Rappan Athuk: Black Skeleton

Session played on 2/4

Nick the Pike, Fighter 6
Lady Eiric, Magic User
Karl, Dwarf
Darryl, Cleric (NPC)
Biffin, Fighter (NPC)

Exploring the outside of the big mausoleum failed to turn up any other ways into the structure, but a selection of old ruined stoneworking tools was found on the roof.

Lady Eiric used her magic to unlock the doors, and Nick pushed them open. Within was a large open space, with a stone coffin resting in the center back of it. Upon the coffin were a pair of brass candelabras, each with a single lit candle. Karl and Nick carefully entered. Karl, using his 10’ pole knocked the candelabras from the coffin, and the candles stayed lit. Everburning flames… Nick pocketed one, Karl the other. Karl also bagged the candelabras.

Then Karl triggered… something. Nick, standing back at the doors was knocked out of the mausoleum, while Karl was trapped inside. A cackling laugh echoed from within the coffin, and Karl started screaming and banging on the doors. Lady Eiric quickly magiced the doors unlocked, but shoving them open was difficult, but accomplished. Karl squeezed out as the doors slammed shut once more. A loud grinding noise continued for several minutes.

Once everything had quieted down again, Lady Eiric again unlocked the doors, and Nick and Karl tried to go around whatever trap they’d triggered but hugging the walls, and trying to investigate the coffin from the rear of the room. That failed. Again, the doors slammed shut, breaking in half a steel pick head that had been wedged between the doors. Trying to shove the coffin off the metal plate upon which it rested was semi-successful, as the coffin did move. Unfortunately the black skeleton within didn’t take too kindly to that, and clawed at both Nick and Karl. Nick took the worst of it, but the skeleton was destroyed. At this point the pair noticed that the floor was now much closer to the ceiling, and blocking the door.

Karl was still screaming.

Then the banging began. First on the ceiling, then a pause, then on the doors. Far louder than anything that Biffin, Darryl, or Lady Eiric could accomplish, but all apparently ineffective at breaking into the structure.

With time and space running out, they finish pushing the stone coffin off the metal plate, and get onto it themselves. There was a cut out area in the ceiling directly above the plate deep enough to keep the pair of them from getting crushed. As the stone coffin was shattered, Karl and Nick curled up and prayed.

Karl continued to scream.
And then, with the push of extreme air pressure Karl and Nick were shoved, as the stone coffin reformed on the plate. The room had returned instantly to its previous condition.

The banging continued. Karl’s screaming… stopped.

With a bit of trepidation, they pushed the coffin off the plate again, and used a hidden handle to lift the plate. A 30’ drop was before them. And from the pit, the smell of moldering bodies. Figuring that there’s probably another way out through the tunnels, and not wanting to face whatever was banging on the doors, they tied a rope to the metal plate’s hinge structure and went down into the darkness.

At the bottom of the drop, the roughly carved tunnel stretched 100’ to the east. Down the tunnel they went, all the way to a 10’ deep pit in the floor. Pausing to check the pit, Karl discovers a metal door hidden under some loose dirt. Opening the door revealed another room, rough cut, with a low 4’ high ceiling. The air was fresher down that way, so down Nick and Karl went. In the room were several small piles of bones, all clearly intentionally stacked. Not messing with them, they took the open doorway out into another tunnel, and kept straight, avoiding the branches, and following the fresher air.

Emerging from the tunnel they came into a medium sized room with a normal height roof. The worked stone of this room was far nicer than the rough cut stone of the previous passages. Following the doorway. A short ways beyond that was what appeared to be a viewing room, with a coffin laid out. Very dusty, with a set of stairs going down… rather than go deeper, they decided to backtrack and return to the tunnel and see where that would get them.

Once in the tunnel, they heard Lady Eiric yelling for them. Continuing to backtrack they returned to the rope, the mausoleum, and found the doors open, and the party waiting for them. Lady Eiric explained that she’d summoned an earth elemental to try to break in, but it didn’t work, while Darryl found the key in the base of the dwarf statue! Karl and Nick told of what happened to them. Deciding they’d done (taken) enough damage, they returned to the keep and Lady Eiric’s estate to recover.

Gains: Small Silver Necklace
Kills: Black Skeleton
Losses: