Road to Kebnegard, Chapter Nine

The Tarot Dungeon, part 1
Friday, February 10th, 988 AD

This part of the tale I pieced together after Svipdag and Conrad reappeared in the room. Both were exhausted, but Conrad was vomiting blood and Svipdag seemed confused. Any and all omissions or mistakes are because of their exhaustion and sickness, and really, who can blame them.

The party all appeared in a dark corridor. They figured out that Edward's card had him radiating darkness so that their light stones did not work. Even their torches didn't light up as much as they should have. Edward, Jean-Claude, and Reynaldo consoled their bad luck with the fact that the Fool card would save them. They opened the door and were immediately set upon by three lioness-headed sphinxes. The party made short work of them and found their lair, where Reynaldo found three tongues in a bag. JC said he wanted them because they were scroll ink ingredients. Beyond their lair, there was the first of many dead ends, this one hidded behind a wall of force that took awhile to take down. In this dungeon, there was also a tiny room where only one person could fit in at one time. The other doors could only be opened if every other door was closed. This led to two more dead ends (one of which was protected by two traps). The third door led to a room with some vicious cats that the party had to kill. In that room, a trap door was found that led to long a hallway that was half covered in webs. The party burned through webs and then fought a large spider with wolf heads on its sides. They killed the spider and found scrolls that on closer inspection were actually bones that looked like scrolls. After another dead end that was hidden behind a wall of force, the party fought a gelatinous cube that burned them a lot. When it was defeated, pitons had to be used to traverse over it, because it still burned when you touched it. The party came to a room that contained a woman sleeping on a stone slab. When the party looked through the Gem of True Seeing, some of them saw a skeleton and others saw a figure of a boar superimposed the sleeping woman's form. They decided to leave her for the time being and went into the next room. There were three chests in that room. One contained silver, another was a mimic that the party killed, and the last was trap door that led to a level below them. They went down and found another dead end hidden behind a wall of force and a hallway filled with red light. The party sucked it up, they had Edward cast Protection from Evil, 10 ft. Radius, and ran through the red light. Some effects of the light were that an amorous camel followed JC, Wong's pants were pulled down, Ivan burst into flames, Nicolae's mind was almost invaded, and the spell Summon Swarm disappeared from Reynaldo's spell book. After about 100 feet of red light, the party came to a 10 by 10 foot square with no light and beyond that a hallway full of yellow light. There was also a button on the wall that turned off the red light behind them. The party decided to assume there would be a similar button on the other end of the yellow light, so Edward ran it alone. When he got to the other end, a similar 10 by 10 foot square was lightless with a button and a hallway of green light ahead of him. He pushed the button and the rest of the party came after him. He ran the green light and pushed the button. There was blue light now, but since Edward had taken damage, Ivan decided to do the blue light. He ran it, got to a door with a button on it and pushed it. The party ran through a door and found themselves in a large room with ancient Egyptian art on the walls and three large cat-headed, hippo-bodied, crocodile-tailed things attacked the party. They killed them and then decided to rest without actually sleeping because they were all still deathly afraid of going insane.

End Chapter Nine