They make their way back to their resting area just to the south after determining the doors will not open easily. Their resting area has become a makeshift shelter with its two easily guarded doors. They rest, heal, listen, and plan for about eight hours before examining the doors of Ur more closely.
Once before the massive double doors, they notice the names and dates of three distinct dynasties: Lankor, Zaon, and Kitaan. They try various sayings, but nothing opens these doors. Morden touches the doors as he did in an anticipatory vision and words appear from nowhere. It is in glowing blue High Rakhaan script and states: “Here lie the Kings and Queens of Rakhaan. Tread not the Paths of the Dead without their leave”. They then scour the hallways and doors for a secret entrance, traps, or any other kind of underground oddity. While they do this, Tyrus carefully jots down the names of his ancestors.
Niko determines that the surface of the doors is a rare and expensive black metal called eog. In addition to being incredibly hard, eog inhibits essence magic making such spells ineffective near this door. Jymsan swears aloud. After hours searching, the party finds only one other secret of interest and it is within the side passages near the entrance to Ur. They notice eastern way is pretty much dry and dark. It descends branching into three passages. There is a crevice between the three ways leading to depths unknown. The former river of sewer water used to cascade down this chute, but is now dry thanks to the stone wall Jymsan erected up on the sewer level. The antechamber on the west side is full of stagnant sewer water. All sewer flow ran off to these two side passages, thus keeping the doors to the catacombs dry.
Niko spots gleaming in the water from the west passage. With his uncannily sharp violet eyes, Morden sees an outline of a corpse under the murky water. He also sees some spilled gold about twenty feet away some ten feet beneath the surface. He uses his telekinetic powers to draw out a bit a gold out and then he sees other items. He pulls up several ampules probably of dried up potions. They later guess they will be able to rehydrate. He brings up a magical ring of green laen. Later, Cad finds is of channeling magic, but is unable to attune to it. Cad has a vision the item possesses healing powers. Morden pulls up a silver holy symbol of Eissa (Goddess of Orhan) and 34 Second Era gold coins emblazoned with a large phoenix. The last noteworthy item recovered is a mysterious black eog scroll case. Inside this obviously rare find, they discover a set of instructions along with four scrolls of Passing. The instructions provide guidance on how to “pass” the doors thus leading one to the Catacombs of Ur.
Cad follows the instructions casting powerful magic and then passes through the doors. Moments later, resounding noises of gears in the walls and slowly the doors open. Cad stands inside, waving the party inward. They notice the other side of the door is white and subtly glowing. They determine this to be white eog (which inhibits good essence as opposed the black eog, which only blocks the negative kind.
They enter cautiously. When they sense the hallway beyond is safe, they pull the lever next to the doors closing the massive doors once again. Some fifty along a minor sloped hallway, they see it turn 90 degrees to the east. They discover a gently descending twenty-foot wide granite stairwell leading deep below Haalkitaine.
With Niko leading the way detecting traps on every stair, it takes them over three hours to descend. Niko counts 901 stairs. He finds a pressure plant on the last step so everyone carefully steps over it.
At the base of the stairs is a square room 40 feet long and about 70 feet across at the widest point, two columns of beautiful purple marble support the foyer roof. In the north and south corners are cut out to form niches, each holding a column of misty blue glass that provides dim radiance illuminating the chamber. In the center of the room, standing between the columns is the Sentinel, a beautifully constructed Bronze Golem. Note that the steps go back up from the entrance, so that the back of the room is slightly higher than the front. Behind the sentinel is the only apparent passageway on. They carefully bypass the construct. Thirty-feet later, they come to a set of reinforced steel doors. They find the doors locked but not trapped. Niko picks and the group witnesses an incredible room beyond.
This octagonal room is 80 feet across and 60 feet high at the apex of its ribbed dome. It has four doorways, one leading to the exit and the other three leading to the tomb complexes of the three major ruling families of Second Age Rhakaan. Dominating the vaulted chamber is a fabulous red and orange metallic sculpture of a Phoenix, thrice life size (about 20 feet tall). The party surmises that the Phoenix rotates and links to a flame trap to all three Tomb entrances.
The oldest tombs are of Lankor. Those doors are fashioned of hammered bronze, octagonal like the room, with a pair of large bronze handles shaped like ram-horns. Four long panels depict the first four kings and Queens entombed here, in bas-relief. The first and second rulers (Queen Isara and King Nœrkhaan Faslurin Hælik) are in the central panels facing each other, the mother reaching towards her son. Each is holding a small orb in the other hand; these orbs are the key to the doors.
The next oldest tombs, Zaon, is the most unusual of the three, as it is 8' in diameter, circular, and made up of four parts which spiral out from the center. The lock mechanism is set in a circular panel in the wall to the left of the door.
The most recent dynasty, Kitaan, has a trapezoidal doorway with sides slanting inwards towards the top; the actual door is a single slab of dull black metal containing at least some Eog. The doorway is a quite imposing 12' in height. Inlaid on the door surface in red and orange laen is a beautiful depiction of the Phoenix, rampant. The inlays constantly give off a faint radiance. This door has two locks, one on either side of the door. Niko believes both must be picked simultaneously or the trap is triggered.
Even though the Mentalist guesses the Kitaan tombs most likely hide the Phoenix Sword, the group starts with the Lankor doors bearing the Faslurin name. Anticipating, flames from the phoenix statue, Jymsan erects a stone wall guessing where the phoenix would rotate and “breath” fire at them. It all turns out unnecessary. Niko picks the lock and avoids the trap with ease.
Beyond is a 200’ dark hallway leading to a door made of panels of reinforced steel that show no sign of corrosion. Engraved in High Rhakaan are the runes: “House of Lankôr, Lords of the Earth. Enter with Reverence.” The doors are locked and Niko does not detect a trap. Niko picks it; however, there is one extra click. In a split second, a giant scythe slices across the hallway from the sidewall. Everyone steps back as Niko tumbles away with only a scratch. At the same time, Morden quickly telekinetically stays the blade slightly. Apparently enough. Niko might have been chopped in two. Before a second attempt, Jymsan puts up a stone wall in front of where the blade would emerge, but turns out unneeded as Niko picks the lock and they open the door.
The room beyond is lined with eight rectangular pillars, each of a frosted blue glass etched with runes. The runes appear to tell the story of the Lankôr family, the gift of the Phoenix Crown, and the consolidation of the realm. The floor is of smooth blocks of green marble with veins of silver. The passage continues to the east to a square room with four columns that support a vaulted roof. The walls are covered with beautiful mosaics. Further east, another room with walls and two long supports covered with fabulous mosaics depicting the major events in the king’s life — featuring his coronation with the Phoenix Crown and taming of a Phoenix. One shows him being handed an unusual weapon-like object (blaster rifle anyone?) and a large and curious key by a tall man with short black hair and six fingers. Surrounding the two on this scene are huge floating planets and a starfield. The others see Morden stare at the mosaic of the six-fingered man.
Three vault doors appear on the Eastern wall of the starfield mosaic room. The middle door says it is for “Nœrkhaan Lankor I” in High Rhaakhan. This door is 10' high, 8' wide door are is covered with gold and embossed with a large representation of a coin minted during Nœrkhaan Lankôr’s reign. No opening mechanism is apparent.
The northern vault door is a sheet of laen framed by steel and is locked; Niko picks and opens, not detecting a trap. They find the walls of the chamber are of a black, glassy substance like slag. Resting on a pedestal under a glass cover is, let’s just come right out a say it, a Blaster Rifle. Niko detects that the box is not locked but is trapped. He surmises that lifting the lid triggers a set of blades that whirl out of the pedestal to deliver a hand-severing (or worse) blade attack. The party leaves this vault for later.
The southern vault door is a locked metal door. The lock mechanism is extremely hard to open, but Niko manages to crack it. Inside, set on a small pedestal, is what Morden, in an incredible effort, attunes to and identifies as an orb of seeing. This is a legendary item of great power. They find it rather difficult to transport, however, being about a foot in diameter and weighing ≈ 100 lbs. Nevertheless, Morden asks Tyrus to lug it about here and there, but getting it out of the tombs unblemished will require strength and ingenuity.
Turning their attention back to the middle vault door, they discover that if Jaral Lankôr’s left eye is pressed the door opens. Behind, they find a 10’ wide hallway potentially with a trapped ceiling. In the hallway in front of them, they see an outline in the ceiling where a granite slab might fall and almost completely block access to the tomb within. Bypassing where the slab might fall, the party finds a sunken tomb beyond. Inside they see what seems to be a sleeping woman or her well-preserved corpse beneath a rounded glass cover on a slab of granite. She wears fine clothing but no obvious jewelry. It is interesting being the vault door had a King’s name, not a Queens.
This is where session #5 ends. They have been underground for almost 36 hours and have rested twice.
