The Treasure of Al-Khem
From GURPSworld Wiki
Later that week the boys heard of the passing of the Old Bard. He would have a funeral customary to followers of Bel, the Shemitish god of thieves. The procession would wind around the old quarter and "all thieves were welcome to join in on the festivities". When night fell Conan joined the purple bards in their song as the funeral train started their walk. The music was beautiful, paying tribute to a life well lived. The crowd seemed mesmerized following along in the trek. Lix was weary of pickpockets and had brought very little coin with him. He found himself moved uncontrollably to follow the procession even as he noticed the townsfolk being robbed blind. After a moment he was able to break free from the song's bindings and he joined the other pickpockets in making their coin purses fat.
Eventually the train stopped in front of the temple to Mitra where people spoke of the Old Bard's life. Not one but two of his wives spoke, much to the horror of the followers of Mitra. Finally they continued on to the docks where the Old Bard's body was loaded onto a ship with his family and they set sail. Conan and Lix weren't sleepy so they stopped by Shep's for a drink.
In the morning the boys were met with an employees of the Metelli estate. They handed over a bracelet and a button with the family crest to the men. The party was then asked to show them where they found the girl. They took them to the ruins and loaded her body onto a cart and headed back to town. They later met with Brutus another agent of the Metellis. He gave them a sizable reward and told them they should feel free to come to him for any help they might need in the future. Lix gave his condolences and left the man to his work.
Now that all the boys were feeling well again they set their sights on the treasure under the Pirate's Thumb again. They decided to ask Mox for a little help in their situation as they knew the map they had found had some cryptic alchemical speech on it. Mox was delighted to help and quickly told them what a treasure they had found. The map which Ambrose had found "as part of a jacket" was made of human skin. Apparently an alchemist who called himself Al Khem had tattooed his descendants each with a map leading to a treasure to get them started on their lives. Obviously this descendant had come to a grisly end.
The boys waited till close to sunset and set out planning to wait for the caves to flood. They found a good spot a bit away from the caves and waited it out. Hours passed and Lix took a nap while the others watched carefully. It got so dark that they had to hope they would hear the flood. Eventually they called it a night. They would just enter the caves first thing the following night, no more of this waiting.
The next night they entered the caves. They noticed a cloth sack and some tools near the entrance. They hoped Mox had not talked. They followed the path and soon came upon something startling. There was a chest with ooze seeping out from it and two gruesome half dissolved corpses. Lix was particularly shaken, he was later heard saying that is why he started checking and rechecking for traps. "Don't wanna become ooze" he'd say. They chose to go out to the start and gather some large rocks to place in the ooze so they could tie a rope to drag it out of the dangerous mess. When they got it to a safe place Lix gave it a look for traps and soon found one, only it seemed to be a decoy. He disarmed it anyway. Then he slowly opened the chest and before opening too wide noticed another trap under the lid. He had Conan hold it open slightly while he worked to disarm it. Once he thought it was safe he opened the chest to find it was empty. These two people had died for an empty chest. This wasn't the spot they had seen the masonry however, so hopefully that would be the real treasure.
They continued on. They finally made it to the puddle of leeches. This time they had leather face masks that Ambrose had made for this very purpose. All but Conan who had one small leech latch onto his neck made it through safely. Conan being the hardy man he was just shrugged it off of course. However, as they went deeper into the caves the others couldn't help but notice Conan wasn't acting himself. Maybe he just had a strong sense of smell or something; they were getting close to the undead goop after all.
When they reached the pool, they noticed immediately that the puddle had grown, and it would be very hard for the less agile party members to cross safely. They had the idea to use some of the corrosive ooze on the slime and see if it might help. Andre and Conan went back to fill some ooze into a jar Ambrose happened to have brought. This jar was meant to be used to gather a few leeches for some bizzare use known only to our ever so "interesting" doctor. Non-medical uses.
And so the two brought the jar back to the undead abomination. However, Hugo had the idea while they were gone to burn it with some lamp oil, and it seemed to work. There wasn't nearly enough oil to coat the entire puddle, but there was enough to burn a safe path through. They worked out a system to quickly pass the forming bubbles unharmed. Ambrose would pop them well before they grew to a large size while the others passed quickly.
When they finally made it through, they quietly continued on. They were trying hard not to disturb any of the bats they knew to inhabit this section of the cave. They couldn't afford another situation like last time. Suddenly Lix stopped the group. He heard some scurrying. Ambrose had mentioned the possibility of there being large rats in the caves, but he didn't say anything about rats the size of large dogs. And that is what there were. The boys readied thier weapons and threw a torch to the far size of the rats, goading them into reach.
Lix and Conan were prepared for their approach and quickly dispatched two of them. One of the rats chose to go for Ambrose and our good doctor was greeted with a chomp to a rather sensitive part of his anatomy. Perhaps wanting a go at all the boys it turned its attention to Lix. Ambrose swung wildly at the beast and Lix finished it off before it could try for his bits. With a dying yelp from yet another giant rat slain by Conan, the boys continued on with imaginings of the treasure that was so very close.
They made it to the puddle in front of the masoned dead end and laid down sandbags to avoid the parasites that swam in it. Andre applied some acid to remove a few bricks then Conan took a pickaxe to it. Lix finished the job revealing a chest similar to the one they saw earlier. He asked Conan to step forward with the light and he checked for traps. He started with the lock. It was rare to put one there but he was not about to take any chances, as becoming an ooze eaten corspe was now a very real possibility in his mind. Lucky that he did, as there was clearly something off about the lock. He said a silent prayer to Eremis and attempted to dismantle it. A loud click sounded and he shrunk back, however, it was the sound of a successful disarm. He unlocked it quickly and checked for more dangers. It seemed the same decoy had been applied to the back of the chest. Oddly he could not quite disarm it properly and he knew had it been real, they would have been in some terrible trouble as he tripped it multiple times in his attempts. Ignoring it, he moved on to inspect under the lid. As expected another trap was there, but he deftly disarmed this one. A good thing, as it was very real. With the lid of the chest pushed back, he could see a few bags full with alchemical treasures.
He checked everything he could see for more traps but they seemed clean. He passed back bags, vials, potions, gems, odd clay pots... a bunch of stuff. Then he saw a backpack and on a hunch he checked for more traps... perhaps a bit carelessly. When he pulled the bag out he saw a puff of something heading for his face and he stumbled as it hit him dead on. However, he felt fine so he cursed at himself for missing the now obvious trigger and continued on. The backpack turned out to be a portable alchemy lab as he soon learned from Andre's squeels of delight.
The chest was empty. But Lix, knowing how sneaky this Al Khem had been so far, checked for a false bottom. Indeed there was one. He removed it revealing a tray of twenty large gold wafers. It was easily worth five hundred gold, if not more. Then with some searching he found the switch for what he assumed to be another ooze trap in the tubes under the tray. Following the trickster ways of his god, he re-armed the traps and closed the chest. He left only a gold coin with the symbol of Eremis as treasure for the next to brave the chest.
And so the soon to be adventurers earned their stake. It was only a matter of time before Tarantia would be a small speck behind them.