S1 E6: Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan part 5

General Summary

• The gang examines the various exits from the room as well as a carved archway large enough to walk into in the shape of a tiger's open mouth, and footsteps leading out of the room through that opening, but no mechanism can be located to operate the secret door. The leopard-man wants to lead them into battle against the Minonois invaders that destroyed his home city of Otoh, but when he tries to leave the room with them through the northeast door, he dissolves and reforms in the doorway opposite, in the southeast. Ris pulls the stony heart back out of the hole in its chest, and it re-petrifies, but he can't leave well enough alone and in continuing to tamper with the statue, the leopard man once again comes to life, with seemingly no memory of the previous events, and attacks Ris with his spear.
• The rest of the party, fairly sure they've exhausted the secrets of the room, stands by to watch the fight; Ris seemingly forgets that the leopard-man is unable to leave the room while the rest of them can, and then also forgets he has the ability to heal himself; he waits too long to retreat, then is dropped by an opportunity attack, giving the leopardman both his attacks and advantage on attacks within 5 feet, with an automatic critical on a hit; any one critical counts as two failed death saves, so when leopardman hits twice on his turn, Ris suffers 3 failures and expires. The party regrets losing their translator but no one faults the leopardman, who returns to his vigilance over this room of the shrine. 
• The next room has a series of small sculpted Zebu, each bearing a weapon, with a broken zebu near the exit door; this looks to be a room associated with Oloolo (oh-LOO-low), the Kallengi goddess of fairness and balance to whom the Zebu is a sacred animal. Kristre picks up a longsword from one of the statues and finds that this brings it to life, and it is quickly revealed that only the weapon on the statue's back is able to do it any damage (and in fact, the statue has vulnerability to that damage). as Kristre slices into it with the longsword, antique electrum coins and small gems spill out of it like some kind of demented piñata. When he defeats it, the party collects a nice amount of treasure from the remains, and keeps the longsword though it doesn't appear to be exceptional, other than the damage it could do to those statues.
• Moving into the next room they find collapsed stones in the center of an enormous space, and a person comes out - some sort of tomb-robber/scholar/adventurer with a shaggy beard and a stash of books in his coat who says his name is Alistair. Additional chitchat is cut short by a two-headed giant constrictor snake that appears soon after Alistair removes a jade lintel over the exit which depicts a two headed giant constrictor snake attacking people. The room may be worth returning to at some point, because daylight was plainly visible through a crack in the high ceiling, where some wild baboons were screeching at the hole the snake had eventually come out of.
• They run through the door to escape the charging snake up a broad set of stairs, and the snake doesn't follow; they discover why when they are hit by a blast of superheated steam from a trap at the top. Edging around it rather than staying for another hit, they come to a hallway with an obvious trap, a pile of gold with bones and skulls on it. Alistair and Nesskan find a pair of secret entrances, and the one behind the pile of gold is selected, as the other one is marked by obvious blood stains in the stone floor in front of it. 
• The secret door winds around to a large offertory chamber featuring a cross-shaped platform with steps at each arm of the cross and small offerings in the corners where the arms meet; the thematic elements here seem associated with Ratanga, the god of the sun and father/chief/king of the gods, with eagle and sun symbols patterned into the details of the walls and floor. Nyx reverently leaves an offering and a voice thanks and praises the action, but gives a puzzling clue and warns that time is running out. The offering exposes a crystal cylinder at the top of the pyramid, and the party thinks as a team to arrive at the solution, such as it is - to use thieves tools (or some kind of tools) to open the cylinder, which has no obvious locks or clasps, but Nesskan finds that merely touching the crystal with her tools reveals a thin seam. Unscrewing the cylinder like a large, oversized furnace, Nesskan reveals some useful and valuable treasure inside. As this area seems free of the amber poisonous gas on lower levels, as well as reasonably devoid of obvious danger, the party opts to stop here for a short rest before proceeding on; the room seems to have no other ways out besides how they came in, making it more easily defended, but also a dead end.

Rewards Granted

Zebu statue:

• 1,500 gp worth of gems including 2 x 500gp diamonds
• 1,330 gp worth of electrum coins dating to the late Free Kaalengi period (400 years ago), face value; a collector might be willing to pay considerably more

Crystal Cylinder:

• Periapt of Wound Closure (https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/4694-periapt-of-wound-closure)
• Potion of Healing (2d4+2HP)
• Balance of Harmony (https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/9290-balance-of-harmony)

End of session: 

• Level 5 granted

A (non-mechanical) Zebu. Sacred animal of Oloolo, and an important pack, labor and food animal of the Kaalengi people. White Zebu like this one are especially prized, and they also come in brown, black, and a bluish-grey color. Zebu are natural companions of Hadrosaurs, and zebu herds will defend them from predators in the wild. Wild varieties are extremely aggressive and territorial, and domesticated Zebu are ill-tempered at best.

Report Date

06 Apr 2023

Primary Location

The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan

Secondary Location

The Caetica Region