Thmei
The woman began to gesture and recite a prayer, and a second column of fire fell on the Scarabs. This time struck only Azzaria, Hutt, and Kaa, who were nearest to the woman. Kaa dodged out of the way and avoided being burned. Sula, who had suffered lesser burns, scrambled to her feet and cast a healing spell on Nyema, who had been burned more seriously. Nyema remained at her side, guarding Sula. Uto had linked his life force to the others as he always did and absorbed some of the injury done to his companions. Then he channeled the healing power of the spirits to give them further relief from their burns. When he had done that he assumed his living monolith form.
Hutt cast a spell to strip away some of the magical enhancements the woman had and succeeded in removing several. Azzaria cast a spell of her own, holding it ready to release as she moved toward the woman. Kaa tried to talk with her, remarking that her pharaoh was dead and gone. The woman exchanged a few sentences with him but then began to cast a spell again. She had only been stalling while she prepared. Kaa shot a line of acid at her. Uto had not been able to enjoy a healing rest, and as a result the harm he was absorbing from the rest of the party left him feeling very weak. He drew out a scroll and cast a spell on himself. At the same time Hutt took out the wand they had taken from the corpse of the "Pharaoh" and used it to grant everyone increased alacrity.
Azzaria attacked the woman, but she observed that the spirits surrounding her seemed to be defending her. Despite this Azzaria was able to touch the woman and deliver the magic she had been holding, draining away some of the woman's vitality. Speeded by Hutt's magic, Azzaria drew her weapons to attack again with fury borne of rage. Kaa took a step away from the woman and blasted her with acid a third time. Parts of her body were melted and horribly scarred. Suddenly she vanished from sight. Uto warned the others that she was spirit walking, which meant she was invisible and insubstantial. After he spoke, he also spirit walked. Hutt cast a spell on himself that allowed him to see anything invisible and spied the woman, directing his comrades toward her location and moving toward her himself. Azzaria repositioned herself to attack the area Hutt indicated and felt her weapon strike something she couldn't see. Kaa once again sent acid at the woman, following Hutt's directions. An instant later, the items the woman had worn or carried appeared out of nowhere and fell to the floor. A blink of an eye afterward the woman reappeared lying motionless on the stone floor.
The woman had been holding a spear, which didn't appear when she died. Uto explained that it had been made of spirit energy and had dissipated when she died and lost her hold over her companion spirits. But she left several enchanted items, including an amulet, a belt, a cloak, and a headband. She also wore a bracelet made of platinum and carried a small quantity of gold coins.
The Scarabs intended to resume their rest after defeating their attacker, but they didn't want to leave her horribly scarred corpse in the room with them so Uto commanded his invisible servant to carry the body into the other room and leave it with the remains of the woman who had been possessed by the Forgotten Pharaoh's ib spirit. While the servant did this, Hutt cast a spell to repair Chisisek's sarcophagus where it had been scorched by the woman's fire spells. Tetisurah was pleased by this.
When the Scarabs had completed their rest, they all realized that the gods had granted them new abilities they hadn't possessed when they lay down. (The characters gained a level.)
Once they were all prepared for the day, Uto used the Pharaoh's mask to speak with Chisisek, asking him where to find the Forgotten Pharaoh's tomb. The long-dead corpse told him many things about how the Pharaoh's flying pyramid operated and confirmed that it was invisible. He also spoke of a place called the Slave Trenches where they could find a way to control the pyramid and cause it to land. Many of the terms the ancient mummy used were unfamiliar to any of the Ruby Scarabs. Chisisek also revealed that he was not pleased with his Pharaoh, for after he had designed the flying pyramid, Hakotep had decided that his architect should accompany him to the afterlife, something for which Chisisek had been unprepared and unwilling.
When Chisisek's spirit had resumed its rest, Uto used the mask to question the woman who had attacked them, whose name was revealed to be Thmei. She was clearly hostile and claimed that the cultists wanted to take control of centers of learning in Sothis, which Hutt declared was a lie. She also claimed that the thriae queen larva had been destroyed during a fight with the maftets, but Uto was unconvinced that she knew this with certainty. She refused to answer when he asked her about the demons in the Sphinx.
Afterward the Scarabs decided to see if they could dispose of the bodies by burning them in the forge where they had met Rubila. They cut off the head of the woman who had proclaimed herself the Pharaoh, intending to try questioning her spirit again at a later time. Then they carried the two womens' bodies downstairs and helped Tetisurah to transport the sarcophagus down the stairs. When they approached the forge they could hear the sounds of weapons clashing and Rubila encouraging the combatants as the girablilu warriors sparred. Rubila had no objection to burning the two human corpses.
Rubila
The Scarabs then helped Tetisurah bear Chisisek's sarcophagus outside the Sphinx where they could say their farewells to her as she departed to carry it back to its tomb. Azzaria expressed regret that she was leaving them and thanked her for accompanying them. Uto gave her two healing potions to take with her. Tetisurah removed a pectoral in the form of a falcon from around her neck and proffered it to Sula. Sula told her, "If the ancestors will it we will meet again." Tetisurah picked up the sarcophagus, flapped her broad wings, and gradually rose into the sky to fly off toward the gorge where the tomb she guarded lay.
Tetisurah
The Scarabs returned to the interior of the Sphinx to meet with the three girtablilu and continue on to combat the demons.They decided that they would go on to investigate the stone walls near the chamber where they had fought the bodaks and elementals a few days earlier. They had previously found one wall that Kaa's engineering knowledge told them wasn't original to the Sphinx structure, and they wanted to know why it was there and what it prevented them from accessing. Kaa announced that he would be able to open the wall, but Sula told him he should wait for her to cast a spell to speak with the stones of the wall so she could ask them what lay beyond. When she questioned the wall it told her it had been placed there by a priest of Sarenrae to hold back the demons, and that beyond it lay a hallway with a secret door. Sula then decided to question the structural wall it intersected with as well. That wall told her nothing useful.
The group moved on to the chamber where the bodaks had attacked them. Hutt created a wall of iron across the upright sarcophagi from which the bodaks had emerged to prevent any more of the creatures from attacking. Sula then questioned one of the stone doors leading out of that room. It told her that beyond it was one of the "blessed and broken" and an "altar of riddles." Further questioning led her to believe that the "blessed and broken" was one of the maftets. She also spoke with a second door opposite that one, which informed her that it led to a series of passages. Finally she laid her hands on the outer wall of the Sphinx and asked it why there was a shadow beyond it that was never burned away by sunlight. The wall responded that there had long ago been a battle between the demon lord and the sun and the demon lord had won.
The group returned to the door beyond which lay the "blessed one" and Sula asked it if this blessed one had wings. When the door confirmed this and mentioned that the blessed one wore red and blue, she was convinced it was a maftet. Kaa opened the door, noting that there was old dried blood on the handle. A short hall led to a room with a rounded wall at one end. In an alcove on one side stood a black altar with horns. They heard a low keening wail coming from an unseen source and heard shuffling sounds. As they moved down the hall the room at the end opened out to reveal a male maftet shuffling back and forth, his hands drawn up oddly. He was dirty and disheveled and appeared injured. Blood stained his chin and throat. He muttered to himself as he paced, reciting a riddle that concluded in "What lies n the mountain grave?" When Kaa asked, "A body?" the maftet screamed "No!" and lunged at him.
Maftet cultist
The maftet unfurled his twisted hands, revealing that he had been chewing on his fingers, and drew his paired scimitars. Azzaria moved in to attack him with the flat of her blade, attempting to subdue him. Hutt granted haste to everyone but himself and the girtablilus, and Kaa joined Azzaria in trying to subdue the maddened maftet. Uto steered the bronze sentinel into the room and reached out to grab the maftet but missed his grasp. He called out for the girtablilu to help, hoping their large scorpion claws could capture the maftet, but they declined. Despite being deranged the maftet was able to land several blows on Azzaria, but she knocked him unconscious and bound him.
Another room lay beyond the altar room where the Scarabs found the insane maftet. In that room were only ruins of what once might have been storage shelves and beds. Azzaria discovered a brass ring in the form of a ram's head lying in the remains of one bed frame, which proved to be magical. The rest of the room was littered with the remnants of snakes, which had all had their heads removed. Closer examination led the Scarabs to realize that the maftet must have been eating snakes to survive.
While they were looking around the room, Kaa's engineering and architectural knowledge made him recognize that the shape of the room was wrong for how it related to other rooms around it. His curiosity led him to uncover a hidden door disguised as part of the stone wall. Sula used the last of her spell to speak with the door and ask it what lay beyond it, to which it replied, "Light and heat and what was lost in the battle between Areshkagal and the Sun." When Kaa opened the door the reason for this confusing response was revealed: the door led out into the space occupied by the Sphinx's ruined left forelimb. Bright sunlight made everyone but Sula squint after having been inside the structure for so long.
The Scarabs took advantage of this unexpected exit to carry the unconscious maftet outside the Sphinx and leave him with the other two maftets they had captured two days earlier, who had been left bound and supplied with food and water.
With the maftet taken care of, the Scarabs re-entered the Sphinx through the secret door. They went next to the door that had told Sula that passageways lay beyond it. When Kaa opened that door they saw a short hallway that turned to the left. They heard nothing, but the dust on the floor indicated that something had moved it relatively recently. After turning at the end of the hall they faced another door. Like all the doors in the Sphinx, this was was unlocked and untrapped. It opened into an octagonal room that Kaa described to the others before they all went in. The room was encircled by four doors, each with a different symbol above it: a shield, a featureless head wearing a pharaoh's crown, an eye, and above the door Kaa had opened, a skull. Based on the location of this octagonal space, Kaa judged that the door below the shield led to the smallest of the four rooms beyond the doors, and the Scarabs decided to open it first.
They knew that something was wrong as soon as the door opened. A quick glimpse showed them that the weapon racks and armor stands inside were covered with strange vines and fallen black feathers. Those feathers belonged to three tall bird-like winged creatures that stood facing one another. The creatures immediately led out a loud screech. Then all three of them multiplied, the small armory filling with ten or more creatures. The army of creatures began to move with dance-like steps.
Vrock
Kaa spoke to the bird-like things in the language of his people. In response he heard a voice speak in his head in the common tongue: "Join the dance and you will see power." Kaa responded by shutting the door. Hutt then informed the group that the creatures were a type of demon called vrocks. Their curious dance would culminate in a massive explosion. They could also release poisonous spores to infect their victims that could only be healed by divine magic, and their screeches could leave the hearer stunned.
For a moment the group considered leaving the vrocks to finish their dance and going on to explore one of the other rooms, but Azzaria became annoyed because she thought they had agreed to eliminate the demons from the structure. The rest of the party concurred with her. Sula cast a spell on all of them to give them greater strength and endurance. Uto warned them that the vrocks, like most demons, were immune to harm from lightning and resistant to other types of energy damage. He also knew that their explosive dance could be halted if one of them was slain or stunned. Kaa opened the door again and Uto steered the bronze sentinel into the armory, calling down a column of flame to strike the vrocks.
The fire seemed to have no effect on the demons. Azzaria flew into a rage and charged inside, her form difficult to see and surrounded by images of herself, slashing at one of the vrocks. A vrock clawed at Hutt as he ran to the far side of the armory and began casting a spell, but he disregarded he wound. Suddenly the vrock nearest to where Hutt stood lost its duplicates and its dancing steps faltered. All three of the vrocks screamed and the other two stopped dancing as well.
Kaa followed Azzaria's example and entered the room to attack a vrock. Sula moved inside the room, positioning herself near the vrock that Kaa had attacked, using the falcon headdress she had just acquired to send a beam of energy at the demon. Unfortunately for her that vrock still had its illusory copies and she couldn't tell which one was the real creature. One image vanished to her ray. Then Uto pointed the sentinel's arm at the vrocks and two of them disappeared! "I"ve banished them back to the Abyss," Uto explained to the admiration of his companions.
Now only one vrock remained, though it still had its images. The Scarabs turned all their attacks on it. Hutt hit it with his staff and the vrock flew back toward the wall behind it, hovering. Both Azzaria and Kaa stuck at it as it pulled away from them. It had moved outside of the field created by Hutt's spell and its images now reappeared. It emitted a deafening screech, but none of the Scarabs were stunned by the noise. Sula released another ray from the falcon crown and an image vanished. Uto moved toward the vrock, but when the sentinel entered the field of Hutt's spell it stopped moving, the magic that propelled it suppressed.
Kaa tried a blast of frigid cold at the vrock, but it had no effect. Azzaria charged at the demon. Hutt moved back so that the sentinel was released from the magic suppression, letting Uto move the bronze figure closer to the vrock. Sula transformed herself into a large earth elemental and joined Uto in approaching within striking range. As they continued their attacks more of the images disappeared until only three were left with the original creature. The vrock was staggered by all the wounds it had suffered and was clearly struggling to remain aloft. As the last image was destroyed and only the real vrock remained, if dropped to the floor and fell in a heap of dusty black feathers.
Characters are now 12th level.
Next: part 36, Against the Demons
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