At the Sign of the Salient Hurcheon

Outside, Ghushmaya, the leader of the Kurrim, the Mountain Folk, in the temple above had travelled with companions to talk to Harvan as leader of the group. Finding a wounded Jose, much battered, she uses her healing talents to heal Jose, but the inflammation has hit his stamina.

Ghushmaya guides Jose back to the group, but she hangs back at the top of the stairs as she hears the combat going on.

José sees, barely, that something is going on, he has to approach to see Duran firing diver tipped arrow after silver tipped arrow at these slow moving animated corpses. Unfortunately the one he concentrates on is that one who is under control of Gunion.

Farshad and Jushur confuse the undead, the Mabasu as they later learn it is called, battering it between them and destroying it. Outside Utana bravely holds his own, though eventually Jose and Gunion come to his aid, and tackle the second Mabasu that is coming for Utana. There there is a bit of disaster as Jose, using a silver sword borrowed from Dhran, fumbles it through the Mabasu, where it is picked up by Gunion, who also fumbles it where Jose, having fallen to the ground, picks it up again.

Gunion’s Mabasu fights another one, until it is hit soundly by a shot from Dhran, which breaks the spell.

Coming back into the main chamber, Jushuur tries to leap and slide over the mummification table, which he partly does, except he fluffs it, sticking in the remains of the last victim, but he is able to recover and do great damage, aided further by Farshad. And eventually the Mabasu are dispatched though Jose was gravely wounded to near death.

Ghushmaya comes down from her hiding place, and heals Jose at great cost, though not greatly as Jose was so badly wounded.

The chambers are explored, one of which was not finished, and they find the rotted rich robes of councillors and servants, grave goods rotted with age to piles of dust but among the rot and litter several items. Gold and silver wire used in embroidery as well as semi-precious stones. A shortsword decorated with script, claimed by Farshad. A decorated ivory rod of authority, carved with scenes of submission after battle, a silver fillet, three clay tablets in a copper box and an amulet of white stone, slightly green, similar to the jar found before. Ten of the silvered arrows were recovered, five were taken by Jose, five by Dhran.

They proceed through a door and down stairs that lead to a corridor lined with stone sarcophagi, tightly packed and pinned shut. Gunion had a glimpse of , of something, Fearm despair, horror and death.

The group were loathe to open any, but a collapsed wall, spilling down a short scree slope leading to a chasm, was explored by Farshad. He found one remaining sarcophagus that had been on the collapsed wall, but had not slid into the chasm. In that was a corpse in an attitude of trying to escape, seemingly have been immured alive in these sarcophagi.

Proceeding on, the next chamber,, it was large, with bodies on the floor, strange spiral carvings inscribed with symbols possibly from Hao, far to the east, Farshad thinks, having seen coins from that far land.

The room is dominated by two things apart from the strange circular symbols engraved on the floor arranged in a triangle around a central different symbol.

One is a large, perfectly blank bronze slab, obviously a door, though with no sign of hinge or handle. The other is a stone altar, with more carvings, groves in arcane patterns and symbols, Those on the top, at points, lead to funnel shaped holes leading deep into the stone block.

At he back of the altar were statues of the three gods, but now towered over by another statue of Gathpaxpes, crowned with a crown of real gold, set with rubies, arms holding an axe and a sceptre and crossed in the attitude of a king. The sceptre and axe were halted with unblemished iron, free of rust after centuries, but the axe head was solved and the sceptre was topped with gold and more jewels.

Rather than look to the door, the group carefully avoided the symbols carved on the floor, and boosted Farshad up to divest the statue of Gathpaxpes of axe, sceptre and crown. No sooner had he done so than the symbols on the floor burst full of light, then symbol after symbol winked out, starting from the end of the spiral and working in. The group mostly reserved to the door they came in but the last light flared and went out, before the door opened.

Relieved, the group proceeded, finding another corridor and stairs going down. This had a stone ribbon frieze down each side, depicting events from the life of Gathpaxpes our, at least, alleged events. Gathpaxpes was a man, but the events depicted are those of a divine being, strangling monsters in his crib, speaking to monsters as a child, defeating men in combat as a boy, as a teenager subjugating nations aided by spirits.

The corridor at the end of the stairs head back in the direction of the chasm, though further south, and ended in well fashioned edge, some 3 metres or so above a flowing river. A similar edge was four metres away and, backs from the edge a way, was a bronze gate, a slab priced by holes in some pattern that could not be made out.\n\nA cursory look revealed no mechanism or levels, and the group pondered how to bridge the gap, as both sides had been smoothly shaped as to deny purchase to any climber.

Eventually they thought of using the gate as an anchor point, they had ropes, and oils and weapons found in chambers above were made into grapnels. It took about an hour but they were ready.\n\nEach cast a rope, but failed, until Utana cast it true, and it caught. Jose was lowered with another rope, and he managed to ford the icy water. At the other side, bracing himself against a submerged rock, Jose pulled on the grappled rope.

At that point he found that the gate was not a gate, but a drawbridge, his attempt to pull himself up instead pulled the drawbridge down on its hinge. As it came down about 50 degrees down another section sprang out to complete the bridge across the gap.

Managing to catch himself, Juan José was hauled back up to his companions.

And there we left it

I wound the action back to the burial chamber, then the group did the taking back of Jose to be tended by Utana’s servant and the Camel driver and vet, who, apart from Jose is the nearest thing to a healer that you have. Jose being badly bruised by the trap, they decided to draw out any poison from the blood, and applied a poultice of cloth and then camel dung.

Harvan was slightly miffed at not being kept up to date, but he listened as you explained the situation and the Mountain Folk that you encountered. He is happy for you to help them as long as it does not interfere with the work you are doing.\n\nIn the watch, Utana hears hoofbeats and wakes the sleepers, a herd of antelope gallop past and one is severely injured by an arrow from Jushuur. Despatched then gralloched, its meat provides a hearty breakfast.

Enough remains on the carcass to take with the group to present to Ghushamay and the Mountain folk, before heading back to the Burial Chamber. Checking over, only the Antechamber proved to have anything of interest, the large bronze panel, cunningly set into the wall, where the three gods were shown subservient to the lord Gathpaxpes, the three of them holding aloft a shallow bowl that acted as an offering altar.

Eventually Utana managed to slide that to the side, levering open a door to a set of stairs leading below, to the chagrin of Farshad who was convinced that there was a trapdoor somewhere directly under the floor.

Cautiously they proceeded down, coming to a broad corridor running east to west, with three niches each North and South, with plain wooden doors at the end.\n\nIn each niche was a stone statue and all bar the first niche to the north has a smaller niche on the wall in which is set an object. The first has a narrow passage behind it. The group spend most of the time searching the object for traps and taking the objects before turning their attention to the passage.

With much care, under the supervision of Farshad and Jushuur, the objects were examined and withdrawn, only one was trapped, the statues, and the objects before each, were

NORTH

• A tall man, as tall as a normal man even while kneeling, with the head and claws of a great cat, a passage behind
• A cloaked female figure. This statue is hollow as can be seen from the empty space behind the eyes, A metal tablet, connected in some fashion by a metal wire to the statue
• The god Tikran, as an androgynous figure bearing an axe in one hand and a barbed whip in the other,  an embossed gold plate with a bone flute resting against it

SOUTH

• A crouching skeletal creature with the head of a lizard, the wings of a bat, long, skinny forearmed ending in hands like bird claws,  a Human skull covered in enamelling set in gold wire
• A man with the claws of a scorpion and only a single eye in the centre of his forehead, a large, enamelled eye
• A large statue of Gathpaxpes, clad in armour, a sceptre in one hand and a staff in the other, the hair held back by a fillet,  a whitish-green jar of some translucent material

What these statues showed, nobody knew, but there was a commonality of depiction between the various creatures and the god, as if there was a link beyond just a common sculptor.

All are looted, the trap, seemingly connected to a glass container in the statue bypassed by the cunning use of a brick.

The passage was eventually explored, coming to a small chamber, in which were yet more statues, three of them , made of wood they depicted powerfully built warriors, the wood remarkably not cracked with age and the dry climate.

Each held weapons. One had a spear and shield. One a short hafted axe and a khopesh like sword. The last had a bow, also in good condition and 12 arrows. These were silvered, silver inlaid in the blades and heads, done, sometimes, as a measure against spirits.

The ceiling and walls depicted scenes of the three wooden warriors battling and overcoming not only creatures like those in the hallway, but also other creatures unknown to the group, who were being defeated using the weapons carried. The style of these statues was not the same as those outside, they seemed more wholesome in some manner, and are not connected to the floor.

(Mark left his machine, so Jushuur was not there for the looting.)

Utana took the spear, Dhran the arrows and sword, and Farshad the axe. They noted that each had engraving in the blades into which had been inlaid silver. When he came back, Jushuur took the shield and bow.

The next set of doors were opened up, revealing a large octagonal chamber with a door on each wall, in the centre a table and four marble and onyx pillars. On the table was a dessicated corpse, surrounded by bronze tools, long hooks, scrapers, scalpels, tubes and funnels.\n\nIt is decided to open one of the doors nearest to the entrance, in order to facilitate a quick escape, in doing that, all the doors fly open, with five creatures emerging, one to each door to a small chamber, bar one

The creatures also look like dessicated corpses from the torso up, but are roiling, oily smoke below. They bear weapons and are slow, just as well as the escape plan goes out the window when combat starts. It is quickly shown that not only are these things resistant to damage, they are not easily affected by weapons that are not silvered.

Jushuur lands mighty blows that they shrug off, and even those blows taken from the silvered weapons need to get through an inherent toughness greater than the armour the group wears.

These creatures seem to be amongst those depicted in the small chamber where you found the weapons, being battled by the warriors whose weapons you took.\n\nThe group is chipping away at those they are fighting, though the others are slowly coming closer, but are getting battered in turn.

Gunion has been preparing something while this goes on, then springs into action, ramming three runesticks into the dried flesh of one of the creatures, pronouncing certain syllables. The creature starts, and then turns and moves towards one of the others of its kind, the hail mary pass of the Control Entity spell taking effect. It is injured, but at least it is on your side, for the moment

And we shall pick up the fight next time….

Having established contact with the Mountain people in the tomb temple, the group sent Dhran back with news of what they had found, and to send Gunion and Jushuur forward. They seemed unconcerned with tales of magic, though they had encountered the Undead, they were more concerned with the divination and horoscopes that had left them to this place as the source of water, and a future. Jose used his healing arts to numb the pain of his wounds, though his faculties would suffer.

They led the group to the central Shrine of the temple, past rooms where the sign of life had returned after centuries, smells of food, work parties, even the snores of the sleeping.

The floor was covered in litter, the only remaining construct an altar, upon which were idols of the three gods that the builder of this place acknowledged. This idol radiated evil, and the group decided to leave it alone, investigating the passage that the desiccated warriors had come from. They proceeded with caution, guile and care, using every means open to them to search by means mystic and mechanical.

There they found a series of lesser servitude tombs, the first two had held warriors, the clay entombment of three remained, these were decapitated before the occupants could be activated.

The next two were carefully explored, both held wooden sarcophagi, carved in the likenesses of the occupants, though one, with staff and tablet had been given a snake like cast the other, with tablet and stylus, that of a jackal. There were also semi-precious beads at the bottom of the snake sarcophagus.

The snake man held a ring on their finger, the jackal held a tablet, both were removed after dismembering those that held them.

At the end of the corridor was a double doors, featuring more reliefs depicting a. Man with the tools of an architect.

That door proved to be trapped, when Jushuur and Farshad opened the doors, a beam swing down, Utana dived out of the way but Jose was slammed three metres into the room, severely winded. Only his soporific treatment prevented further incapacity.

Inside was a bigger tomb, again with nothing in the way of expected grand decoration decorated, but with three grand sarcophagi, two slightly less grand flanking a grander one, each on a dais. The two proved to have two recently deceased Mountain people in miraculously intact and unperished robes, bearing symbols unknown to any there.

The third held a body, bearing the surveying stick and measuring rod of an architect. That body like all the others, was desecrated. The only exit from this tomb, so far devoid of riches or of heaps of powerful mystic objects, was a small room, possibly a shrine, though the only decoration was a large bronze relief of the three gods and the mortal Lord again, with the architect as a supplicant.

At that point, after several hours, and an injured José, the group decided to return to camp, and there we left it.

Camped opposite the oasis that they had been warned against, the group thought about how they might even start to begin to look for a tomb in a ruined city.

Juan José and Utana looked for tracks, and whilst Jose found some leading one way but in the other Utana spotted an outcrop of rock upon which the ruins of a tower stood that might provide a vantage point to see more signs of life or even just some sense of the shape of the city.

Leaving their employer, friends, hireling and camel behind, the four went to the ruined tower.

The climb was managed with cooperation, though the stone of the outcrop had been worked at one point, it had been roughened by time, making it easier, and they found themselves on a stone flagged floor though with a hole in the centre. The walls were ruined, and they could see signs of passage outside the city from this vantage point.

However the hole in the floor as instead them. Utana established that the floor seemed solid, and Farshad lowered a torch down, seeing a seemingly solid floor with detritus and the remnants of the store of a guard tower. Next Farshad himself was lowered sand, although there was rubbish he noted, around the edge of the store, some well preserved spears in a rack, armour of and ancient design and storage vessels, some still sealed. He spotted a flagstone the floor that seemed a little raised, and when he got close, he smelled a horrible smell of rot.

The rest secured a rope and came down, though they should have little trouble helping each other back up. Jose, with his healer skill, thought that this smell, though it seemed at first like rot, was unlikely to be that in this dry climate, and he suspected something recently dead.

The group ruined and abused priceless historical artefacts, or the bronze spear heads of the spears in the rack, their shafts brittle and useless, to lever the flag up. Once it had been counterweighted, but that mechanism had been broken, possibly as a way to seal the flag behind someone.

At the bottom of the hole under the store was a dead man, not a human, an Ulauva, known to themselves as Kurrim, to the Ishtiri as Ulush Kauva, to some as orcs, to the reader as Neanderthals. He was simply dressed, with a gaping slash in his belly, a trail of blood led down a passage that he seemed to have crawled along to die under the ruined tower, sometime in the last day or two. Near the body was a hand axe or Ulauva design.

Under Dhran and Jose’s guidance, they cautiously followed this passage, spiralling down at first, then a sloped down before a climb back up, only at one point seemingly joined by another passage, but that was blocked by an old fall of rubble.

Eventually though they saw daylight, as the passage rose up into a cutting with a stone wall above them on one side, and a square of some sort raised on the other. Farshad climbed up, and spotted signs of recent excavation ahead, the group moved on and found simply made steps cut into the compacted mud and rubble leading to a hole that connected into a stone clad passageway.

This passageway was decorated with figures that seemed to be gods, demons or Demi-gods and a man raised almost to a status of a god amongst lesser men , repeated across various scenes. Farshad’ s torch led them on, heading north until they came to a place where the passage widened into a badly drawn room made more confusing with Roll20 not being properly understood.

Unseen by them, a rope was across the east-west access, and, as they stepped into the space, announced by their flickering light, the rope was pulled west, hauling a barricade clean across the room, from the space revealed staggered five desiccated copses in antique armour carrying bronze weapons.

On the opposite side of the room were more Ulush Kauva the mountain people, behind another barrier, pointing bows out at the group and\/or the corpses.\n\nA combat ensued where the group’s archery was not as effective as the flashing sword and dagger of Farshad, slicing those that should have been dead back to that state. Utana and Dhran did acquit themselves well, doing workman live service. Jose, acting as a bulwark protecting Farshad, Dhran and Utana was not so fortunate, he was meting out damage, but one of the dead, having flanked hum, smashed his jaw with an axe blow.

After the combat was over, and Jose bandaged his jaw shut, they turned to the Ulauva. Their bowstrings slack, Jose offered them the axe they had taken from the body of the dead Ulauva. It seemed for a moment as if violence would erupt again, as the Ulauva argued amongst themselves, with those who wanted to kill the group restrained by those who urged patience.

The talkers won, pointing out that their missing comrade had been injured days ago. They explained that they were here, seeking a source of water and the chance to renew this land and make a home, away from the warring empires. The news that the group were here on behalf of one of those empires, seeking powerful items for one, was not well received.

But there we left it

Irbuk has changed from a down at heels caravan town to a temporary seat of government. Administrators, soldiers, supplies and all their camp followers have transformed the place cavalry and Camelry patrols come and go, companies of soldiers expand out, clearing the area and helping locals secure villages, the next big advance will be to retake the fort at Isimun, reported by Sakah warriors that the group met as having been overrun by Urtak.

Not only must the fort be secured from the Urtak, but the Haraxans don’t want neglect to be used as an excuse by the Sakah to bring the border to the river.\n\nThe advisor to the civil magistrate,Harvan, will accompany the troops retaking the fort, to ensure that if there are any changes to the situation then the magistrate can be informed, but thereafter has a mission of his own to the north, technically in Sakah lands, to a forgotten tomb on a desolate plateau. As this is in foreign lands and the Sakah and the Haraxans are at peace, he cannot take Haraxans soldiery.

The group are therefore the perfect people to protect and assist Harvan. They are a mixed group, with no Haraxans, they have no ties to the magistrate, in effect they are deniable and expendable. They are joined by the footloose son of a Haraxan noble family, Utana, skilled in navigating caravan routes and survinging in the wilderness.

Harvan gives as his reasons to reach this tomb the valuable magic items therein, of value to the magicians of Haraxa as well as Harlan’s own studies. He will pay a daily allowance in silver plus as much gold and non magical treasures the group can carry off. The tomb is of a culture that had invaded the plains and become one of the many empires in the history of this world, worshippers of some ancient and unpleasant gods.

There is a week of preparation before the new garrison sets out, giving Jose time to learn the rudiments of camel handling, Farshad the time to gamble, busk and generally carouse. He breaks even, which is better than might be expected, and gains new friends in both the permanent and temporary inhabitants.

Utana acquires a string of camels from the army quartermaster, perhaps abusing the names of Harvan and Niralha, the magistrate, and a camel driver, but perhaps not the best one.

Gunion firstly spends time in enchantments, with what success she is not saying, but then goes out to seek what knowledge of her destination might be gleaned from the assembled scribes, priests and functionaries gathered around the temporary provincial capital.

In setting forth she is approached by a man in much reduced circumstances, bearing a tablet that he had hoped to sell to Harvan, believing it related to other tablets Harvan had been buying. However Harvan, busy in his duties, is beyond the beggar’s ability to reach, and he seeks to sell it to Gunion. Gunion, seeing his desperation, beats him down to under a third of the asking price, intrigued by the similarity to the cuneiform and language in the archway of the shadow moss caves. He is sure that there is a connection, though centuries apart, the cuneiform is very similar, but the language is more archaic, and hard to decipher.

From this he finds three words that, but the surrounding lines, are names, one repeated four times, Khoram. Another, Alkasus, he had seen before in a fragment of his research that Harvan had shown her, the third, was Gathpaxpes. Rather than seek to have the whole thing translated, she noted the names and sought less savoury scribes among the camp followers, to see if any recognised the names. She spoke to many, of whom half turned her away because she was not paying for services,, others knew nothing, but two described a similar half forgotten legend of the Ilkaihurid, of a master architect, Khoram, who built for many of the nobles of the Ilkaihurid, but who is most associated with Gathpaxpes. Both disappeared, about the same time it is said.

The expedition travels, at the end of the week, to the fort, the group resting there while Harvan checked that all would be well with the commander and that a plan for communicating progress was set up, then the group set forth, Dhran and Jushuur spent time with the camels, learning their ways.\n\nClimbing up to the plateau by an easy route found by Utana, a fire spotted in the distanced proved to be three pilgrims, robbed of supplies by bandits holed up in their holy city. Sharing their fire with our heroes, they were given supplies and a letter of introduction by Harvan in the morning.

Set ting off, Utana found a road, making the going easier, until Farshad spotted a scuttling figure in the distance,, the figure was oblivious to them and they thought it would pass by, for they knew it as a Scorpionman, but they were seen, and the figure approached. They took its raising of shield and axe as a gesture of peace, and some pleasantries, wine and spice dried marmot were exchanged. The scorpion man did give them a warning of an oasis outside the ruined city mound that is their destination.

The rest of the journey was uneventful, save for a giant bat like thing flying over Farshad, seemingly coming from their destination, but that was all.

Eventually, with a good amount of water used, they are now camped at the base of the mound of ruined mud bricks that is the city they are aiming for.

And there we left it.