September 20, Year 3488 (SE 118)
Upon entering the mysterious city, the party split into three groups. Zedlyn and Arik start searching nearby buildings, looking for shards of pottery, metals, or other clues about the city besides the stone that could have survived. Iriellis and Flossaria search for wells or other sources of water, which would extend the amount of time that the party can last before needing to leave. Sharla, Adokas, and P'hla decide to head directly for the pyramid.
Zedlyn and Arik discover a few relics, although most are too old and weathered to provide any specific clues. They note that the vast majority of the metal items they find are made of bronze, rather than iron or steel, another indication that the city is extremely ancient. Zedlyn takes a few bronze knives with him. Iriellis and Flossaria, meanwhile, have no real luck - they find several wells, but all appear to be dry. As they do this, there are using spells to detect evil and detect magic, but neither spell registers anything.
Sharla, Adokas and P'hla head straight for the pyramid, a trip that takes about half an hour. The pyramid itself is a five-level step pyramid, with each level 20 feet in height, for a total of 100 feet. A stone stairway runs up one of the sides to the top level, which is topped by three statues. The three adventurers make their way up the stairs and observe the statues more closely. They are, from left to right, of a strong, bearded man holding a balance in one hand and a lightning bolt in the other; a winged child holding a wand in one hand and a handful of coins in the other; and a beautiful woman holding a sheaf of wheat in one hand and a sword in the other. Each statue is thirty feet tall and made of bronze. No one recognizes any of the three figures depicted.
However, while they are climbing to the top, Adokas notices that, on the level below the statues, one of the massive stone blocks is askew. It seems to be an opening that leads into the pyramid. They decide to gather the rest of the party before exploring any further. Sharla uses a spell to amplify her voice and shouts across the city, calling the rest of the group to meet them at the pyramid.
The rest of the party make their way to the pyramid, and once everyone has arrived, they enter. The first thing they notice is that the "stone block" that is askew is actually no such thing at all; it is a much thinner veneer that appears designed to be opened. The next thing that they notice is the corpse of a hobgoblin several steps into the pyramid, lying on its back with a crossbow bolt embedded in its chest. The corpse appears to be only a few days old.
Carefully searching the area, they find a pressure plate that the hobgoblin must have stepped on, and a hole at the end of the hallway that the bolt must have shot from. The bolt itself is bronze-tipped, much like the other metal implements that Arik and Zedlyn discovered.
The passage continues until it ends in a door; based on the layout of the pyramid, this door would appear to lead into the pyramid proper (whereas the hallway they were just in was underneath the stairway). The door opens by sliding to the side, and Adokas pulls it open, but it appears to be counterweighted in such a way that it will slide shut if left alone. Arik holds the door open while Adokas peers into the room, and Sharla throws around a pair of Dancing Lights so he can see.
The room is forty feet on each wall, and appears to contain nothing more than three bronze cylinders, which are about five feet wide each and run from floor to ceiling. Each has a door set into its front. Adokas checks the area around the door for traps, and once he's satisfied that there are none, he steps in and motions for rest of the party to follow. Zedlyn stays at the door and wedges it open by snapping the haft of one of his javelins into several pieces and wedging them in.
Inside, the party search the room thoroughly, and Iriellis takes note of several features. On the west wall is another crossbow bolt-sized hole, lined up perfectly to hit someone opening one of the doors in the three cylinders. In front of the rightmost cylinder, one of the floorstones is slightly loose and can be pushed up and down.
Zedlyn goes to block the crossbow bolts by holding up a rock to the hole, while Arik opens the rightmost door, being sure to stand away from the loose stone. He opens it and finds that the cylinder is hollow, and contains a ladder that runs both up and down. Up, he can see nothing, but below he sees a faint reddish glow. With the door open, Adokas finds that he is able to push open the loose stone, which reveals a pit down to the same reddish glow. The party surmise that this must be a pit trap, triggered when someone opens the door on the cylinder.
Arik moves on the the middle cylinder, which contains essentially the same thing. He continues to the leftmost cylinder, which is also identical to the first cylinder, but this time, opening the door triggers the trap that Zedlyn is blocking. Not one but four crossbow bolts shoot from the trap; the first is blocked by the rock, but the force knocks it out of Zedlyn's hands, the second goes wide, the third hits Adokas, and the fourth hits Arik. Fortunately, the wounds are only minor.
Arik, Adokas, and Zedlyn decide to climb the left, middle, and right statues, respectively. They climb to the top of the ladders, where they each find a platform full of levers and machinery, along with a voice box in each cylinder. They realize that from inside each cylinder, they can control one of the three statues above the pyramid and speak through its mouth. Flossaria pulls open the door for Iriellis to go watch the statues, and sure enough, when various levers are pulled, the huge bronze statues move their various joints. The party guess that these devices must have been used in religious ceremonies.
Flossaria pulls the door open to let Iriellis back in, but when closing it, she loses her grip and the counterweights slam the door shut. Immediately, the party hear a hissing noise coming from all around. Zedlyn rushes back down the ladder and, with great effort, pulls the door back open; as soon as it opens, the hissing stops. He then wedges is securely open again.
The party decide to use the ladder to descend to the next level of the pyramid. Climbing down, they see that the reddish glow was caused by a pack of Fire Beetles. The group climb down in waves, three at a time, and easily dispatch the giant vermin, taking no wounds. They saw the still-glowing fronds off of each beetle to use as light sources.
Looking around, they find themselves in a room the same size as the one above, with three exits - two doors on the west wall, and one on the east. The room contains various spare parts for the machinery above, a small forge, and two large, covered pots of oil. The party refill several of their empty flasks, but when they try to burn the oil, they find that it is quite impure and burns poorly.
With no particular reason to pick one poor over another, the party head through the eastern door to continue exploring the pyramid.
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