12: Ushabti

Angestag 8th Kaltzeit

The session began with you all in an underground chamber below Triesjaar Island. You believed Ofra Cloos was to be sacrificed down here with six sacred daggers and this would cause the ancient wife of Nagash to rise and destroy the city, or something. Your main concern was the guardian Ushabti which you guessed would attempt to stop you from spoiling the ritual.

There were exits behind curtains in each wall of the chamber. You began to explore each one systematically. East, the passage soon ended in a cave-in. Klaus, having seen a few tombs in his time, believed that the cave-in had been caused deliberately, as if to cut off this way.

South, the passage opened into a cavern. It was damp and the southern half of the chamber was flooded and lit by a faint greenish light. As the party entered the cavern, gloppish lizardy-froggy type things fell from the ceiling and narrowly missed some of you. They then glopped off towards the pool. Zombrie walked further in and managed to catch one of these in his sack, as it fell. Thijens and Klaus decided to fire at some of the ones remaining on the ceiling and managed to splat them. You noticed they seemed to glow slightly, a bit like the water. Most of the remaining ones dived back into the pool and out of sight.

West, a passage came to another chamber littered with bones, and weapons and other detritus. Zombrie and Klaus made a few steps into the room. No sooner did they than the hands of long dead warriors began clutching at their ankles and the bones began to form themselves into armed figures. You all stepped back into the corridor. Haakon and most of Stubfoot’s men were a bit shocked by this animation of the dead. You readied your guns and prepared to fight the skeletons. Zombrie prayed to Ulric for his Hammer-handed aid and tried to wade through the rubbish towards the exit on the far side of the room.

Unfortunately, Zombrie tripped and fell into the bones and stuff, which hurt, and was clawed at by a load of emerging skeletons, and his prayer was dispelled. Klaus thwacked at some of the monsters, and Thijens fired his blunderbuss at them. In another stroke of very bad luck, the gun exploded in Thijens’ face, singeing his hair and injuring him badly. Klaus retreated and after a moment’s hesitation, Zombrie did too.

The party retreated and considered their situation. Zombrie prayed for healing and deliverance, or something. Thijens experimented a bit with the Ushabti. He managed to awaken them by manipulating the daggers, but used the incantation to still them once more. Meanwhile, Haakon considered the magical winds that were flowing through the complex, especially around the undead and formulated an effect by which they might be prevented from approaching him. The spell was cast and sure enough, he could then walk through the chamber without provoking the spirits. The rest of the party walked through with him.

On the far side of that chamber, the dwarf style construction ended and you entered a natural looking cave complex. The way wound tortuously and occasionally very narrowly down. The cave branched and you followed the left way into a large cavern. This was similar to the other one with the pool and gloppy things hung from the roof and the water glowed slightly.

You backtracked and took the right fork. This way wound further down and suddenly strange violet lightning assailed you. The three of you in front were hit hard by this and it hurt a lot. You could just make out some robed animal type thing below you that had thrown this warped lightning at you. He also had a number of rat-like allies, two of which were struggling to get into position a fantastical looking large-barrelled weapon.

With practiced skill and expertise, Thijens fired his borrowed blunderbuss at the rat sorcerer thing. The shot ripped through its skull scattering brain across the cavern and left the rat-man kweeking and whimpering on the floor in pathetic death throes.

Julius fired his crossbow at the rat-men on the strange machine. The bolt struck the front one squarely and put him down. Klaus charged manically at one of the other rat-men. The rest of them, having lost their leader, and artillery skittered off into the darkness as fast as they could go.

You found yourselves in a cavern which bizarrely had a gently curving shiny metal wall. Three other passages lead away. After a bit of inspection, it looked like the rat-men had been using their strange weapon to try and break through the metal, or something, but they had managed little damage.

Haakon checked out the body of the sorcerer rat. He found some live gloppy fishlike things, some other strange stuff, and some very dark black minerals that seemed to steal what little light there was from the air around it. Looking at these two rocks was like looking into holes, or something. Haakon put the two dark stones in his bag.

Klaus checked out the big gun thing. He didn’t want to activate it, or anything and so was careful not to mess with it too much. Thijens wanted the bodies of the rat-men themselves, to finally prove to the Kruiersmuur Borough Office of Sanitation and Hygiene, that rat-men did indeed exist.

Klaus and Zombrie checked out a passage that headed north and guessed it went up to the base of the elevator shaft. They followed a dwarf-hewn passage and just before reaching the elevator Zombrie remembered the noises he had heard when he had first come down there in the elevator. Sure enough, two rat-men guards attacked, but the two made short work of them.

You pretty much secured the area. The west passage, through which the rat-men had fled was left and Thijens followed the passage to the east. It went on for a few hundred yards with no sign of much interesting, and Thijens eventually abandoned it and went back to the central cavern.

Then you hatched a plan to remove one of the Daggers of Shapesh (thus, you hoped, ending any chance of the sacrificial ritual) via the back way, avoiding the wrath of the Ushabti. You took the elevator down to the bottom level and piled everything of use into it. Everyone waited in the elevator, save Klaus, Thijens, and Julius who guarded the central cavern from wandering rat-men. Haakon cast his protection from skeletons again and went to the sacrifice chamber.

There, he grabbed one of the daggers and legged it through the cave system. He was pursued by the Ushabti, and as they heard him coming, everyone retreated to the elevator. Haakon managed to get to the elevator without a sign of the Ushabti. You all waited for a few moments to see the pursuing Ushabti before activating the elevator and rising above them. When you got to the temple level, you decided to stop there and grab the rest of the daggers. This all went smoothly.

You managed to get back to the top with all the daggers of Shapesh. You sprang Ofra from her cell and gave Stubfoot’s men enough time to loot most of the complex. You also noticed one of the small boats was missing from the quay. You loaded everything up and got ready to go.

You also dumped one of the daggers in the furnace, hoping to break up the collection. Paal did comment that Stubfoot should be entitled to all the Daggers of Shapesh as they were clearly valuable. You fobbed him off with stories of danger and stuff, though he said he’d be mentioning them to Stubfoot.

It’s about 4 in the morning. Thijens has to be at the Handelaarmarkt Magistrates Court in about three hours.