SPHINX  SAFARI

Fun Run on May 9, 2009;  John Webster DM

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While we're standing around, there's this sudden, strange, unworldly -- perhaps even otherworldly -- sorta- -vibration / -shiver through everyone and everything.  Eevra and Taizu each give a kinda nervous start, thereby shaking off a thin coating of rock dust: and the two of them are back with us.  Taizu is completely well, but Eevra needs some healing, which is provided.

So, we've got the second staff, and now need to head back to the statue chamber and follow the inscribed directions.  Darred assertains that the central upwards shaft is a dead end: no way to get out through it.  That means we need to go back through the mazes.  The only fully known (walked -- or sometimes run) path between here and the entryway has at least one Fear Symbol.  Trying to avoid that, we speculate that a longer walk down the acid fumes filled corridor _might_ avoid other traps.  But just in case we do cross any Fear Symbols, we decide to rope ourselves together into two groups of four (counting Shea, of course).  The hope being that if only one member of tied-together group fails, their panicked run will be aborted by the other three.  

This works well until the first group is in the acid fume corridor, and suddenly Taizu, second in line, finds that the rope between him and Tarva (leading) has gone slack.  Intelligently concluding that this indicates another Teleport trap, that group backs out of the acid fumes and stops the other group from going in.  Since avoiding that Teleport trap would be impossible, they decide to go over the known Fear Symbol instead.  Taizu and Shea both fail. Rowan and Glendon have a fairly easy time grapeling Taizu and tying him up.  Darred and Eevra have to be somewhat more brutal and subdue Shea.  Shea is too heavy to carry, but Eevra can drag her; while Rowan and Glendon frogmarch Taizu between them.  

They get back to the bladed corridor trap.  Not knowing how to disarm it, or even how to avoid the trigger, they all just run through: accepting that taking damage is the price to get out.  Meanwhile, Tarva had been teleported to a spot which she recognizes - thanks to the chalk marks Darred had made earlier.  Even though she knows that one direction will let her rejoin where she left the group, she decides to (cautiously) proceed in the other direction - in hopes that it will lead more quickly to the entrance.   And indeed she joins up with the group again just after they pass through the bladed corridor trap.  Much healing ensues.

Side notes on artifacts:
"flying saddle" is actually a 4' wide triangular shaped flying carpet, with stirrups to help keep the rider in place.  
"helm" detects magic, protects versus gaze attacks, and provides a +4 bonus versus enchantment

Back in the statue chamber, Darred checks out the two sarcophagi, looking for any triggers or openings.  Tarva asks Taizu and Rowan to check the walls of the room for secret doors.  Nobody finds anything.  Tarva comments that she would like to find the chamber where the Golden Gynosphinx -- the one the murals depict as helping Khubsheth defeat Queen Ahgharat; and later as being sealed up in this tomb -- is waiting, and enlisting her as an ally for our final encounter with the Queen.  Rowan cautions that Tarva may be way over-optimistic: that if the Golden Gynosphinx has been entombed here for several millenia, then she's not likely to still be sane.

Everyone positions themselves, then Taizu and Eylissandra carefully and simultaneously lay the two staffs into the sitting statue's two upturned hands.  Nothing happens.  Tarva activates her shield's Blinding property, aiming it at the Queen statue's head.  Again nothing happens.  Eylissandra casts Light on the statue's head.  Beams of light spring out from the crown, strike and bounce off the two staffs, and hit several gems along the sarcophagi.  Both of their lids raise.  Nothing is inside them.  On the underside of the lid of the West (gynosphinx) sarcophagus, there is writing in Sphinx.  Tarva tries really hard and manages to read the entire enscription:

To defeat Queen Angharat, your enemy
You must first defeat your greatest advisary

Taizu comments that in all the Bardic tales and legends, going back forever, "your greatest advisary" was always "yourself".

Tarva asks for some experiments.  Eylissandra and Taizu remove the staffs from the statue's hands.  Both lids slam down.  Putting the staffs back causes them both to raise again.  The same effects ensue when removing and replacing just one staff.  Tarva asks for a volunteer: she and Darred are going to get into the sarcophagi, let the others remove a staff, let the lids close, wait three rounds, then put the staff back.  And then Darred and Tarva could announce if they saw anything from inside.

Darred and Tarva simultaneously (or almost) get into the two sarcophagi, the lids to both immediately close -- without anyone touching the staffs. After a round, the East lid rises again, to show an empty sarcophagus: no Darred.  Three rounds later one staff is removed and Tarva is happy to get out of the very close space she'd been in.  No Darred means some sort of teleport -- which presumably we're all going to need to go through.  But it seems that only one of the two sarcophagi actually does that.  Eylissandra offers to go next, and gets into the East.  Nothing happens.  ?Perhaps someone has to be in the West, in order for the East to work?  [If so, that's going to make it awkward for the last person.]  Tarva gets back into West.  Both lids close.  A round later the East lid raises, with no Eylissandra inside; and playing with the staff is used to open the West.  While Tarva stays in place, Shea hops into East.  Both lids close.  One round later the West lid raises to show that Tarva is gone.  Staffs are used to raise East, and let Shea out.  

The people who are still there debate about what to do.  If both sarcophagi have to have bodies in them, before they'll close and transport one person, then not only will the last person not be able to leave this room, they'll also be trapped in a very small, dark, closed, airless space with no way to even escape into the larger room.  That seems very bad.  They decide to wait and hope that the others will somehow get back to here.  Ten minutes go by.

Meanwhile, Darred has appeared on a 3' tall platform, on a dais reached by four curving wall-to-wall steps, at one end of a 100' long, 60' wide room.  There are two rows of columns between the dais and the far wall, which has a 20' high by 20' wide pair of stone doors, with writing on them.  Darred is initially facing a 4' diameter crystal sphere, which is (from the viewpoint of the stone doors) behind the platform.  One round later an anti-Darred steps out of the crystal and proceeds to try to kill Darred.   Not being prepared for this, it takes Darred a bit of time to recover -- and by then Anti-Darred has cast Feeblemind on Real-Darred.  Real-Darred fails to save against this, and now has an Intelligence of 1.  As such Real-Darred cannot speak or understand speech, let alone cast spells, use wands, or even come up with clever ways to fight his advisary.  Just as a precaution, Anti-Darred casts Improved Invisibility on himself, before proceeding with his plan to kill Real-Darred.  

Before that can be completed, Eylissandra appears, shortly followed by an Anti-Eylissandra.  Neither of the druids have much left in the way of combative spells; which is just as well as Real-Eylissandra has figured out that the visible Darred is the real one, and that there's an invisible one around trying to kill him.  Accordingly most of her time is being spent on keeping Real-Darred from becoming completely dead (as opposed to the -x HP knocked down condition he's being reduced to almost every round).

Several rounds later Tarva appears, sees the two Eylissandras and the one Darred.  Not knowing who is whom, she tries to interrupt one melee (which it will later turn out was between Real-Darred and Anti-Elyissandra), also casting Detect Evil to try and figure out who is whom -- but nobody is Evil, so that doesn't help.   Anti-Tarva appears, but pauses to first buff herself up with Aid (as Tarva herself has been given to doing before encounters).   Before Anti-Tarva can do anything else, Real-Tarva sings a Fascination at her, which will give Real-Tarva five rounds to study the situation before having to be concerned again about self-survival.  

An unseen voice mutters, and people can see a streak of fire from an empty point in the side wall, and then a Fireball bursts and affects the Real-Darred and Anti-Eylissandra.  Real-Elyissandra springs in, uses a wand to heal Real-Darred back above 0 HP, and springs away again.  That's enough of a clue for Real-Tarva to figure out which character is which.  Real-Tarva moves closer to the stone doors and reads the runes (in Sphinx), which say:

Behind lies the Queen's Tomb
Enter and visit Evil's Womb

While Real-Eylissandra avoids the attacks from Anti-Eylissandra --including creating a Dinosaur Stampede -- and simultaneously keeps Real-Darred from finally succumbing to Anti-Darred's attacks, Real-Tarva moves back towards the dais, platform, and sphere, carefully sheathing HR and not making any threatening or aggressive motions, while she keeps the Fascination on Anti-Tarva going.  When the time on that is about to run out, Real-Tarva has the sphere between her and Anti-Tarva and can't be seen: upon which Real-Tarva draws HR and strikes the crystal sphere; shattering it.  Immediately all three Anti-characters disappear.

And immediately after that, Fireballs begin to stream out from a spot halfway up the wall over the stone doors.  Tarva tries to cast Glitterdust on the supposedly invisible creature there, but only highlights the wall itself.  Avoiding the still present dinosaurs, Tarva moves to the wall and starts climbing it.  Darred, luckily also avoiding the dinosaurs, goes to the stone doors and tries to open them.   Discovering that they're locked, he next tries to pick the lock, but with very little success.  Eylissandra changes into an eagle and flies along the wall.  When Tarva is about 30' up, the head of a Golden Gynosphinx pokes through the wall and breathes on her, also knocking her down to the floor.   With that as a hint, Eylissandra disbelieves in the wall, and instead sees that it is illusionary and that there is an alcove extending above the (real) stone door.  In the alcove is a Golden Gynosphinx with draconic hindquarters.  Tarva yells up to the Gynosphinx, in Draconic: "As you helped Khubsheth to defeat and capture Queen Angharat, please now help us to destroy her and her evil."  Darred, un-self-aware that he is spouting gibberish, does not understand why nobody is responding to his reasonable requests for help with these uncooperative doors.  Eylissandra lands and turns back to a half-elf.  Seeing how frustrated Darred appears, Eylissandra uses her Stone Shape spell to disengage the hinges from the wall for the stone door on the left.  Tarva  climbs again and reaches the alcove; she repeats her earlier statement in Common.   

The Golden Gynosphinx bullrushes Trava, knocking her back out of the alcove again, and then flies out into the room.  Eylissandra and Tarva are not very effective at fighting it (and Darred is singularly unhelpful).

Meanwhile, back in the other room, the ten minutes have passed.  Taizu and Eevra help the others to proceed through the sarcophagi.  When it is only the two of them left, they try various workarounds: putting an inanimate object into one sarcophagus (doesn't work).  Summoning a monster and having it get in one sarcophagus (also doesn't work).  Finally, with a sense of resignation and a lot of hope, they both get into the sarcophagi themselves.  The lids close.  One round later one lid opens to show that Eevra has been transported.  At the end of a second round the other lid also opens, to show that Taizu is also gone.  

[With all the adventurers gone, one might ask just whom is it that these sarcophaci are being shown to, as being empty.  Jumping ahead, the answer is that Queen Angharat possesses Clairaudience and Clairvoyance, as inate abilities, and has been keeping a very close watch on all the adventurers, ever since they entered the tomb.]

The other members of the party appear in the room, one by one; are appraised of the situation, and move to help with the fight against the Golden Gynosphinx.  Glendon notices that Tarva is looking very hurt and moves to her to give her some healing.  Eevra flies up to fight the sphinx in the air.  After a couple of blows she powerknocks him off of the carpet and he falls to the floor.  Luckily he is still in command of the carpet and can verbally command it to come down to him.  Rowan peppers the sphinx with arrows, and other people also add their damages.  Finally she falters, falls, and lies dying.  Just before she expires, the light of madness leaves her eyes, and she begs of those nearest to finish the deed we've started: and destroy the Evil Sphinx Queen and her Crown.  

Rowan doesn't quite tell Tarva, "told you so"; but Tarva does acknowledge to Rowan that Rowan's prediction was right.

Tarva wants the group to spend the night here, and recover HP and spells, before venturing any further.  We check the alcove and find nothing, so that seems a better place to spend the "night".  Searching the Golden Gynosphinx's body, we find:

Necklace with six beads:                 moderate Evocation
Ring:                                               moderate protection
Stone, suspended from her chest:    low transmutation

From what we saw, we conclude that the Necklace's beads are fireball seeds.  Eevra will wear it, so as to have some magic he can wield further away than the tip of his scythe.  The other two items go into a bag for later identification.

We do a lot of healing on Darred, Rowan, Eevra, and Tarva.  Nobody has any good ideas for how to heal Darred's feeblemindedness.  We're going to bring him with us, of course; but we worry that he's going to be most useful as catapult fodder until we can get him back to a temple.

The next morning we get all prepared.  Taizu casts Improved Invisibility on Rowan, Blur on Glendon, and Displacement on Eevra and himself.  Tarva casts Aid on everyone, and Blur on herself.  We position ourselves such that Eevra is ready to charge through, Rowan is ready to shoot, and Tarva casts Detect Evil in advance.  We open the (previously de-hinged) door, and discover a Symbol of Death.  Darred succombs and dies.  Ouch.  There is nothing we can do for him here.  Eylissandra collects a small body part.  Pragmatically, we borrow some of Darred's more important possessions, to use in the upcoming fight:
Shatter Wand -- Tarva
Cloak of Bat -- Taizu
Wand of  ?Illusion? -- Taizu
Wand of Fireballs -- Eylissandra
Wand of Hypnotic Pattern -- Glendon
Amulet of Natural Armor +3 -- Eevra (replacing his personal +1 one)

Taizu uses his spell of  Detect Secret Doors, and finds that there is one, centered behind the platform at the other end of the room.  Tarva looks at the stone door enscription again, then smacks her head: "Behind", which she'd taken to mean "beyond these doors", clearly is intended as a double-meaning with the 'real' interpretation being behind the reader.  

Taizu says that the secret door is unlocked, but that it is definately set up to activate a trap when opened -- subtly different from the door being itself trapped.   Suspecting another Symbol, and hoping that the artifact Helmet will give her some additional protection, Tarva suggests that she open the door.  Everyone else gathers just over 60' away -- so that if it is a Symbol, they won't be affected with Tarva -- and she opens the door.  To find a Symbol of Fear on the floor.  Tarva saves against its effect; which means that it can't reset for as long as she stays within 60'.   Everyone else comes past her, through the door, and into a 60' corridor.  Tarva reminds everyone that, if the opportunity presents itself, she will try to Fascinate the Evil Queen.  Rowan, in true BFF style, cautions Tarva about hubris: to not think that Tarva can charm anyone and everyone with her singing.  After Rowan's being right about the Golden Gynosphinx, Tarva takes this advice to heart.

Once again we line up with archers at the ready, then Taizu and Eylissandra open the double doors.  Into a large, circular, dark room.  Tarva asks Eylissandra to cast Light onto one of Rowan's arrows, and for Rowan to shoot it across the room.  In flight we see that the roof is flat and about 40' up,; there are columns on both sides of the arrow's path, and at the far end is a platform with a shrouds-wrapped sphinx-shaped body on top of it, plus lots of treasure around it.  With a reminder to everyone of the Statue Chamber engraved writing, warning against taking treasure, Tarva runs across the floor to the front of the platform.  Triggering in the process three different unseen Symbols as she crosses over them: Sleep (affecting none of us); Death (this time everyone saves); and Stunning (everyone saves).

Rowan, Glendon, Eylissandra and Shea, Eevar, and Taizu all enter the room and spread apart.  Glendon triggers another Symbol, but everyone saves.  Suddenly darker shadows come through the floor and ceiling, touch some of the group, and disappear through the ceiling or floor, in the same direction they'd started from.  Those touched feel their Strength ebbing out of them.  Tarva recognizes them as being Shadows, and in particular Sphinx-shaped Greater Shadows: their touch drains Strength; they're incoporeal, thus non-magical weapons cannot hurt them at all, and ordinary magic weapons and spells have only a 50% chance of actually connecting with them and doing damage.  Rowan remembers that the artifact flaming sword she is holding has the Ghost Touch ability, and thus can always hit incoporeal beings.

Some of us hear a mumbling from the ceiling, and suddenly Rowan is visible.  [*]  Glendon casts a Glitterdust spell at where he heard the voice, but only outlines a section of the ceiling.  Taizu, who unknowningly was very close to Rowan, moves to her and casts Displacement on her.  

[*] Evil Sphinx Queen Angharat possesses Clairaudience and Clairvoyance as inate abilities.  She can also See Invisible.  So she was aware that the group's preparations had included Taizu's casting Improved Invisibility on Rowan, and had been able to follow where Rowan was, despite her being invisible.  Then, to help her Greater Shadows soften up her enemies better, she cast Dispel Magic at the Improved Invisibility on Rowan.

All of us reserve for the Shadows to appear again, so as to have some sort of chance to hit at them.  Tarva and Eevra jump up on the platform with the mummified sphinx body.  The Shadows do come back, and some of us manage to hit some of them.  Rowan in particular is quite effective; destroying the one that came at her (and thereafter it was noticable that all the other Shadows stayed away from her).  Two shadows attack Eevra and Tarva on the platform; Eevra kills his, but Tarva is vastly weakened by hers.  Eylissandra casts Flame Strike on Tarva's, incidentally setting the mummy's shrouds on fire.  Something about that doesn't look right to Tarva, and that doubt causes the illusion to be stripped away: the mummy and all the treasure disappear, leaving only a bare platform.  Tarva shouts this information to everyone else; but most are too busy to pay attention.  Eevra, right beside her, is convinced that she's been smoking something.  To prove her point, Tarva walks across the platform - seemingly through the mummified body.  Now Eevra gets it, and shouts out that "she's right."

The last of the Greater Shadows are killed off, but before we can worry about how we're going to recover from these Strength drains, we hear more muttering from the ceiling.  Something small and vague-shaped (to most of us) -- a Phantasmal Killer -- flies out of the ceiling at Rowan.  Whatever it looks like to Rowan, it is straight out of her personal nightmares.  She doesn't save to disbelieve in it, and it flies into her body.  Rowan does make her Fortitude save, and thus doesn't die from Fear, but does still take 3d6 damage.

Tarva, remembering another seemingly solid surface through which spells were cast, and also aglow from a seemingly unsuccessful Glitterdust spell, only one room away from here, wonders if this ceiling is perhaps not as real as it looks.  She fires an arrow through the middle of the Glitterdust glow -- and her arrow disappears through the ceiling.  This breaks the illusion for her, and she warns everyone else that the ceiling is an illusion, and that just above it is the hovering Evil Queen Sphinx.  The first 40' of the room, counting from the door we came in through, has a ledge across it at 40' up, but Angharat, in order to cast her spells at Rowan, is over the center of the room.  She is wearing a black crown with gems in it; and a neck torque.

Eevra decides that since Tarva was right about the mummy being an illusion, she's probably right again, so he easily also disbelieves in the ceiling, sees Angharat, and takes his carpet up to fight her.  Only suddenly there are five of her, as she casts Mirror Image on herself.  Then, deciding that Rowan is her biggest worry, she dives at Rowan.  Angharat's hovering so close to the floor is raising huge clouds of dust, making it impossible to see anything from more than a few feet away.  Eevra, Eylissandra, Tarva, and Glendon converge on the spot anyway -- hoping to get close enough to see and do some damage.  Except for Glendon, who is used to Blind Fighting, and goes into the dust cloud with his other senses extended and ready.  Tarva, unfortunately, crosses over another Symbol of Fear as she rushes in.  Everyone except Taizu saves, but Taizu runs in panic away from the Symbol.  Once out of the dust cloud he can see the corridor we came down and runs through it, eventually ending up at the far end of the neighboring chamber.

Angharat casts Charm on Rowan, who does not save; and Angharat tells her, in Common, to "Protect me from your friends."   She then flies away, with her much diminished in number (because of the people who have "successfully" hit them) Mirror Images.  Tarva, having heard what Angharat said to Rowan, moves close enough for Rowan to see her, and starts to sing: Fascinating Rowan so she won't attack the rest of us.  At the other end of the chamber, Eevra, Eylissandra, and Glendon are in melee with the Queen, mostly reducing the number of Images.  As the dust cloud around Rowan settles, and the new one rises, Tarva moves further away from Rowan, and then tries shooting arrows into the new dust cloud (almost all of them miss).

Despite her strong Damage Reduction and Fast Healing abilities, the Queen is actually being affected by some of the strikes that hit her, so she produces a new set of Mirror Images.  Tarva's Fascination runs out - but it has lasted long enough to give Rowan a chance to fight against the Charm spell, and this time she makes her save.  She charges Angharat, causing enough damage to cause the Queen to abandon her dust cloud and rise up to about 30'.  Tarva sings Inspire Greatness at Eevra as he takes his carpet up again.  Even with no cloud in the way, Tarva only has a very small chance of shooting the Queen or one of her images, but she still tries.  Eylissandra casts Stone Shaping, Greater, and creates a ramp -- 30' high, 40' long, 1' wide -- that raises her up to where Angharat is.  Glendon runs to the bottom of the ramp and up to its top, then jumps onto the back of the sphinx!

Worried, Tarva calls out to Eevra to come down to her and get some healing.  She then sings Inspire Greatness at Rowan.  Angharat moves away from Eylissandra's ramp, and decides to try again to take Rowan out, swooping for a pounce attack with a bite and all four paws.  Glendon manages to stay on the Queen's back while she does this.  Eylissandra runs down her ramp and moves to attack the Queen.  And Eevra flies to Tarva so she can Lay On Hands to give him more hit points.

Eevra flies to where Rowan is (temporarily) single-handedly fighting the Queen.  Angharat makes a Disarm Attempt and Eevra is chagrined to find that his scythe is now down on the floor.  As the Queen returns her attention to Rowan, Eevra pulls off one of the Necklace beads and throws it, hurting himself and the Queen with a ten-die Fireball, and also destroying her last Mirror Image.  Tarva moves to behind Rowan, accepting a swipe from Queen Angharat in passing, and uses Lay On Hands to give Rowan more hit points also.

With a Disarm Attempt, Angharat knocks the relic flaming longsword out of Rowan's hand.  Rowan draws her own longsword and continues to attack.  The next round Tarva darts over to where the relic flaming longsword has fallen, and moves in to attack with it also.  Annoyed, and beginning to feel somewhat hurt, the Queen once again takes to the air.  Glendon falls off.  Eevra follows the Queen, and Rowan switches back to her bow and pumps several criticals into the sphinx.  

Angharat's body falls to the floor.  Immediately tremors shake the chamber.  The center of the room opens into a vortex of sand, extending further down, 20' across, and growing.  The (real, much higher) ceiling begins to shake apart and drop blocks on us.  The Queen's crown falls off of her head and performs the obligatory death rattle spinning on the floor.  Several people notice that the corridor doesn't seem to be experiencing any of the destructive effects we're seeing here, shout warnings to the rest of us, and dash for it.  Tarva stops to pick up the crown  (she has, after all been Geased to destroy not only the Queen, but also her crown).  Rowan, with the sphinx right in front of her, manages to rip off the torque and carry it off also.  Glendon announces that he is going to retrieve Darred's body.  Tarva shouts ahead to ask Eevra to help get Taizu subdued and escorted to wherever we find that might be safe.  By the time we get out, the sand vortex has grown to 60' across, and we're all taking damage from the falling stones.

However, the corridor remains stable and safe, as does the neighboring chamber.  We wait out the destruction next door.  When it is all finished, there is a deep rift extending down from the surface to where we are.  In later years (we somehow know) it will become a tourist attraction and people will come from all over to look at what will be called Angharat's Last Breath.  More immediately, we are able to climb up the roughly 1,000 feet to the surface, and make our way back to civilization.