The swarm of ghouls kept coming at the party (KA07. The Missing Shipments). Arc and Bludak Mal K'shaar headed for another of the runes that seemed to be summoning them, but Bludak Mal K'shaar was unable to repeat Arc's efforts dispelling the first rune. Meanwhile, Elias Minch was struggling with the ghouls surrounding him, as their attacks were causing him to be momentarily paralysed. Smith kept his distance, using his construct to burn as many of the ghouls as he could. Elias Minch eventually broke free of the paralysis, and was able to quickly take out the surrounding ghouls before charging forwards.
Unfortunately the wave of ghouls had increased to the point where Arc was now suffering from the same paralysis as Elias Minch had been, while Bludak Mal K'shaar grew more and more frustrated by his lack of success. Smith headed forwards, breaking several gravestones as he did so, and was immediately able to dispel the third rune, letting everyone turn their focus on the second one. Elias Minch bit the tongue off one of the ghouls, a decision that he immediately regretted upon realising how decomposed the ghoul's tongue was.
After the third rune was defeated, it was relatively straight-forward to take out the rest of the ghouls now that no more were being summoned. As dusk had long-since fallen, the party chose to take a night's rest, before heading into the structure that they now saw before them. The door was locked, but that was easily remedied by Smith. The party had previous been told by Draken Lightstep that this was the southern entrance that had been turned into a tomb for General Leto, and it appeared that this was the location that he was interred. Inside the small building were two rows of stone coffins, one row on each side. At the other end of the building was a more elaborate stone coffin, with the words 'General Leto, saviour of Karrnath' written on the side.
As the party approach, a grid could be seen on the side of the General's stone coffin. There were several runes lit up on it; Arc touched the blank spaces next to them, and realised that this was a puzzle, with the correct runes needing to be put in a pattern. She quickly drew out the solution in the dirt on the floor, before copying her work into the rune grid on the coffin. With a rumbling sound, the coffin shifted, revealing a set of stairs beneath.
The party discussed heading down into the dark. Bludak Mal K'shaar was concerned that Arc wouldn't be able to see in the dark, as humans don't have dark-vision. But Arc revealed something surprising to the party; for a second, her face changed to a strange grey, and they realised that she was in fact a changeling. However as Smith wasn't able to see in the dark, it was a moot point; the party still had to use a torch to find their way. They headed down the stairs, and followed the single path for twenty to thirty minutes, before it opened out into a wider corridor.
They found themselves in front of an open shaft, with a lift in front of them on the right-hand side. A rope could be seen running up from the lift into a mechanism above, before coming down on an equivalent position on the left-hand side. Dropping their torch down the shaft, they were able to see a door about a hundred feet down, flush with the wall in the centre. Another hundred feet beyond that the torch hit the floor, and a second lift could be seen, with a large counter-weight on it. Weighing up their options, Bludak Mal K'shaar stepped onto the lift. When nothing happened, the rest of the party followed, with their combined weight enough to cause the lift to start moving downwards.
At the half-way point, the two lifts passed each other at the same time as they reached the door. Elias Minch took the opportunity to try and leap onto the other lift, but missed his step; he fell to the base of the shaft, with a sickening crunch as he fell unconscious. As soon as the lift hit the bottom, Bludak Mal K'shaar was able to heal him. Bludak Mal K'shaar then decided to climb up the rope to reach the door. Finding it locked, he decided to head up to the top instead, and called for Smith to see if he could pick the lock.
The rest of the party at the bottom pushed the counter-weight off, allowing Smith to go up, with Bludak Mal K'shaar acting as the counterweight on the other lift. When they met in the middle, Smith attempted to pick the lock. He inadvertently trigged a lightning trap in the door, but was able to avoid the damage, and successfully unlocked and opened the door and stepped through. With the weight from one lift removed, Bludak Mal K'shaar was taken down to the bottom. He then climbed back up to the top, while Elias Minch followed him half-way and stepped straight through the door. When Bludak Mal K'shaar got to the top, he immediately stepped onto the lift, counterbalancing Arc, who had been holding the one at the bottom down. The two of them met in the middle, and stepped through the doorway.
Following the passage further, the party found that the path split into multiple directions. Bludak Mal K'shaar felt a slight breeze in front of them, so suggested they head forwards, but the path split once again, and it felt like the breeze came from both directions. Choosing to head right, the party found several dead-ends, and a crack in a wall that was apparently the source of the breeze. As they retraced their steps, a strange moaning wail could be faintly heard in the distance. As the party headed down the left-hand branch, they split up slightly to investigate the various paths. Elias Minch went around several corners, out of sight of the rest of the party; as he was about to turn around and rejoin them, a ghostly woman appeared through the wall of the dead end, heading towards him with an undead fury written on her face...