The Black Tomb (part 2)

The heroes had made it across the treacherous waters and now faced a steep cliff wall. At the top, they knew they were heading into a place of evil. An ancient tomb, known to be haunted and the destination for previous expeditions. None of which had returned. In the light of this, they pressed onwards and upwards. Melisandra cast a spell that let her jump to the top of the cliff, where she secured a rope for the others to climb.

Once at the top, the heroes noticed a thin trail of smoke rising from a campfire in the forest on the other side of the river, not far from where they had slept the night before. Was this Orcs or something else?

The landscape ahead was gray and bleak. Scraggly, windswept trees stood scattered like thorns across these rocky barrens, beyond which lay massive, impassable mountains. Even from far away, they could make out the ruins of a half-crumbled building ahead. But they were not the only ones there. A group of ghouls were roaming the ruins, and they were hungry for a taste of flesh. The fight was brutal, Draven was hit hard at the beginning of the battle, blood gushing from an ugly tear left by one of the ghouls’ long claws, but in spite of a rough start, the heroes eventually overpowered their foe.

Inside the now empty, broken down building, the party found an open pit leading down into the darkness. A metal ladder was built into one side.

Tough as they were, Winston and Rhed went down first, and entered a dusty room holding a worn stone sarcophagus. After inspecting it further, the party decided to leave it be. They did not agree, however, on which of the two doors leading onwards they should open first. Draven wanted to go one way, and Adarra was already headed another. After putting her ear to the door and not hearing anything, she gently pulled it open just enough to get a peek at the other side. She saw another sarcophagus, this one with several scattered bones, leather and metal pieces scattered around it. Furthermore, she noticed signs of corrosion on everything in the room, and concluded that the stone coffin was likely trapped with some kind of acid.

Eremia came up with the idea of shooting an arrow at the sarcophagus to see if they could set off the trap from afar. When an arrow didn’t do the trick, Rhed brought in a javelin. He delivered a nice throw, yet still nothing happened. The javelin was retrieved using another one of Melisandra’s spells, so no one would have to enter the room. The heroes were working well together, even in the darkness of The Black Tomb.

The heroes decided to leave the supposedly trapped sarcophagus alone and instead try the second door. What they found on the other side would shake them to the core…