[Gameplay] 7. The Search for the Forgotten Pharoah

Iseret moves to the trap and attempts to disarm it.

Flame strike!

Semi-divine flames engulf a 10' column around where Iseret was standing. Of course. She's no longer standing there when it strikes such are her lightning fast reactions.

Tabat quickly moves to help Iseret, but sees the halfling spring out of the way of the column of flames with amazing grace. He relaxes, seeing her unharmed, and places a hand on her shoulder. "Not the safest way to disarm the trap," he says, "but surely the most entertaining. Well done. Now, let's see what this fire was protecting."

The southern secret door opens into a cramped, closet-like chamber filled with refuse.

There appears to be nothing of value.

DM hint: Tabat had turned a face one way (clockwise) and that opened a secret door to the room that had the sarcophagi and the library. He suspected turning it the other way might open another door...

Frustrated, Tabat uses the tip of his spear to turn the refuse over, searching more intently. "There's no way they sealed this room off for no reason..." he says.

Tabat finds a magical headband in the refuse, but nothing else.

Jaware identifies it as a Headband of Vast Intellect +4.

"Not what were were looking for," Tabat says, "But worth a poke through the garbage pile nonetheless."

Eventually, he returns to the stone face and puzzles over it. "Perhaps if we turn it another direction. Each time we have turned one of these faces in a direction, it has opened something for us. Unless we've just gotten lucky, the opposing direction may yield more results." He sets to turning the face in the opposite direction.

The face turns easily enough, and a secret door opens to an unexplored chamber.

A vast collection of scrolls, clay tablets, and stone carvings litter this chamber, the records neatly stored on shelves and haphazardly scattered across the floor.

Amongst the scrolls, you quickly find scrolls of blight, finger of death, and soul bind inside a codex placed upon a marble plinth.

It does not take much longer than that to find the Scrolls of Inquiry. They are cumbersome and difficult to read, and most of the confessions recorded upon them are of little use to your research. One transcript however does contain useful information:

"Sothis," Tabat says quietly, reading over the document, "Beneath Azghaad's Spire." He considers a moment, then suggests, "We should destroy this. The knowledge cannot be learned by anyone else and we have what we need to continue our search."

Khadi frowns. 'I get the sentiment, but is it ours to destroy?' She clearly looks torn at destroy knowledge, and history, but Tabat's logic did make sense.