses at him to go away, trying not to get in trouble.
Nissa walks over to one of the dudes furthest from the girallon, clearly presenting her clipboard before whispering that we were sent by someone from the first room. He instructs her to walk over to the gold sphere, saying that he can't talk here without being overheard by the Tiefling.
Nissa heads to the unassuming gold sphere - after a moment, she noticed it’s been positioned to conceal an opening in the wall. She can also sense that the sphere is vaguely magic: there may be an incomplete camouflage spell that was intended to hide this passage better.
Averlyth goes to a different sphere to pretend she's also “inspecting”. Kanye stays at the workbench to monitor the activity in the room.
Nissa enters the side room and is immediately shocked by the appearance of a life-size statue of a girollan with wings. It's not finished, and is pretty rough around the edges, but absolutely still heart attack worthy.
After a few minutes pass by, the stonemason Nissa talked to makes a show of being out of supplies and casually walks over to the gold sphere before disappearing behind it. Now also in the side room, he presents her with a front half of a torn book. Pained at the condition, Nissa is able to tell it’s a manual of stone golems.
This stone mason quickly summarizes his story for Nissa, and it matches what the first stonemason shared - all of the human sculptors had received a letter "from the greatest architect in our generation", but now everyone’s basically enslaved. A few had tried to protest, but they were all taken away and have not returned. 
The aforementioned escape plan was to bring the statue to life to fight their way out. However, they can only do this if they can acquire the other half of the manual, which is in a totally different temple.
They also need 3 days to finish the statue, and he’s not sure everyone will survive that long.
When questioned about details, he informs us that the protesters were dragged by girallon and ultimately taken to a cleric of Vecna named Phoenix. Also apparently this stone mason and some others were originally dragged from a competing construction site by Mog Hadan’s nemesis; this guy responsible for a Tomb (Temple?) of Moloch sent thieves as vengeance but they've been captured, and now they’re just been fighting back and forth.
Apparently the girollans wear gold arm bands with some sort of inscriptions on them. They don’t talk to any of the humans, they help them out but also keep anyone from leaving.
Nissa asks if the stone mason has seen any magical artifacts that don’t belong here ("We’re looking for a missing shipment"). We're told that everything powerful is in the chapel, but that there’s also a machine at the end of the front hallway, by the "chained balor hooked to it with wires"????Nissa: Is it harmless?Stone mason: It doesn’t look harmless?Nissa: All right, I’ll make that one of my dumber friend’s problems.
The stone mason draws us a map indicating the locations of the balor, chapel, and even Mog Hadam’s office (seen on the right).
He starts to get nervous with how long he’s spent out of the girallon's sight. Before he leaves, Nissa tells him we can leave food in the room.
As a final indication of the urgency, he informs her the stonemasons have already been stalling for time. They're supposed to build these fake doors and walls, and they keep “breaking” them and having to remake them - it won't work forever. He also mentions that there’s a room that we passed on the way here that would contain a map to the Tomb of Moloch, if we choose to make that days-long trip.
During this time, Kanye uses “Know your enemy” on “the thing with the four arms that has the hammers”. He learned that he can take one toe-to-toe but uncertain how the gold armbands work.
Based on the map and general direction of the sound, we suspect the chanting is coming from the Chapel. 
The group quickly debates whether or not we're interested in aiding the stonemasons in their escape.Kanye: Look guys, maybe we shouldn’t even just help them for the sake of the timelineDM: Oh now Kanye’s interested in the timeline.Averlyth quickly pops into the side room behind the Golden Sphere and casts Create Food and Water to leave a donation of Fresh Roll (with the peanut sauce) to feed up to 15 and last for 24 hours.
Kanye goes up to a girallon to ask to inspect a hammer. It obviously does not understand him and looks confused. At some point he points to one of the hammers, at which point the girallon picks up the hammer and points at the human workers in continued confusion.
Averlyth drags Kanye away from the girallon as he foolishly names him Goro. Then he numbers them so it’s less anthropomorphizing. Kanye does not know what they eat but he knows they are hunters and suspect the answer is manflesh.
Nissa carries her clipboard confidently towards the dark, unlit length of the chapel. As we go down, the corridor is in a more and more finished state - the tiles are laid in, the frescos are completed. We eventually come to two openings on the eastern wall.
The northern opening has louder chanting, so the group proceeds down the southern passageway instead.
=== Tomb of Horrors - ???===
We end up in a room that appears to hold resources to pay for the construction of the tomb. There are a lot of bones lying in this room, heaped around about the materials. Precious gemstones piled up, but most notably treasure chests with a prominent lock on them. One is made of gold, one is made of silver, and one is made of oak.Kanye: Does the oak one look like it would be susceptible to my wiles if I smash it?DM: Your... wiles?Kanye wants to lovingly, caressingly smash it. The group informs him it’s not possible to do so quietly, which somewhat matters during infiltration. Kanye considers if he has a table saw in the workshop.
Um offers to pick the lock on the wooden chest if Kanye is willing to stand close by to protect the rogue.Kanye: Of course!Sorith: I might be better for that.Averlyth: WE CAN REWIND TIME.Um picks the lock easily - he feels the mechanism disengage and the lid pops open.
The moment the mechanism disengages, the bones in the room assemble themselves into a giant skeleton.
Next session, the group might just leave the room first thing because someone didn’t QA this trap and apparently the "giant skeleton" doesn’t look like it would fit through the doorway.