The Wayfarer's Inn

Kherim scowls at the shrouded mummy, "Scum!" He suddenly and visciously hacks at the corpse with his sword, his vehemence surprising.

Alarmed by Kherim's actions, Ivid and Elmo both change their focus to be on Kherim and the mummy; making sure the the mummy is not attacking him. Once they are reassured that the mummy is not attacking him, they refocus on the far entrance or rear entrance again.

Kherim's broadsword slashes through the bandages easy enough, but then something strange happens because you can all hear the sound of metal striking metal as the blade of his sword hits the corpse itself. Surprised, you take a closer look and find a black, mummified form beneath the bindings. As far as you can see, it seems to consist of pure iron!

"Ah," says Ahi, "looks like a mummy, and yet not a mummy. As if there weren't enought to worry about actual mummys in the place, now this. The evil one is tricky." The true-seeing's not gonna help me figure out if this thing is some sorta golem or anything is it?

Shoot. "Perhaps we should check all the sarcophagi at this point. Who'd like to bet that there's some sort of trigger that animates these things?" Ahi asks with a smile. "I'd suggest noone checking any plaster walls or doors until we at least see if all of these sarcophagi hold the same iron creatures." Dang, just if we here clanging mummies I won't use fire spells, dang that's interesting. Hey, just had a thought, is the front door still open? Aren't either Ivid or Elmo still outside?

The paladin steps back as his hacking reveals the iron form beneath the rotting burial shrouds. "What deviltry is this?"

He looks to Ahi then nods and walks over to the next sarcophagus and attempts to open it..

Hey Sir C, clarification: what's the scale for each square on the map? We don't look like we're that far in (which is actually a little disconcerting ). And I might have to take my evil grin back, how heavy are these sarcophagi?

Okay, several answers first:

1. The true seeing spell won't reveal to Ahi what type of creature - if any! - the mummies are.
2. The scale on the map is 10 feet per square.
3. The sarcophagus is incredibly heavy - impossible for Ahi to move it only an inch.
4. Ahi and Gaderon at least know quite a bit about golems (Ahi even has access to the clerical Golem spell) and Eilkhan possibly too - at level 16 it's not unlikely that you have fought against such constructs in the past.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Now on to Kherim: With some help, the paladin opens all the sarcophagi in the room. There's a mummy in each of them and cutting away the bandages reveals the shriveled iron corpses beneath.

No, they don't look at all like golems. They look like withered and shriveled dead corpses, the kind you'd expect to find within a sarcophagus - except they're made of iron. It resembles petrification, only that they weren't turned to stone but to iron.

As to the village: Aartuat is a four days ride away, through the desert. The Gorge of Osiris lies at the edge of civilization.