Orhan 1 Day 35 TE 6063

Both ships are captured! We send them back to Sel-kai with the marine company. The party presses on.

We get left off on shore nearby and look in to see illustration number 9 again. Yup, that's the gate.

We watch some cultists milling about and watch them go in and out. We plan an ambush of some cultists, but Alynna blow sit by talking so Oathar opens up with a Lord Sleep. Sadly, the planets are misaligned, and the spell does nothing.

Combat ensues. Imre tries to sleep a zombie. This combat does not bode well. Oathar, trying to salvage the situation, casts sleep again, and takes out Alynna. Kyrik takes an 18 EK from some noob with a stick. Yeah, this just doesn't bode well. Haeraan gets hit and tossed into must parry.

Eventually, competence breaks out and the enemy is put down.

Oathar interrogates him and gets lots of secrets from him. Especially the password, "In the name of the destroyer!" which is of course the same password they had last time. We send the prisoners a day away viwa teleport and then head to the giant gate wearing their cloaks. Haeraan speaks the abominable words, and we head in.

We spend some time considering the past (see log 53) and decide the way into the center skull is to portal or short door in, since the guard checks everyone's face as they enter through the outer skull door.

As we wait for it to get later, we find Acerak grafiti on the wall. It makes much more sense nowadays. It's quite forboding. Especially the gem with unhappy souls in it.

While we're studying the grafiti, an old man with empty eye sockets appears and says, "At the conclusion, the devourer eats your souls...." The old guy laughs at us a bunch, but doesn't really say anything else. After some prodding though, he tells us the souls trapped in teh devourer's phylactery can only be released by the pure light of the sun. Alynna mind reams him. We find that he wa sthe one who painted the grafiti, since he gets dark prophetic visions from Ascerak, which is why he gouged his own eyes out. He's not so helpful beyond that.

Having mined him for what he's worth, we head ot the skull and shortdoor in. It's a lab, sort of. Probably the anatomy lab. Lot's of glass jars with goop in them and leather scrolls. We listen at the Do not disturb! sign.

We head west into a triangular room. There's a ring in the middle with an altar sort of podium thing? Or perhaps a lecture hall. The sign on the inside indactes we just came from Acadamician Drak'es lab. We find some other evil stuff like skulls on shelves with black flaming auras (a type of unlife Haeraan has never heard of) , rooms of total darkness, etc..

We explore more and find a black candle room. We wander around some more and find the skeleton guarding the secret door that we faught last time. This time, we just flip the switch and head through, because we know how it works now. We get to the room filled with sarcophogi from log 53. They have human male being tortured on the rack, three children laughing, human barbarian with two handed sword (the one we entered through), human male warrior in chain mail, iron statue of demonic skeleton with iron scythe. On the south wall are humanoid skeleton wriithing in flame, strange creature hybrid of man and fish, noble elf lord,. warrior maiden, iron statue elongated skelton in robe with rusty scythe, finally, burly dwarf with massive axe on east wall, and large stone sarcophagus with figure of a man warrior with a battle axe.

Imre predicts with divination that a skeleton is correct. Oathar sees a corridor behind the iron scythe skeleton, and a bedroom behind the rusty scythe skeleton. We try to go through the iron statue one and the corridor opens and the statue attacks. We go through the door behind the fallen statue. ignore the obvious trap door and take the secret passage down to the area where a hillside is covered underneath the building. There are three entrances. All have tracks. Oathar manages to decode the writing about passage two. "The tomb of Ascerak, flee now mortals if you wish to live." We head tot eh double doors since there are mentions of two entrances mentioned in the ascerak. A block starts descending behind us, so we panic and flee (long door) back behind it. Checking down (long eye) choice 3, Oathar finds an archway, and a big mouth of demon eating. Hmm, that's probably the gap to power once we get the least of his form.

OK, that leaves following the red path down towards the archway. Alynna manages to open the archway. Haeraan, Alynna, and Oathar head through. Well, that's a bummer.