Session #21 (Tomb of Trakas - part 2)

The part entered the pyramid through a hatch behind the old altar, in the harpy's lair. A ladder descended 15 ft. From there a ramp extended further down at a 45 degree angle. The ramp was full of small bats.

The party climbed down the ramp, with a rope tied off to the ladder. Gevin lead the way.

At the bottom of the ramp was another open hatchway into a chamber below. Gevin dropped down in, with magic light supplied by Jhunter.

The chamber was filthy with guano, insects, rats, and bats. At the end of a corridor, Gevin could see two humaniod figures floating just off the group. But before he could investigate, he was attacked by a swarm of rats. By this time, the bats had become quite disturbed. The bats attacked Jhunter.

Before long, the party was engaged in fullscale battle against the vermin in the chamber. giant rats, shadowhunter bats, a bat swarm, and a rat swarm. They barely seemed to notice as the two humanoid figures slowly moved closer to them.

At one point, Samm shifted to get combat advantage against a large bat. He put him self just a few feet from the floating humanoids. Next thing he knew, Samm was engulfed in a Gelatinous cube.

Over the course of the battle, Samm, Adeja, and Perra were all engulfed in the cube at some point. Adeja and Perra were just one round away from being killed by the acid. Perra provided some timely healing, and Gevin was able to finish it off just in time.

[1 gel cube 400
1 Rat Swarm - 125
1 Bat Cloud - 150
4 Giant Rats - 100
2 Shadow Hunter Bats - 300] Total 1075

From there the party descended further, to a burial chamber for some honored dead from the ancient Bahumati realm. This chambe featured a huge statue of Tiamat. This statue launched a magical attack to defend the graves.

This included
an acid dart trap (never triggered, and disabled by Samm after the fight)- 150
a gas mist trap - 175
and several summoned elementals:
Lesser Fire Elemental 100
Magma Claw 175
4 Ice Warrior Shardlings 100
Ice Warrior Frostling 125
Storm Shard 175

Total 1000

Jhunter was especially effective in this fight, using ice rays to freeze the fire elementals in place. This turned out to be a very easy fight to win.

For the whole session, that's 2075 XP, or 415 each. By my count each character has3550 XP, just 150 shy of 4th level.

Session #20 (Tomb of Trakas - Cemetary)

At the end of the last session, the party had arrived at the step pyramid Tomb of Trakas. The base of the stairway on to the pyramid was right next to a cemetary that the party knew to be infested with undead. They made the choice to take on the challenge head-on. (I had thought they miught try to scale the walls of the pyramid to avoid this fight).

The party faced a 2 skeletons (150XP each), 1 blazing skeleton (200), 1 Mad Wraith (250), and 5 decrepit skeletons (25 each). Total 875, split 5 ways is 175XP.

The Mad Wraith has the ability to use its "Touch of Chaos" to drive people mad, compelling them to attach allies. The party wisely focused their fire on the blazing skeleton (throwing fire orbs from a tower). They were able to take him out quickly. The Wraith has a stretch of bad rolls, and was only able to succeed with Touch of Chaos once - causing Samm to sprint across the battle field and strike Jhunter for 17 points of damage. The party was able to overcome all the undead creatures without too much difficulty.

Jhunter recovered a magical jewel from the Blazing Skeleton.

The party climbed the stair to the top level of the pyramid. There the found a Harpy ("Naivara") with a pack of 8 gnolls. This group had set up camp atop the pyramid as their base of operations. The party was able to talk Naivara into letting them pass. They entered the pyramid through a doorway in Naivara's lair (an ancient temple atop the pyramid). I'll score this as a level 4 skill challenge. On diplomacy and intimidation checks they had 6 successes and only 2 failures. That's another 875.

Total per character for this session is 350XP.