Tomb of the Lizard King: Door you cannot find, stairs you cannot find, and the river of nothingness

The party returned to camp, planning to rest a couple days until Beatriss was strong enough to make the journey out of the swamp. Their plans changed the following night when they were attacked by scores of lizard men.  Those not on guard were awakened by the sounds of the attackers howling as they splashed through the swamp.  Those on watch saw the reptilian eyes approaching from all sides.  But as the scaled fiends charged into the clearing, the surrounding trees came to life, defending the party with branches and vines, beating off their attackers. 

The trees reassured the party, in deep murmuring voices that they were safe, for now, but that Sakatha was still alive and his power getting stronger.  The heroes decided that they would remain in the swamp, nurse Beatriss back to health in the camp and then return to the tomb and find Sakatha. 

Their new acquaintances Tami and Shu showed that they planned to stay, and also to return with the party to the tomb.  “We still need to get Won Ton and the money he took from us.”  The newcomers did little to earn their welcome.  Tami was very proud of his swordsmanship and practiced for hours, but the more experienced warriors saw limited skill behind the flash.  Shu, on the other hand, seemed to go out of his way to demonstrate his incompetence.  After being reminded too many times of the hazards of collecting firewood from living trees, he was ordered to lie in a hammock where he showed his talent for opium smoking.  Neverthless, Bangqiu took a liking to Shu and Beatriss tolerated Ta-Mi.

When the party returned to the temple two weeks later, they were much better prepared.  They encountered one troll in the antechamber.  Erlo ensnared it in a magical web and the rest of the party killed it with slings and arrows.  In the second room behind the shell curtain, they found the second troll still wrestling with the weird water snake. Bangqiu remember the trapdoor in the floor and Naron opened it, permitting the party entrance to the lower level where they’d fought the bandits and evil priests.

The company:

Beatriss, level 9 warrior with her associates:

                 Naron, level 7 warrior

                 Ju-Mei, level 7 cleric 

                Ta-Mi, level 4 bushi

Tetsukichi, level 8 bushi with his associates:

                 Al-Fitar, level 8 warrior

                 Mustapha, level 7 illusionist 

Bangqiu, level 6 Wu-Jen

                 Erlo, level 5 shaman

                 Kafka, level 6 sohei, with his own retinue of 17 sohei initiates, two of whom accompanied the party in the tomb while the others were charged with maintaining the camp. 

                Shu, level 3 bushi

Thanks to Beatriss’s excellent map, the party traveled quickly to the disgusting demonic altar and the passages behind it where they expected to find a secret door.  While they were searching, a fearsome group of undead burst out from under the floor.  They looked like long-dead human bodies, animated by a powerful negative energy, and they moved surprisingly quickly.  Erlo and Ju-Mei raised their holy symbols and forced the wights to retreat back under the floor. Bangqiu followed them and watched their flight down a steep metal staircase.  He noted in particular, that they avoided stepping on a particular step.  All eight of the monsters stepped over it.

After a brief conference, the party decided that all they needed to know was that the “bad step” was probably bad and that no one should step on it.  Beatriss and Tami carried Shu just in case.

At the bottom of the very long flight of stairs, the party found a pit of fire with a ledge around it.  Moving cautiously, they had little trouble moving around it, and emerged on the edge of an expansive and barren underground landscape.  At the edge of their torchlight, they could see a river.  It was wide enough that even when they approached more closely, they couldn’t see the other side.

They walked downstream some distance without seeing an end.  Looking back, they saw a large raft they hadn’t seen before.  It looked large enough to carry the entire party.  Bangqiu was cautious and objected that the raft might take them somewhere they didn’t want to go.  Beatriss allowed that it was magical, but argued that there were powers that understood that they were heroes on a quest and that if the raft delivered them to Sakatha, he was the object of their quest, and she for one, was ready to face him.

About halfway across the river, Beatriss, Naron, and Al-Fitar suddenly stumbled off the raft and disappeared beneath the water.  Suddenly the rest of the party realized this is not a big beautiful raft.  This is not a big beautiful river.  There is no water flowing underground. Instead they were walking across a dry riverbed.  Except for Beatriss, Naron, and Al-Fitar who were struggling to keep their heads up in a pool of acid.  Tetsukichi had a rope that disintegrated in the acid. Bangqiu had magic boots that allowed him to dip into the pool and one-by-one, rescue his friends.  Continuing on their walk across the dry river bed, Beatriss and Al-Fitar “discovered” one more pool of acid, disguised by illusion.  But everyone made it to the far side where they could rest for a minute and pour clean water over their burning skin.  Immediately before them were about a dozen burial mounds, and beyond them a pyramid.  The party decided that they would most likely find Sakatha in the pyramid, but they should try to circumvent the burial mounds.