As you gather in the Grand Lodge of Absalom a young lad enters with a folded sheaf of parchment. The seal of the open road marks it as a letter from Venture Captain Ambrus Valsin. The youth encourages you to open the letter and pass it around.
Idle Pathfinders are Pathfinders needing work. Having a bit of downtime is no excuse to sit around and let our skills lapse! So I have come up with a training exercise for you and a few others waiting around the Grand Lodge for a job. I trust you are familiar with the Red Redoubt? If not, for shame! It’s an important part of Absalom’s history. You might want to spend a few minutes researching it before heading out. While it is technically a “cleared” ruin, it’s a perfect location to test your skills.
Another team has spent the last few days practicing their own dungeoneering skills by establishing an obstacle course in the Redoubt’s upper levels. Now it’s up to you to go and see how well they've done. The course follows a specific path—if you come across a symbol of three red dots inside a triangle, that means “do not enter.” Don’t go wandering—I do not want to send a third team to find you if you get lost. Otherwise, your response to the challenge is up to you. Bring your own gear, make your own plans, solve the puzzles, and bypass the traps. You’ll know when you reach the finish line. I’d wish you good luck, but skilled Pathfinders don’t need luck.
I trust you’ll impress us,
Ambrus Valsin
Venture-Captain Ambrus Valsin
|
Hoi. You a sailor?
Tetchy is best described as a 'wall of meat', a towering figure of unmovable determination. His question to Braugher posed matter-of-factly, with a slight undertone of impatience.
Can't wait to get this shows on the road. The Captain is right, all that sitting around is making me weak. Ain got no use for weak, so let's see what's in stock for us.
The name's Wilbur... he then adds, ...people call me Tetchy.
|
|
Well... Tetchy says, turning around slowly when I throw something, it ain't fur that's flying.
Usually chairs, or bricks
So, what port do you hail from? Tetchy says, sizing up the slim man Been sailing all over the inner sea, so I know a place or two.
That guy is too frail, he'd get trampled in a crowd. Better keep an eye out for him.
|
Hmmm, have to lean pretty far back to look this guy in the eye.
Hail from? Usually one hails to, as in attempting to get someone else's attention. From whence I come, well, my lodgings down the street. However, I think that you intend to ask where was I raised. Fangwood Forest, a town named Cryastalhurst to be precise.
|
A tall, lean elven woman with fiery red hair walks in. Seeing the assortment, she checks her invite to make sure she's in the right room.
Okay... one prefers his own arms to women, another who seems to have no patience for anyone, and a verbosely pretentious half-blood. Oh yes, this will go swimmingly.
As the note makes its rounds, she is sure she's in the right place. "A challenge in an old ruin? Sounds entertaining enough."
She tries to recall anything she can on the Red Redoubt.
After reviewing the note, Kalistra recalls a few details about rumors she has overheard recently, as well as some material she had studied recently.
One band known to lair in the ruins there is the Blood-Red Raiders, a small gang of bandits that mostly robs lone travelers.
A young human man with pale skin and odd tattoos—supposedly a student expelled from the Clockwork Cathedral—has recently joined the Blood- Red Raiders.
Arcana: Karamoss was a Numerian wizard known as the “Machine Mage.” He had advanced knowledge of mechanical constructs, gained from decades of study within the Silver Mount. He was said to be part machine himself.
Engineering: The Red Redoubt is constructed almost entirely of a strange, dark red metal. Supposedly, the entire structure rose in a single night.
|
|
"Ahem...Hi."
The voice comes from a rather average looking boy with messy blonde hair and a bit of dirt on his forehead. You can see some various tools tied to the belt at his waist, and he carries something long wrapped in a cloth on his shoulder. He also has a rapier strapped to his hip, although it looks to have seen little use.
"My name is Emmitt, although many in my old neighborhood used to call me 'Doc'. Don't really know why..."
He starts looking at the ceiling, lost in thought for a second, then continues. "I do like to build things... well, usually I take them apart first, but a lot of times I can put them back together. Sometimes better than they once was, ya know?"
After reading the letter, he smiles. "How fun! Let's see if we can get around someone else's gizmos. Sounds great!"
As you leave the lodge you think you hear a voice call after you... "What no healer? Hope you all got some potions or somthin'!"
The day is bright as you head into the Cairn Lands. Soon you approach the Red Redoubt. An obvious path is marked and you begin a short trek through the ruins.
The noonday sun shines brightly in a cloudless sky, but the rugged landscape diffuses the light as if through a stained glass window composed entirely of crimson panes. Deep red metal walls, broken but mostly untouched by rust even a millennium, form an obstacle course through the landscape. Clearly, when the Red Redoubt of Karamoss was named, it was not done ironically.
The marked path through the siege castle’s ruins leads to a large central chamber open to the sky above. Aside from the metallic flooring, walls, and rubble, nothing remains of the so-called “machine mage” Karamoss or his lost armies. Refuse, old campfire rings, and other signs of life attest to the place being a haven for scavengers and vagabonds.
The chamber is filled with a large, circular shaft in the metal floor, with smoothly rolled edges that demonstrate superbly uniform craftsmanship. A rope ladder descends into the pit, anchored by pitons hammered into the floor panels.
The lighted rock drops down the wide hole (30 feet across), falling some sixty feet before it collides with the floor creating sound almost like a clang.
Peering into the hole you notice that there appears to be a chamber even larger than the hole descending into it.
The rope ladder is indeed secure and makes the descent into the upper dungeons of the Redoubt fairly easy.
After dropping sixty feet, the entrance shaft opens into the center of a red steel chamber.The floor beneath the shaft is canted at a slight angle; it seems to have originally been a circular platform that fit flush with the rest of the room but at some point unevenly sank a foot or so. The floors around the room’s perimeter are solid and even, with a textured surface to give better footing on the smooth metal. The walls are riveted metal plates, fallen or torn off in places to reveal solid rock behind. Recessed slabs of metal with adjacent panels, presumably exits, are centered on each wall. The northern panel glows dimly, illuminating scorch marks and glistening red stains around it.
|
|
Well, this looks like a job for the decorators. Looks like the the first team left quite a mess. Seems like someone got impatient with that panel.
[ooc]Is it a panel as in 'wooden panelling' or a panel as in 'control panel'?[ooc]
Tetchy look around for any of the red marking that are supposed to denote 'no-go' areas. He'll also leave the rest of the team some time to investigate the panel - but without seeming too patient.
Examination of the northern door and panel reveals that the stains are a dye and not blood as you may have first suspected. It is obviously still wet. The small control panel glows with some internal light; a hand print is illuminated upon the panel.
The other doors all bear the "do not enter" symbol of a triangle with three dots.
Kalista's investigations turn up a tray that initially looked like just another piece of debris on the ground. She conjecture's that the tray was held aloft and some trap caused it to fall coating whomever opened the door with the dye.
When Emmett touches the panel, the door whooshes quietly into the wall.
Beyond the door is a long dark corridor, roughly ten feet wide and about eight feet high.
Travelling through the tunnel is boring, after about five minutes an intersection becomes apparent to the group.
The corridor ahead branches in four directions. North and west, the tunnels continue unobstructed, but the eastern branch is blocked with a stout metal grating marked with three crimson circles within a triangle. A large, white “X” is scrawled in chalk on the floor in the center of the intersection.
At the last moment, Emmett spies a wire stretched across the passageway. Further investigation reveals a pair of wicker walls conceal by an illusion. Once pointed out it is obvious that the "X" was left by someone to prevent them from stumbling over the trap on thier return.
From the intersection you can travel north or west easily. The eastern passage is blocked by a grating bolted to the walls, floor and ceiling.
Bypassing the trap, the group examines the intersection. Other than a red triangle with three dots on the grate blocking the eastern corridor are some foot prints of red dye. It is easy for Istralanix to note that they continue down the northern passage.