The Second Tomb of Oroch-Vaan [Part IV]

** Howl of Oblivion Campaign Page **

Shortly after inspecting the statues, Anverth moves to inspect the vortex in the northern chamber.  Iris sees the smaller, undamaged marble statues begin to move, and shouts a warning as she draws her sword.  They call out, and Borz hears them from the antechamber he was searching.

The rest of the party rushes back to aid as combat with the mystical guardians ensues.  The supernatural statuary is quite resilient, harder than any stone, and turns aside many powerful blows with only a few nicks and scrapes.  The party deliberates retreat for some time, until a lucky strike finally instills some hope.  

As the melee carried on, options for retreat were discussed when a member of the party was momentarily put out of action and brought back by healing magic.  The statuary was slow and extremely difficult to hurt.  This was compounded by the disorganized and demoralized show of defense by the party, but in the end they were able to disrupt the magic impelling the statues.  The guardians crumbled to a chalky powder.

The party retreated to the section of the maze behind the secret panels again to recuperate for several hours.  They pressed on to leave the dungeon as soon as they could by doing what they came to do.  As one, they marched to the vortex chamber.

As Borz knelt at the edge of the circle and chanted a prayer to Wee Jas, he could see something seemingly emerging from the vortex.  Soon he is joined in prayer by Walkul.  Just then,  a strange bloblike creature with many eyes and mouths floated into the chamber from the center of the swirling gate.  Iris madly ran forward into the vortex to attack it, and as she did the vortex closed.

The creature roared with many maws a scream of hate and rage.  It gibbered incomprehensibly in languages the party could not comprehend, and the room suddenly vanished from view - replaced with the raw chaos and empty space of Limbo!  The party floated helplessly in the air, unable to comprehend or believe what was happening to them!

The creature began to shift it's amorphous form, turning eyes and maws to attack Iris who was floating nearby.  She lashed out with her scimitar and cleaved a portion of the creature's amoeboid body completely away!  A few blows later and the rest of it was also in pieces...and momentarily the chaos of limbo faded away and the room returned to normal.

With the creature gone and nothing else to stop them, the party conducted a thorough search of the chambers connecting to the maze over the next day.  Luckily, they found some Jasidans hiding in one of the chambers who were unable to escape before the Maze Crawler went into 'kill' mode.  Melmer was delivering mail when the pulse hit, and they took refuge - locking themselves into the nearest chamber.  He and his guards are very happy to see the players, and he is able to tell the party exactly what they were stealing from the tomb - leading to the discovery of some powerful magic among the hoard the party was able to extract from the resting place of this... Oroch-Vaan...whoever they were.

The party and Jasidans leave the Tomb and are met by the High Priestess.  She takes note of exactly what the party is carrying, but doesn't object or renege.  The party leaves the Shrouded Masjid a great deal richer than when they came...but what will they do next?

The party is starting to be noticed in Yecha.  They have made friends, perhaps allies.  At the least they now have acquaintances in the city.  Surely, their opportunites will expand from here - but what will our party choose to do?  

Howl of Oblivion, Chapter I