What follows is a session of a B/X hexcrawl I'm running with friends.
Session 3
Cast:
Kishar the Hollow Agate - Magic-User 1
Marko - Thief 2
Guardsman Vanon - Fighter 2
Shaggy - Fighter 1
Loot, kills, achievements:
4 ambulatory skeletons (10 xp each)
Good investigation (20 xp each)
25 lb bag of wheat (10 xp)
The party has gathered at the edge of a quiet, seemingly abandoned village that reportedly has been cursed. It's all stucco and clay brick, bark roofs and domes, and great terrible rents in the earth like it's been scooped up. As well, it centers around a dried-up riverbed with white stone.
Closest to the party and away from the village is a mysterious freestanding arch, further away and at the center of the village is a three-story ruin of ruins, a spire made of the collapsed remnants of other buildings. The party checks out the arch first and suspects that it is the source of the curse; they find that it is embossed with astrological figures in the classical style (the lovers, the eye, the spear, the manticore, etc etc etc) and as well was once part of a larger structure—one of completely different style than the village. It's keystone is visibly mission.
Kishar and Vanon converse about the nature of the curse: if it isn't stuck to just the arch, could it come to spread across the rest of the plains? Possible, they plan to cleanse the village and take it for themselves. Marko takes a while to think about what kind of rituals would be related to the arch and astrology (the arch is obviously magical everyone decides).
Shaggy doesn't spot any of the spirits that tore up his boys, but says the ruin of ruins looks pretty cursed. It turns out that the bandits went along the dry riverbed and never went near the arch.
First the party checks the ruins around the permitter, going house to house, looking for useful salvage. In a poor cotter's hut they find stored grain and salt under a flagstone (Kishar has learned well from how the oppressed may hide their goods from their oppressors). The mule is christened "Mister Fist" while they fortify the place as a fallback position.
Deeper into the ruins and across the bridge are skeletons! Wrapped up in long strips of cloth to be held together, the undead and the party meet long tumbled stone. They part cleanly dispatches every one in short combat, but Shaggy takes a hit.
Looting commences, but all the party can find is a large public house with a bronze dome roof (also covered in astrological figures —could salvage the bronze) with the other buildings being stripped clean when they haven't been torn to pieces by some unknown force. Facing the ruin of ruins, Marko is sent to shimmy between the original walls of the building and its surrounding buttresses with just his sword and armor; the rest of the party plans to follow along after leaving Shaggy to carry their miscellanea. Kishar insists this is a test of resolve and if the party can trust him.
Insight comes to Marko in between the walls; whatever magic relates to the arch must relate to the time of year and the constellations visible in the sky (currently highest is The Eye, representative of secrets revealed, insight, intuition, light). This must also go for the rest of the signs. Whatever that means, the arch should do different things during different times of year.
The party meets up at a perfect spot where the remaining sunlight comes through a broken window, and fingers of light illuminate the vast dark inside of the ruin of ruins. The party sees a semicircle of stacked goods: rugs, carpets, carafes of oil, sacks of grain and coffee and beans, amphorae, boxes of fragrant cedar. Great physical wealth in goods. They also see a silhouette sitting lotus position on the bare stone in the center of this semicircle, unmoving (it's suspected that if they touch any of the guy's stuff he will be pissed, so they just plan on getting the drop on him and killing him).
Lighting up Marko's sword reveals that the figure is mummified and unmoving, but when our thief goes to get the drop the mummy mouths words, and from somewhere behind (around?) it comes a clear voice. "Ah, another come to worship."
It takes gaps in between speaking, but the mummy calls Marko to come and kneel before it, then sit before it resplendent in meditation. The mummy is Amhuum The Grace of Small Petals, and it is very full of itself and assured all come to worship its glorious presence.
Marko plays along with the role of the disciple enough to get info on the why: Amhuum also came here to study the arch, failed, and sought enlightenment to further itself down that path. It has lost many years in observing what time does to the arch, and can no longer physically move. It also tells that others have come to the village, been found unworthy, and were driven off.
Marko suggests going on a quest to find the keystone and complete the arch, Amhuum is pleased by this suggestion but gives nothing of its treasure horde to help him on his journey. Asshole.
Afterwards:
- Marko believes that the skeletons were the mummy's other followers and wants to get a seal from Amhuum so they won't be bothered by any more restless dead,
- Vanon thinks that any deal with the mummy would end up in some kind of magical servitude,
- Kishar wants to find the keystone and spite the mummy by taking it for herself.
- They all agree on killing it at some point to cleanse the village.
At the end of daylight everyone (Shaggy didn't run off it turns out, to Kishar's pleasure) heads back to the cottage. Thinking staying with Amhuum too unpleasant.
Marko is troubled by terrible dreams of having eyes of fire and his were-jackal bite surging with heat, but the hair-of-the-dog treatment means he survives his save vs. Poison, and his dreams are nothing more than dreams.
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