1.3 And Then

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Tyrion; male High Elf Ranger/Thief
Derek Custer; male Human Fighter
Erith; female ½ Elf Cleric/Mage
Vincent de Argenson; male Wood Elf Druid and the Druid’s dog Blue
Mickel: male Dwarf Fighter
10/27/2012
The intrepid adventures are once again entering tomb of Edmund Rice.  We find ourselves within the bowels of this tomb at a portal that appears to be locked with a series of tumblers and a riddle with a letter above each tumbler.
After several hours of discussion about the various ways this puzzle can be solved we finally discover the numerical values for each tumbler and open the portal.
After a short passageway we find a spiraling stairway that descends farther than the light or our torches reaches.  Descending several complete revolutions of the stairs we reach the bottom and begin to progress along a passageway.  After only a few feet we hear a click and some distant grinding noise that sounds like stone on stone.  Tyrion checks the stairwell and discovers that the stairs are now a long slide with no obvious means with which to ascend the stairs.  This leaves us with one direction to go – deeper into the tomb we go.
This passage ends in a small room with what appears to be a wooden hatch embedded in the floor.  There is a large ring in the middle of the wooden hatch.  Derek and Mickel tie a rope to the ring and pull mightily upon the hatch.  After much straining the hatch begins to lift.  Just as a gap appears an awful stench erupts from the depths, accompanied by some sort of dark shadow creature that immediately attacks.
Most of the party is incapacitated by the stench, only Vincent and Tyrion remain standing.  The creature attacks Vincent who defends himself and attempts to attack back.  Vincent and the shadow strike at each other until finally the shadow hits Vincent, although the wound doesn’t appear sever he does seem to have lost some strength for the fight.  Tyrion joins the fight by shooting several arrows at the shadow, although the arrows appear to hit no damage is done.  Tyrion gives up the bow and enters the fight with a sword and dagger.  Tyrion appears to be doing some damage to the creature as the shadow turns to strike Tyrion.  After several rounds the remaining party members begin to regain consciousness and join the fight and eventually defeat the shadow.  Nobody is severely damaged from the shadow, but Vincent and Tyrion feel slightly weakened from where the shadow touched them.
We prepare ourselves again to open the hatch, this time no creature greets us upon opening the hatch.  The stench is present, but much lessened.  Looking into the depths we see some stairs heading down into the darkness.
After descending several flights of stairs we notice an iron ring mounted on the wall along a flat stretch of the passageway.  After a brief inspection Derek pulls the ring.  We hear a mighty crash from back at what would seem to be the hatch.  A quick inspection reveals that the room with the hatch has collapsed upon itself – once again leaving us with only one direction to go – onward.
At the end of this passageway we come to a room with a single rectangular stone box upon a small pedestal.  The box appears to be a sarcophagus with some unknown writing all over the box.  After much inspection we are able to make out one symbol on each of the four side of the box; one symbol each for earth, fire, water, and air.  We decide to take an element of each symbol and apply it to the symbols simultaneously.  We inadvertently activated four traps at the same time; the room is briefly ignited with fire, a tremendous wind blows through (extinguishing our torches and lantern), the floor turns to mush, and we hear water flowing into the room.
Luckily the pedestal is not sinking into the floor.  We all crowd onto the pedestal and relight our torches.  We pry open the sarcophagus and find a skeletal body, a staff, small box, and a bag.  Taking the loot out and discarding the body we search the inside of the sarcophagus for an exit – nothing.  It is too far across the floor to walk across the quicksand like floor.  We are able to maneuver the sarcophagus off the pedestal and use it as a step stone to get partially across to room to the entrance.  Once everybody is back in the passageway we do a little more detailed searching (there must be some way out of this area).  We eventually find a secret door in the floor several landings up.  Opening the secret door leads to a vertical drop of about eight feet and then along a tunnel, that appears to be dug out of the ground, which leads nowhere.
While the party is searching this tunnel Tyrion notices that the box from the sarcophagus has a small (about 1 ft tall) figurine of some sort of monster within.  There is a name carved in the lid of the box.  With no other options we decide to speak the name on the box.  But, first everybody gets out of the tunnel except for Tyrion and we tie a rope to Tyrion.  When the name is spoken the figurine grows to fill the tunnel and appears to wait for a command.  Tyrion tells it to dig out at an angle that may bring us out at a section of the tomb we’ve already searched.
We decide to head back to Cetain.  Although, we do notice on our way out of the tomb that several of the dead bodies are missing and there appears to be evidence that one of the creatures was dragged.  Following the bloody trail leads us to a location where it appears the dead creature got up and walked out of the tomb (creeeepy).
Shortly after leaving the tomb we are attacked by one of the large four-legged beasties, but this one now seems to be in zombie form.  Just as combat commences Tyrion notices the ogre (zombie) coming up from behind us and Vincent seeing movement in the tall grass ahead of us.  Tyrion turns to take on the ogre and Vincent casts entangle into the weeds ahead of us.  The party defeats the four-legged and ogre zombies in melee combat while Vincent shoots at several kobolds slowed down by the entangling underbrush.
Tyrion notices some movement up the embankment several hundred feet away and gives chase with Derek.  Tracks are found, but they are unable to locate whatever was seen.  We believe it may be the shaman that had escaped our previous combat.  We regroup at the horses and continue back to Cetain.
One morning just as we begin to set out we encounter a man dressed completely in black mounted upon an oddly still horse.  The man tells us to follow, Erith casts know alignment on the man and gets a distinctly evil response.  Although uneasy about following the man, he is heading the same way we need to go.  He leads us to a hill and tells us to wait, then departs.  Moment later the Bronze Dragon appears and again questions us about our activities and what we have found.  The dragon take the figurine that dug us out, tells us what the other minor magic items we found are, and takes an item from each person and would like to see us escort us back to the hill when we are ready.
While in town we are approached by an unknown person do a little unofficial spying, while acting as caravan guards, in Ragime to gauge troop numbers, ask the locals and other merchants/guards if there is increased military activity.  The word on the street is that diplomatic relations are “strained” between the neighboring states.  We were also provided a treasure map that is located in the general area.  We ask the caravan owner, Max, about this unknown back at this hill in two weeks.  The black dressed man escorts us back to town and informs us that he will person that approached us with this job.  Max, being as vague as possible, lets us know that the unknown person is part of the ruling House of Terrick in Tenque.
We resupply in town, take several days to recuperate, meet the black dressed man outside of town and depart back to the hill.
Once there we meet with the Bronze Dragon again.  The dragon returns our items, but the items appear to be in better shape and imbued with magical properties.