Under Groplish
Second act of the adventure.
This is the second act of a previous adventure. This was written as an extension of another Challenge submission. Every feature of the Challenge is best suited by combining it with the previous. However, it can be used as a separate setting simply by using the text and attached map as a generic dungeon encounter. See the links at the bottom of the page for other components in the entire serial Challenge adventure.
Behind the Stone Door
Once unlocked, the stone panel rises quickly. After that, the wooden door is not much of a barrier. Behind it the party finds an unlit hallway. The narrow corridor (5ft. wide) runs for thirty feet and continues straight ahead. At thirty feet there is a side passage to the right.
The walls have an ornate inscription on them. It is visible only with darkvision or with light from the violet mushroom (see link below). The carvings depict scenes from everyday life among the drow. Battle scenes featuring crude faceless dwarf-like figures being slain by burly drow warriors decorate the walls of the passage to the right. The walls on the straight-away are simpler images depicting gatherings of drow and soldiers training.
Past the right passage the way continues for another thirty feet. On the way is a widened room of 10ft. x 10ft. Centered in the room is a tall articulated iron and brass statue of a humanoid fighter. It is nine feet tall. Over its head is a thirty foot domed clearance space. It holds in its hands twin blades of immense size. Touching the statue in any way will cause a sudden whirring sound to emanate from the chest of the statue. A slotted door will slam open on the chest. Underneath the door is a brass knob set in a slot that runs the full width of the door. Once the door has opened the sound will cease. Detect Magic cast on the statue will reveal it is magic. Its aura is strong transmutation.
Inside the cavity revealed by the door are a thin grate and a flat plate. The grate and the surrounding chamber in the cavity looks scorched and marred by intense heat. Under this scale residue is a gnomish writing that gives instructions to empower the clockwork of the statue but they do not explain its purpose. Roughly it reads, "In order to activate the statue's clockwork, six silver coins must be placed on the plate in the cavity. Then the crank under the cavity must be primed once."
A fire lits in the crucible with the pulling of the crank and the silver melts. The clockwork immediately swings its blades out and inserts them into two awaiting slots that run to the full height of both sides of the small room (roll a Spot check DC 15 or Search DC 5 to notice the thin channel slots prior to activation). {Previous to the encounter the players should have witnessed a party of gnomes using a similar device. Gnomes use these silver-fueled spellengines to power everything from boats to grain mills. Go to the link Crystal Nautilus for an example.}
The room hums and the floor of the room rises. The PCs must make a Reflex roll (DC 10) to jump off. Those failing to jump off are carried up on top of the lift as it rises into the thirty foot clearance overhead. Those on the ground see the brass gate of the lift as it is pulled up after the clockwork. Inside the lift is a single switch. It slides from left to right. It is entirely right as it rises up. Switching to the left sends the lift down. There is a bypass switch on the lift (Search DC 20). It is a hand-turned crank which raises or lowers the lift. Six silver coins will empower the lift for twenty-four hours. After that time has passed the lift automatically returns to the position it was found in.
The clockwork sits in the center of a passageway that continues beyond. On the other side is a short passageway that ends in a small room. Empty crates and baskets line the wall. Leaned on another wall is a large wooden cart with brass rolling caster wheels. There is a hidden broom closet on the third wall of the room. Inside are ten brooms, five mops, two stacked wooden buckets, a glass jug half-full of liquid (ammonia, subjects enhaling this as a gas must make a Fortitude save DC 12 or faint for 1d4 rounds). Hidden under the jug is a silver chain and locket. If the jug is not moved, Spot DC 12 allows the locket to be noticed through the clear green glass. The locket is of a half spider. It flips open to make a full spider. On one half is a glass-covered lock of grey hair wrapped in red ribbon. The other has an inscription written in drow. It can be read with Magehand or Read Language.
It says:
To my beloved whore
My most pleasant diversion
For my dearest maid of purchasable talents
{This is actually a riddle that allows a clue for a puzzle lock the party may ecounter later}
Back at the first right there is a large bay of eighty beds. Musty mattresses are rolled over themselves atop slat board beds. In two rows of forty they line the walls of the 100ft. x 40ft. bay. There is a chest in front of every tenth bunk. The lock is a simple lock (DC 20). Inside of each, a bare red wood liner, two empty draws, and a red stone block (four inches by two inches by one inch). In one (with Search check DC 25, or take twenty) there is a bit of scroll torn in two and stuck into one of the small draws. It is written in drow but can also be read with MageHand .
It says: For the Returning Self (whatever form it may have):
Place the red stone block into…
Take them to the first…
Be sure no one uses their…
See to it that all of those…
broken into pieces and thrown…
If the lift is out always check to…
The gnomes will only work under…
In Her Web and In the Corp.
Sign- Amanita of Third Hand Over…
{The other half of this message is found on the third floor. See link below for more information.}
In the room there is a room with cisterns that are turned over and placed on cinderblocks. A few have toppled over and shattered into pieces. There is a hearth with dry wood and kindling behind a black metal door. Several stalls with low benches are opposite this wall. A privy is set into a stone seat behind a masonry wall. The hole is deep and black. It has no distinct odor. A black pudding resides inside it and will attack anything that descends lower then twenty feet into the privy.
The lift is only able to descend three floors. Cracks and shifts in stone have misaligned the track. The lift stops halfway down to the third floor. Those floors can be found in the links below.
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Found Letter Fragments by Halifax
This torn message is found in two separate places. It is written in drow. On the reverse is a strip map to the library and to a vault containing the "Dragonseed" emerald. The contents of the letter hide a secret that can be revealed with a plate that allows only specific words to show and so changes the message. This key plate is discovered later.
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Three floors down. by Halifax
Here\'s the third level of the dungeon descibed in Under Groplish.
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Floor 4 by Halifax
Fourth floor of the dungeon complex in the Challenge Serial Into Groplish.
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The Second Level by Halifax
First floor down in the Clockwork Lift. For use with the Challenge "Into Groplish"
Image is modified from a generated map. Website name is embedded in the image.
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