Ahead the Ruby Scarabs saw a doorway that led into the Sightless Sphinx's undamaged right leg section. Kaa examined the door, finding it unlocked and trap-free, then opened it. The open doorway revealed a massive chamber occupied by a mastaba standing twenty feet high. Steep steps rose up the side of the structure facing the Scarabs, leading up to its flat roof. At each of the corners they could see a green light floating at about Uto's height above the floor. They spied a cultist of the Forgotten Pharaoh on the top, and two girtablilu warriors at the base. As soon as the Scarabs appeared in the door opening, one of the girtablilu rushed forward to attack Kaa.
Azzaria immediately stepped up beside Kaa and began to deal fearsome injuries to the scorpion-man. It took only a moment for her to slay him. The second girtablilu remaned near the rear corner of the mastaba and began to cast a spell, which Hutt warned his comrades meant the girtablilu was probably calling a giant scorpion to aid him. Sula began to call for an ally of her own. Hutt blasted the girtablilu with fire, interrupting his spell. Kaa moved further into the chamber and fired a burst of acid at the girtablilu. Azzaria ran up the side of the mastaba, eschewing the steps, and attacked the cultist there, announcing, "I am ready for you. Put your bow away. It will be useless." A second cultist had also appeared, so Tetisurah flew up to the platform and joined Azzaria in attacking the two cultists.
The girtablilu moved toward Kaa and tried to grab him. Sula's spell completed and an ankylosaurus appeared by the girtablilu, swinging its club-like tail at the scorpion-man, but it missed. The two cultists drew their scimitars to fight with Azzaria and Tetisurah. At the same moment, Kaa pummeled the girtablilu past the boundary of life, and Azzaria sent one of the cultists stumbling backward so hard that he slid partway down the angled side of the mastaba. Sula's ankylosaurus slammed its tail into the cultist, stunning him.
Though she was still fighting the second cultist, Azzaria shouted down to the others, "There's a big opening on the other side!" Hutt ran to the far corner of the mastaba so he could see the opening Azzaria spoke of. He noticed the green light was still there, undamaged by his fiery spell, and he realized that it was the result of a minor spell made permanent. Through the opening he saw a red glow that did not resemble the light from flames.
Kaa punched the cultist who had slipped down the side of the mastaba. Azzaria's opponent called out to the Forgotten Pharaoh and exploded in flames. While the second cultist faced off with Kaa, Hutt moved up to peer through the opening into another room. He saw two statues, one of a golden lioness and the other a lion-headed woman wearing a bloody dress. Strangely the two statues appeared to be metamorphosing into each other, and Hutt realized they were illusory images of statues rather than physical objects. He also saw that shards of stone had been embedded into the walls by some violent force. Something about the images seemed wrong, aside from the way they were merging into each other and exchanging places.
Having finished off the second cultist, Azzaria ran down the side of the mastaba to attack the cultist who was battling with Kaa. The ankylosaurus struck him with its tail again and the cultist called out to the Pharaoh and burst into flames, leaving behind only his mask, armor, and weapons as his comrade had done. The Scarabs quickly gathered up everything the two cultists and the two girtablilu had possessed. In the process of doing this, a secret door was found in the side of the mastaba. When Kaa opened it he revealed a dusty disused room. Inside a basket lay a clasp in the form of a scarab which Uto sensed was magical, two pearls, and a pouch containing a small quantity of gold pieces of recent vintage. Hutt examined the clasp, which could protect the wearer from attacks by golems.
The whole party then moved to the opposite side of the mastaba to look at the statue images Hutt had seen. They realized that the images both represented the goddess Sekhmet in different aspects. Why there was an apparent shrine to Sekhmet within the temple of Areshkagal they couldn't determine. Somehow they felt that the goddess herself had caused the destruction that embedded the stone fragments into the walls, though there was nothing to tell them why. Kaa spoke a greeting to Sekhmet and braved the disturbing aura in the chamber to enter it. When he did this he felt a sensation as if he was being mauled by a lion, but he suffered no injury.
While Azzaria was looking at the images from the entrance, she recalled a prayer to Sekhmet that had been inscribed in the shrine they had found at the oasis fort. She was able to recall it well enough to recite it haltingly. As soon as she finished the sense of wrongness dissipated and they heard a might roar. Everyone joined in, the images disappeared, and all of the Scarabs felt that Sekhmet had granted them her blessing.
Beyond the former shrine to Sekhmet was another hallway, this one shorter but wider than the last one they had traversed. On one side was another unlocked doorway. Kaa opened it and they looked into a simple smaller room that had clearly not been opened or used in many years. Everything in it was coated in dust. Three empty easels faced each other in the center, and along one wall was a table covered in pots and jars. Uto detected that one of the jars was magical or contained a magical substance. But because he was still traveling inside the bronze sentinel it wouldn't be easy for him to go through the door. Though the room was dirty and had no openings to the outside, there was a sound as though a wind was faintly wailing inside it. Uto sensed no indication of a haunt.
At this point the GM declared a save point because he recognized that the next section of the adventure path could have dire results for the party. All of the text in italics occurred after the save point.
Suddenly a figure of a beautiful, ethereal elven woman burst through one of the walls, emitting a deafening screech. The result of the terrible screaming was that Sula's heart stopped and she collapsed. Hutt also fell. Uto, who had been using the Pharoah's mask to monitor the life signs of his companions, realized that both of them were dead and couldn't be revived by any magic he had at his disposal. Kaa rushed into the room to attack the elf for harming his friends. The screaming elf reached out to Kaa and touched him, leaving him cowering in terror and sorely wounded. He could only crouch where he was, muttering, "Don't let her touch you. Don't let her touch you."
Nyema somehow withstood the deadly screech, but she was sickened. She ran to Sula's side, confused by her companion's sudden fall, and began to lick Sula's lifeless face. Hutt's homonculus, Little Anubis, suddenly became very aggressive and drew his tiny spear, menacing anyone who approached Hutt's fallen body. Uto warned Tetisurah what kind of effect the ghostly elf's scream was and warded himself as best he could against her. Tetisurah went to examine Sula, hoping she had some magic that could help her fellow druid.
The elf touched Kaa again, and Uto immediately healed some of the damage before it could threaten his life. When Azzaria approached the doorway, Little Anubis stabbed at her. Azzaria entered the room to try to pull Kaa out as he was still paralyzed with fear. The elf attacked her, badly wounding her. Uto realized that the woman was a kind of undead creature and sent some of his positive healing energy at her as he knew it would harm her. But it did her less harm than he had hoped. Kaa began to feel the terror loosening its grip on him, but at that moment the undead elf touched him again, causing him more injury. Uto reached out with the bronze sentinel's arm to grasp Kaa and pull him out of the room. Kaa began to recover himself and struggled to pull free of the sentinel's hold.
The elf touched Azzaria again and she toppled to the floor, not dead but in critical condition as Uto could observe through the mask's eyes. He called out for Tetisurah to open the hatch so he could exit the sentinel. Kaa was quicker and moved to open the hatch instead, while Tetisurah batted Little Anubis away from the door with her paw to allow Uto to pass without being attacked. Uto healed Azzaria enough that she was no longer on the verge of death and moved to face the ghostly woman. Kaa straddled Hutt's body and fired three rays of fire at the woman, but all of them failed to connect with her insubstantial body. Uto assumed his living monolith form, grabbed Azzaria, and slid her toward the door.
Now conscious, Azzaria called out to Tetisurah to ask her for healing. The elf woman went for Azzaria again, rendering her even closer to death than before. Tetisurah grabbed her and pulled her into the hall. Uto summoned an ancestor spirit to block the doorway and squeezed out of the room. Little Anubis attacked the elf now, but his spear seemed to do her no harm. The ghostly woman then passed through the wall. Uto attacked her as she passed him to assault Kaa, then shoved the now immobile sentinel back to get it out of the way. As he channeled more positive energy to hurt the elf, Little Anubis slammed the door shut, leaving only himself in the artists' workroom. The woman attacked Kaa again, and Tetisurah flew awkwardly to his side to slap the insubstantial elf with her paw. But this was enough, and the ghostly elf was destroyed.
At this point we had two dead characters, one character near death, and a fourth character severely wounded. The homonculus had gone insane, and the party had no access to resurrection magic or Hutt's teleportation spell to get them to Sothis for aid. With the GM's agreement, it was decided that next session the party members would bypass the artists' workroom as an unnecessary interruption of their mission.
Next: part 34, The Forgotten Pharaoh
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