Season 1 - Episode 4 - OoOoOoOo spooky

Confronted by this skeleton, Drusilla quickly uses her spell to sense undead in the area, to which she does not sense any. Pretty fed up with the tricks and games at this point, she storms up to the skeleton and snatches the hat off it's head. The figure turns to Dru and says, "hey, that's mine," snatches it back, and puts the hat back on it's head with a throaty cough. Upon closer inspection, it turns out that this figure is actually just a guy painted like a skeleton.

This average sized human man is adorned in black mage robes with purple embroidery, and wears a stone amulet with a jade stone inlay (also wearing a hat). There is a staff and a dagger nearby. He gives a throaty cough and plops down in the throne, appearing to go to sleep in front of the spectators.

Scarlett, very confused at this point, clears her throat unnecessarily loud and says, "uhhh, what's going on guys...?"

Dru swings back to the stranger, "Who are you?! Why are you here?!"

He completely ignores everything and continues to sleep. That's when Scar gets up in his face, using her thaumaturgy, and in a booming voice yells, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?" His eyes snap open and he jumps up on the throne, all the braiser's turn purple and he screams back at her, "SLEEEEEEPING!" He plops back down into the seat and closes his eyes to go back to sleep, then all the braisers return to normal fire color.

Aggamir inspects these eerily lifelike dog statues, which Saphina Thornbyrne is currently petting. It appears, looking past one of the other braisers, that there is a hallway on the other side of where they had come in from. The group argues about what to do for a while, then the figure gets back up. He grabs the staff from beside the throne and pokes it around in one of the braisers, playing with the wood and making embers fly. He then pulls the staff out, and while it's on fire sets it down, then sits again to go to sleep.

Dru approaches him, getting close to his face and says, "excuse me, hi, I don't know who you are, but can you tell us why you're here?"

His eyes BOLT OPEN, and he starts screaming, "ZOMBIESSS, ZOMBIESSS!" He runs through a secret door directly opposite the throne in the wall, leaving the still burning staff next to the throne.

Scarlett investigates the general area to find that these statues are very finely carved and highly polished, and that the throne is very ornately carved with relief sculptures in the sides. Saphina jumps up to sit on the throne, dangling her feet over the front, looking very happy. Aggamir goes to inspect the braisers, but accidentally touches the sides and burns himself a little.

The team returns to the cave system through the hole they made. They make their way back to the fork and continue down the unexplored corridor. At the end of the hall, they find themselves in a 10'x 15' room. It seems to be made with the same flooring as the rest of the catacombs. Inside the room there appears to be a work table covered in vials of paint and brushes, a few bookshelves, some clay jars on the ground and a wooden barrel in one of the corners. Aggie inspects the bookshelves to find they are full of journals. He takes some down and starts flipping through them with Dru, Saph, and Scar. Scar deduces that this must have been the skeleton's room since he was covered in paint.

Skimming through the pages of these journals, it is quick to see that they are the writings of a madman. They try to locate an early entry to find his name, revealing that he calls himself "Tuprix, the Conjurer."

It appears that Tuprix came down to the catacombs to look for signs of necromancy, when they found the secret passage into the true tomb of Idrindin. Tuprix found an amulet on him, that he took and has been wearing ever since "for inspiration." The journals go on to talk about the voices that he hears and that they talk about the need to guard this place against others. There are more passages on obsession with the undead and bringing them back to life. The texts also mention the traps that were laid in order to dissuade anyone from coming down here.

Dru feels very strongly that they should just kill Tuprix and get it over with. Saph feels like maybe he's just in trouble and needs help. Aggie doesn't know what to make of it, as to whether he's harmless or not, but he knows he's certainly deranged. Scar believes it was the amulet that was making him crazy. Saph notes that his amulet seemed to be a different shape than Dru's pendant.

Suddenly a wall opens up, revealing another hidden passage, and in walks Tuprix. Casually he says, "oh, hey guys," and grabs some paint. Looking into the stone wall as though it were a mirror, he applies more makeup to his face (not well), then proceeds to walk down the cave. Aggie calls back to him, "Hey, you left your staff," holding it out for him. "Oh, thanks," he says as he reaches past the staff, pulls Aggamir's rapier from it's sheath and takes it with him. Saph sticks her gun out to trip him, but it's no use as he casually walk-skips right over it. Scar goes to try and grab him, but he just giggles loudly and wiggles out of her grasp, "woohoohoo can't get me!" Scar, now fed up and pissed, loses her entire shit and bonks him on the head with her warhammer. Tuprix goes unconscious.

"Good, he's out, get that fucking medallion off of him," yells Scar. Aggie quickly scrambles over, grabs his rapier, and sheaths it. Scar looks disapprovingly at Aggamir, who proclaims that he knows better now that he's read those journals. Saph casts identify on the amulet. At first glance it matches the mosaic on the floor at the entrance of the tomb, although unaware of what the mosaic is specifically. It turns out that this is some sort of speaking stone used to transmit messages back and forth from one to another, so Saph deduces that someone or something is on the other end of this call. She notes that it is an item that does not require attunement. Aggie inquires whether or not it's a passive kind of magic, to which Saphina puts it on to find out. Nothing happens, yet...

The group walks through the secret door that Tuprix had come in through. They discover another room, about 15'x 15', that contains another work table, a small side table, another bookcase, and a bed. Aggamir notes that he must be the only one living down here while Scarlett picks him up and puts him in his bed. There is another corridor leading from the room that the team walks down. Down this hallway, in an alcove, is a skeleton that looks like it would pop out if triggered. Then it branches to the right and to the left. Saph walks down the hallway triggering the obvious pressure plate trap and jokingly pretends to get scared when the skeleton jumps out. She then makes the right turn which turns into a left turn, leading into a wall.

Determined to not knock any more walls down, Scar finds a small button in the wall. She pushes the button and the wall slides outward. Dru is very impressed. With the wall open, the group finds themselves in the room with the mosaic on the floor. After a little inspection, it appears that there are scrape marks on the floor directly across the room, indicating that the other wall also slides open. Saph finds and pushes a button on the wall and the wall slides open, revealing a hallway that ends in a 15'x 15' room.

The room contains three indents carved in the wall acting as shelves that have plaques above them with an object on each of the shelves. When standing in the middle of the room, the sound of bones knocking against each other is heard. It's obvious the sound is similar to the rattling of the fake skeleton bones.

Aggamir moves to the right hand shelf, unafraid, since he assumes everything is fake. In the alcove sits a rather large (hand sized) emerald carved in the shape of a brain. The plaque reads: "His wicked brain, dreamer of blasphemy." The gem appears to just be sitting there. Saphina formulates the theory that since there are three items in these alcoves, and three pedestals in the other room, they must be a puzzle. Dru and Aggamir agree and Aggie turns to the middle shelf. On this shelf sits a hand sized sapphire carved in the shape of a hand. Saph sees the sapphire and loses her absolute shit. The plaque reads: "His corrupt hand, bringer of death." Moving to the left side shelf, Aggamir reads the plaque aloud. The plaque reads: "His cruel heart, a pox on our people." On the shelf sits a hand sized ruby heart. Saph runs up and grabs the sapphire, cradling and staring into it.

They discuss and agree to try the puzzle in the other room. Dru grabs the emerald brain, Aggamir takes the ruby heart, Saphina is already holding the sapphire, and Scar wants absolutely nothing to do with raising a dead demon dude.

Assuming that the position of the pedestals correlates with the location of the gems, Dru puts the emerald brain in it's respective pedestal. An extremely anxious Aggamir is wary of the situation. Saph whispers to him that Dru will probably melt their faces off if they don't do what she wants, as Dru turns to them and impatiently crosses her arms. Aggie, nervously looks back and forth at everyone. Saph squishes her face and runs her fingers down to indicate the potential melting that could take place. Defeated, Aggamir makes clear that he will be pissed if he can't sell the gem, he places it on the pedestal. Saph does the same and.... Nothing happens. Scar, egging them on tells Saph to do some witch shit and see what happens.

Saphina gets up on the highest step she can on the alter the sarcophagus is on and encants:

"His cruel heart, a pox on our people! His corrupt hand, bringer of death! His wicked brain, dreamer of blasphemy...IDRINDIN!"

From behind her, out of the sarcophagus, jumps Tuprix! "oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo...SPOOKY!" And then he runs into the mosaic room.

Long story short, Nathan has to intervene and show the players how the puzzle worked. They roll intelligence checks and Aggamir ends up "figuring out" the issue and fixes it.

A door is revealed behind the pedestal that holds the hand. The door opens into a hallway that is completely clad in jade. The braisers light one at a time down the length of the corridor, revealing they are in the room with the jade throne. Scar audibly shows her frustration. Saph turns back to the pedestal to snag the sapphire gem, but all the gems have now disappeared.

The group is walking into the chamber when Tuprix runs up from behind them, "wait wait wait, i'm not in position," and he runs up, sits in the throne and plays dead. Aggamir walks up in front of the throne and soberly proclaims, "Tuprix, awaken." Tuprix, with his eyes still closed, whispers. "that's not my name," and sticks his tongue back out. Dru runs up to him excitedly, "Idrindin! Idrindin!" Tuprix stands, proclaiming himself as the lord of the dead, and making the braisers turn purple. Saph storms up to him, nearly ruining his moment, grabs him by the clothes and shakes him and yells, "where is the sapphire!?" "What sapphire," he asks.

Scarlett sees the dagger from before, sitting in it's same location and grabs it. Tuprix yells "no no no no no no that's mine!" They verbally fight for a moment, then Tuprix holds up his fist. "Don't make me use this," he says. Scar calls his bluff and eggs him on. He reaches out, grabs her wrist, and casts 'inflict wounds'.

# Notable Quotes

"I'm just thinking, you all have no reason to be friendly with each other right now. Y'all could just fight."

~ Nathan

# Village Idiot

Nicole snagged this one by messing with an OBVIOUSLY mad man.