Tomb of Horrors, Session 7: Of Sirens and Constructs

Since I’m a week behind in posting our Tomb of Horrors sessions, I’m going to fly through this write up (hey, it’s not like anyone died-died in this session) and mostly let the photos tell the story. But I promise I’ll make it up with a super-duper write up for our most recent session (in which PCs were dropping left and right).

In the photo above you can see Zerbitt checking out the dead end southern corridor. Prior to that, back at the intersection, Marrak had taken point and triggered the pit trap that lay there. With an impressive move (for a dwarf), he managed to fling himself backward and avoid falling into the pit. Of course, then he (and Jack) would clumsily fall into the trap several times just trying to jump over it while exploring the corridors.

Anyway, back to Zerbitt… The canny thief was actually able to disable a cave in trap at the end of the southern corridor after Laramie spotted that the ceiling was unstable. After Zerbitt disabled the trap and made certain that the blank wall at the end of the corridor was really just a blank wall (and not, say, a secret door), the party headed back up to the intersection. That was when Jack, with all of 4 hit points and 0 surges, attempted to jump over the pit trap and failed his Athletics check. Oops. It took a healing potion and a bit of mercy from your humble DM to save the unconscious and dying Jack (I let Laramie give Jack the potion and use one of his own surges for the 10 hp buff since Jack didn’t have surges left). Once that was all sorted out, our heroes explored the eastern hallway. They found that the last four squares before a door were made up of glowing blue floor tiles… an electrified floor trap! Zerbitt was able to disable the trap (although he might have been zapped once or twice in the process, but I won’t mention that). Beyond the door, the corridor started to fill with a strange silvery mist. As the party bravely made their way through the mist, they discovered that the corridor led to the…

Cavern of Mists

From out of the mists steps a regal human female. As she prepares to attack, her voice rings out like music: “Forgive me…”

Once they discerned that the siren’s heart wasn’t in the battle, but that she was under some sort of compulsion to fight, the party spent a bit of time trying to break Acererak’s control over her. But while they racked up four failures during that skill challenge and only one success, the siren was pounding them but good and they finally (wisely) decided just forget the skill challenge and take her out the old fashioned way: through combat.

It took them quite a long while, but our heroes were eventually victorious. During the fight, Zerbitt and Laramie ended up taking dirt naps but they were both saved by Marrak (it’s always nice to have a cleric in the party). The party came out of the battle against the cavern siren with more than a few bumps and bruises, and also one silver sword with some mysterious runes etched into the blade.

After taking an extended rest (the last one they’ll be able to take in the Tomb??), the intrepid adventurers went back out to the intersection of the corridors and headed north. At the end of that hallway, they discovered a secret doorway which opened for them only after they slid the aforementioned sword into a slot hidden in the door. Beyond the doorway they found the…

Juggernaut Corridor

From ahead comes a dull rumbling. Bursting through the swinging stone doors, a massive construct fills the corridor as it advances on heavy bloodstained wheels.

This encounter was pretty funny, mostly because of Marrak’s almost paralyzing fear of the construct. And because, after the construct had rolled past where they stood safely on the stairs, the entire party took off behind it because they were convinced that what they needed to do was find an exit somewhere up the corridor to the north. But as they all went sprinting up the corridor and turned the corner, they were confronted with a dead end! And that was when the construct reversed course and started back toward them. Well, of course, at that point they were trapped in the dead end. Between Jack’s earnest protests that the hallway just couldn’t be a dead end and Marrak’s curling up into the fetal position as the construct drew ever nearer, I could hardly keep from laughing out loud.

But everyone except Jack actually managed to make it past the construct and back to the safety of the stairs, and then it was closing time at Total Escape Games so that’s where we had to end our seventh session of Tomb of Horrors.