session 59

Dreams of the Damned¶

Our rest in the second level encampment was troubled by shared nightmares. The warrior maidens from the pyramid invaded our dreams, hosting a grotesque feast where their bronze masks slid away to reveal rotting faces, maggots writhing in empty eye sockets. They tore at putrid meat with blackened teeth while beckoning us to join them, chanting our names in hollow voices that no living throat could produce. These visions confirmed our suspicions—the curse of Cynedicia was already reaching for us.

Secrets Within Stone¶

After discussing our disturbing dreams, we ventured back into the pyramid’s third level. Our exploration led us to a dead-end corridor where a disturbing statue stood—a demonic cherub with arms outstretched toward us. Something about its malevolent smile suggested danger. Ryalith detected the faint smell of almond in the air near the statue’s outstretched hands—a telltale sign of poison.

Rather than risk exposure, Eko and Gwen cleverly cast Air Bubble on each of us before Gloopwing manipulated the statue’s left arm. As suspected, a hidden mechanism released a cloud of deadly gas that filled the corridor, but our protective bubbles kept us safe. More interestingly, after moving the other arm the wall behind the statue began to slide open, revealing a hidden passage.

In what has become our signature approach to ancient artifacts, we decided the statue couldn’t be trusted to remain intact. Gwen, still enjoying her newfound strength from the ogre gauntlets, had an inspired idea. She used our Decanter of Endless Water to thoroughly soak the statue while Eko used Shape Water to freeze it solid. The expanding ice created hairline fractures throughout the stone, which Gwen then exploited with a mighty blow that shattered the demonic cherub into hundreds of frozen fragments.

The sound of shattering stone echoed through the ancient corridors. In retrospect, this was perhaps not our most stealthy approach.

The Mages of Usamigaras¶

Following the hidden passage, we discovered another door. When we opened it, we found ourselves face to face with a group of robed figures in the midst of a complex arcane ritual. Their midnight blue robes were adorned with silver stars, and they wore masks of gold and silver that caught the strange, sourceless light filling the chamber. Tapestries depicting constellations unfamiliar to modern astronomy hung from the walls.

Their leader—an imposing figure with a silver crown—immediately broke from his ritual to confront us. “Intruders!” he called out, his voice somehow emanating from all corners of the room simultaneously. “Your interruption of our sacred ritual will not stand!”

What followed was a chaotic battle against the Archmage of Usamigaras and his followers. After a blast of freezing energy by one of the mages, Gloopwing struck with a devastating psychic blast that left the Archmage and another wizard stunned and reeling. Gwen loosed a fireball that literally left several of the mages to go up in smoke, while Gloopwing and Ryalith dispatched the rest. Poor Kala tried to contribute, but her sword was no match for the magic of the mages. She did, however, survive the battle.

The Archmage finally recovered from his stun, only to be immediately struck down by blows from Gwen and Ryalith. All the mages discorporated into dust before our eyes—another disturbing manifestation of the pyramid’s curse.

Celestial Treasures¶

With the mages defeated, we carefully searched their chambers. Among scrolls of ancient calculations and star charts, we discovered several valuable treasures:

A cache of gold and alexandrite gemstones glittered in a hidden compartment beneath the star-shaped altar. We also recovered two scroll cases containing powerful spells—Divination and Ice Storm—and a silver star amulet that grants the wearer the ability to cast the Light cantrip, which manifests as tiny, glittering stars.

Also impressive was a ceremonial dagger with a blade of meteoric iron and a hilt carved from blue crystal. Ryalith determined it to be magical—a +1 dagger that also grants advantage on Arcana checks related to celestial bodies and star navigation.

The most significant find, however, was a slender wand crafted from obsidian veined with luminescent blue crystal arranged like constellations. Gloopwing, ever curious, pointed it at the ceiling and activated it without fully understanding its powers. We suddenly understood why the bed was chained to the floor as gravity reversed in a twenty-foot sphere around us, sending all of us tumbling upward to crash against the ceiling. For nearly a minute, we clung to whatever protrusions we could find as our equipment floated around us.

Once safely back on the floor, Gwen examined the wand more carefully. She identified it as the Wand of Stars and Moon, a powerful artifact created during the height of the Hozhungi civilization’s celestial explorations.

Revelations of the Pyramid¶

While examining the mages’ journals and star charts, we made several disturbing discoveries. The mages, like the warrior maidens we encountered earlier, were not truly alive. They were caught in some form of temporal loop, endlessly repeating the same rituals for what might have been centuries or even millennia.

According to their records, the pyramid was built to contain an entity known as Zargon—a being from beyond our reality that had somehow broken through into our world. The Hozhungi elders, including High Elder Mesho’az and Oracle Khaza-Veta, had attempted a powerful binding ritual using fragments of the Via Astra to trap Zargon in a state of temporal stasis.

Something had gone terribly wrong. Instead of just binding Zargon, the ritual had trapped everyone within the pyramid in an endless cycle of undeath. The mages, the warrior maidens, and all other inhabitants were cursed to “live” forever, neither truly alive nor able to find release in death.

Most concerning was a passage suggesting that our intrusion might have weakened the binding. Could our presence be inadvertently freeing this extradimensional horror? And if so, what would happen to those trapped here if Zargon were to escape?

As we prepared to venture deeper into the pyramid, these questions weighed heavily on our minds. The warrior maidens had mentioned a lower level where the burial chambers of the ancient Hozhungi elders might be found. Perhaps there we would discover the answers to the pyramid’s curse—and our role in either maintaining or breaking it.