Trollopulous Adjusted Session 129 (Machodor #80): Stuck, in the Tomb of Kistomerces

A mysterious portal

Introduction

Last session the party scratched the surface of the Tomb of Kistomerces, avoiding death at two false entrances before finding the first main corridor. This week they return for more, and are unable to return! By now I'm sure that the reader may have worked out that this location has a strong resemblance to a certain module. Read on to find out how I have adapted it to the campaign "milloo".

     

Timekeeping

This session began on August 28th, 2025, with the player characters adventuring until the end of the day. Downtime for these characters begins on the 29th, not that it will do them much good.

Player Characters Present

Sever the Wrathful (Level 9 Pegasus Corps Ranger of Machodor, wielder of Were'shbane and wearer of the Girdle of Cloud Giant Strength, rider of Mustang) 

with henchman Thomas (C6), Rabbit (FMT 445), and Poindexter (M6)

Giuseppe (Level 8 Paladin of Rome, Brovenloft, wielder of the Dragonslayer and the Shield of Protection from Missiles, rider of Bonecrusher)

with henchmen Steelvein (F4) and Rhoikos (M4)

Fluid the Druid (Level 8 Druid, "Scourge of Trollopulous", former wearer of the Ring of Kings)

Marty O'Tool (Level 5 Cleric, wielder of the Mace of Saint Patrick)

Snorri (Level 1 Dwarf Fighter from Schloss Ragnar)

Downtime

Not much other than preparation to return to the tomb, Bumblebore trained up a level, his henchman Gilthaniel got a new familiar.

Session Report

The party speed ran their way back to colourful grand corridor that was the true entrance to the tomb, carefully avoiding all the pits found and marked on the map last session. Reaching the archway at the far end, they found that it behaved much he same as last time--when someone got close enough the stones glowed yellow, blue, and orange.

There was some confusion since Bumblebore was off doing wizardly things this week, and no one could remember exactly what he'd done when he had interacted with the archway and the giant evil pug-faced demon carving on the wall. 

Eventually, Sever bent down and touched the "yellow" flashing stone. "Amazing, they're going to get it straight off," I thought, then when nothing happened immediately, Sever gave up on the idea. Maybe someone else touched one more stone, but it was no more effective. Brave Giuseppe volunteered to go through the archway; which he did, followed by Snorri, and I got them to move to an alternate chat; and then there was a general migration (most of) the remainder. 

When the dust settled everyone who had gone through the archway way found themselves squashed into a 10 by 10 by 10 cubic cell, with no apparent exit, the only feature being three levers in one wall. They also soon realised that the full party was not here; at the last second Fluid had stopped short of entering the archway, and Marty stayed with him. The pair proceeded to touch all three stones, in every combination, until they hit on the right one--Yellow Blue Orange. The mist dispersed, revealing a corridor beyond the archway, leading east. However, as they went through, the corridor turned out to be an illusion, and they were teleported to a different place.

I swapped between chats as each group fell to discussing options and didn't need my immediate input, and that worked pretty well; I was concerned about the usual overhead of this splitting the party, and my attention, making the session drag.

Back in the cubic prison, a thorough search found only the 3 levers on nothing else. These they did a little experimentation with, before Giuseppe set all three to "UP", which caused a hatch in the ceiling (previously undetectable according to Gary) to open. Beyond was a narrow crawl way, which Fury explored and found led to what proved to be a magical one-way door, into the bottom of one of the pit traps in the main hall entrance corridor. 

After managing to get out of the pit these players saw the change in the formerly misty archway, and decided to follow what they deemed to be the way Fluid and Marty went. The adventurers walked through and after a tense moment of teleportation, thankfully, the two groups were re-united safely.

Meanwhile, Fluid and Marty had found in the room they had teleported into a broken statue of a gargoyle. The statue had four arms, but one had been broken off and was laying on the floor nearby. In each of the outstretched claws of the intact arms was an small indentation, about gem sized: Fluid placed one of his precious gems in each claw, and when he had placed the third, the stony digits closed and crushed the gems to powder, dumped the grains on the floor and returned to their initial positions. Fluid was just lamenting this event when the others arrived, so he gave up on that line of inquiry as they found an exit to the room. This led through an illusionary wall and into another large hall.

They heroes carefully looked up and down this hall, noting the many and varied creatures depicted there and the multicoloured spheres they held. Marty was certain the first bit of clear space to his left held a secret door, and he was right! Rabbit confirmed the cleric's hunch, but they could not find a means of opening the door (none of the casters knew Knock). Next they seized on a Hydra figure with a black sphere at its feel,  and were rewarded by finding another illusionary wall hid a low crawlspace passage. This passage appeared to be proof against Continual Light, so they followed Rabbit and stationed Snorri in the rear, and relied on their infravision. Luckily there was nothing nasty in there and the crawl space went away east, before doubling back and down into the earth to go underneath the hall way, and finally terminated at a what they soon found to be another secret door. This opened into a strange sight, a chapel.

The chapel was familiar to Fluid--who among them was the most knowledgeable about the city of Trollopulous--as it was an imitation of, or at least heavily influenced by, the Street of Gods. The door through which they had crawled was adorned with a mural of the "marsh gate". A path of stones meandered through the chapel, past rows of pews (within which were traps and treasure) marked with symbols of the many and varied gods, up to a black obsidian altar with a raised dais beyond--and other things that were all red herrings. Behind all this on the far wall was some sort of magical depiction of a slowly running river. 

Spooky

If this chapel was some sort of homage to the Street of Gods in Trollopulous, then the altar--situated at the river end--was clearly a likeness of the temple to the Gods of Trollopulous; a slab of black obsidian, with reliefs of skeletons around the perimeter, and a partially open door at its base.  Within the doorway could be seen coins of different makes, like those donated by passers by at the real temple. Fluid was able to sheepishly describe all this and then the druid kept as far away from it as possible, "searching the walls", he was as surprised as anyone to actually find something there; an "O" carved into the stone with a small slot below it.

Apart from the obviously chapel related items, there was also another stone archway, similar to the one that had teleported them earlier. The archway was also filled with mist, this time an 'exciting' orange colour. On the floor in front of the archway was a skeleton laying flat out with its arm stretched, apparently pointing to it. Snorri did a lot of experimentation with this skeleton, and the altar, all without being able to conclude anything useful.

Though Fluid was able share his knowledge about the place; it didn't provide much of hint what to do to advance from here. Various things were inserted into the slot but nothing happened. The adventurers consulted their rubbings of the cryptic message they had noted last session, but could not glean an answer from them (at least not one they liked).

Snorri really wanted to run through the archway to see what would happen, but cooler heads prevailed, and finally Sever sacrificed his Ring of Warmth in an attempt to open the slab door by placing it in the slot below the "O". This worked, but destroyed the ring forever, and they had no other magic ring among them.

Beyond the slab, which they found closed a few turns later but could be opened from the other side just by pushing on it, they found a corridor leading to a series of easily opened doors protected by pit traps on the other side. Once again Feather Fall prevented these traps from being anything more than an annoyance. With Find Traps, and the druidical equivalent, to call upon they continued on, and, after the third door and pit trap was bypassed, the corridor turned right. From there it went a long way before terminating in a thoroughly locked door.

The exception that proves the rule.

It now dawned on the adventurers that they had no idea how to get out of this place, and they had explored themselves to near exhaustion for a full day. Could they survive with 1:1 time in this Tomb? Well, it was decided, they were going to try.

Session Statistics: 

Wilderness travel:  11 Miles

Downtime begins on: 30/Aug
Combats: 0
Rooms/Corridors mapped: 8
Combat rounds: 0
Losses: none

Treasure & Items

8cp

8,007sp

6,008ep

4,002gp

6pp

Monsters

none

0 XP &  GP 0 Assignment

Graveyard

Rhoikos (Henchman Magic-User level 4), smashed by a Mummy fist in session #126. RAISED FROM THE DEAD

Thomas (Henchman Cleric level 6), Killed by a Symbol of Death in session #126. RAISED FROM THE DEAD

Josef Ironbeard (Dwarf Fighter level 1), Killed by a Symbol of Death in session #126.

Matthias Steelvein (Henchman Fighter level 4), Killed by a Symbol of Death in session #126. RAISED FROM THE DEAD

Sever the Wrathful (Ranger level 9), Killed by two pains in the Annis in session #122. RAISED FROM THE DEAD

Anri (Henchman Magic-User level 4), found dead with a ghastly chest wound in the Ice Castle, with her heart missing she was unable to be revived, in downtime after session #122 

Symeon (Henchman Cleric level 2), Only strong enough to wear studded leather, he was torn to shreds by Troglodytes in session #121

Paul (Henchman Paladin level 3) Effected by the Imprisonment spell touch attack from a Styx Devil in session #117. Might not be dead, but is definitely at least six feet under for all intents and purposes.

Gurt the Green (Paladin level 6) killed by a poison needle trap in session #114 RAISED FROM THE DEAD (with a roll of 94!)

Solaire the Fallen (Henchman Fighter (paladin) level 3) killed by Stone Giants acting as catapults in session #114

Paul (Henchman Paladin level 1), reduced to 0 hit points by white dragon breath when climbing down a rope ladder in session #108. Killed not by the fall; but by the sudden stop at the bottom. RAISED FROM THE DEAD

Ignatius the Smiter (Cleric level 1), horrifically mutilated and killed by double hit from a Shoggoth in session #106

Domby (Henchman with Dex 5), double surprised and turned into a pin cushion in session #87

Luke (Half elf Fighter/Cleric level 1), tragically killed by a normal hydra while trying to cauterise one of its neck stumps in session  #86

Gurt the Green (Paladin level 3), killed by a hydra bite in session  #86 RAISED FROM THE DEAD

Pleasance (Footman level 0), killed by a phase spider bite in session #81

Siegward (Henchman Fighter level 1), killed by a phase spider bite in session #81

Tawadros (Henchman Fighter level 4),  killed by a phase spider bite in session #81 RAISED FROM THE DEAD

Patria (Footman level 0), killed by a two headed snake bite in session #81

Deltacron (Dwarf Fighter/Thief level 1/1), threw his last flask of oil at, and was level drained to death by, a Vampire in session #76

Petrov the Prestidigitator (Magic-user level 1), wrong place, wrong time; killed by Sever the Ranger in session #72 RAISED FROM THE DEAD

Petrov the Prestidigitator (Magic-user level 1), killed again by the toxic gas of an Achaierai in session #72

Red (Paladin Level 1), always popular with the ladies, he was eaten up by a female Roc in the Pizza Slice of Doom during session #67

Jacques Ocular (Magic User level 1), a fat green worm burrowed into his head and turned him into a Son Of Kyuss in Brovenloft in Session #43

Pino (Dwarf Footman level 0), Killed by a Frost Giant axe to the head in session #39

Paro (Dwarf Fighter/Thief level 2/2)  Killed by Winter Wolves and frozen in session #39

Zabib (1/2 Elf Fighter/Magic User level 1/1), Killed by Frost Giant rocks in downtime prior to session #39