Tomb of Annihilation: Episode 26
You have to reward player ingenuity. When your players come up with interesting solutions that get past your devious traps, the instinct will be to make the trap’s logic supersede your players’. All this does is discourage innovative thinking from your players in the future. Some deadly traps might be bypassed more easily than intended, but if your players had to struggle to come up with a way past it, then it’s probably worth it.
The Party:
(Jon) Zorel, inhabited by Kubazan — Aasimar Paladin/
Alathar, inhabited by Shagambi— Half-Elf Bard
(Terry) Harden, inhabited by Nangnang — Dwarf Barbarian
(Matt) Hexton, inhabited by I’jin — Gnome Wizard
(Stacy) Torven, inhabited by Wongo — Lizardfolk Monk/Druid
The Path:
Tomb of the Nine Gods — Chambers of Horror
“Everything has an end, if only you live long enough to see it.”
Sir H. Rider Haggard — King Solomon’s Mines
Zorel ran into the chamber at full speed. He moved past the broken shards of the wooden chest and to the other side of the acid pit, and pulled his friend Torven up to safety. The rest of the group — Alathar, Harden, Hexton and Lukanu — joined them as they caught their breath. Harden cornered the quivering skeleton key and slayed it. Now they had four keys. The group looked around.
They could see four marble columns support the ceiling of this grand tomb. Twin staircases ascended to an upper gallery, where a carving in the form of a giant maze adorned the wall. On the floor of the tomb stood an opaque crystal sarcophagus that was constantly changing colour. Minotaur murals adorned the walls on the lower level of the tomb.
Torven’s perceptive eyes caught that there were many hidden openings in the walls, but he couldn’t find any mechanism to open them. Hexton was fixated on the sarcophagus. It changed colour every six seconds, with his trickster spirit I’jin suggesting he try to open it when it was gold, since it was her favourite colour.
Zorel looked up at the wall carving on the upper gallery. The intricate carving shifted before his eyes, its configuration ever-changing. The maze had no exits, and its corridors were lit by tiny torches and clouded by fog. His trickster spirit Kubazan urged him to be the first of the group to touch it. Torven and Harden were already climbing up there to get a closer look. The three of them all touched it and were transported away.
Separately, they stood within fifteen-foot-high passageways walled by smooth, featureless stone. There was no ceiling, and when they looked up, they could see a distorted view of the room they had left behind. They’d been transported into the maze carving.
For Alathar, Hexton, and Lukanu, things were quite different. The secret doors Torven had found each slid open, and ten minotaur skeletons emerged from their chambers ready to fight. Alathar and Hexton were both fragile spellcasters, and these gigantic beasts were thirsting to tear them apart. Lukanu stepped up and defended them as best she could.
Zorel, Torven and Harden raced around the maze, looking for a way out. Zorel poked at some skeletal remains, but found nothing. Torven used his wand of enemy detection to avoid a minotaur. Harden was having a lot of trouble, and getting completely frustrated.
Back in the tomb, Alathar cast Hypnotic Pattern to keep a few minotaur skeletons at bay, while Hexton cast a Cone of Cold to freeze a few more and ran up to the balcony for safety. Two minotaurs closed in on him from each side, put their horns down and charged at him with all their might. Hexton waited until the last moment and cast Misty Step to teleport away, snapping the necks of the two enemies.
Zorel found a gold key and grabbed it, appearing back in the room to help fight. There were still lots of minotaurs. Alathar had to enter melee combat with him, as Zorel fearlessly swung his sword to beat them back. Torven and Harden came back to find the party unleashing everything they had on the remaining enemies and joined in. Once the dust was settled, they discovered that Lukanu was killed by a critical hit from one of the undead.
She would never get her revenge on behalf of her queen, but the party would do what they could to further her goal. Zorel took his gold key, waited until the sarcophagus turned gold, and inserted it. It opened to reveal the shell of a flail snail, and a magic robe. This was Unkh’s tomb, the true neutral trickster god who had no rivals among her kin. Harden was growing a little tired of Nangnang’s pushiness, and grabbed the garment. Slimed poured from the folds of the scintillating robe to take the form of multiple flail-like pseudopods. A female voice echoed through the chamber: “I can help you. At least, I think that’s what I’m supposed to do.”
Unkh the flail snail kicked Nangnang out of Harden’s head, and raised his Constitution score to 23, while also giving him the flaw: “I am incapable of making decisions.” It would be a tough adjustment for Harden.
Hexton suggested the group rest for a bit. Torven uncovered a secret passageway, which Harden explored with him. Alathar played a somber Song of Rest to boost morale. Zorel examined Lukanu’s corpse, and noticed she was wearing what appeared to be magical armour.
Harden and Torven made it to the secret room. It contained a wooden cabinet with a numbered dial at its top set with two ornate metal spokes. Beneath the dial, a pendulum swung inside an open compartment. An egg-shaped stone adorned the pendulum’s tip. Their trickster gods each had similar reactions to it. Unkh was struck by the technological wonder of the clock, and advised Harden to stay and marvel at its beauty. Wongo found the ticking of the clock oddly soothing and urged Torven to stay as well.
Time seemed to pass differently here, as they enjoyed the grandfather clock. They eventually examined the clock, and found an invisible door blocking their ability to grab the egg-shaped jewel. A key was needed, but they didn’t have an unused key that would work. Torven wondered what they could have missed. They discussed everything in the chamber and Harden snapped his fingers. The boulder that almost killed Torven had smashed a chest. It might have held a key in it. They ran back to the chamber.
Hexton whistled loudly, and Alathar dropped his jaw. Torven and Harden had both aged at least a decade since entering the secret room. Torven had been a young lizardfolk, but now had grizzled scales, whereas there was much more grey in Harden’s beard. They shrugged, and tried not to let it distract them as they searched for the key. Torven’s eyes were perhaps more keen with age, as he felt around on the floor and soon grasped his hands around an invisible key.
Meanwhile, Zorel finally put Lukanu’s Scorpion Armour on. He was tired from the battle, and hadn’t healed up yet, but felt that he’d be safer in better armour. Unfortunately, it had a curse placed upon it. The moment he put it on, poison began to seep into his veins. He dropped to the floor.
Alathar ran over and healed him quickly, as the rest of the party began to pull him out of the armour. As it came off, it unleashed another burst of poison that was so fierce, it shriveled Zorel’s body before their eyes. There was no chance to heal him. Zorel was dead.
Harden threw the armour on the floor. Now they were only four. They tried to honourably bury him by placing him in Unkh’s sarcophagus. They took a moment, and closed the lid. But they had to push on, grabbing the jewel from the clock on their way out. It was the Navel of the Moon, that the tabaxi hunter Bag of Nails had been searching for. They would have to untap its magical powers later.
“All was black, and such a dense black that, after some minutes, my eyes had not been able to discern even the faintest glimmer.”
Jules Verne — Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Outside the chamber stood another large stone door, bearing no handles or hinges, and two bronze statues nearby. On the lintel above the door was inscribed a message: “Warm like flame, cold for the cruel, still for the dead, gruel for the ghoul.”
The party had some trouble with this riddle. They shouted out a few answers, until Alathar examined the red patches near the door, and realized the answer was “blood.” They rustled some nearby dead bodies together and figured out that they had to pour blood into the statue’s mouths. It was morbid, but it worked.
Inside was a vaulted chamber featuring a sunken floor surrounded by ledges. A gruesome throne lashed together of bone and strips of skin stood atop the west ledge. A fearsome horned skull surmounted the throne, and small skulls were piled around it. The seat of the throne appeared to be made of stretched skin and had a metal scepter resting on it.
Shuffling about the sunken portion of the room were three gaunt humanoid figures in dusty robes draped in cobwebs, their eyes and mouths stitched shut. Armed with brushes and clay pots of pigment, they painted the walls and pillars with grim, poorly rendered illustrations.
Harden embraced Unkh’s instincts and didn’t know what to do. Without his usual leadership, the group carefully moved forward. Alathar wanted to check out the south ledge. Torven was curious about the statues. Hexton was captivated by the blind artists. He saw that one was painting over the scene of a man from the Company of the Yellow Banner choking on poisonous gas. That artist, and the rest, were in the process of painting new images of the party’s harrowing exploits, like escaping the oubliette, or nearly drowning in wine.
Harden could tell the throne and scepter were trouble. He thought it best that no one even go near them. He went to check on Alathar, who had made a wild discovery. In the corner he‘d been searching, he’d found a secret door that lead to a spiral staircase going up and down. Harden enthusiastically slapped Alathar on the back. They realized they’d found a private passageway, possibly for the tomb dwarfs to move around the tomb so quickly. Everyone congratulated Alathar on his great find. They would have to come back to this.
For now they stayed in the throne room. Behind one of the wooden statues, Torven found a side room’s door ajar. The walls of this room were adorned with tile mosaics of a jungle city intermingled with frescoes of flowering plants, birds, insects, and humans wearing gold skirts and carrying spears and ornate jugs. The ceiling was painted to look like a clear blue sky. A small bejeweled cockroach rested atop a sarcophagus of black basalt in the middle of the room. An orb hung from a chain above it, made of hammered gold to resemble a smiling sun.
Torven got the group to gather with him in the room. They could see on the lid of the sarcophagus was etched the name: NAPAKA. Hexton said that this must be the crypt of Napaka, the queen Lukanu sought to protect.
Torven opened the jewelry box. It contained a small jade key shaped like a crocodile, and a necklace of fireballs with eight beads in it. He pocketed them and the jewelry box itself, which was set with many precious gems. Harden and Alathar pried open the sarcophagus. They could see Queen Napaka’s remains. She wore a hornet mask of painted gold. In her left hand she held an iron scepter with an adamantine head.
“Find the iron scepter’s twin,” Acererak’s warning had said. This looked to be it. Harden first took off the mask. The smiling sun orb’s expression turned angry and began emitting rays of searing light. The party dove to safety, dodging blasts around the crypt. Harden didn’t want to miss out on that scepter though. He screamed at everyone to get out. The sun focused on him while everyone else escaped. He swiped the scepter, causing the dead Queen Napaka to exhale a baleful black gas of necrotic energy. With Unkh’s constitution bonus though, and Harden’s strong dwarven lungs, he was able to take the brunt of it while still making it out safely. The group cheered on Harden. That amount of damage would have killed any of the others. Except Zorel maybe.
Harden was feeling proud. He had the scepter, and the Navel of the Moon. “Let’s go back to that room with the crown,” he declared. Thanks to Alathar, they had this secret stairway, so he figured they might as well grab some of the last pieces of treasure. Everyone followed Harden back to the room with the crown. Alathar stayed outside on watch. Harden eyed the gold crown. This was the Black Opal Crown. Ras Nsi had enchanted Grender to find this for him with a Geas spell, but now he was dead. Harden was not compelled to share with the yuan-ti, and plucked the crown from the pedestal.
The stone slabs that had originally blocked the way rose up to seal off both exits. At the same time, two bodaks slithered out of the green devil face and began to attack the party. Bodak’s had a death gaze that could instantly kill a creature, or at least do some devastating psychic damage. Harden averted his eyes and protected his comrades as Hexton blasted them with fireballs. Torven turned into a giant spider, webbing the bodaks and biting them. Alathar tried to play some morale boosting music from outside the room, which surprisingly helped, and the group finished off the bodaks.
Now they had to get out. The slabs that sealed them off were painted with a male humanoid wearing a hooded cloak, with stars where his face should be. The figure held up his right arm, which was severed neatly at the elbow.
They tried a manner of different techniques, but soon it dawned on them what needed to be done. Torven had opened the doors originally by mimicking the stance — so one of them would have to do the same by cutting off their forearm.
Harden gave a resigned sigh. This had been his idea after all. Hexton debated the wisdom of this, since Harden’s arms were some of the party’s greatest assets. Torven, back in his lizardfolk form, thought they could maybe trick the door. If he used his wild shape ability to turn into something roughly humanoid, like an ape, they could sever his ape arm. Since whenever he “died” in his wild shape form it merely transformed him back into a lizardfolk, good as new.
The group considered Torven’s option, and agreed. He transformed into a gorilla, and Harden slashes his arm off with a sword. The stone slabs slowly grinded downwards, and the group rejoiced. Torven turned back into a lizardfolk, and his arm was still there.
Now the group had some treasure, and a clear path onwards. They regrouped at the stairway Alathar had found. They could go down to the next level without dropping through the hole that had been guarded by the gargoyles. But going up to see if they had missed any other secrets was too enthralling an idea to pass up.
Previous: Episode 25
Next: Episode 27
