Hot Wax and the Flaming Mummy

The hot wax was nothing compared to the Candle Ghost’s heat passing through my body. I could feel blisters puckering under my clothes and armour. The jets of water I was squeezing out of my waterskin caught the ghost’s attention. After I squirted it once it kept diving at me, splashing hot wax over me as it passed right through me, burning as it went.

We had crept into the old library wary of traps. There had been runes on the secret entry that prevented any metal objects from entering. I let the others enter first and was in the doorway when the candle ghost appeared. The room was like a mini cathedral, long with a vaulted wooden roof. A tall bookcase lined the length of one wall. Opposite, a decomposing tapestry was hung, hiding the wall behind. At the far end of the room thin shuttered windows let in a few shafts of light.

The ghost had appeared in the chandelier, which was adorned with a hundred or more candles and hung 20 feet above a low table surrounded by leather, dust-caked lounge seats. The candles had ignited all at once and a ghostly face had appeared and spoken in old common tongue: some warning about burning and death. That’s when the ghost-face gathered up a bunch of candles and started flying at us like a crazed bucket of hot wax.

The burns were horrendous, and I had to back out. Fortunately, Wizz, Patron and Fixlla managed to put the ghost out. I was pleased to hear its dying scream as Karr tended my burns. She was a good companion for this insane adventure. Foolhardy at times, but you could tell she had faith, it gave her an edge.

When I came back into the old library there were the usual shenanigans looking for the stuff worth keeping. Magicians doing spells, looking for magic. We decided to leave a couple of chained up books. I could tell there was something not right with them – creeped me out. What was interesting was a finger from a gauntlet that sat in a strongbox on the low table. I remember there was something about finger-keys in a scroll they had found on the Orcs when they first entered Backgammon’s Peak. Then Patron stuck it on his finger, and it shrank to fit. He said he had another from his last time here a year ago.

No we had the library we had taken control of the top of Backgammon’s Peak. Patron and Wizz used the Amulet of the Jade Eagle from the Drake’s nest to speak with the Eagle outside. In the daylight I could see a wealth of treasures in its nest. The party talked about returning to Perryton. Atlas had recovered the remains of her sister from the Eagle and was keen to speak with the Church of Life. I was not so sure if I was ready to confront those daemons from my past: my parents, the memories of my brothers. I let it slide – we have to get out of here first. We decided to take a look down the causeway the giant beetle was using, to see if it had a stash of some sort.

An hour later we ended up, holding our breath, barging recklessly through an old stone door deep in the mountain somewhere. From the top we had headed down the causeway. It twisted left and right but kept heading down with irregular steps. Near the top, gaps in the walls let natural light in. But, after an hour of careful decent it became clear the beetle never ventured this way. Finally, we came to a stone door sealing the exit. On the walls before the last of the steps, plates of ochre coloured fungus protruded from the walls. Flat topped, with a gilled sack under, they looked like stubby ships emerging from the walls.

Something must have set them off because suddenly one of the fungi burst, its gilled bag deflating with a deafening scream and issuing an orange haze of spores. That set the whole lot off, screaming so loud you couldn’t think and filling the space with spores. Patron and I charged for the door, and working the iron ring handle, shouldered it open.

Daylight lit the large round room beyond. The room had a domed ceiling but the most remarkable feature were the corridors. The room had no fewer than eight exits, most were large causeways, and they travelled in all directions including stairs up and stairs down. The daylight was coming from a thin, tall corridor. I could see blue sky through two skinny windows at the corridor’s end, perhaps 100 feet away.

We regrouped and found there were two high ceiling rooms, one on each side of the tall thin corridor. There had been some sort of battle here, the walls and ceiling were blackened from a fire lit on the floor of the larger room. This room also had a massive stone coffin and was lit by two impressive slit-like windows, each 20 feet tall. By the time I entered the room Patron had already slid the lid off the coffin and I could see smoke rising from within. Patron reached into the coffin but then jumped back in surprise.

Rising out of the coffin was a giant man, wrapped in bandages and smouldering. It looked undead and it looked like it was in pain. It had claw-like hands and sharp yellowed teeth protruding at all angles from an oversized mouth. At is climbed out of the coffin it burst into flame along its arms and shoulders, screaming in anguish and hate.

We rallied, and the four of us, Fixlla, Karr, Patron and me, kept the Mummy from advancing. It burned more fiercely as the battle went on – the heat from it stinging the burn-tender skin on my face. I kept some distance using my spear, such a beautiful weapon to use, and sliced and skewered the beast time and time again. At one point Fixlla copped a massive blow to his side and had to back away, but our persistence and the damage from the burning took its toll and soon the beast fell to a pile of smouldering bandages and bones.

Breathing hard I looked around this strange collection of adventurers. The danger we shared and the intensity of the last few days had connected us. There was something good about that. I couldn’t trust them with my life, but I felt I could trust them to be there for me; we were committed to surviving this and that meant sticking together. Who knows, maybe I could find friendship again.