The Kinstrife
Part
60
In
which our heroes brave the horrors of Marath Seregûl, encountering fiendish traps, mouldering undead, an evil vampire and uncountable amounts of treasure
in a labyrinth.
September 20th – night
Time
to investigate the NW tower.
We avoid the 7th step and start checking the walls for concealed
doors. Sern and Pimm
quickly find a panel painted to look like the walls – it’s not even stone, just
painted wood! We’d have spotted it easily in better light and it even has holes
for hands to open it.
Sern
opens the panel to reveal a corridor with a tiled floor inlaid with silver
footprint designs. Suspicious, Brand ‘communes’ with the floor in some way and
quickly finds that there are mechanisms connected to all the tiles except for
those with footprints.
Sern
carefully walks the length of the corridor, balancing with some dexterity. I’m
not at all happy about this but Aerin nimbly follows
him.
The
distance is only 8’ and they report that there’s a 2’ wide safe area by the
door at the far end. Brand looks as wary as I so I suggest that he jumps the
distance. Unfortunately he stumbles as he leaps and the walls quiver as he
lands – he recovers himself and lurches to safety just as the walls clash
together – nasty!
Before he
can wipe the sweat from his brow Sern asks him to
decipher something written on the door. It’s more than a little crowded now but
once the door is open I also jump, just clearing the distance by an inch. It’s
only 8 feet, it would be no distance at all but something seems to hold us
back. I wonder if it’s fear of cracking our heads on the ceiling, though the
vault is easily high enough. Perhaps we just need more practice?
Pimm
decides on another tactic; having observed the walls clash twice he triggers
the mechanism and then runs through as the walls fall back before the mechanism
can rearm. A sound idea but he trips midway (I think some of the tiles depress
slightly when the walls move) and measures his length. He gets hammered by the
walls but once we pull him to safety Aerin finds he’s
only bruised. Evidently this trap is not as fearsome as it looks. Perhaps the
springs or whatever powers the mechanism have lost power over time?
We are
standing in a large room, 40’ square, with many weathered stone slabs leaning
against the walls. Brand points to the opened door we’ve just come through,
which says ‘This is the Tomb of Malazar the Ageless’
in Quenya. No wonder he’s looking so happy!
We examine
the 10 slabs but their weathered script defies translation. Brand believes he
sees the word ‘warning’ and the pictures portray scenes of battle. There is a
recurring figure – some sort of god? Brand believes the slabs were once painted
and Pimm thinks he sees what looks like very old,
dried blood in the crevices.
We came in
from the east; there are exits to the north and south. Brand feels the magical
eminence he sensed when first we entered Marath Seregûl lies to the NW.
I lead the
way south, on the principal that whatever is to the NW should not be faced
without knowing what’s at our backs. We go 20’ and turn west for another 20’,
then north for 60’ and west again once more for 20’ to emerge in to another 40’
square chamber with ten motionless figures standing around the walls. Brand
feels the magical entity lies directly north but not in this room. He also
believes the figures to be foul eldritch beings created by giving a sort of
half-life to corpses of people who have died in the desert. All look to have dried,
dessicated flesh.
Nothing
moves and it occurs to me that if these things can use the arms they carry then
we need to be at full fighting strength so Aerin runs
off to retrieve Ilviren. While the rest of us raid
the cache in the octagonal room (I want the circlet of evasion if I’m to face
these unclean things).
Ten minutes
later the two women are back – apparently Seregûl passed out after an evening of sexual athletics –
and we reconvene at the chamber of the dead. Ilviren
and I hold the passage while we rain missiles on the figures, one-by-one. I
waste both my daggers and another passed from behind. Pimm’s
bow takes down two. The rest fall to Celegmaeg
and Ilviren’s boot (she early spurns her blade believing the things to be
immune to steel but I find my Elven-blade very effective.
The fight
is a slog. The things are slow and unwieldy and at no point is my swordsmanship
tested but their dried flesh soaks up blows. Nonetheless they all fall without
hurt to us.
There are
doors in the south and west walls but the magical entity is still to the north.
This time we go west down a 20’ passage that turns north for 40’ where we
encounter a drain set in the right-hand wall. Obviously a drain suggests a
liquid to drain through it. I immediately think of blood but the passage is a
little cramped for a ritual of sacrifice and Brand reckons it’s
part of some sort of water-based trap.
It sounds
ludicrous, a water-trap in a desert, but I recall the tales of caverns full of
water beneath the Mirror of Fire and reflect that we’re underground – not so
ludicrous afterall, perhaps?
We continue
slowly and carefully for another 40’ where we find a concealed door in the
right wall before a set of steps rising before us to a door. Brand thinks the
magical entity is now to the SE. Sern thinks the
steps lead up to the water-trap – perhaps we open the door and a wall of water
smashes us back down the passage? We open the concealed door to find another
passage that takes us 20’ east before turning north for another 40’.
We emerge
in to one end of a peculiar hall running E-W. The walls are covered in what
look like gold spiderwebs. I think we all imagine
strange traps or mechanical spiders but neither Brand nor Sern
detect anything sinister. The spiderwebs are mere
decoration and appear to be made of high-carat gold, about 2,000 crowns worth if
my merchant-prince instincts don’t mislead me.
Brand
detects some sort of magical dweomer emanating from a door at the far end but
this cannot be the magical entity Brand still feels is now some distance south
of us. We open it to reveal a tiny room but Brand sense the megical
emanations come from beyond the far wall. Ilviren and
I find another concealed door – this place is alive with them. Sern reckons it’s trapped magically but Brand does his
communing thing again and finds if someone tries to pick the lock it will
trigger a spell that will heat anything metal to red heat. Sern
is non-plussed – he strips off anything metal and
opens the lock with a lockpick of bone.
Stairs lead
down 6-7 feet in to a natural cavern with two small chests and a pile of
something covered with a cloak. Sern finds no traps
and Brand reckons all of it is magical! I move the cloak with the point of my
sword. Underneath is another folded cloak, a circular shield, a circlet which
looks to be the twin to the one I’m wearing, a silver spool bearing a
Numenorean trademark from the 2nd age, a strange black sphere with a
short string in the top and a scroll.
The chests
between them hold gems to the value of 750 crowns and 100 ingots of silver and
another 100 of gold – worth 1,000 and 10,000 crowns, respectively.
I already
have the first circlet of evasion so it only seems fair for all this to be
divided between the others. Ilviren gets the second
circlet of evasion as the two of us will probably have most need of these
things.
Pimm
gets the first cloak, which Brand deems to protect from heat and fire (very
handy when we get to the Mirror of Fire). Sern takes
the folded cloak that I am informed is of sandrake
skin and has the property of being able to take on the appearance of
surrounding terrain and turns steel like plate armour.
The shield
has the property that it can be thrown as a missile and returns to hand – I’m
not sure why but Aerin gets this. Brand gets the scroll
(an unlocking spell) and the strange black sphere.
We return
to the first room 40’ square room and take the north door. About half way along
a 20’ passage Sern orders us to stop. He felt the
floor tremble and he believes it to be on a pivot, roughly where we’re
standing. We shuffle back slowly and discuss the matter.
Sern
it’s a simple pivot so all we need to do is load the near end with enough
weight to counter movement to the far end. It’s hard
work but we fetch a couple of the stone slabs from next door and I cross warily
to test the mechanism.
The next
chamber is full of vines in pots. As I look around I hear a hiss and a lizard
lunges at me. I call for back-up but a quickly flurry of swordplay sees the
things dead as with no mishaps the others join me one at a time.
Aerin
calls the creature a ‘slowfang’, an arboreal lizard
from the
This is yet
another 40’ square room with doors in each wall (we came in from the south).
Brand senses the entity is NW. I lead the way north and we find ourselves in a
natural cavern, oval, about 50 x 40’. In the middle is a green throne (I reckon
jade) and Brand says it bears some sort of dweomer.
For some
reason Pimm chooses to sit in it – and immediately
starts crying and bawling. So awful are his cries that we all save Ilviren cannot stand to remain in the room and we run in
terror. Alas, as we all enter the pivoting passage at once, the weight of the
slabs at the far end is overcome and the pivot tilts and drops us in to a
chamber below.
This could
have been extraordinarily nasty but fortunately no further surprises await us. but Aerin is seriously hurt but
she will live with minimal treatment. Brand also seems hurt and clutches his
side but it turns out he’s merely wounded. Sern and I
are merely bruised but overall this is a sobering experience – we could have
suffered much worse indeed.
After what
seems an age Pimm stops wailing and Sern climbs out of the pit with a rope. With his and
Ilviren’s help we all climb out before hauling up Aerin.
Back in the
vine-room, as we’re collecting ourselves, a man emerges from the western door
and asks, “What are you doing here? Are you Seregûl’s
men? Ilviren, obviously in better wits than those of
us who fell, basically lies, claiming Seregûl sent us
down to ask if there’s anything he wants.
This seems
to confuse him. Ilviren steps back and raises an eyebrow
at me. I shrug and reach for my sword. As we draw steel he he
reveals an unwholesome set of fangs and vows to taste our blood!
Unlike the
previous this fight is savage. He’s almost as quick as me and claws at both Ilviren and I as we close. He shouts a Word of Power that
affects Brand but then Ilviren hits him hard and then
Pimm’s arrow takes him in the chest and he collapses
to dust. Brand confirms that this is the entity he has been sensing all this
time. Sië firin Malazar Ilfirin, methinks -
literally, ‘thus passes Malazar the Immortal’.
He came
through the western door and beyond is a short corridor to a dead end.
Obviously he had to come from somewhere and we quickly find more concealed
doors to north and south. Sern finds no traps and
opens the north door to reveal an ornate bedchamber with a marble slab instead
of a bed.
The south
door leads to a storeroom with balks of silks, some mouldered to dust and all
spoilt, stoppered jars of some liquid, a few 2nd
Age trinkets and other bric-a-brac – nothing significant.
There’s
nothing of value here and I find myself struggling to imagine what it must be
like to be immortal and yet effectively incarcerated in such a small chamber –
there are no books, even. Malazar can hardly have
planned to conquer the World. He must have sat in here since at least the end
of the 2nd Age only to expire in such pathetic fashion.
So we try
the remaining eastern door in the vine room and find more treasure, but this
time counterfeit – perhaps Malazar or Seregûl planned to destabilise the economy of the Raj. With
the vast amount of currency we’ve collected it might be possible. With 13,750
crowns we could probably buy the Raj.
There’s
only one place we have not yet explored, the southern door in the undead room. This leads 80’ to a natural cavern running
E-W. Sern finds a pressure-plate in the floor which
we’re all careful to avoid.
A worked
corridor leads east a short distance and now we feel a cool breeze on our faces
as we discover three men offloading dessicated corpses
from a cart. They don’t seem all that bright and let us encircle them. It seems
they are being paid to find dessicated corpses in the
desert and bring them to Seregûl.
It doesn’t
seem worth our while to apprehend them so we confiscate their cart and send
them packing.
We still
have to formally arrest Seregûl and his men. Then we
will need the cart to transport a considerable weight of gold, etc, from Marath Seregûl – or perhaps that
should be Marath Malazar?
The tower itself is a worthwhile residence but Seregûl
leased it from Tresti. I and my companions regard the
vast hoard of treasure as just rewards for our trials but I have a feeling that
the Diet of Dunast will want to stake a claim so it
would be best if they didn’t know about it.
Of course Seregûl or one of his men are bound to mention ‘treasure’
but if we offer the chest of silver ingots and the counterfeit coin we should
probably be able to thwart suspicion and the virtue of gold is that it is so
very compact and so easily concealed. The amount is so vast that it’s unlikely
that anyone will credit stories of so much gold.
Our best
plan might then be to purchase goods in Bozisha-Dar
before sailing home in So-Much-For-Subtlety. Our main problem will be in
finding good of such high-value density that we would fill a fleet rather than
a ship.
To do list:
Loot Marath Seregûl and return Seregûl to Tresti while hiding
our ill-gotten gains
Take a caravan
to Tûl Póac
Keep accounts
for money accruing while in Raj
Visit Minas Ithil – probably not going to happen now
Talk to the
survivor of the 1st Mordor expedition before entering Mordor
Survey my estates and produce a plan to improve
them – consider Pimm’s offer but be cautious