The remainder of our first day in the Canyon of Gothay was spent investigating the hundreds of caves and caverns and attempting to identify the most likely home of the treasure of House Madar. We hiked and climbed around the canyon until my feet hurt terribly, eliminating this cave for being too small for a treasure vault and that one for being home to all manner of nasty creatures. Brandis proved valuable for his abilities in spotting and identifying all manner of tracks and droppings and preventing us from investigating caves that would have inhabitants unhappy for our company.
Eventually we decided upon the most likely cave and camped below it for the night as it was growing dark, deciding to venture into it first thing in the morning. We entered the cavern and slowly travelled deeper into it, looking about us for signs of anything amiss or signs of treasure. Soon, we came to a large number of skeletons littering the ground, and a small number of freshly dead giths. They appeared to be only a few days dead.
"I'll try to determine what killed them so we know what to watch for," Brandis offered, as he and Raina stepped closer to their bodies. As soon as Brandis moved close to them, all of the skeletons and rotted corpses in the area rose to life and turned to attack us!
"Well, I guess now we know what to watch out for." Khadar commented, as darkness suddenly descended on me. I cried out in alarm and heard Khadar's yelp of pain as one creature, presumably that responsible for the darkness, injured him. The sorcerer, reacting without thinking, attacked the area blindly, failing to consider that I was right next to him and aim away from me. I screamed at him in rage as the flame seared my skin.
"I swear on my mother's grave, if I end up burn-scarred because of you I will kill you slowly and painfully, Khadar!" I yelled at him as I moved away from him and managed to leave the cloud of darkness before attacking a horde of skeletons. We steadily whittled down the number of skeletons and zombies in front of us, myself laying waste to groups of the weaker ones while the others took on the stronger enemies one or two at a time, working together to eliminate foe after foe.
Once the last foe dropped and remained down, we sat down to rest and poke over their bodies. The zombies, we noted, wore signets of House Tsalaxa, while the far-weaker skeletons wore signets of House Madar. We appeared to have stumbled upon the undead of the old feuding houses, who had most likely killed each other in the first place and now united in their quest to kill anything that crossed their path.
Once we were ready to move on, we continued down the cave. After 50 feet or so, we came upon a set of massive double doors.
Completely covered in copper.
Even if it were hair-thin, as it most likely was, it was more metal than any of us had ever seen. If this was how they adorned the door to their tomb/vault, what kind of treasures would we find inside? The thought of the kind of wealth found inside a vault with a door this absurdly valuable was tantalizing. I could buy a grand manor in Tyr of my own for the wealth in just this door! We tried the door and found it to be heavy but unlocked, and together we opened it and moved through the doors.
The room we entered was dominated by a trio of sarcophagi and a large ten-foot obelisk with writing that we could not identify from a distance. In some spots, rubble had fallen from the roof of the cavern and littered the floor. Immediately, Khadar was intrigued by the obelisk and started carefully to move toward it to try and read what was written on it.
Before he could move far, we heard the eerie sound of a woman weeping as ghosts emerge from the sarcophagi before us, faces twisted with such rage and grief as to seem mad. The wraiths attacked us and we fought for our lives, Marok breaking his urgrosh in his first desperate attack. Thankfully he carries a back-up mordenkrad, as he cannot afford an unbrittle metal weapon and is used to inferior weapons breaking.
As Raina moved into the room to engage the wraiths, she stepped near to the obelisk to get near to our enemies. All of the sudden, some kind of enchantment on the obelisk managed to harm Raina and make another wraith come out of her, filled with the fury and pain of whatever it is in her past that makes Raina a little battle-mad. As we dealt with the additional foe, the wailing wraith of a woman unleashed a painful attack on the group of us, attacking us psychically and making us feel some of her rage and grief. I was staggered by the force of it and nearly fell to my knees, but Brandis came to my rescue and helped me stay on my feet. He's very useful, this shaman!
Eventually our foes were defeated, one by one, by Raina's fierce attacks or Khadar's sorcery. We caught our breath and looked around, searching for the way out of this room and further into the cave. One wall seemed different than the others, darker colored, and it seemed unusual. I suspected it to be some kind of doorway, potentially trapped, and tried to consider what I had read and learned about any similar situations. While I tried to use knowledge, Raina did what she knows best--poked it with her gouge. Underneath the surface was a shiny white metal, likely silver? It's most likely hair-thin like the copper door, but still it astounded us to think of how much wealth was on this door.
Brandis looked around and noticed the ash at the foot of the wall/door. "There may be a trap here." He warned us. "This is some kind of creature, burned up to ash. Be careful!"
"Investigating this thing is boring. Let me blast through it!" Khadar said as he readied a chaos bolt. Raina, the smart one, moved as far away from him as possible. Khadar's chaos bolt hit the door, which responded by spraying acid all over us. Brandis, Khadar and I managed to duck but Marok got caught in the cross-fire and injured. "Uhh... sorry?"
Once Khadar stopped screwing around and getting other people injured, we managed to unravel the trap and wall slid down, disappearing into the ground. In front of us, massive piles of treasure were heaped around the room randomly. Before us, a withered figure in rotting finery roared at us in rage.
We had found the treasure of House Madar. And, apparently, the undead head of House Madar.
Khadar managed to get a single hit in before he unleashed his fury against his, hitting Marok, Brandis and I and managing minor damage to Khadar and Raina. As I reeled with pain, I felt myself, to my horror, turn to Brandis and try to attack him against my will, as he also attacked Kahdar and Marok attacked Raina. The head of House Madar was skilled in mind control, and spent all of his time messing with us, mind-controlling one person or another to make us attack whomever he wanted. I attacked Brandis and knocked him unconscious, but shortly bent to tend to him and get him back on his feet before retaliating against our foe with the most powerful psychic attack I could muster, using every resource I could manage to ensure it hit, and I pushed him further into his madness.
It was a brutal fight, and I did terribly--while I managed not to hit Khadar when Madar made me attack him (although I almost wish I had, to repay him for his earlier acid attack) neither did I manage to be very effective against Madar himself. However ineffective I was, Marok more than made up for it as he brutally attacked with his mordenkrad and Raina lit into him with her gouge. Eventually, we managed to defeat him just as we ran out of resources--too tired to heal ourselves, Brandis having exhausted everything he could try, most of us grievously wounded.
Once we triumphed over Madar, we took some time to look through the treasure heaped around the room. Rhotan Vor had promised us each one item from the treasure as well as 10% of the total wealth, and we were excited to pick something out. Khadar chose a worn magical die; he does love to gamble, though it often goes wrong for him, as chaos can work for you or against you. Brandis, always in charge of making sure we don't get lost or walk off a cliff unaware, chose an enchanted map that will drawn an accurate map of the land around us. Marok chose an enchanted bag to ease the weight he carries around for us. I chose a magical veil that lets me disguise my appearance however I please.
Raina chose an item worth far more than the rest of our items combined--a metal sword made of adamantite. Though worth a great deal of money, I doubted that anyone would want to buy a sword so steeped in menace. The sword emanated the kind of madness that we had seen from the head of House Madar, a kind of simmering rage born of seeing your life systematically destroyed around you. This was not a mere a sword, anyone could tell. But would she really be able to control this menacing weapon?
"I will wield this sword," Raina informed us as she tested its weight in her hand, "no matter the price it asks of me."
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