A quieted day in the Grand Lodge is rare indeed. So when you and your fellow pathfinders were asked to assemble for a 'training exercise' you were only slightly surprised to find a handwritten note in place of a formal briefing.
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,
Venture-Captain Ambrus Valsin
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Vailis takes the note with a sarcastic smile in his half-elf face. Looking at his bull-headed eidolon mate he shows the letter. "Look Eidi, it seems those Pathfinders consider study and erudition a waste of skills."
Vailis takes his compendium of 'Cleared dungeons' and looks if there is anything about the Redabout.
"Please Eidi, can you prepare my scrolls and other adventuring equipment?"
(planes extra +4)
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Marin, a slender woman with a slightly blue hue to her skin, smiles and greets her fellow Pathfinders with a nod and a closed fist placed against her open palm.
Hearing the complaints from the others in the training halls, Marin quietly takes the note and reads it silently, her eyes widening as she reaches the note's end.
"A new training excercise? While I'd certainly prefer to receive orders that involve something near the sea or even outdoors, the opportunity to test my mettle against the creativity of fellow Pathfinders intrigues me. After all, one cannot continue to improve oneself if you are forced to solve the same puzzle every time."
Marin looks around at the other gathered field agents. While all relatively new to field service, she sees a great deal of potential in everyone present.
"I'm afraid I'm unfamilar with this Red Redoubt. Has anyone else heard stories about it? What kind of ruins are these?"
Ginessa was excited about being able to put her training to use but just sighs. Of course a fetch quest. Oh well lets see what I can recall.
Diplomacy (gather information) or Knowledge (local)
Inquiries about current inhabitants of the Red Redoubt turn up the following details:
While the Redoubt has no permanent residents, bandits, outcasts, or the occasional monster sometimes use it as a lair. Infighting for territory among these groups usually nullifies their threat, so Absalom’s authorities don’t interfere.
Knowledge (arcana)
While the name of Karamoss is well known, you might know more in-depth information about the builder of the Red Redoubt.
Knowledge (engineering)
The Red Redoubt is a fascinating subject for those interested in architecture and engineering.
Knowledge (history)
Details of the Karamoss’s siege of Absalom are well known, even a millennium after the fact.
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.
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Looking listless as the group makes it's way to the Red Redoubt, Van casts Mage Armor on himself when they finally reach their destination.
"I wonder if they left a trap at the entrance." He ponders between yawns, casting Dancing Lights and sending the illumination down into the shaft to see if anything reacts down below.
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"It's cool, but maybe the fighter or the warpriest should go first, just in case. Or even better, the eidolon." Van informs the group.
He then begins to stare down curiously at his feet, seemingly only now noticing the smooth metal that composes the entrance, "Huh, maybe this place might be interesting after all."
Eidi descends into the shaft having a look to his surroundings and giving word of his findings.
The rope is secure and the Eidolon encounters no trouble descending the shaft.
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.
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His burgeoning excitement getting the best of him, Van follows Eidi down into the hole and takes a long look around, calling up to others, "Yeah, it's safe. I can't believe I never heard of this place, is that a control panel?" He quickly makes his way over to examine one of the panels next to a metal slab.
"Wait, someone else has been here, there's footprints. It looks like some kind of dye."
The damage around the northern door is from a non lethal trap, seems someone already set it off. The stains are still wet to the touch, but any examination identifies them as dye, not blood.
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Vailis gets his hands in the rope and descends the shaft.
Meanwhile, Eidi searchs exhaustively the room while the others descend.
Once Vailis is in the room he casts Detect magic and analyses the room and the northern door. "Interesting... Why they would place that dye there simulating blood. Is it a signal for us to follow? Some kind of trickery?"
Elrum swiftly climbs down to catch up with his comrades. After taking a moment to assess the dye, his steady eye’s look for anything else that may be out of place around the room.
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Marin swiftly descends down the ladder, unburdened by armor or heavy possessions. As she jumps off the final 5 feet and lands gracefully, she slowly approaches the dye that others have already been investigating.
"Dye, you say?" Marin asks towards Vailis, not immediately picking up on what the dried substance is. "That's odd. It seems perhaps the traps of this training course are meant to humiliate rather than harm. But it seems odd they wouldn't clean it up or reset it after the previous group."
Marin slowly circles the room, looking for something that possibly triggered the trap in the first place.
After a careful study of the door way the "trap" becomes clear. A dispel magic glyph on the door caused an invisible, levitating tray filled with minor explosives and flasks of red marker dye to fall on the unsuspecting group as they passed through this door.
Searching as thoroughly as you wish you find little else of interest in this chamber. The other doors seem sealed by some powerful force and the panels revel little of what they might do.
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.
Vailis detects magic up ahead as Eidi and Marin approaches the "x". The Eidi's foot on something, feeling a slight tug as a cord snaps...
The walls seem to flicker for a moment as two wicker screens spring out from behind illusory walls, clapping together in the middle of the hall to “crush” everyone in the hall caught between them.
Bladders filled with bright pink marker dye burst leaving everyone coated with streaks of pink.
plus
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Vailis jumps back a little bit as he detects the illusion, but Eidi is looking at the X when the stones hit him.
"Pfiuu! That was a nasty trick. It seems they want to kill us, perhaps we shall comeback and tell the Venture Captain. This goes against all working laws. We need to do something in order to dignify our work."
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Her reflexes sharp, Marin jumps back as the screens rush forward, only clipping her instead of being caught in it. She frowns as she tries to scrape the bits of pink dye that splattered on her robes and skin. She's thankfully she avoided the worst of it, as she tries to stiffle a chuckle at some of her less fortunate companions.
"I agree, Van. Let's go that way."
The southern entrance of this chamber might once have housed a sliding door, but it’s now just an empty archway. Three small chests sit before a small wooden table in the center of the room. All three chests are open; one contains seashells, the second holds bricks, and the third contains shards of flint. Some of these items are scattered haphazardly on the floor around the chests. A brass merchant’s scale stands on the table. One of the scale’s arms supports a conch shell and the other is empty, though the scale is perfectly balanced. A harlequin’s mask hangs on the north wall. An intact door exits to the west. A lock has been bolted over the opening panel next to the door, but the lock hangs open.
As soon as anyone enters in the room, a permanent magic mouth appears over the harlequin mask’s lips and speaks in Common, “The shell holds the sea and yet is naught but air! Both key and blade are yours!”
Well that what I get for being distracted.
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"Hmm... It seems the "X" in the previous room was to warn adventurers of the trap within. And this room's riddle seems to be solved, perhaps. It seems odd that Venture-Captain Valsin would send us to train before everything is reset and cleaned up."
Marin looks around for possible footprints, or other clues to determine if others have perhaps been here very recently.
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Espada was surprised by the trap until the she was hit by the wicker screens. Covered in pink from head to toe, she sighs and follow her team mates.
When they reach the room with the apparently solved riddle, she murmurs, "that's really strange, maybe other group was sent here by mistake? Or maybe some looters have got inside..."
Another 5 minute walk leads to another interesting discovery. This L-shaped corridor makes a right angle from the east to north. Just around the bend a dead half-orc sprawls on the ground. Above the corpse, a wooden sledgehammer dangles from a rope beneath an open ceiling panel. Though the head of the mallet is padded, the trap was apparently still lethal to the
unfortunate half-orc. A few feet up the corridor another chalk “X” is scratched on the floor.
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Marin holds her hand up to the party in a sign to halt.
"Another "X". It looks like this trap has been sprung, but we should still excercise caution and not get too close to it."
Marin slowly walks closer towards the half-orc body to investigate. Specifically, she's curious if he has a Wayfinder or other identifying features of being a fellow Pathfinder, or if he's merely a random burglar. She also hopes to determine if indeed the mallet killed the half-orc, or if something else was at play.
An examination of the body reveals deep gashes across the half-orc’s torso in addition to the obvious head injury (and a face covered in lime-green marker dye). Seems that he bleed to death. There are no obvious signs of any association with the Society.
Treasure
masterwork studded leather, daggers (2), quarterstaff, sap, manacles (2) plus a masterwork adamantine dagger.
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"Guys, we need to be careful. This half-orc wasn't with the Society, and it looks like he was running away from something. Something bad, judging from these slash wounds on his torso. There are five other tracks leading north. We may not be alone in here."
Forgetting that she was slightly scratched from the earlier trap, Marin pulls out her healing wand, muttering the command word and tapping herself with it.
Marin looks around at everyone else before proceeding on.
"Does anyone else require any healing before continuing? There may be real danger ahead, and it's best we be prepared for the worst."
"I am slightly scratched lady Marin, as most of the party. It shall be better if someone can channel." the eidolon says so. He waits a bit to receive a heal, but if it does not arrive, he still continues his way to the North following the tracks.
The dungeon’s red hue is dramatically accented here with a fresh coating of blood. Three corpses lie scattered around the room, all hacked apart with great force. The arterial spray from the last moments of their lives spatters the walls and ceiling and pools on the floor. A dim crimson glow spills from a wide archway to the north, casting a garish light upon the faces of the dead. An open chest sits against the eastern wall, with broken links of chain scattered on the floor around it.
Two Metal constructs turn their attention to the door as it opens.
Order
DMS R
Elrum
Vailis
Marin
Ginessa
DMS B
Espada
Eidi