05/12/2026: Hall of the Amber Sarcophagi

Hall of the Amber Sarcophagi

The East Hall of the Amber Sarcophagi smells of damp stone and something older, sharper underneath — caused, possibly by the divine things that have been imprisoned within for a very long time. Behind one of the chamber doors, the sounds are extraordinary: crashing, roaring, the shriek of something that might be female or might be the sound stone makes when it breaks. The lich, Exethanter, an ettin, and the Goddess of Poxes Fekre are locked in what can only be described as a theological disagreement conducted entirely through violence.

Exethanter’s companion Neferon stands in the hall with an expression entirely unreadable. The party waits with him. 

And then, creeping under the door and pooling around Nike’s feet like slow water, comes a curl of orange mist.

Ratrick sees it first. Nike, already too late, is a heartbeat behind him. The mist moves with unmistakable intent.

⚔

And the mist has already found what it is looking for.

Nike becomes aware of a pressure — not pain exactly, but the overwhelming sensation of not being alone inside her own skull. It is like having eaten too much, or needing to cough, except that what needs to move is not in her chest. Something is circling behind her eyes, rifling through her thoughts with the casual efficiency of someone sorting through files they own.

Move, Fekre screams within her head. Get us out. Now.

No one in the hall other than Nike appears to hear any of this. But Crystal stares at her, hard, sensing….what?

Nike’s body turns and walks — faster than walking, really — straight past Ratrick, turns the corner into the Great Hall and dashes up the stairs. She passes him so quickly he barely has time to register the blankness on her face. Behind her, almost as an afterthought, Fekre makes Nike blow a kiss at Crystal as she goes.

Crystal gawps after her.

The penny drops for the sorcerer: something is very wrong with Nike.

⚔

Soulfire also has seen the orange mist. Soulfire has seen Nike’s face. Soulfire is already moving, Pinecone scrambling out of the way.

Nike is already halfway up the stairs. Soulfire throws a Hypnotic Pattern into the air ahead of Nike — shimmering, spiraling, the kind of beauty that stops the brain as well as legs. But Fekre is old and her will is monstrous, and she is able to ignore it. The flickering hangs useless, weirdly reflected in the uneven amber walls.

Shifty, following Crystal, launches a bolt of necromantic energy at the fleeing figure.  He wants to drop Nike with debilitating muscle spasms, and hopefully not kill the rogue outright. The black-purple light of the Wrack spell catches Nike square in the back — and then zings harmlessly off into the dark. Somewhere in the depths of the temple, a nothic starts wailing, in agonizing pain for reasons it will never understand.

Crystal, thinking quickly. She wants very much to remain on friendly terms so as not to end her Charm spell on the evil goddess currently wearing her party member. She gets behind Shifty and raises a Wall of Fire across the top of the staircase. Fekre, seeing this through Nike’s eyes, does not appear to notice that Crystal cast it.

Neferon, entering the hall with the air of someone mildly interested in the outcome, asks Soulfire conversationally whether she would mind if he encouraged Nike into the Wall of Fire with a Finger of Death.

“Not at all,” says Soulfire the demon, agreeably.

Neferon folds his left arm to prop his right arm on his backward-bending elbow. Taking careful aim at the frantic Nike, who is searching for a way to get around the fiery barrier, the arcanaloth launches more purple-black arcane energy at the wild-eyed rogue. Nike’s back arches with the stab of necrotic energy that engulfs her. She jitters but remains, miraculously, upon the stairs, possessed and deeply wounded by the life-force draining spell. Finally, eyes that have a malevolence very unlike Nike’s usual demeanor glare in the direction the comrades flinging spells at her.

⚔

Groggily, Zilk rolls to his feet in the hallway before the blown-open door of the sarcophagi chamber. Ilya is crouching beside him. They watch Exethanter tottering toward the Great Hall, where sounds of a fierce arcane battle are taking place. 

“You should go help Nike, Mr. Zilk. She is possessed by Fekre.”

Zilk leaps up to fly around the corner, taking in the scene all at once. He recognises the extraordinary set to Nike’s body immediately, because he has worn it himself. 

He makes the sigil for the Colour Spray spell, a low-energy spell normally meant for less powerful enemies, but judges that the goddess is wounded just enough for the spell to afflict her.

On the stairs, Nike’s borrowed body is engulfed in dazzling lights. As they fade, it is clear from her bulging, frantic eyes that she is now temporarily blind. 

Within Nike, Fekre is also unable to see. She assesses her position as it was when she had vision. Then, she commands Nike to grope her way up the stairs to take them out of the Amber Temple by passing through Crystal’s raging wall of flame.

Internally, Nike mounts a fierce defense, successfully declining self-immolation in the firmest possible manner. Instead, she opens a negotiation. A magic item, she proposes — one of her choosing, delivered on completion of delivery Fekre from the Amber Temple — in exchange for her own full cooperation. Fekre screams, “YES! ANYTHING!” within  Nike’s skull. But the proximity of these two intelligences allows Nike to sense that the goddess is lying: she has no magical items to give.

Nike changes strategy. She grabs her own face, plugs her nose, and blows.

Fekre — battered, cornered, running low on options — erupts from Nike’s mouth in a shower of orange mist and coalesces into the ruined goddess. She crouches upon the staircase, bloodied, battered, and met immediately by Zilk’s enchanted longsword. His acute stealth allows him to deliver crushing damage.

Fekre shrieks with pain and misery as she recognizes the outcome of this fight.

On the stairs, Nike gasps and comes back to herself.

Soulfire casts Hypnotic Pattern again, placing it with precision, and this time Fekre is too damaged, too depleted. She fails to save herself from its effects. The goddess of poxes — ancient, eternal, unable to die — goes still on the stairs, charmed and incapacitated, her ability to move deprived by the arcane effects of Soulfire’s spell.

Checkmate.

⚔

Exethanter strides into the Great Hall still furious, tattered robes trailing, demanding to know where Fekre went. The party points up the stairs.

He does not thank them. Up the stairs to glower over the sobbing goddess, Exethanter reaches into his robes and produces both a long shard of amber and an elongated pliers so he won’t have to touch the stone directly, once he's completed his task. Fekre tips her hopeless face up to him, tears streaming — and Exethanter presses the shard to Fekre’s forehead. She collapses into the amber like water going down a drain. He picks it up with the pliers, says “Out of my way,” and walks it back to her prison without breaking stride.

Pinecone gets out of the way. He is an exceptionally intelligent wolf.

⚔

In the aftermath, the hall is quiet. The sounds from the chamber have stopped. Exethanter leans against the wall, and something in him has gone dim — a candle burning low.

“I feel unwell,” he tells Neferon. “Help me to my chamber. I must lie down.” He pauses. “Reward them. Send them on their way.” A dry, pointed look toward the stairs. “Particularly the one on the stairs.”

⚔

The party regroups in the amber-lit silence of the temple, breathing hard, taking stock of what is still attached. Exethanter’s promised reward — the resurrection ritual for Lord Wachter — waits in the Great Library, and beyond the temple door, Vallaki waits too, with all its complications.

They are, as of tonight, victors.

Somewhere in the dark, a Nothic twitches, confused, recovering, and entirely unaware that it has become a footnote in someone else’s story.