• Adrian Silverstrength (Human Paladin)
• Buppido Diinkarazan (Rock Gnome Cleric/Wizard)
• Sephrenia (High Elf Cleric) 
• Ragnaroc (Aasimar Warlock)
• Don Kannin (Half-Elf Ranger)
• Korra (Air Genasi Rogue) – Absent this Session

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• The party tells the Cyclops, Tor’Kon Kin’stic, that they will help him recover and find Lilli Sandmeadow, who had been abducted by an Ettin
• Don Kannin, who has deserts as one of his preferred landscapes, is easily able to pick up the tracks of a single Ettin moving through the sand
• Korra, now having been pointed out the footprints, explains she will scout ahead (DM Note – this was an easy way to explain why Korra would not be with them this session)
• The party tracks the Ettin tracks to a massive pyramid, that strangely is covered in sand
• The party realizes, this is the pyramid they saw before (Session 53) that later had seemingly vanished, and the Captain of the Caravan explained that he’d believed that the Pyramids, like the sands, can move (Session 54)
• Buppido is excited to see that the Pyramid they’d seen wasn’t some heat induced mirage
• Buppido feels around the Pyramid, pushing stones, seeing if there’s a secret passage; he becomes convinced it’s beneath the sand
• Adrian however, reaches over Buppido’s head, and one of the stones push in, revealing a secret passage

• Coming from the newly opened door, cool air – a sharp contrast to the searing heat of the Broken Lands – greets them. But the air smells putrid and foul, as if it’d been sealed for a long time, and somewhere in this ancient pyramid, corpses had been left to bubble and erupt
• Tor’Kon mumbles about the odor coming from the Pyramid
• Peering inside, Adrian can see that the insides of the pyramid looks like it’s in a complete state of disarray with pillars toppled over, walls that have collapsed and crumbled
• Ragnaroc picks up one of the crumbled bricks on the floor outside the pyramid and casts Light and throws it into the depths of the seemingly endless darkness within; however, the lit stone hits one of the fallen pillars and does not go as far as they’d hoped (Strength Check to see how far the stone got tossed in, just for fun, and he’d rolled a 4)
• The party realizes that either they’re all inherently born with Dark Vision, or have Magical Means of seeing in the Dark
• The party marching order becomes – Adrian and Buppido in the front, Ragnaroc in the middle, and Don Kannin and Sephrenia in the back
• Making their way down a small flight of stone steps, they enter a very large room, where they can see even more pillars that have collapsed, along with several walls, as well. The collapsed pillars in some cases, make small bridges over the ruin. With the small rock, they’re also able to see a number of human like statues in the room – as well as the walls are painted with human figures

• Glancing around more, the party notices a large mural of an unusual creature, which Sephrenia recognizes as a Sphinx – but what’s more unusual is that the Sphinx’s face has been clawed away at – looking like intentional damage, rather than something caused by structural damage

• The party looks around and sees an exit going to the north and one to the east; both of which require climbing over the pillars and fallen walls
• Buppido quickly begins heading East, confident he’s going in the right direction, but Don claims the right way is north, from what he’s found – Ragnaroc quickly casts Light on Buppido (who fails his save to avoid it) – and becomes frustrated, but Ragnaroc explains it’s to keep an eye on him down here – and that if he comes with them to the North he will dismiss the Light spell, Buppido sighs and agrees

• The party struggles their way across the room with the collapsed walls and fallen pillars, thankful that for some reason, at least the inside of the pyramid seems unusually cool, though the trade off is the fetid smell
• The room here resembles the room they’d just left
• They see that the North room is similar to the room they’d just left, but seems far more damaged, with most of the pillars and walls here, having collapsed – through here, the room in utter ruins – Adrian tries to cross over one of the pillars, and takes a tumble, falling down fifteen feet to the floor below, striking a few broken pillars and boulders along the way, before coming to an abrupt stop on the floor (Failed Dex Check)
• Standing himself up, he glances around – and sees, only for the briefest of moments, a pair of glowing eyes – before his body begins to stiffen (Failed Constitution Save Against…?)

• The others manages to cross the stone, pillar “bridge” before they notice that Adrian has taken a fall
• Buppido takes notice that Adrian has stiffed (Natural 20 on Perception) and can tell that it appears he may have been turned to stone, “You’re looking a little grey! You all right, Adrian?” But when he gets no response, “We may have a bigger problem down here,” Buppido calls out
• Everyone – except Buppido (since he wasn’t there, the player was controlling Morsus at the time) – recalls dealing with a Basilisk before (way, way, way back in Session 22)
• Buppido realizes if he looks through his Owl’s eyes – his familiar with be turned to stone – but perhaps he can see what it is – the Owl however, lands on Adrian’s head, peers in the same direction – and unfortunately is turned to stone as it gazes into the dark area, beneath the pillars
• “Well, something is definitely down there,” Buppido confirms, quickly losing the ability to see through his owl’s eyes
• Ragnaroc comes up with an idea – telling Buppido to hit the sand on the floor with a high intensity heat spell – see if it creates a crude mirror that can be used to reflect back the creature’s gaze (DM Note – Granted, this would have required immense heat to make this happen – but I really liked the creative thinking and allowed it) as Buppido casts Firebolt, striking the sandy floor and creating a very crude, jagged, mirror
• “Well,” Buppido points out, “there’s a small mirror on the floor – but unless it comes out and looks down it’s not going to see its own reflection.”
• Ragnaroc comments that he will head down – and that if someone ties rope around his waist – he closes his eyes as he descends – and since he’s closed his eyes, I made him do a Dex Check of DC 10 because his eyes are closed – and failed, miss steps – and panics, releasing the rope and falls to the floor – thankfully, landing on the mirror – but doesn’t break it (with rolls to see where he landed) Ragnaroc shouts, “Where is the mirror?”
• I did a dice roll of 1 or 2, it’s on the left, 3 or 4 it’s on his right, 5 or 6 – he landed on it (but it didn’t break) – reaching under to grab the mirror with his eyes closed, he manages to find the mirror
• Buppido descends next, climbing down, also with his eyes closed (same DC 10 Dex Check) and also fails, plummeting down and lands directly on top of Ragnaroc – Ragnaroc manages to hang onto the fragile mirror (Strength DC) but accidentally cuts Buppido with the jagged mirror
• And then initiative begins as a desert basilisk leaps out from the dark – rolling a Natural 20 on Initiative! Meaning two full actions!

• The Basilisk lunges forward at Buppido – landing two solid hits, with its claws and poison, but Buppido manages to keep his eyes closed, and finds himself quickly bloodied by the creature’s attack, and barely standing
• Sephrenia who also rolled a Natural 20 on Initiative, she casts Guiding Bolt at the Basilisk but misses; and then casts Healing Word on Buppido, restoring some health back to him
• After that, she steps back – she turns her back on the hole
• Ragnaroc feels for Adrian’s face, so that he knows which way to point the mirror – however, Ragnaroc is not able to find the statued version of Adrian to figure out which way to point the mirror – Sephrenia, who – just as she was turning her back – shouts to move the mirror ever so slightly (had Ragnaroc roll a D20 to see if it meets the Basilik’s gaze) – and he shouts, “Did I get it?”
• Buppido shouts, “It’s biting me, so I don’t think so!”
• Buppido casts Healing Word on himself, then his eyes closed, tries to cast Firebolt, but fires just wide
• Tor’Kon Kin’stic throws a boulder down and hits it for heavy damage
• Don fires two shots with the Starbow, one shot misses, and one hits for some minor damage
• Basilisk lunges at Buppido and misses (much to Buppido’s joy)
• Sephrenia, not wanting to look down into the pit, fires blindly into the pit (this to explain the Critical Fail) which strikes Ragnaroc instead
• Ragnaroc turns again to try and figure out where to point the mirror since no one above is giving him any Help action/direction as to where to point it (Had Ragnaroc do Unarmed Attack; would have granted Advantage if someone spent their turn rather than attacking, spending their turn giving the Help action directing Ragnaroc, but no one did this) and unfortunately, Ragnaroc, spun slightly after being hit by the stray guiding bolt spell once again loses his sense of where the Basilisk should be and misses with the mirror
• Buppido still with his eyes closed casts Flaming Sphere in front of him, but the Basilisk is able to get out of the way
• Tor’Kon Kin’stic throws down another boulder, putting an end to the Basilisk’s life
• The party is thankful that Tor’Kon Kin’stic is with them
• Buppido casts Healing Word on himself a few times, then Sephrenia shares a Cure Wounds
• The party is thankful to see Adrian restored back to flesh
• Moving on, they continue climbing through the concrete jungle of fallen pillars and toppled walls when up ahead they see a large, human figure staring down at the next room before them – Sephrenia and Don use Don’s Pass Without A Trace to get close and see it appears to be a human – glancing down at the floor to the next room, which is in a similar state of broken pillars and crumbled walls
• Approaching the human, who is only armed with an axe, Don asks what he’s doing there – the human turns and says, “Good. You’ve finally caught up. I’ve been waiting for you and your friends.”

• He goes on to explain that he was flying his magical sleigh, when an Ettin ambushed him, throwing a rock, that struck the sleigh and sent it spiraling out of control – he’d maintained his hold of the reins, to try and control the reindeer – but upon impact with the shifting sands of the Broken Lands, his magical Bag of Holding was thrown from the sleigh – which is what it seemed what the Ettin had hoped to get – because he grabbed it and quickly made his escape in the desert sands
• The man, who goes on to introduce himself as Nikalos, says that he’d tracked the Ettin to the pyramid – and tracked him down through the hall ahead – but when Nikalos heard all the noise behind him – he knew better suited adventurers were somewhere behind him – so he waited for them to arrive
• Don calls the others over, and Nikalos explains his sleigh is outside the temple, and when Ragnaroc asks about being worried that Sand Sharks might come for the reindeer, Nikalos says that the main reindeer has an enchanted red ruby on its nose that creates a bright light, but also allows them to levitate
• He asks the party to recover his Bag of Holding, and that he’d wait here – and Tor’Kon Kin’stic agrees – the next room’s pillars look too fragile to hold his massive weight, since he’s larger than an Ettin
• The party examines this next treacherous room which spans about sixty feet – and across the way they can see another door to the north – glancing at the floor – they notice, that down below them the floor gives a faint purple hue-like glow, and that the room here is unusually moist. It becomes more clear, that the odor that is coming from the pyramid also originates here – possibly a fetid water supply somewhere beneath the shattered floor

• Sephrenia tries to cast Dispel Magic on the floor below, believing the unusual glow is magical in nature; but the spell has no effect
• Glancing down at the floor, the party is able to determine that it’s some form of fungus that’s generating the purple hue on the floor, rather than some kind of magical effect
• Given the problem they’ve had crossing the pillars – the party is reluctant, knowing that whatever the plants are – something is going to go wrong
• Looking at the pillar “bridge” – they see, to make matters worse, it’s slick with oily moisture, generated by the fungus on the floor creating the fetid odor
• Buppido casts Firebolt down into the mushrooms and it creates a fetid odor, confirming that the odor is coming from the mushrooms on the floor
• Buppido casts Guidance on Don Kannin who crosses first; and manages to do so successfully – peering through the ruins ahead in the next area – a growling sound, between several figures – in a language he’s not familiar with
• Adrian crosses (requiring an Inspiration roll, since his first failed; but the re-roll allows him to succeed) – he doesn’t recognize the voices being spoken on the other side
• Buppido pats Ragnaroc on the back (and casts Light on him for revenge from before) then casts Guidance on Ragnaroc who begins crossing, but loses his footing (failed Acrobatics) sending him tumbling down into the mushroom patch below
• Ragnaroc however – fails, even with Inspiration and Guidance – and tumbles down below into the mushroom patch below – and immediately feels the stinging sensation of necrotic damage as the mushrooms burst and begin to decay his skin – he is, thankfully, resistant to necrotic damage as an Aasimar
• Buppido casts Levitate on Ragnaroc and levitates him; and Ragnaroc tries to pull himself along the ledge, while levitated – but gets his robes caught (failed Strength to pull himself along)
• Don throws a rope lasso but it misses
• They consider tying a rope to an arrow and trying to shoot Ragnaroc, and he shouts, “This is going to hurt!”
• Ragnaroc, frustrated and still struggling shouts back, “Oh, you do that – and I will make sure it hurts you too!”
• Don shakes his head, “Guess I will sit here and wait.”
• Buppido says, “You cast Guidance on me – so I can keep the levitating going on the warlock – and then you just cast Guidance on yourself to cross.”
• Buppido crosses; and nearly slips – using Inspiration – he’s able to successfully cross
• Buppido gets to where Ragnaroc is floating – and wraps a rope around him – and pulls him along to the other side
• Once they reach the other side, neither of them understands the language being spoken in the other room
• Sephrenia casts Guidance on herself then turns to Nikalos and says, “You wouldn’t happen to have another floating gem would you?”
• Nikalos smiles, “I don’t – but I believe in you,” and playfully punches her in the arm
• As she crosses, she slips and falls down the floor – and she hears Nikalos shout, “I have been known to be wrong from time to time!”
• Sephrenia lands on a number of mushrooms – which rapidly puff – and inflict 17 points of necrotic damage, causing her flesh to decay on her arm
• Buppido sighs, casts Levitate and throws a rope to her – and uses Adrian to help pull her across
• Once they get her across, they point out the voices they hear in the next room – but it’s a language that she doesn’t speak
• DM Note – the language being spoken is Goblin – and not a single one of the players had Goblin as one of the language
• The party asks if they can tell what the language is even if they don’t know what’s being said (for example being able to hear someone speak French and know it’s French even if you don’t understand what’s being said) – I allowed everyone to roll an intelligence check – and Don and Sephrenia both roll high enough – which makes sense – since they’re both Elves and have dealt with goblins in their homeland
• The party agrees to have Don use Pass Without Trace, and casts Guidance on Adrian since he has heavy armor on – he, however fails – and due to Sephrenia concentrating – she also fails – Critical Fail on Stealth – this allows the creatures to hear them – but the party manages to spot what the creatures are… four large bugbears.

• Surprisingly, the bugbear chiefs fail to spot where the noise came from; but all four go silent, and draw their weapons; the party is able to remain hidden for now – and sees the four bugbear chiefs, well equipped and armor
• DM Note – I had mentioned trying to stealth past them, because we were almost at our cut off point and was hoping to get to the final fight – so that the Nikalos session could be wrapped up since it was already two weeks late (since we didn’t play two weeks ago), however, the party considers that the bugbears may come up behind them if they proceed further – and I decide to give the party one round of surprise since they’re in Pass Without A Trace; and despite Sephrenia’s Critical Fail, they had failed to perceive the party’s location – rolling below Sephrenia’s Critical Fail total which was 13 – she rolled a 3, and Pass Without a Trace adds 10 – but in my rules, a Natural 1 is always a Critical Fail, just like even a Natural 20 is always a hit/success, even if it doesn’t meet the AC of an opponent or the DC of a Save)
• Fun DM Note – Sephrenia had said, “If they’re goblins, don’t goblins have treasure usually?” And I shared how my notes had said, “If anyone in the party speaks Goblin, they will hear that they are saying that now they finally got the magic bag, the Ettin said that the boss lady would finally pay them.”
• Once combat starts, the Bugbear Chiefs prove to be a challenge – they’re able to scamper up the sides to where the party is once the surprise round is done – and one of them manages to even down Sephrenia; she’s spared from doing Death Saves, as Buppido casts Spare the Dying then Cure Wounds, giving her 4 hit points back
• However, with some effort – the party is able to eventually take down the four bugbear chiefs, but not before wounding quite a few party members
• The party pauses here… taking a breather, deciding if they should take a rest of some kind, to recover some health and some potential spell slots… but they’re not certain anything or anywhere is safe in this temple…