We started out at the crypt entrance marked in yellow. We have something like 33 hours left until the underground river gate opens and are trying to decide what to do with the two very evil swords we found. Cathal wants nothing to do with them and tells us that anyone who picks up either one is in trouble, right away.

Cathal makes a note to let the priestess at the Hall of Seven Pillars that these swords are down here. Menka will let Father Amon know as well. The door below was large, 10’ wide. It bit Ulland when he tried to open it.

Gonchar checked out the door, trying to avoid the biting teeth. It was not made of stone but of wood banded with iron. Gonchar checked it out and found a lock. When Flint checked it for traps he got bitten. Gonchar checked it for traps with his battle axe. His axe sunk into the wood and a set of disembodied teeth bit him for 2 points of damage.

Kyril whipped out a scroll of Warp Wood and cast the spell on the door. The door bent and warped and opened slightly. It won’t be closing again any time soon. We formed a marching order and tried to push open the door. Cathal and Gonchar kicked and pushed their way through. The biting trap fired again but missed.

Steps past the door went downward into a larger room - light emanated forth through the opening. The set of stairs descended 10’. The chamber was illuminated by 10 glowing pillars. They gave off a dim, eerie yellow/green light that flickered like candlelight. Pedestals stand between each pillar, each containing a statue carved from a different type of stone.

Each statue is a different color and had eyes made of jewels and gems. Cathal entered the room. Menka followed him (the book he seeks is behind the eyes of a pink satyr, according to the sphinx Alessa) and the lighted pillars went out. Menka asked Flint to check out the satyr statue’s head for a secret hatch or something. No luck, Flint found nothing. Then the lights came back on.

A blinding flash of light appeared out of nowhere. The party was asked to make paralyzation saving throws to avoid blindness. Gonchar and Flint failed. We heard a low rumble travel through the room. Cathal moved toward the western wall with his light source and a glowing palm-sized area appeared in the center of the wall. As we got closer to the wall we saw the glowing outlines of two tall, narrow doors. Gonchar and Flint slowly regained their senses. The ceiling was high, 25’ from the floor. The doors seem to be reflecting the light of Cathal’s shield.

Flint checked the pedestal under the satyr statue. Cathal sensed enormous amounts of evil emanating from the pedestal under the satyr. Cathal is sure the book (if it’s the source of the evil emanations) is in the pedestal. Flint pried one of the eyes loose - a ruby set in a diamond. We heard rumbling all around us, like traps tripping. We heard steps in the north and then in the east. The gem came loose and is a-verr nice.

He popped out the second eye and the doors in the west wall burst open. An 8’ tall giant, black, stone statue of a regal man wearing a black crown, with flaming eyes and mouth, started walking toward the diamonds on the floor (Flint had dropped them).

• initiative win
• Cathal
• Menka said a prayer
• Tim cast 7 magic missiles - they seemed to have no effect
• The statue punched Cathal for 5 points
• initiative loss
• It hit Cathal again for 7 points but wait, there’s more: then a blast of fire came from its eyes and mouth and enveloped Cathal for 11 points - he made his save vs magic thanks to Menka’s prayer - praise Thoth! The fire went about 20 feet, narrowly missing Menka because Cathal was in the way.
• Cathal hit it back for 14 points of damage with the Rod of Smiting
• Menka cast stumble, though it would later seem to have no effect
• Gonchar whacked the beastie twice for 26 points
• Kyril and Lycovyne flew through the doors on the carpet to check around. Kyril was looking for 9 more statue beasties. They flew into a large, circular room. The walls glowed with fire and water pooled at the bottom of the room. Lycovyne and Kyril had to save vs magic. Kyril made it, as did Lycovyne.
• initiative loss
• It hit Cathal for 7 more points
• Flint is on the ceiling near the door, the black statue is walking inexorably toward him with Cathal only slowing it down
• Cathal missed
• Menka missed with the Flail
• Kyril missed, after dropping down from the carpet
• Lycovyne, following him, hit the creature for 11 points
• Gonchar’s second attack hit, nailing it for 14 points of damage
• initiative loss
• The thing hit Gonchar for 16 points of damage
• Gonchar and Cathal get nailed with the breath weapon for 9 points - both saved so 4 points
• Menka cast Aid on Cathal, getting him 8 points, up to a temporary 32 points
• Cathal hit once, missed once, for 11 points
• Gonchar hit and hit again, for 26 points
• Lycovyne nailed it with a natural 20 with the Sword of Sharpness - hacking off its right arm and doing 16 points of damage
• Kyril really, really, missed
• initiative win
• Cathal attacked, of course, and also really, really missed
• Gonchar, however, hit for 15 points destroying it - it stopped and dropped
• The Stone King, 88 HP

Menka cast cure serious wounds on Cathal healing him for 17 points. Cathal laid on hands all around. Gonchar at 64, Cathal is at 42. Flint reclaimed the gems from the satyr - they looked very, very, valuable. The destroyed statue’s crown is laden with gems as well. Flint held up the two eyes from the satyr and looked through them. He scried the outline of a human sized hand on the back of the pedestal. Menka tried as well and put his hand in the spot. A hatch opened behind the statue and a horrible stench issued forth. Cathal was utterly appalled by it all.

Flint looked into the hatch for traps. He found none. Menka reached into the hatch and found a book. It felt warm, like a living thing. It was bound in human skin. A human face adorned the cover of the book. Even Menka was moderately appalled. Disgusted, even. We wrapped it in an old cloak and stuck it in the Bag of Holding. Then the light emanating from the walls went out (yes?).

Go For The Eyes, Boo!#

Flint checked out the sphynx eyes. Large quartz spheres. Flint popped one eye out and the pillars tried to blind everyone again. Flint didn’t save. Lycovyne failed as well. Flint popped out the second eye when we was no longer blind and he used the eyes as before. This time he couldn’t see through them, they were titanic.

Flint went to the 8 headed hydra. 16 amber gems. Not as huge as the others, but still valuable. Kyril and Lycovyne took the diamond/ruby eyes above to look at the door at the platform above. It took a while to take them all out. Kyril used them as lenses with no real effect. They returned.

Menka and Cathal searched the north wall for secret doors. Cathal found a secret door in the northwest corner. Menka volunteered to carry the Bag of Holding\footnote{Looking back to \emph{Session the 7th}, it is a 15 lbs. Bag of Holding, capable of holding 500 lbs, 70 ft³. }.

Tim removed the eyes from the Harpy cut from green marble. They were very large emeralds. Very, very valuable.

The eyes of the griffin were fire opals. Ulland popped them out.

The black basalt Dryad had small, citrine quartz eyes. Not very valuable, but valuable enough. We left them alone, for now. Kyril preferred not to defile a dryad.

The soapstone Minotaur had jade eyes, very valuable. We acquired them.

The black marble manticore had red gems for eyes - very nice. We acquired them as well.

The white marble centaur had eyes of aquamarine. Quite valuable. Tim started to pry them out. Kyril preferred that he did not do that. Ulland protested that we had violated the satyr, so why not the centaur? We decided to violate the dryad instead. Well, Gonchar violated her, while Tim pried her citrine eyes out.

The Hippogriff carved of black lava stone had eyes that were not that impressive but still quite valuable. Did we take them?

The crown of the Stone King contained three violet gems, quite valuable. Possibly more valuable than everything else except the diamond eyes of the satyr.

As mentioned previously Cathal had found a secret door in the north wall. It opened into a foul, wet, damp hall. A regular drip from the ceiling has gathered in a pool of water midway. We will have to walk through the water to get past. The passage looked like it was once well maintained but was now wet and crumbling.

Menka stepped through the door and Cathal used his Ring of Jumping and jumped across the puddle. Tim poked around in the puddle with his staff, it seemed only a couple inches deep. Kyril, Lycovyne and Gonchar went across on the carpet. Lycovyne went back and got everyone else. Beyond the puddle we found stairs going up. Menka headed up the stairs, hearing the roar of running water getting louder. The stairs terminated in a landing. Kyril found a secret door in the southern wall. Flint found no traps in that door. Neither did Ulland. He listened at it and heard the muffled sound of water rushing.

We all backed up as the druid opened the door. The door was not locked but was not easy to open as it was held by webs. Fresh webs. Kyril donned the Ring of Free Action, cast Invisibility to Animals and walked in.

He found himself walking through an immense spiderweb on the narrow shore of a river. A river running through a cavern. We noted that this is probably the same river Grastic’s hut was near. Kyril noted the presence of a large spider on the shore. He was invisible to it. The spider’s web was filled with fish. Kyril whipped out Randolph Carter’s walkie talkie. Someone on the other end answered. It seemed to be Randolph Carter. Kyril told him we were still looking for his sigil. Randolph told him that the ogres are reinforcing like crazy at the top of the monastery. In the web Kyril also saw “pockets of something”, 3-4’ long, sort of undulating.

Kyril shape changed into a frog and crossed from the north to the south side of the river through the web. The south side of the river was a damp sand shore which ran roughly southwest (from the web) to northeast (stone wall) with a relatively comfortable 10-15’ clearance. He followed the water course northeast on the south shore for a bit but it reached a solid stone wall where he would not be able to cross.

There, the river descended from the north at a great rate, and it looked too risky to swim or jump. However, directly north from the northeast end of the damp sand (southern) shore, on the other side of the rushing maelstrom of the river, 20-25’ distant, he could see an opening in the rock wall, a bit of sand shore above the waterline, and what looked like a cavern opening.

Cathal was vexed in the extreme that we now had the abhorrently evil tome Unspeakable Cults in our possession. While the druid was off croaking and ribbiting along the river shore Menka pulled Cathal aside for a moment to let him know why he (Menka) was in search of said book. The Egyptian cleric explained to the paladin that soon he would need to build an altar and a church around it as required by his Order . To do so he would require both financial and material support from the Church of Thoth. A priest of superior rank had tasked Menka with finding the Tome - this was not a task the cleric could push aside. Menka needed the support of the Church.

“I abhor this tome nearly as much as you yourself do. But Thoth, who holds all knowledge in his hands and seeks to maintain the balance, would see the Tome of Unspeakable Cults removed from circulation, being too powerful an artifact to be left unattended. It will be given over to my Order and made secure by people more powerful than you or I. It may even be destroyed, as you wish. I will make the case for its destruction to my superiors. We will be rid of it soon.”

Cathal was quite supportive, he simply didn’t like being around such an evil presence.

“I fully understand and support you and your endeavors. While I realize that I am the new guy within this group and that my religious beliefs are far more extreme than any of the rest of you I feel like there is something going on here, and I worry that I am being purposely kept in the dark about it. I will support you and everything you need done as long as it does not go against my religious tenets.”

Cathal was obviously referring to our dealings with the cosmic satyr.

“We are not keeping anything from you - we have no idea who the satyr is, though I believe he is not a “good” creature - honestly, you know as much as we do. The satyr warned us that some truly awful evil was about to be set free upon the world which would upset the balance completely, and we went looking - that’s about the gist of it.”

Cathal pondered for a moment and said: “We will seek out and destroy this evil. That being said there will come a time when I will want to destroy all the Evil within this place and I hope that you will stand with me to do so.”

Menka assured him that he would, that the whole party would, indeed. Menka hoped to return to civilization for a bit to regroup and then return to the Monastery with an army if necessary.

Loot found since we lost Arkadios (session 24):

• Fish-men fight, session 24
• the wizard’s gloves radiated magic
• an Egyptian Khopesh sickle-type sword, radiating magic
• a small pouch radiated magic
• a backpack that radiated magic
  • Ephraim’s spell book (pg. 205)
  • something wrapped in an oiled cloth
• magic/unusual torch - we discovered that the torch caused all other light sources nearby to dim - once this torch was placed in the Bag of Holding all the nearby light sources returned to full strength.
• Tome of Unspeakable Cults
• Scroll of Protection from Evil 10’ (pg. 215)
• Scroll of Sticks to Snakes