The entryway to the tomb had been scoured of useful items, save a mostly-empty pack of cigarettes. The group heard prayers to the Revered Ancestors and the Moon God from the next room. The Sun Priest went through the door and found the expedition leader Na'Od, an archaeologist from the Sun Temple of Amon. Na'Od brandished his magical chac chac and threatened to blast the Sun Priest. The Sun Priest made some progress, explaining the contestants weren't here to kill him or participate in the Termina festival at all. Then the Student pointed his shotgun at the expedition leader. Na'Od cast hurting and blew the Student's leg off. The Student fired his shotgun and nearly caved in the expedition leader's chest.
The Financier defused the situation by yelling at the expedition leader. He spent a LOT of money financing this dig, and he wasn't going to tolerate his investment going to waste. The Priest told them to get the fuck out of his sight, they could use his ritual circles if they wanted. And if they made it to the sarcophagus of the Immortal Ego himself, opening it would banish the Moon God back to space.
The Virgin Mage made sure neither the Student nor Na'Od were about to die of their wounds. A sinister hissing sound came from the entrance to the tomb. A bloated figure staggered toward the team, enormous fuse lolling out of its mouth like a tongue. It was the Technician, who disappeared soon after their arrival in the Valley of the Gods. Not interested in being blown to pieces, the group opened fire before he could get close. Na'Od blew his leg off with a clever spell, and the moonscorched Martyr exploded. The explosion collapsed the entrance of the tomb and kicked up a big dust plume.
With no way out but further down, the Sun Priest investigated the next room. The
beehive shaped chamber was scribed with three ritual circles:
one to Sylvian, Goddess of Love, one to Gro Goroth the Destroyer, and
one scribed with the geometrically perfect insignia of the Ascended
Gods. The Sylvian circle would heal the user's body, but there was a price to pay. If just one person needed a leg restored, simple onanism on the ritual circle would be enough to earn the Goddess' blessing. But there were two petitioners: Saba the Student with his missing leg, and Hardraada the Financier with his lame one - the entire reason he came to the dig site in the first place. In order to both gain Sylvian's blessing, the duo would have to show love.
The Virgin Mage and Sun Priest investigated the geometric circle while
the Financier and Student jacked each other off. The Virgin Mage drew
the sign of the Crucified God. For a moment she felt the God's presence,
then nothing. The Alll Mer circle allowed her to engage in imperfect
transubstantiation, making herself slower but more durable by adjusting
her vital statistics. By the time she was done fiddling with that, the
two guys with crippled limbs were done fiddling with each other. Sylvian
restored their limbs to full functionality and granted them knowledge
of the spell Healing Whispers.
All that remained was the Gro Goroth circle. To gain the Destroyer's power, a petitioner had to either sacrifice a living being on the circle, or bleed themselves. Saba really wanted to sacrifice Na'Od. The Financier and the Sun Priest disagreed. A screaming argument broke out, which the Virgin Mage managed to quell. With all their limbs functioning again, and the power of Alll Mer and Sylvian on their side, they went down to the next level.
Rher
descended on the Valley of the Gods when the dig team opened the second
level of the tomb, preventing the archaeologists from fully exploring
and removing its contents. The first room had a high ceiling and
decorated walls. On one wall, an enormous moon sneered down at a
landscape full of people, all fighting and killing each other until only
one remained. On the other wall, a tall man with horns rebuked the
moon, sending it fleeing back into space. The team interpreted this as
the power of the Immortal Ego to end the Sacred Termina Festival and
banish the Moon God back to space. They also found a shotgun and some
beer where the excavators abandoned it.
The
next room was large, held up by a series of columns. Something scraped
in the dark, rusty metal grinding against stone. They shined their
lights into the dark gallery. A Penance Knight marched into the beam, a
legendary warrior from ancient Vatican City, sealed inside a suit of
armor and sent on a suicide mission a thousand years ago.
The undead knight knelt to the Virgin Mage, beloved of Alll Mer. In ages past he would have slaughtered her like his comrades from the Vatican slaughtered the soldiers and sultans of the Eastern Sanctuaries. Now he begged her to lead him against the evil that dwelt in the depths of the tomb. He had waited for a thousand years and now someone who could break the seal was here.
The Virgin Mage agreed. The undead knight PUNISHMENT joined the party.
There were three doors leading out of the great hall. One led to endless mortuary slabs set in the wall, on which lay mummified slaves. The corpses reanimated as the explorers went to leave the chamber. The archaeologists among the group spoke their archaic Songhai language, and convinced them that they didn't have to fight for the Immortal Ego anymore. The slaves knelt so that PUNISHMENT could decapitate them.
The next room was a treasure room, where a long-dead priest lay pinned under a shelf amid heaps of gold coins. The Sun Priest turned the body over to determine a cause of death and a flesh eating scarab leapt from inside the corpse and tried to burrow into his skin. He crushed the bug, and the Financier noticed that it looked awfully similar to the "amulets" scattered amid the heaps of treasure. He picked up one of the gems and it turned out to be another scarab, which bit him and induced the Student to punch him trying to get it off. They decided the treasure room wasn't worth being eaten alive by giant insects over.
The last tunnel led to a giant magical seal, over a stone slab. There was also a corpse of a crusader from Vatican City, clad in a steel breastplate the Sun Priest immediately donned. The Virgin Mage used her magic to undo the seal on the slab, which fell over with a crash and opened up the passage to the level below.
The third level was a series of limestone caves, through which the
builders of the tomb had made a passage. Mineral buildup from dripping
water had occluded the path, but the contestants were able to find their way through. Fossil apes watched them from fissures in the rock, reanimated by the power oozing out of the tomb but not brave enough to challenge a large group of well armed hominids. The cave opened up into a vast interior space, with a stone bridge over a vast pit where opalescent fossils glimmered and vast dark shapes moved silently. The bridge was guarded by the Dark Priest from the truck. He was crucified on a cross of silver. A corpse hung around his neck on a cord, and a pair of questing tentacles extended from the back of the crucifix. He cried out hymns to God and bid the devotes slaves of Alll Mer pass him unharmed. His tentacles stopped just short of touching the contestants as they shuffled past.
The
final chamber was shaped like a pyramid. In the center was a stone
sarcophagus of black stone. Leaking out of the coffin was a trickle of
black slime. Licking up the slime were a pair of ghouls, facial features
obscured by a thick layer of ichor. They rose up to challenge the intruders, demanding to be fed something delicious. The Student offered them a drink of sweet, sweet lead. The first one willingly placed its mouth around the gun barrel willingly and was decapitated by a fistful of buckshot. The second fought back with magic absorbed from the sarcophagus of the Immortal Ego, and was cut down with another shotshell. The Student quaffed a blue vial for strength, and the team opened the sarcophagus. Just in time to banish Rher before he moonscorched them.
The Immortal Ego emerged from his crypt. The penance knight PUNISHMENT immediately attacked him before he could speak, and battle was joined. The Virgin Mage and the Student fought alongside the undead knight, against Daoud. The Sun Priest fought alongside Daoud, who he esteemed as the father of his race. The Financier stayed out of the conflict. Zaina the Virgin Mage dealt the Immortal Ego a horrible wound with her shotgun. Daoud raised his left hand and blasted PUNISHMENT with magic, then his right hand and tore Zaina into pieces with a thought. PUNISHMENT hacked off Daoud's right hand with his greatsword. The Sun Priest Nilamon stabbed the Student Saba with his iron spear. The Student shot the Immortal Ego Djoser Parahu Daoud dead.
The Sun Priest's mind was shattered by the death of his friend the Virgin Mage, and the New God Djoser Parahu Daoud. PUNISHMENT fished through the pool of gore that was once the Virgin Mage and pulled out a purifying talisman, soaked with her blood. He proclaimed it a holy artifact of the saint who had destroyed the evil New God using the power of Alll Mer. Then he collapsed into a heap of armor and bones. The Sun Priest picked up the card and accepted Alll Mer as his savior. Saba demanded the remaining blue vials and the Financier helped him remove the iron spear stuck in his body.
The surviving adventurers used a firebomb to kill the scarabs in the treasure room. Though they burned priceless historical artifacts in the process, they didn't destroy the gold, which was the important part. They filled their bags with treasure and headed for the surface.
He raised his hand to cast a spell and nothing came out.
The three adventurers, in unison, raised their weapons at him in response.
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