Session 55

# August 13th, 2020 - Tomb of Diderius

## Finding Varram

The session began as the party awoke and prepared for their travels. Alburt created the *teleportation circle* to Elturiel, and the group was transported away from Lady Silverhand’s estate. The party spent the entire day in Elturiel, such that Thia could spend some quality time with all three of her dragons. The Dominion monks informed her that her third, Maximus, was doing worse off than Elysian due to the constant droning of the *Draakhorn*. As such, Thia made preparations to bring Maximus along with her on this leg of her journey.

The rest of the group gathered horses, a cart, and made preparations for their ride on the next day. The trip by horse took them just under a week's time, with Thia’s expert navigation. The main road was not always the best path, and they made it to the river town of Woodspring in excellent time. They had been told that the dwarf wyrmspeaker Varram was identified by the outlandish purple robes worn by the cult leaders, and so the party asked around town. They were directed across the river bridge at the north of town, to the small tent town and its inn.

This tent town was the remnants of the Ironbay armies encampment, but they had since moved on. The proprietor of the ramshack ‘inn’ in this tent town surely knew of the dwarf in purple robes. As the innkeep explained it, the dwarf was now somewhat of a local hero - having killed a masked yuan-ti assassin right in his establishment!

"The snake people are sinister and often plague the villages along the Crystal Valley", he said.

As to the dwarf’s location, the innkeep mentioned he and his entourage were looking for more bodyguards and guides to the fabled Tomb of Didierius, north in the central magical desert of the Serpent Hills.

It was told if one made the treacherous journey, they could be rewarded with incredible revelations. The dwarf and his group set out over a week past. The party didn’t waste any time, and after getting directions on their maps and landmarks to look for, the group set off after their prey. The trip took another five days, with them making as quick a pace as possible with Thia navigating their way. Each day after leaving the river valley and heading into the Serpent Hills, the terrain became more desert like.

At first it became dry brushland, then the terrain transitioned into badlands. Finally, as they reached their destination the land slowly transformed fully to endless sand dunes, devoid of any vegetation whatsoever. There, in the center of this sandy desert was a large, rocky mesa outcropping with a large chasm split through the center. As they approached there were signs of buried ruins, with the remnants of a road leading into the chasm. The party entered, and found the entrance to the tomb on one of the inner cliff walls in the chasm.

Around the entrance were the ruins of once majestic buildings, and nearby an ancient well was a still smoldering campsite. There were three empty bedrolls nearby, and signs of lots of recent foot traffic. The party tied up their horses, and decided to head into the tomb immediately. In front of either side of the entrance were two twenty foot tall statues. As the group passed between, the statue heads moved towards them and a magic voice boomed.

## Tomb of Diderius

“Halt. You come before Diderius, ether walker and conduit of clairvoyance. Behold ye now his wondrous triumphs. Diderius extends wisdom, and Diderius offers knowledge. Which do you seek?”

The group almost all said ‘both’ immediately, with some then saying to split the two between them. The statue heads just grinded back to their normal position, and nothing else happened. Undeterred, the party pressed forward towards the entrance atop a small cliff, where a recently placed ladder still remained. The entryway was decorated with numerous wall carvings and carved columns with numerous scenes. Some scenes of dragons fighting giants, others of elves and men, others yet of strange and hellish landscapes.

One stood out to Cadmus, a large central depiction of a large volcano smoldering forth a dark cloud, with the dead all along the mountain’s base. With no discernible connection between all the images, the group pressed forward into the structure with the exterior door still slightly open. The first chamber was a short hallway with six hooded wizard statues, three on either side. The spaces between the statues had human bones piled up, with a straight path through the hall. As the party moved through the hall, the statue heads grinded and turned to track them.

Only Rufus fell victim to their *suggestion* spell, peering into their hooded cowls and becoming temporarily insane. Cadmus started guiding the gibberish speaking halfling as the group moved into the next large square room. This large square room had a domed ceiling, and detailed tile mosaics across the floor. There were a pair of bronzed metal doors on the opposite side of the room that bulged outward, a single door to the north that had ‘safe’ scrawled in chalk in front of it. When Rachen started to cross the room, the mosaic of a chimera magically rose from the ground and attacked him. The tile creature, very thin in one dimension, was chipped and smashed into pieces by the group with ease.

During the battle, Rachen noticed that a section of the south wall moved aside to reveal a small downward sloped tunnel. At this point, Cadmus cured Rufus of his insanity. The party decided to take the path down the tunnel, with Alburt first scouting it with his trusted familiar *The Breeze 4*. Upon just finding another chamber below the group started sliding down with Rachen in the lead, and Cadmus waiting last in the room. About halfway down the tunnel, Rachen slid over a trigger plate, and in the chamber above an opening appeared in the floor and a large boulder made of smashed together skeletons rose. As the ball then rolled towards the tunnel Cadmus tried unsuccessfully to push it out of the way, and the boulder crashed down the slope after the party members.

The group was injured heavily but none perished as the boulder rolled over them and smashed against the wall in the chamber below. Cadmus used his staff of healing and healed the party with mass cure wounds. They found themselves in a chamber with another two sets of exit doors, and a skylight high in the wall illuminated a number of large tapestries hanging around the room. In between the tapestries, were elegant looking sarcophagi, standing upright. Being careful not to disturb them, the group chose to go through the double set of doors this time.

As soon as Rachen started to pull the doors open, the sarcophagi popped open, and the seven mummies lurched outward. Cadmus immediately used his holy symbol to *turn the undead* away, making them flee from the divine power of his storm god. The mummies fell quickly afterward. Ready for anything, the group moved towards the now slightly open double doors, and peered through to see a large columned throne chamber. Upon the massive stone throne sat a giant-sized elderly male with a large white beard.

But he did not look like any giant the party had ever seen, and they had seen a lot.

And that is where the session ended, it was the two hundred and fifty first day since the raid on Greenest.

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