Tomb of the Nine Gods, Pt 2

## Synopsis

After a brief dialogue with Acererak, the friends emerge into a room with a fountain fed by multiple statues. The spirit of Obalaka cautions Bobby against drinking the water, and after experimenting with the water the Friends decide to ignore it and move on, returning to the great central well.

Taking the remaining exit from the well they arrive in a room with a giant stone skull with candle-flames for eyes, and a passage accessible only by crawling through its jaws. They initially try putting out the flames with the water from the fountain, but it has no effect on them, so they wedge the jaws open with Philge's immovable rod to pass through. They then return briefly to check what effect this had, and discover that a flame goes out each time a person passes through, and the jaw would have snapped shut after both went out. They replace the rod and move on.

Beyond the skull they find a corridor leading to an area resembling a catacombs, with thousands of skulls recessed into the walls, and a tomb with a relief showing a coiled serpent. Behind this is an ornate crystal box containing a floating child's skull. They believe this is the "doomed child" to which they must "speak no truth", so Freezo - having the highest Charisma and thus being the best liar - enters the room. When he does, a scared girl's voice starts to speak to the Friends telepathically, asking what is happening to her, who they are, and why she can't see anything. Obalaka cautions Bobby that this is the spirit of the child queen Napartek, Moxinare's great-aunt, who died young a century ago. Baston and Bobby Pancakes take over and attempts to tell the spirit that Baston is her father and that she is sick, has just woken up, and is being kept in isolation in a dark room. After learning that even moving the box around causes the skull to panic, and not seeing any benefit to dealing with it, Baston walks out of the tomb and hurls the box down the central well.

Freezo opens the sarcophagus, revealing a staff with a crafted cobra's head on the top. When he grasps the staff, the spirit of Moa attempts to possess Freezo, and Freezo freely allows it to do so - which removes Freezo's ability to lie.

Moving into the final room, the Friends find a spinning metal propeller which begins to spin up, threatening to suck them into it. Freezo releases the magnetic shield he was carrying, causing it to smash into the propeller and destroy the propeller, the shield, all of the magnetic items Freezo was carrying, and Freezo's penis (which was pulled off due to having a metal piercing at the end)

Beyond the propeller, the Friends find another tomb, this time with a sarcophagus decorated with a raging monkey held at the bottom of a pit, and three treasure chests on plinths - one black onyx, one rusty iron, and one glistening silver. Grimsby opens the rusty iron chest, revealing it to be empty, except that there's a lock with a key in it on the inside. Remembering the clue that "the keys turn on the inside only", Grimsby tries to turn the key, and when it doesn't turn, climbs into the chest and closes the lid on himself; he is then able to turn the key, locking himself in the chest, and causing a rust-coloured button to pop up on the lid of the sarcophagus.

Grimsby confirms that he can unlock the chest from inside, but doing so makes the button disappear. Freezo climbs into the silver chest and locks himself in, and Bobby does the same in the onyx chest, while Philge and Baston drop into the pit to examine the three buttons that appear. Philge presses the rust-coloured button, which causes Grimsby to feel a strange jolt of energy which doesn't affect him, and then opens the rust-coloured chest and ejects Grimsby from it. Freezo, hearing this, opens his own chest and persuades Grimsby to take his place in the silver chest; Grimsby reluctantly agrees. Philge then presses the silver button; and the silver chest ejects Grimsby's frozen corpse.

Concerned for Bobby, Freezo asks Bobby to get out of the onyx chest, then gets in himself, locks the chest, and casts Gaseous Form to exit the chest. Philge presses the final button, and the empty chest opens, and so does the sarcophagus. Inside the sarcophagus is the body of Wongo holding a mace; when Philge attempts to take the mace, the corpse comes to life and attacks her. Philge seriously wounds Wongo with her flaming morningstar and Baston finishes him off with his sword. Philge picks up the mace and is inhabited by the deranged spirit of Wongo, causing her to lose her concern for her friends and also to detest Freezo (because he is inhabited by Wongo's enemy Moa).

Up ahead, the Friends find what seems to be a factory of some sort creating Flesh Golems. At the end of the episode, Philge ends up in an Iron Maiden, low on health and with oil dripping into it, ending the episode on a cliffhanger regarding her fate.

## People

### Dragon Friends

* Philge
* Freezo
* Bobby Pancakes
* Baston

### Non-Player Characters (NPCs)

* Sir Grimsby Davenport
* Acererak

## Themes, tropes and running jokes

* Baffling Reference for our International Listeners:
	+ When they encounter the stone skull, Alex Lee initially sings her suggestion to the tune of *Click Go The Shears*, an Australian folk song. (Michael Hing calls it *Click Go The Shearers*.)
	+ Acererak talks about studying comedy in the "UCB universe". This appears to stand for *Upright Citizens Brigade*, a US based organization that provides training on improvisational and sketch comedy.
* The Friends are playing through the encounters in the *Tomb Of Annihilation* more or less as in the published adventure. They were indeed wise not to drink the water in the fountain, nor to allow Bobby to remain in the onyx chest when its button was pushed..

## Quotes

* "It locks itself in place, wherever." "Even FLOATING IN THE AIR!?"
* "Whoa. Lucky we threw that princess down the well."
* Dave: "Grimsby Davenport, who has survived so much and trusted you for so long, is dead." Simon: "I don't believe it." Edan: "He's been dead so many times... eh, he'll be back."

## Table Talk

* "Ben once pissed himself in some catacombs!"