17th of 10 – Year of Blue Echoes. Isadora, Calavera and I (Dunlan) headed out after purchasing equipment. Evynor wasn’t around, so we assumed he wasn’t coming. We quickly left the redoubt and reached the entrance to Viper’s Tomb in record time (early evening). It was at this time that Evynor appeared at our side rather mysteriously. It seems the Key Pads will draw allies to us when we are already exploring this place. We quickly went in and got to the chamber with the three wooden coffins that were occupied on our last expedition.
I had spent my entire week saving (plus some I had borrowed from Calavera) on some Holy Water, expecting it to provide some value against these abominations. With some confidence, I went up to the large central coffin, opened it (they were already rousing), and poured the water in. Unfortunately, it had no effect, but some quick thinking from my allies (Bill is the best boy) and some luck allowed us to dispatch them with some ease. We destroyed them with minimal injury, but sadly, they did not yield much treasure. This turned out to be a false tomb.
Calavera explored the murals in the room, searching for runes to match against the propaganda scroll she had. Isadora and Evynor searched for treasure, and I headed to the secret passage we had found behind the frog god statue in the room to the south. We all went down and quickly found ourselves in a room with six viper statues, one of which looked like it was twisted. I found a secret passage behind that led to a room where we collected two pole-arms (150 cp each) and a strange silver icon of a serpent (5g gp).
We went back to the larger corridor and proceeded to the end, where it expanded to an octagonal room with doors on a number of the faces and viper statues everywhere else. A strange pool of liquid is in the middle of the chamber (smells of licorice?), and most of the doors (mostly stone) are marked with the names of various figures from Calavera’s scroll. Unfortunately, it was about this time that our keypads “expired” and we found ourselves back inside the arch.
Need to go shake down the snake oil salesman that sold me that bunk holy water, but at least the expedition wasn’t a total bust. Still, not yet to the heaps of treasure promised by the notes in our initial finding. I am beginning to wonder if these goat people were making stuff up or were maybe taking this snake propaganda as truth. Next week, we will return and start checking some of those doors. I wonder if the Key Pads hold any other secrets; they seem pretty powerful.