Chapter One
Heeding the Call
Day One
A call to all adventurers has been broadcast throughout the land. A powerful and eccentric wizard, Lady Stoatris Wyvernjack the Great, seeks an exceedingly rare ingredient for an experimental spell, a spell which will change the nature of our understanding of magic itself. But this ingredient proves especially challenging to acquire and our wizard cannot afford to spend time away from her studies. Her representative has screened through the rabble and has come down to 12. The rewards are enormous. The legends will be told for centuries. Fame will be instant and lasting. Each of you want this and some of you need it.
After selecting you four, you are given your destination and vague instructions.
- The ruined villa of Lord Noraver Pegason the Traveler, also known as The Charlatan
- There should be a gate or a passage or doorway to a larger vault
- There will be traps, monsters, and puzzles. Be prepared
After equipping themselves, the party sets out for the villa. It doesn’t take long, no more than two days on foot, but the party encounters a farmer and his son bringing grain to the market in Wyvernjack. They know of the Villa, but not much more than its existence. It’s reputed to be cursed, or haunted, and very few who go in have ever returned. The farmer and son advise staying on the trail and have little else to offer in way of information. They recommend a good spot to rest for the night.
Once inside the Villa, the rooms are mostly barren and picked over, the walls and the floors showing little of its former grandeur, save for occasional patches of painted fresco or rotting carpet. The walls and ceiling are crumbling and show signs of the elements. From the foyer, a staircase hugs the wall to the gallery above. Holes in the roof let the sky show through and created rot in the floorboards. (Dexterity check or fall through the floor suffering 1d4 fall damage). Another stairwell descends to the basement. As the party descends, the stairway crumbles and the party lands in a heap, suffering 1d6 fall damage, with the wizard suffering near fatal injuries. The party elects to abandon her and continue.
Day Two
The party, in their fall, surprise a small band (4) of petty thieves who attack. Unfortunately, even though the party gains surprise, the thieves have the advantage. The combatants fight it out with our heroes winning out. The thieves carry 4cp, 1sp and each have a dagger and a blackjack.
There is no treasure to be found with decades of people and animals picking through the rubble. But it appears that there’s been a scuffle recently with numerous foot prints in the dust and drag marks leading to and disappearing at a wall. There is a secret door in the wall, long since exposed and broken open, which leads to a storeroom and a wine cellar.
Just inside the broken secret door lies a humanoid figure, beaten, bound and gagged. Upon closer inspection, the figure is a female half-orc. Tnarg Lemonbutter. After freeing Tnarg, and introductions made, they agree to adopt each other and journey on.
The storeroom and wine cellar are of tiled stone floors and rough stone walls. Moss and fungus grow in the cracks from the musty conditions. The storeroom has broken, rotting shelving and small pieces of broken property littering the floor. The wine cellar is similar but smaller with more rotting shelves and a central stone column. A perception check reveals that the column is non weight bearing, therefore has another purpose. A close inspection shows a loose stone which can be removed, revealing a lever within. Flipping the lever gives an audible click and the sound of mechanical workings in the floor and through the wall. A gasp of air indicates a seal has opened but no door is obvious. Following the sound, and moving shelving debris allows for a door to fall ajar a little, and can then be pulled open.
Within, a rough hewn tunnel runs for about 300ft, and squeezing through a very narrow bottleneck, opening into a cave with a black bear and 2 cubs. Beyond, opens to the woods. The bear aggressively defends her cubs, but runs away when she knows her cubs are safe.
Within the cavern, a Detect Magic spell will show a glimmer in the wall. A minor dispel magic will open the passage. Alternately, past the bears and up the hill is another cave entrance, opened by a recent rockslide. It will return the party exactly where they were but on the other side of the magic door.
The tunnel is dark and musty, growing more and more slippery and wet. It rapidly grows devoid of all light. There seems to be a slight downward slope and the air grows heavier.
At a fork, the a) left path seems to slope upward again, while the b) right continues downward.
The party chooses the lower (right) path Which follows a short tunnel and opens into a large cavern. The cavern is cool, slightly damp and rather open. The walls, floor and ceiling are all natural and relatively smooth. At the far side, two tunnels exit. The right has a fairly straight shot to a natural grotto that opens up to the ocean at low tide, but is otherwise flooded. The left path has a crudely constructed tiger trap. 10ft deep, 10 feet across. A sign on the wall, written in common language and repeated in Elvish, dwarfish, orcish and goblin, “Stay away. Nothing but danger and death await you beyond this point.” The party easily navigate the pit.
Past the trap, the tunnel opens into another cavern. At the back of the room a Chest can be seen. Upon entering the room, all of the players fall instantly and completely asleep. After an indeterminate amount of time (long rest) the party wakes up entirely refreshed—except for one. Lotheriel is gone. A giant beetle is in her place.
Kafka Room: Random player chosen by dice roll. That player is transformed into a giant beetle (Fire Beetle). In game play, the player can hear what’s going on, but cannot communicate to the other players. That player CAN text the DM and say how they respond to any situation.
Past the Kafka room, the tunnel continues. A long and uneventful path, suddenly has a scattering of a few bones and trinkets. Following the tunnel a bit farther, the party sees rats and a shiny set of chain mail and a sword floating in the middle of the tunnel. As the party gets closer, an ooze lunges (Gelatinous Cube) and attempts to engulf 1 or 2 party members. The party reroutes and attempts the tunnel leading to the cavern at the water, but they realize there is nothing available and no exit. They return to the gelatinous cube and the fire beetle. The beetle appears to be no threat and in fact seems to want to help. It attacks the gel. Sadly (?) the beetle dies after greatly wounding the gelatinous cube. The beetle suddenly disappears. Disappears without a trace. The party quickly dispatches the jelly. Beyond the ooze the tunnel opens up and is a repository of years’ worth of kobold bones and indigestibles.
Day Three
When the beetle died, the spell ended and the player wakes up naked in the Kafka room. All items that player had are found in the chest at the back of the room. Prior to the beetle’s death, the chest is impossible to open. After the beetle’s death the chest is opened and available. On the inside of the lid of the chest, a sign (in the same languages as before) reads: “Go back. No good will come of your progress and no reward given.”
Beyond the ooze now on the floor, the tunnel widens and kobold gear and refuse litters the floor. There are many partially digested bones and leather scraps and with a concerted effort of searching, the group will find several small javelins, daggers, 5 gp, 4 ep, 21 sp, 121 cp, 7 small precious stones and 18 semi-precious stones, a silver goblet and knife (dinning, not stabbing).
The tunnel narrows again and winds slightly. Finally the group comes to a door, wooden and unremarkable which opens into a well lit large room with 10 other doors around the room. The room is obviously created from humanoid hands, as this room is very clean and square. It’s a puzzle trap of Door open to other doors. The Scooby-do Room. The doors pair as follows: 1 and 7; 2 and 4; 3 and 9; 6 and 10.
Door 5 leads down a short tunnel that goes to a room with pool of black water with stepping stones across it. It’s impossible to see the depth of the water. Dexterity DC 5 for the first 3 stones, DC 10 for the next 3 and DC 20 for the last. When a player falls in, it’s just water that’s about 2 feet deep. From there the tunnel takes a slight curve and ends at another wooden door like the ones in the previous room. There’s a sign on the door that simply says, “Ha ha!” It takes you bdack to the Scooby-do Room. This time, either 6 or 10 will take you to The Maze.
Door 8 leads to a long natural tunnel with only a few bends which opens to a large natural cave entry, open to dense forest on the side of a hill. As the party gets closer and can see light, there is a smell of smoke and roasting meat. The party fails a DC 20 against perception and trips a wire that alerts the inhabitants of the cave.
This is a traveling band of 5 Kobolds who use this cave as a camp when they travel back and forth from raids and gathering tributes to their “god” (a red dragon, Sandstorm, but this is revealed in a future chapter). The band consists of 1 Kobold Wyrmpriest, 1 Kobold Slyblade, and 3 Kobold Dragon shields. The kobolds are ready for the party and with initiative, the scuffle ensues. The party routes the kobold camp, but do not kill all of them. The survivors run away. 3 Kobold Skirmishers hide outside the cave entrance, waiting for an opportunity to attack. They only make themselves known when they run away.
As the kobold encampment is an effective dead end to the party’s quest, they head back inside and Return to The Maze. The Maze proves to be more annoying than challenging (left, left, right, left, right....) but it does take the group to a large hall, obviously created with an intention and purpose in mind. The roof is supported by 8 large columns, and a raised dais is prominently displayed at the end of the hall, opposite the entrance. Next to the dais in an Iron Cobra waiting on guard. In front of it stand 3 Clay Scouts. They are clearly guarding something, but it’s not obvious what it could be.
The purpose of the dais remains unknown but another unremarkable door behind it opens to an office and treasure room.
Tools of the Legendary Trader, Charlatan and other Loot
- The Mustache of Disguise: a comical mustache prosthetic that a clown or actor would wear. Once per long rest, the wearer can change their facial appearance to any humanoid male face desired. The effect lasts for one hour. (Their body is left unchanged.)
- Sheep’s Clothing: Normal garb, but treated as +1 cloth armor
- Spyglass: a normal telescoping spyglass but can also Detect Good and Evil, when looking through it (see Paladin 1st level spell of the same name)
- The Fortress (+2 AC shield)
- The Grand Pantaloons: fancy poofy pants which allows the wearer to dance to any tune and has 3 charges per day of Longstrider level 3 (+30ft movement) cast on self
- Snake Oil. The bottle claims to cure baldness, indigestion, and athlete’s foot. (no, yes, no) It tastes like licorice and mint
- A sizable box containing 500 gp, 700sp, 680cp
- A letter opener with a pearl handle (15gp)
- A jar of dead spiders with red dots painted on their backs. Once a day, the bearer can pour the spiders out and they come to life. The jar will remain empty until the next day, whereupon the jar will be refilled with the same spiders. The spiders are not poisonous, and they have no other powers than coming back to life. If the jar breaks, the spell ends.
- Various Holy relics, related to multiple deities, respectively. (200gp total, although some deities have a local affiliation and may be used for barter)
- Bank notes of agreement from foreign banks (total 3000gp, but it will take 2 years to travel to and collect from all of the banks.)
A bookcase hides a secret passage. On the back of that book case, a large map illustrates the entire region with a few markings of special note. Beneath the map, a slot in the book shelf contains a journal from Charlatan himself. The journal is in great distress, suffering from rot. The pages fall apart to the touch.
A short passage leads to a nondescript wooden door (the same as every door that exists in this dungeon).
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