SPHINX SAFARI
Fun Run on February 28, 2009; John Webster DM
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A brief recap of what we know about Sphinxes:
Androsphinx: winged lions with male humanoid faces --
Chaotic Good -- Male -- move 50'; fly 80' -- casts spells --
Roars for fear and paralize
Chriosphinx: winged lions with heads of great rams --
Neutral --Male -- move 40'; fly 60'
Gynosphinx: winged lions with female humanoid faces -- ?
-- Female -- move 30'; fly ? -- casts spells -- riddles
Hieracosphinx: winged lions with heads of great falcon or
hawk -- Chaotic Evil -- Male -- move 30'; fly 90'
(of course, there may be - certainly is - more than this)
We leave the room with the ten sphinxes that attacked us and after a
while find ourselves at a door into the Pyramid Room. The
door we are coming in through is at the West corner. The
room itself is square, internally lit, with a stone sphinx (one of each
type) "guarding" a door in each of the four walls (which are 45°
off grid: NorthWest, NorthEast, SouthEast, and SouthWest). There
is a mural on each wall, surrounding the door; and writing on each door.
Taizu examines the central pyramid in the room, and notes that there is
a triangular inset, about 1" deep and 1' on a side, near the top of
each face of the pyramid.
Tarva finds that she can make some sense of the writings on the
doors. It's difficult, but after a lot of studying -- and once
again the minor objection that she doesn't "know" Sphinx -- she reads
the NE door as saying:
I AM THE SWORD OF THE WISE,
A TOWER WITHOUT STONE
A GROWING LIGHT IN INFINITE DARKNESS,
THE WORM THAT GNAWS THE MIND.
WHAT AM I?
She recites this aloud to the group, and through great teamwork using
word association, we figure out that it is "knowledge", and that door
swings open, revealing a corridor
which is not lit, and extends further than any of us can see into its
dim or darkness. Before venturing down the corridor, Darred asks
Tarva to read the other three doors, after cautioning everyone to not
make any guesses at any answers yet. Tarva tries, but isn't very
successful. For the NW door, she gets:
. . . DARKNESS . . . LIGHT
. . .
. . .
. . . WINGS . . .
. . . FALL . . .
WHAT AM I?
(feeling = between states)
SE:
. . . ALONE . . . CROWD . . .
. . . PEAK . . . MOUNTAIN ...
. . . GUIDES . . .
. . . WEIGHT . . .
WHAT AM I?
(feeling = army general Rowan knew)
SW:
. . . STAND . . . WALLS . . .
. . .
. . . ROOT . . . BEGINNING . . .
. . . END . . .
WHAT AM I?
(feeling = builders)
And then apologizes to everyone for not being able to make more sense
out of the writings.
Hoping that they might offer a clue, Tarva studies the murals on each
wall. The NW mural (to the group's left as they entered the room)
depicts the Sphinx Queen slaying a majestic gold dragon, and then
framing the Naga Council for the deed. The NE mural shows the
Golden Sphinx fleeing and leaving his army in disarray, while
fighting the Nagas. The SE mural denotes the bloody civil
war of the Sphinxes, between Khubsheth and the Sphinx Queen.
Finally, the SW wall is about Khubsheth convincing the Golden
Sphinx to return and lead their armies to victory; but the Sphinx
empire has been destroyed. None of that seems to be related
to the doors' writings.
Abandoning any attempt to solve the other puzzles for the moment, we go
down the one corridor that's open. About 500' later we come to
another door, which opens up to a room with a large black obelisk in
the center, plus an alcove with a smaller obelisk with writing on it.
The smaller obelisk turns out to be a Roper, with an illusion spell,
which it drops when it grabs as many of us as it can. Rowan
peppers it with arrows, and then Eerva finishes it off with a single
mighty blow.
Taizu finds that there is "writing" in bas relief, black on black, on
the real obelisk. With his help, Tarva can also feel it,
decipher it for the group from the Draconic it is written in:
I AM NOT THE LORE CONCEALED IN TEXT
BUT INSTEAD THE QUEEN'S WILL AND MIGHT
I AM NOT THE STONE BUILDING BLOCK
NOR THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN DARK AND LIGHT
Scaling the black obelisk, Taizu finds a golden triangle, about 1' on
each side. Thinking back to the indentations in the pyramid, he
pulls this triangle out. The ceiling falls, damaging but not
crushing everyone who didn't evade it. With some effort,
particularly Eilyssandra casting Stone
Shape and Shape Shift spells,
those not trapped release those that are. It seems that the
ceiling didn't just fall, but was pushed down by some
mechanism.
Strangely, the black obelisk is not affected by the ceiling.
Once everyone is out, we use wands and staffs to heal all back to full
HP, then go back to the Pyramid Room, taking the gold triangle with us.
Tarva studies the doors again, and while she can't make out any
more words, she does get a vague feeling about two of the
inscription as a whole. Once she mentions this, others also
scrutinize the doors, and Rowan also gets a feeling about the other
one. [Feelings are listed with the puzzle fragments, above.]
With the feelings to help, the group concentrates on the SW door,
and through great teamwork using word association, we figure out
that it is "foundation", upon which that door opens. There
is another dark corridor, also about 500' long, ending in another door,
which Taizu says has a lock but it isn't engaged. Opening the
door reveals a sand-covered floor with stone winged lions, two large
and four small. One of the large Leonides has a golden triangle
worked into its chest.
Taizu goes in to see if he can detect and
defeat the trap we all suspect is on the triangle; but the trigger was
actually anyone entering the room. Several grapple Taizu and
others grapple Tarva and Eevra, because they were nearest the dor.
Eevra doesn't get grappled, actually, kills his Leonide, then
charges the big one that's not on Taizu. Rowan is shooting lots
of arrows. Taizu tries to pull the triangle off, but can't.
Glendon rushes in and slips his Headband of Ferocity onto
Taizu. Taizu takes way too much damage, and dies. The doors
-- heavy, 1' thick stone -- suddenly slam shut, leaving Eevra, Glendon,
Tarva, and Taizu's body inside with the Leonides, and Darred,
Eilyssandra, and Rowan outside. The ceiling opens and sand
starts pouring into the room. Eevra and Glendon finish killing
off the Leonides (Tarva remains grappled until rescued). Eevra
pulls the golden triangle off of the dead Leonide. There are
attempts from both sides to yell through the doors and coordinate
attempts to open it. As the sand mounts up, the three inside find
it harder to stay on top of it, and start taking more damage.
Eeilyssandra summons an Earth Elemental, and has it beat on the
doors, which finally break apart and spill sand and companions into the
corridor.
A few minutes later, all the sand - including that in the corridor -
disappears, leaving a bare scattering on the floor of the room.
Tarva and Heart's Reach have a difficult conversation, and then HR
touches Taizu and casts a True
Resurrection, bringing Taizu back to life and in full health.
But other people notice that after this, HR isn't talking any
longer.
Taizu, convinced that the room should contain not only the triangle we
found, but also another verse (such as was on the black obelisk), wants
to go back into the room and search for it. Including checking
for words on the floor under the sand. Shortly after he goes in,
the sand starts falling from the ceiling again, and he wisely gets out
(at least the crushed doors couldn't close again).
Back in the Pyramid Room, and through great teamwork using word
association, we figure out that "balance" is the answer to
the NW riddle. This dark corridor is closer to 750' long, and
once again ends at a door. Inside is a long hall, with curved
ceiling, filled with what looks like water, and with a board leading to
a small ship, equipped with oars and sail. About halfway down the
hall, say 60', an orb is suspended from the ceiling and is acting as a
surrogate "sun" by casting light, but apparently not heat.
Tarva dips her third bow into the water, to try and see how deep it is.
When she pulls it back out, nothing is left of it that was below
the
"water"line. She also casts Detect
Evil, but finds none within range of her spell. Taizu uses
a wand to turn himself into a bird, then flies
to look over the ship. There's a scroll on a podium at one end:
when Taizu starts to read it, the ship starts to move. Taizu
decists from that and returns to us. Tarva wonders out loud if
reading the scroll backwards would cause the ship to move in the
opposite direction. Taizu tries that, but stops immediately when
the ship goes forward again. None of us like the idea of being in
danger of falling into a universal solvent, so we decide to leave this
for now and try the fourth door.
The SE door's riddle is answered through great teamwork using word
association, as being "leadership".
This corridor is also 750' long. The door on the other end opens
onto what looks like a normal, outdoor, large desert. Very hot,
with possibly an oasis, dimly seen through the heat waves, some
distance away.
Illusion? Taizu wads up a sheet of paper and tosses it through
the door: it lies there on the sand. Tarva shoots an arrow,
trying for the maximum distance she can, but with all the heat
distortions, everyone loses sight of it while it's still in flight.
Then Rowan shoots one after setting it flaming, but even that
additional aid to vision isn't enough to follow its full flight.
Tarva casts Mage Hand and retrieves Taizu's paper, hopefully
thereby prooving that the doorway, or portal, isn't one way.
Tarva asks HR (who can now only answer by vague empathy) if this
is a gate, and is told "no".
Well, the oasis seems to be the only reasonable destination here, so we
head off for it. It takes quite a while before we're even sure
that's what the vague shape is, and by the time we get there many
people are suffering from heat exposure. There is a perimeter of
trees from the edge of the oasis to the pond, which is irregularly
shaped but about 40' across on average. At one end is a statue of
a Gynosphinx.
Tarva casts Detect Evil, and finds that there is some in the direction
of the statue. Stupidly, she doesn't concentrate more to find out
additional details, but instead warns the group that the statue is a
danger. When we get closer, we see a golden triangle at the
bottom of the pool. Because the statue is "looking" at its
reflection, Tarva suggests that any disruption of that reflection, as
by someone entering the water and causing ripples, would be the trigger
to set it off. Using Mage Hand and a mirror from Taizu, Tarva
positions the mirror so that the statue is now "seeing" its reflection
in it, instead of in the water. Taizu dives in and starts
swimming towards the triangle. He gets to it, but can't get it
loose from the stone it's attached to, so he comes back to the surface
and climbs out. Unrealized by himself, his being in the water has
dropped his Wisdom to 2. Several people along the shore of the
pond hear a seemingly disembodied voice trying to convince them that
they're incredibly hot and thirsty, and want to drink from the pool.
Suddenly Taizu is hit and knocked down, as his Wisdom is drained
to zero. Other people saw this, however. Eilyssandra sends
Shay to investigate, and Shay tells us that something was there, in
front of
Taizu, and has gone back towards the statue. Darred casts
Glitterdust in an area just in front of Taizu, but doesn't "catch"
anything. Tarva lets the mirror drop and casts Glitterdust also,
closer in to the statue from where Darred cast, and outlines what she
recognizes (and yells out to the rest) as being a Lamia. Several
people converge to fight the Lamia, but before they can it triggers the
statue and swarms begin to emerge from the statue's mouth. The
Lamia is killed, and Eilyssandra stuffs the statue's mouth with
wadded up
clothing, thus preventing any more swarms from emerging. Darred
cast several fireballs and eventually the swarms that had emerged were
destroyed.
At the stopping point, this triangle is still at the bottom of a Wisdom
draining pool; Taizu has zero Wisdom; Tarva is down 56 points and Eevar
is down 101; and Glendon, Taizu, and Eevar have heat-induced stun
damage of 2, 4, and 11, respectively.