Doctors, Dungeons, and Dead People

A Stranger in the Desert

As the party pressed forward through the Mushtarak Desert, Ra'zon attempted to make small talk with the Graveguard soldiers accompanying them but found them to be either mute or simply silent. Khairiya Meral mentioned to him that she had similar experiences with them, and despite having worked alongside the Graveguard for years she knew very little about them as their methods and training were closely-guarded secrets.
Around midday, one of the Graveguard scouting ahead came galloping back and gestured for the party to bunker down. Realizing this meant a potential threat, Khairiya told the party to stop their wagon and gather close around it. The Graveguard cast some form of camouflage spell over the party and the wagon as a single figure crested the top of a sand dune on the horizon. Khairiya warned the party that this could be an alim-hari, and that even one was dangerous. Ra'zon offered to use Bobo to scout out the figure and discovered it to be a half-elven man in a dirty suit. Upon learning this information, the Graveguard lowered the spell but remained on high alert as Grom stepped forward to address the figure.
The man introduced himself as Oliver de Mowbray, an archaeologist from Lowerstone working with the Eloqui Order. He had been sent here to excavate a small ruined temple from the lost civilization of Khamut, but the mercenaries he hired as protection had triggered a trap that got them all killed. He was on his way back to Karka to hopefully hired more help, and asked the party if their services were for sale. As the temple was only a few hundred yards off-course it was decided that Elria and Jameson would continue on towards El-Azahdron alongside the Graveguard while Grom, Ari, Ra'zon, and Khairiya would accompany de Mowbray.

The Lost Temple

De Mowbray led the party to a half-buried temple made of some sort of black stone. Khairiya pointed out that these ruins were not an uncommon sight in the region, as the civilization of Khamut once held dominion over much of the area. However, in the thousands of years since their collapse most of their sites had been reclaimed by the sands. De Mowbray told the party that they were looking for one specific item; an item similar in shape to an armillary sphere that was believed to contain writings detailing religious practices. The Eloqui Order had previously excavated another temple and found a similar object, but was unable to translate the writings. It was hoped that in finding another, they could compare the writing and begin to recreate the Khamut language.
Inside the temple, the party found three statues depicting some sort of hybrid between serpent and human. The figures were hybridized in different ways; one appeared to be a human body with a snake's head, another a large snake with a humanoid torso and arms, and the third a human with serpents for arms. Around each of their necks was a pendant bearing a symbol of a coiled cobra.
A hallway led out of this room, containing several pit traps that the party was able to navigate safely. The hallway led into another room with two doorways. The north doorway led into a mostly-collapsed room containing rows and rows of large bronze rings, each of which containing markings. De Mowbray identified these as Khamut's version of books and it was realized that this room had once been a library. The majority of the rings were broken, but de Mowbray took the few that remained. Among the wreckage, Ari discovered a whip that she kept.
The other door was solid stone, and two bodies lay on the ground before it. De Mowbray identified these as the mercenaries he hired, and said that when they attempted to activate the door poison darts had shot out and killed them. Grom cast tiny hut to protect them from the darts and attempted to open the door with mage hand, but this only succeeded in triggering the darts again. Ra'zon eventually realized that there was an indentation on the door that would match the sigils around the necks of the statues in the first room. He doubled back to grab one of them, and upon placing it in the impression the door opened.

Fighting the Dead

Behind this door was a entrance hall lined with pillars. The air smelled acrid and oppressive, and the party could see many more of the snake-like statues throughout this room. Many of these seemed odd however, as they seemed to be scattered throughout the room with little pattern to them. Many of the statues held chains that were attached to desiccated, animated dead bodies that Khairiya identified in horror as the alim-hari. The party attempted to back away but was too late to prevent the corpsewalkers from noticing them, and closed to do battle. Khairiya warned the party not to let the corpsewalkers touch them or they might risk becoming infected by the curse themselves.
Throughout the course of the battle, Grom and Ra'zon both fell and became infected. Ari and Khairiya protected them and fought off the corpsewalkers, while de Mowbray managed to shut down vents that were spewing out toxic gas. After the last one went down, Ari healed Grom and Ra'zon while Khairiya cast a spell to remove the curse before it fully took hold.
The great hall ended in a set of stairs that led up to a mid-sized circular room. At the center of it was a statue of another serpentine hybrid, this one looking almost completely inhuman. Rather it appeared as a massive snake with a vaguely humanoid torso beneath six snake heads. It held six chains, each of which were attached to a corpsewalker. The party made quick work of these, and looked through the room. They found a decent amount of gemstones which de Mowbray said the party was welcome to pocket, along with the armillary sphere. Taking it with them, the party left the temple and rejoined Elria and Jameson.

Chapter Twenty-Six

"Doctors, Dungeons, and Dead People"

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Previous Chapter: Chaos in Karka

Next Chapter: Private Investigators

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Ingame Date: 30^th of Rainseed, 1855
Real-Life Date: May 30, 2021
Protagonists:

• Grom
• Ra'zon
• Ari

Featured NPCs:

• Khairiya Meral
• Oliver de Mowbray

Locations:

• Mushtarak Desert
• Khamut excavation site