Chapter 1: Shunet El Zebib

The centipede does indeed scuttle away when suddenly mandible to mandible with the terrifying myrmeleon! Jana slowly regains the use of her hand after ingesting the antitoxin.

There don't appear to be any more threats right now. Like everywhere else so far, the walls here are covered with hieroglyphs. Arranged around the sarcophagus are numerous piles of bones, canopic jars, once-expensive silks (now faded and brittle), ceremonial weaponry and armor (tarnished with age, but probably still valuable), and various ornate boxes and chests.

What do you do?

Everyone has a look around. The Swordsman finds a small arsenal -- spears, shields, maces, a lone khopesh, but most appear to be ceremonial. He wonders if they would be any good in an actual fight.

Akh, something has been bugging you about the way this crypt is laid out. Where are the accoutrements of royalty? The person in the sarcophagus was obviously important, but could not have been a god-pharaoh! You pore over your books and study the hieroglyphs. Two names stand out: the god-pharaoh Khut-hotep, and his most trusted advisor, a sorcerer named Nechepso. Slowly, you are starting to piece the story together. But then...

Soro, you and Jei'nine find the outline of a cunningly hidden door in the south wall. You have no clue how to open it though. As you feel around, there's a soft but ominous click, and the floor opens up under your feet!

Soro and Jei'nine have just narrowly avoided falling into a wicked pit trap. Soro caught the edge, is now hanging one-handed. With his other hand he's got Jei'nine by the scruff of her neck. What do you all do?

Everyone is back on solid ground now, but it sounds like that spiked pit trap also triggered something else. You hear the grinding and thudding of stone, as if great doors are sliding open or shut (you know not which) elsewhere in these halls.

Music

Akh hardly notices. So engrossed is he in his translation of the hieroglyphs.

...and so it was that the sorcerer, Nechepso, cast down the pharaoh, Khut-hotep, into the Black Pit -- into the bowels of the earth...

...then, Nechepso sat the throne, and claimed dominion... ...but Khut-hotep's power reached out from the depths and laid a curse on Nechepso and his court...

...a plague of locusts, wasps, flies, centipedes, spiders, lice, and every creature that swarmed upon the ground, and bit and stung... until Nechepso himself fell ill, laid low by a scorpion's sting...

...entombed above the Pit, to eternally guard and serve the one he usurped...



Akh is interrupted when the voice you heard in the antechamber rings out once more, echoing cold and menacing through the crypt. The sarcophagus trembles.

"The way is shut. The Pit is sealed. Why have you come?"

What do you do?