Session 75

The group stands before the temple, catching their breaths. They decide to take a rest, but collect a bit of poison off the corpses of the purple worms. As they step up onto the stone of the temple, past statues of Miroan Sadarka and his wife, the sand behind them falls away, forming a 100-foot wide moat around the temple. They also spot a Macierre family crest.

As they rest, Alexander examines the Macierre crest, finding blood on it, with a bowl, and an inscription in Celestial, saying "the blood of a worthy heir". Kesra also takes the time to summon Red. She also prays to Pelor, thanking him for saving her life.

Red tells Kesra that she was there once before, but it was a long time ago, and she didn't go inside. Alexander tells her that he's pretty sure that they need to put her blood in the bowl. Leona steps up, wondering if her blood might work as well. Alexander points out that she can get it from her arm, rather than her palm, and she does so. The door opens.

As Atlas leads the way, the doors slam shut behind him. Kesra takes the dagger and puts her blood in too. This time, Terry gets through before the doors close again, touching Elden on the back before he does. Leona cuts herself again, and Alexander uses Wall of Force to hold one door open while Leona goes through, but the other side closes against the Wall of Force. Kesra cuts herself, letting Alexander and Elden go through. Then she says goodbye to Red, who tells her that this is the last place where she saw Quan'Mal Macierre.

The group approaches a door, which they discover has some runes, and a riddle on it. The runes appear to have been tampered with. Terry recognizes that the riddle is suggesting that notion of the firstborn. As he says "firstborn", the door opens.

They find a room filled with all kinds of golden treasure. A path leads through the mounds of gold, leading to a sarcophagus. Terry spies an entrance to another chamber which he believes has the ring he wants, and goes immediately for it. He finds another sarcophagus, for Miro'in Sadarka's daughter. He immediately moves to open the sarcophagus, but discovers that he's not strong enough to open it. There are also a number of books in this chamber, which Alexander examines, without touching them.

The group discusses what they should go after first. Terry says that he sort of has permission, but understands if they want to pursue their goal first. However, he hangs back as the others investigate the sarcophagus in the gold room. They do not, however, find any indication of who is in it. Terry says that it's probably the sarcophagus of Miro'in Sadarka, an old king.

As they continue to investigate they find numerous legendary weapons and magical items.

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Alexander tells the others that the third ring could be their ticket out of the tomb. Atlas runs back and investigates the doors that they came in through, to see if they can be opened from the inside, finding a similar depression to the bowl they used to get in.

Alexander also posits that this is Quan'Mal's tomb, and that as soon as they open any sarcophagus, something bad will happen. He casts Detect Magic, finding a lot of magic, including coming from the main sarcophagus, but not seeing any such magic from the one that Terry is trying to get into. He does see a jar which fell over and broke open, which he investigates. It seems to have once been sealed with incredibly powerful magic, and he finds an inscription that says "Here rests the Queen of Shadows".

Elden also finds a very rusty, unmagical crown. Kesra cleans off some displays in the weapon room, some of which literally call out to her. They all continue to investigate the tomb and its many wonders. They look over and Terry has managed to get the sarcophagus lid off of the sarcophagus with the ring he's interested in, but it strikes him with a temporary curse that prevents him from speaking. He quickly dispels the curse and takes the ring.

As the group closes up that sarcophagus, Alexander realizes that the woman who had Terry's ring is actually a well-known magic-user named Nystul. The party prepare themselves, then heave the cover off of the main sarcophagus. A massive figure swirling with shadows roils up out of the sarcophagus - unmistakably the Queen of Shadows.