The Rotten Halls were the first level of the Tomb of the Nine Gods in Omu.12 The level held the tombs of the Trickster Gods Obo’laka, Moa and Wongo and the first of the five Skeleton Keys.234 The party crossed it on the thirteenth of Eleasis, 1492 DR, and went down from it to the second level that evening.25
Description
The Rotten Halls lay below the Tomb’s entrance gallery, behind a second puzzle door that was the seal of the level.1 Vegetation grew on the walls of its halls.2 Divination magic did not work there: Vogal’s clairvoyance and Inete’s scrying both failed because of the Tomb.2
Geography
The Tomb was entered in Omu. Near the entrance stood an obelisk, which a troop of capuchin monkeys described to Taenae as lying to the north and guarded by “Bearded Devils”.1
Three ways led down from the level. The Grand Staircase descended past a lower balcony.2 A secret door opened on an underground waterfall that fell into darkness, with a ledge halfway down.35 A maintenance route of rough stairs near the statue of the attraction room led to the forge of the second level.5
Inhabitants
The spirits of three Trickster Gods rested in the tombs of the level: Obo’laka, in the form of a zorbo, Moa, the jaculi, and Wongo, the su-monster.234
A greater shadow demon lived in the darkness of the devil face.2 Desiccated corpses, which were wights, lined Obo’laka’s tomb.2 A flameskull and undead spiders guarded Moa’s tomb.3 A skeleton with a triangle-shaped skull, the bearer of the level’s Skeleton Key, was melded into the wall at the entrance of Wongo’s tomb, and Wongo’s mummy lay in the sarcophagus there.4 A mimic in the shape of a chest sat on the ledge of the waterfall.5
A Tomb Dwarf of the crew of Withers was seen once, on the lower balcony of the Grand Staircase.2
Notable locations
- The lever room. A room with a lever, an hourglass of Dwarven make and a ten-second countdown, over a spiked pit coated with a variant of the poison rotflesh.2
- The devil face. A carved devil face beyond the lever room’s door, whose mouth was a tunnel of magical darkness filled with grasping shadows.2
- The trapped hall. A hall floored with pressure plates.2
- The Grand Staircase. Its walls were set with screaming skulls that bore the faces of people killed by Acererak, whom the party knew as the Architect, and of people executed by Takhesis Calva.2
- Obo’laka’s tomb. It could be seen from the halls through a crystal window, and was marked with carvings of the zorbo and the bear. Paper-mache masks were kept in it.2
- The attraction room. A room with the face of a great green devil, which drew metal toward its mouth and destroyed what entered it.3
- The fountain. A magical fountain whose water carried a charm.3
- Moa’s tomb. It was reached from the Grand Staircase, and a skull-mouth trap stood on the way past it.35
- The wind tunnel. A passage in the north of the level with a floor of pressure plates and an adamantine propeller that drew those inside toward its blades.4
- Wongo’s tomb. The room beyond the wind tunnel. It smelled of ozone and wet fur and held three chests, of silver, rusted metal and onyx, and a sarcophagus.4
History
The entrance
The obelisk carried two lines, “The enemies oppose” and “One stands between them.” At the entrance the party set the Puzzle Cubes into the door in a random order. The door did not open. Gas hissed from vents and a stone slab began to descend to seal the party in. Inete cast misty step without a word and left the room, and Vogal jammed his Immovable Rod under the slab long enough for the others to scramble out. The party waited for the gas to clear, returned, and set the cubes again with the alignment in mind. The doors opened.1 The door consumed all nine cubes as the party entered, without exception, and they afterward returned to their shrines in Omu.
The party descended past the entrance gallery and halted at the second puzzle door.1 There, on the morning of the thirteenth of Eleasis, Taenae reached Alice at The Bastion by sending stone. Alice reported that the Bastion had stabilized after the attack of the Red Wizards, that Elias Thorne had lost his left arm to the rot of a blight spell he had taken for her, and that Ilia Vane was pressing for an answer on the alliance of the Harpers and the Bastion. Alice did not know of Vonara’s deal. Taenae warned her that the party might fall silent, and heard heavy interference as the message ended.2 How the second puzzle door was opened is not recorded.
The lever room and the devil face
In the lever room Taenae pulled the lever under the pressure of the countdown. The floor fell away and everyone but her dropped into the pit, where they were pierced and poisoned. The party ferried itself out on Vonara’s Broom of Flying. On the third attempt the party let the timer run out, and the door opened safely.2
Vogal volunteered to enter the mouth of the devil face with a rope tied at his waist. Before he went in he sent a message to Kaveth by sending stone: “I hope this is not the last hole I ever crawl through.” In the darkness he resisted the hold of the grasping shadows and was attacked by the greater shadow demon. Takhesis hauled him out by the rope. Glade cast dispel magic on the darkness, and Inete’s portent made the spell certain. The party fought the exposed demon, which took heavy wounds and fled into the depths of the Tomb before it could be destroyed.2 No later meeting with it is recorded.
The halls and Obo’laka’s tomb
In the trapped hall Glade, intent on the vegetation, walked into a trap and warded off its harm with a shield spell. Taenae spotted the remaining pressure plates and the party passed safely. Through the crystal window Inete identified the tomb beyond as Obo’laka’s. On the Grand Staircase the party saw whose faces the skulls bore, and chose not to comment on those Takhesis had executed. The Tomb Dwarf on the lower balcony stared up at the party, ran away, and alerted its master.2
Vogal shattered the crystal window with a javelin. Glade retrieved the masks with mage hand and wore one to cross the room safely. The party opened the sarcophagus. Inete tried to identify the ring inside, and the spirit of Obo’laka entered her. The ring was a ring of protection. Inete also identified the Disc of Eyes and noted its magical connection to the corpses in the room. The party took both, and rested for a short time in the tomb.2
The attraction room and the fountain
That afternoon the party entered the attraction room, and the pull began. Vonara was flung across the room toward the mouth of the face. She survived, but her cigarette holder was torn from her, drawn into the mouth and disintegrated. Taenae was pulled in as well and escaped unharmed, since as a druid she carried no metal for the room to destroy. Takhesis and Vogal resisted the pull. Vogal then touched the statue of his own will, and his Champion’s signet was destroyed. Inete, under the influence of Obo’laka’s caution, was terrified to go on, and Glade comforted her until she could.3
Vogal tried the water of the fountain and resisted its charm. The party decided to leave the fountain alone.3
Moa’s tomb
The party returned to the Grand Staircase and entered Moa’s tomb. Vogal went in first and met the illusion of a weeping child, Nepartak, the ten-year-old granddaughter of Napaka, the last queen of Omu. He told her, “You are a skull.” The illusion broke, the child became the flameskull, and the undead spiders dropped from the ceiling. The party rushed in and destroyed them.3
Inete took the Staff of the Python from the sarcophagus. When she touched it the spirit of Moa tried to enter her, and Obo’laka fought it for her and won. Moa remained in the staff, and Obo’laka became more possessive of its host.3
Inete found the secret door to the waterfall. The party chose to explore the north of the level before descending.3
The wind tunnel and Wongo’s tomb
In the late afternoon Vonara set off the pressure plates of the wind tunnel by accident, and the propeller began to turn. She cast dimension door on instinct and carried herself and Vogal past it into Wongo’s tomb. Glade, Taenae, Inete and Takhesis were left on the far side. Glade held the blades with telekinesis, helped by Inete’s enhance ability and Taenae’s guidance, until the propeller stopped and the four walked through.4
Meanwhile the skeleton with the triangle-shaped skull came out of the wall at the entrance of the tomb and attacked Vonara and Vogal. It was destroyed once the others arrived, and the party took the Triangle Skeleton Key.4
Wongo spoke by telepathy to Inete, Glade and Taenae, called them his “pets” and asked whether they had brought the noise. He rejected Takhesis, screaming of his “empty” nature and “bad math.”4
The three chests required three volunteers. Vonara climbed into the silver chest and withstood its cold, which froze the mechanisms. Vogal climbed into the rusted chest and was harmed by its rot but survived. Takhesis climbed into the onyx chest, where a trap of Acererak’s took hold of him. He came out unharmed but hollowed out, more resistant to necrotic harm and further detached from humanity.4
The sarcophagus then turned to glass and shattered, and Wongo’s mummy hopped out. It ignored the fighters, pinned Glade, screamed “YOU ARE IT!” and tried to force the Mace of Terror into his hands so that Wongo could possess him. Glade resisted, and the party destroyed the mummy. The party refused to attune to the mace and put it in a bag of holding together with the Staff of the Python, with Wongo and Moa inside them.4
The descent
That evening, before the party left the level, Taenae ritually stabbed the corpse of Wongo’s mummy as a sacrifice to her patron Chakuna. Chakuna acknowledged the offering, and the spiral tattoo on Taenae’s arm bled and tightened.5
The party went back past Moa’s tomb. Takhesis walked past the skull-mouth trap without setting it off, because of his hollowed nature and his connection to Acererak. Taenae grew suspicious, he deceived her, and she concluded that nothing was wrong.5
Vonara scouted the waterfall on her broom and investigated the chest on the ledge. The mimic attacked her. She backed away and set it on fire, and it fell down the waterfall to its death. The party took the maintenance route instead and descended to the second level.5
Afterward
No return to the level is recorded. Word later reached the party that another adventuring company had entered the Tomb behind it and had been slaughtered before clearing the first floor.6 On the sixth level The Boy recalled to the party Vogal’s crawl into the devil face.7 The level was destroyed with the rest of the Tomb when Omu sank into a caldera.8
Appendix
Appearances
Mentioned in Session 63, Session 84, Session 87 and Session 90.