Post by hubertbartels on Jul 30, 2023 14:42:27 GMT -5
In the Serpent-Folks’ Vault
In the wizard’s lab, surrounded by the remains of his experiments and his augmented lizard folk, we took a long rest, The wizard’s journal indicted that he had not bothered with the vault across the plaza – so that will be our next destination. We also learned that the naga had been hunting this artificer for some time. The artificer’s research had shown him that the way to end the naga threat may lay in the Inverted Tower. He had been busy searching for the Inverted Tower without any luck. His journal showed two locations he had not explored yet. We made a decision to try for the closer one.
In the morning, with our energies renewed and with a fresh load of spells, we crossed the plaza and entered the massive two story structure that was the civic center. The doors of the structure were 20 feet tall – each with a bas-relief of Yig. They had been defaced as all the depictions of Yig. Marissa worked at the lock for a while before letting us enter the structure.
We entered an empty and thoroughly looted lobby. Stairs at the back of the lobby led up and down into the basement. We decided to explore the current floor before proceeding upstairs. Every room we explored was looted except for one. The door was closed, the way barred by a heavy weight shoved against the door. Three Rivers pushed hard against the door, sending the bookcase toppling and opening the way.
Inside, the room was dominated by a large table onto which five serpent folk corpses had been placed. Each corpse had been carefully laid out with a cloth covering their faces. At the end of the table, another serpent folk corpse sat, slumped over onto the table. The room’s bas-relief of Yig had not been defaced unlike everywhere else in the city. Tessa’s detect magic spell turned up several magical items and her Identify spell revealed that each corpse had a necklace enchanted to protect the wearer against rising as an undead. One had a ring. The corpse slumped in his chair had a belt. When Tessa tried to remove the ring from its bony fingers – it rose up and smacked her. The others quickly returned it to an unmoving state.
Talos was reviewing the contents of the bookcase that had been blocking the door. From the scrolls, we learned how the serpent folk city fell. As the naga threat increased, Yig came down and showed the serpent folk how to defeat the naga. But the naga had turned some of the serpent folk so the people turned away from Yig. The angry god responded by sending the serpent folk madness which caused them to fight among themselves until everything was destroyed.
Upstairs, we found nothing except a swarm of blood sucking lizards. Downstairs, we found more looted chambers and a massive locked door. Marissa soon cracked the vault’s lock and we entered. Raising from the dusty floor was a metal snake, the vault guardian. At first, the metal snake was hard to hit because it had blurry outlines but Talos’ Faerie Fire removed that difficulty. With the guardian defeated, Tessa cast Detect Magic and had soon located a chest containing magical ioun stones – and a walking treasure chest.
We decided to rest here and prepare for tomorrow’s journey to the probable location of the Inverted Tower.
In the wizard’s lab, surrounded by the remains of his experiments and his augmented lizard folk, we took a long rest, The wizard’s journal indicted that he had not bothered with the vault across the plaza – so that will be our next destination. We also learned that the naga had been hunting this artificer for some time. The artificer’s research had shown him that the way to end the naga threat may lay in the Inverted Tower. He had been busy searching for the Inverted Tower without any luck. His journal showed two locations he had not explored yet. We made a decision to try for the closer one.
In the morning, with our energies renewed and with a fresh load of spells, we crossed the plaza and entered the massive two story structure that was the civic center. The doors of the structure were 20 feet tall – each with a bas-relief of Yig. They had been defaced as all the depictions of Yig. Marissa worked at the lock for a while before letting us enter the structure.
We entered an empty and thoroughly looted lobby. Stairs at the back of the lobby led up and down into the basement. We decided to explore the current floor before proceeding upstairs. Every room we explored was looted except for one. The door was closed, the way barred by a heavy weight shoved against the door. Three Rivers pushed hard against the door, sending the bookcase toppling and opening the way.
Inside, the room was dominated by a large table onto which five serpent folk corpses had been placed. Each corpse had been carefully laid out with a cloth covering their faces. At the end of the table, another serpent folk corpse sat, slumped over onto the table. The room’s bas-relief of Yig had not been defaced unlike everywhere else in the city. Tessa’s detect magic spell turned up several magical items and her Identify spell revealed that each corpse had a necklace enchanted to protect the wearer against rising as an undead. One had a ring. The corpse slumped in his chair had a belt. When Tessa tried to remove the ring from its bony fingers – it rose up and smacked her. The others quickly returned it to an unmoving state.
Talos was reviewing the contents of the bookcase that had been blocking the door. From the scrolls, we learned how the serpent folk city fell. As the naga threat increased, Yig came down and showed the serpent folk how to defeat the naga. But the naga had turned some of the serpent folk so the people turned away from Yig. The angry god responded by sending the serpent folk madness which caused them to fight among themselves until everything was destroyed.
Upstairs, we found nothing except a swarm of blood sucking lizards. Downstairs, we found more looted chambers and a massive locked door. Marissa soon cracked the vault’s lock and we entered. Raising from the dusty floor was a metal snake, the vault guardian. At first, the metal snake was hard to hit because it had blurry outlines but Talos’ Faerie Fire removed that difficulty. With the guardian defeated, Tessa cast Detect Magic and had soon located a chest containing magical ioun stones – and a walking treasure chest.
We decided to rest here and prepare for tomorrow’s journey to the probable location of the Inverted Tower.