[My wife sat out for this session, which put my son back in the leader role. We also had a new PC join: Reagan, a female thief. Since the PCs have a "home base" in the chambers of the brotherhood, having different group composition between sessions doesn't seem to be a problem. In this case, I ruled the elf (my wife) stayed at the "base camp" this time. So for this session, we have:
Lastly, the Cleric had thoroughly reviewed the clerical scrolls of Gorm, and found nothing in their ethos which was objectionable, so I ruled there would be no problems casting them.]
The PCs descended to the third tier of the pyramid, again. This time they ignored the secret door they found, previously, and continued down the main passage. [I described a long, dusty hall of ancient masonry, with air shafts and decorative carvings near the ceiling. Footsteps and jingling gear echo loudly, and pitch darkness holds sway beyond the circle of torchlight. The torches flicker and smoke, occasionally, as air currents move through the passagway.]
The PCs followed the passage around a bend; since it seemed to continue past their light, and sounded long from the echoes, they stopped for a minute, standing still and listening. [The thief made her hear noise check, and I decided on-the-spot to kick things off with a wandering monster for her to hear. I rolled a spitting cobra.] The thief heard a faint thump, like something soft falling to the floor (this was the cobra coming out of an air shaft and falling to the floor) in the darkness, ahead. No one else heard anything, and the party cautiously moved ahead.
Their torchlight revealed a large, greenish purple snake coiling near one wall. As they approached, the cobra raised its head and expanded its hood, swaying slightly and appearing to follow the torchlight with its movements. The PCs stopped as the thief (who rolled a 16 Dex) nocked and arrow and let fly. [The roll was a natural 20 -- maximum damage.] With a single shot, she took out the snake before it could spit, attack, or flee.
Continuing on, the PCs found that the passage ended in a curved wall with a thick stone door. No handle or lock was seen, but a panel on the wall held a single, unmarked button. After some discussion, the thief pressed the button. With a faint grating noise, the stone door slid open to reveal...more hallway. However, just on the other side of the door, the PCs spied a second panel with eight buttons, each marked with one of the strange symbols they'd seen before. They chose not to press any of these buttons, but continued down the hallway. They also noted that the stone door had a handle on this side.
At the far (i.e. north) end of the hall, the PCs found another stone door with handle, and another panel of marked buttons. They ignored the buttons, again, and tried to open the door with the handle. It opened easily, apparently manipulated by a system of counterweights once it was put in motion. Beyond, the PCs' light revealed a stretch of passage ending in a T-intersection. The party proceeded north, and then east. They stopped to listen, again.
No one heard anything, this time, but while standing quietly, they noticed that the decorative carvings near the ceiling had changed in this stretch of passage, becoming more than mere abstract designs. They included symbols the cleric recognized as being associated with Gorm, and also other symbols which may have been associated with the other ancient gods of Cyndicea. I told them they hadn't really noticed when the carvings had changed, and they chose not to go back to look [they changed at the T-intersection, with only the eastern passage having the religious markings].
Continuing, the PCs found that the passage turned back to the south and ended in a stout-looking wooden door, studded with dark iron and set with a bronze pull-ring. The door was set in a fancy archway, and need to be pushed open. The thief listened, and hearing nothing, tried to push the door open a crack to see inside. Unfortunately, she was unable to budge it, so the fighter tried; he felt the door give a bit, but it was apparently ill-fitting and stuck. He had to strike and shove it several times to force it open, revealing a large, vaulted chamber, beyond.
This room had clearly once had religious significance, and appeared to be a chapel of some sort. It had also clearly been looted and vandalized. Broken pews and religious artifacts littered the floor. The name "Zargon" was scrawled in huge letters on one wall. Near the far end of the chamber, a smashed altar stood before a low wooden rail that separated the last ten feet of the room from the rest of the chamber. After searching and finding nothing of value, the PCs examined the railing, which was about two or three feet high, and noted a gate allowing passage through it. The thief, accompanied by a desert nomad, hopped over the railing and began examining the area beyond it. She quickly discovered that her weight set the floor in motion, turning it into a smoothly-descending ramp leading into cool darkness. The pair proceeded to investigate.
The ramp led to a thirty-by-thirty vault below the chapel. Paintings on the walls showed scenes of a royal throneroom where a king and queen were entertained by a dwarvish jester. A lidless brass urn stood in each of the four corners of the room, and a niche in the wall held a short stone sarcophagus. A stout door, similar, but smaller than the door that led into the chapel, pierced the center of the north wall. The thief approached the sarcophagus, handing her torch to the nomad as she examined it. She blew dust from its surface, revealing a network of delicate, decorative carvings. She reached out to trace one of these with her finger, and as soon as she touched the stone, the lid sprang open with a booming crash. A great wooden head with a leering grin and belled cap sprang up out of the coffin, and the two explorers fell back with shouts of alarm that brought the rest of the party at a run. However, no danger manifested; the head seemed no more than a macabre joke. Peering into the urns showed they were empty. The PCs decided not to continue their explorations in this area; they returned to the looted chapel, above, organized themselves, and set off to explore the western branch of the T-intersection.
As they walked west, making their way back to the intersection, arrows buzzed out of the darkness ahead of them. One was too high, and missed, and the other struck the fighter's shield and broke. The thief flung her torch down the passage as the fighter charged (he also held a torch), and the threat was revealed: a small group of animal-masked Cyndiceans stood in the intersection, arrayed for combat! [This was an NPC party -- a very tough encounter...]
A long combat took place [lots of rolls, lots of misses -- little room to maneuver. I'm writing this up quite a bit after-the-fact, and to be honest, I don't remember all the details], with the tide turning when the PCs finally took down one of the Cynidicean fighters, causing some of their enemies to lose heart. In the end, two were incapacitated, one was slain, and two escaped. [Frankly, I thought this encounter might be the death of at least some of the party, since the NPC party outclassed them, but they were aided by some awesome rolls by one of the NPC nomads, and by morale checks. The cleric had to use a healing scroll to keep one nomad going, but my son's fighter did well because of his heavy armor. His high AC helped him hold-the-line against the higher level, but poorly equipped Cynidiceans. The NPC nomad who rolled so well distinguished himself enough that I decided to make him a 1st level Fighting Man from this point on, and I increased him to 8 hp.]
Taking their two wounded captives with them, the PCs retraced their steps and returned to their home base in the chambers of the Brotherhood. [They also took the small amount of treasure the fallen Cyndiceans had, but I don't remember what it was -- a trivial amount. By this point in their adventures, the cleric had advanced to 2nd level, and the Fighting Man was very close. The Elf is dividing XP between Fighting Man and MU, so she's not quite halfway to 2nd level fighter. The Thief just started. The two "normal men" nomads haven't received an XP, up until this point. Now that one of them has been made a 1st level Fighting Man, he started receving XP at 1/2 the reward level.]