At the very edge of the Commonwealth, six adventurers made the difficult hike up to the DeCavalier estate, an abandoned ruin from the defunct Monarchy's failed colonization effort. They were hot on the tail of the bandit Gorrister the Great, and they intended to claim the 15,000 silver piece bounty on his head.
The adventurers in question:
- Ivaqirax Obus, Level 1 Mage
- Jack Fatherd, Level 5 Survivor
- Laguna Tempest, Level 1 Warcaster
- Protesilaus Poliorcetes, Level 1 Acolyte
- Wakefield, Level 1 Burglar
- Zigar Kneecapper, Level 1 Thug
By Throneseeker
The DeCavalier estate was still impressive, despite its dilapidated state. It occupied a commanding position in the mountains, atop a peak that dropped right down to sheer cliffs. The road up through the hills was partially overgrown, terminating in a drawbridge that hung open without chains to articulate it. The view of the surrounding mountain range was breathtaking.
The whole thing would be picturesque if it wasn’t for the Orc crucified over the entrance.
The poor guy had been killed recently, whoever nailed him up had gotten a little overzealous hacking away at his legs and bled him out. Jack Fatherd figured from the footprints that at least twenty people had come through here, and recently. Wakefield verified that the dead man didn't have anything, and the gang cautiously advanced into the ruins.
The castle was still getting water from an old aqueduct, which carried water from a mountain stream somewhere uphill to a cistern. The pooled water cascaded down a shaft into the depths below, and the adventurers discovered a staircase and a chimney that likewise descended into the earth. For a moment, they heard drums from somewhere down on the first level, beating like a heart.
The gang kept exploring. The oven in the kitchen had a grate in the back, leading to a second chimney that led down further into the dungeon. Some of the rooms had old carvings and paintings of mountains and pilgrims carrying bones, which Jack identified as old Holy Mountain iconography. Holy Mountain was a religion from the Ancient Empire that had many adherents in the Monarchy, though few people believed in it anymore. The central tenet was to deposit the skeletons of the faithful in ossuaries within the eponymous Holy Mountains - sacred sites served by traveling caravans of bone pilgrims who made circuits across the realm to collect the dead. The signs were obviously meant to point the way down to the underworld, but the last one just pointed to a collapsed staircase.
Laguna read a scroll of Floating Disc and used the platform's 500 pound capacity to begin excavating the collapsed staircase with Zigar's assistance. The other adventurers found a dead Orc blood-eagled in the ruins of the great hall, lungs pulled out through the back to make a pair of grisly wings. Whoever stormed the first floor had made a complete circuit, butchering everything they came across in grisly fashion.
The team found another Orc corpse dangling from a tree. The religiously adroit members of the party identified the gruesome execution methods with the cult of the Strong Man. He was a popular god among barbarians because he hated magic, granting his favor to people who achieved things with their own strength, intelligence and will. His cult was growing in the Commonwealth with the popularity of science and engineering, as people tried to duplicate the wonders of magic using technology. But it was more likely that a bunch of barbs butchered the green men. Ivaqirax and Laguna excavated some more heaped rubble and found a room overgrown with plant life. Ivaqirax investigated the undergrowth and found a hidden hatch, of more recent construction than the rest of the ruined castle.
Jack went out the back of the castle, where the wall had collapsed. His keen sense of wilderness survival let him spot two paths down the mountain. One was a route down the talus pile of rubble to the cliff edge, where a cave entrance led deeper into the hill. The other was on the rock slope below, a thirty feet drop from the bottom of the castle walls, and led to a small copse of ugly trees.
The team regrouped and discussed their options. Everyone agreed not to use either of the obvious entrances - the staircase Laguna excavated and the hatch Ivaqirix found were the preferred alternatives. When everyone returned to the overgrown room, there was a brass periscope extended from a hole in the hatch, spying on them. The periscope dropped beneath the earth. The group stuck Wakefield's grappling hook in the hatch and readied their weapons. With a heave-ho they yanked the hatch open.
The hole opened up to a staircase, spiraling 50 feet down into the earth. The chamber at the bottom, visible through the central shaft of the stairs, was brightly lit. A group of unknown persons in baggy suits of dark cloth brandished weapons. Two had hand crossbows, prompting Wakefield to shoot one with his own readied weapon. The other fired and missed, and the defenders promptly grabbed their fallen comrade and fled through a door to the South, leaving the adventurers free to descend.
The gang went down the stairs into the first level of the dungeon. At the bottom of the stairs they were presented with two door, one with a blood trail from the wounded foe dragged through it. Ivaqirix brought the periscope down from the wall bracket by the secret hatch, and used it to peer under the door. There was a little winged homunculus and four hooded figure, armed with hand crossbows and maces covered in sponges or surgical needles. Jack checked the door to the North, concerned about being outflanked. The room was dim and empty, with a peephole in the wall allowing him to peer out into the dungeon proper.
The group decided to breach the South door and clear it out. They got a quick kill on the homunculus with a hail of missile fire, and the psychic feedback from its death downed one of the hooded figures. The payers hacked through the other maceman and Laguna cast Sleep, bringing down both crossbow wielders. The Thug Zigar finished off one of the unconscious defenders, pulling the heavy cloth hood off the other but leaving her unconscious for questioning. The crossbows each had a single bolt with a poison tip. The bolts were marked with colored tape, as were the two weird maces. The strange cloth was proof against liquids and gasses, but only the surviving prisoner's suit was intact (the rest were slashed or pierced).
Jack Fatherd used his charisma and a little divine inspiration from the Liberator to interrogate the captive, Irene the Vivisectionist. She was unhappy that the adventurers had killed several of her coworkers, but was more concerned with her own survival. She was happy to offer the party a wealth of drugs and useful items if they would release her. The team debated letting her go, but decided to keep her as a hostage to aid negotiations with the boss, who Irene assured them was just a few doors down. Discussions were interrupted by the sound of drums, approaching from the secret door they peered out of earlier. Irene quickly explained that a rampaging horde of berserkers was loose in the dungeon, killing anything that moved.
Ivaqirax had a spell prepared for just this situation. He dropped a Hold Portal on the door to the North, magically securing it against barbarian incursions for a good half hour or so. The team heard the barbs pile into the room on the other side of the door, and immediately begin hacking and coughing. Something unpleasant to breathe had filled the room since the team investigated it earlier, and Irene told them the surviving Vivisectionists had opened the vents to smoke the adventurers out. This made it all the more urgent to initiate a dialogue with whoever Irene's boss was, to explain the situation and work out an accommodation.
With the Portal Held, the adventurers swept through the only door open to them, into a pair of abandoned control rooms. The chambers had an enchantment on the wall, allowing the adventurers to see through them into a chamber filled with thick smog pouring out of a floor vent, and a room full of gurneys and surgical equipment. There were two mutated humanoids on the tables, injured and unconscious but still breathing. The levers had been yanked out of the mechanisms, locking them all in the on/open position. Ivaqirax figured he could stuff his staff into the slots and operate the switches that way. He used it to close the door between the smog and vivisection rooms, so that the smog would stop flowing into the chamber with the wounded victims of science.
The next room was a lab, which the retreating scientists had smashed and set on fire before leaving. All the adventurers could salvage from the room was a midnight black powder from a machine that stuffed it into paper packets. Jack licked some of the powder off his fingers and realized it was an addictive drug rather than gunpowder.
It was clear that Irene's surviving co-workers, including their leader, had fled the area. Laguna went into the experiment room, no longer flooded with smog, to see if there was any helping the two mutants. The man had a bear's head and a scorpion's claws, and a big triangular patch of torso skin peeled open like they were about to autopsy him. The woman had a big shunt in her arm like they were about to drain her blood. They were sedated but Laguna waas able to wake the man up, who immediately freaked out. Laguna calmed him down and offered to help him if he would refrain from moving and making the wound worse.
Wakefield looted a library of tomes (finding rare books, a book with a couple spells, a chemical storeroom (finding an antidote to the time-delayed poison on one of the hand crossbow bolts) and a guide to making homunculi) and the personal rooms of the medical malpractitioners (finding a potion and some jewelry). Jack Fatherd found a disposal chute for corpses and a window looking out on a gigantic lantern, which shone brightly on a caged porch with little deck chairs. Protesilaus demanded that Irene show him where the rest of the Vivisectionists went, and she took him through a breakroom toward the Vivisectionists' shower room. She explained that the big light was the Lantern of Clarity, which the Vivisectionists used to negate the effects of the dark draconic dreams bubbling up from the earth beneath them. Their ambtion was to use the draconic smog for good, making medicine that would regenerate limbs. So far it had the side effect of also turning them into monstermen.
As Protesilaus and Irene approached the shower block, the sound of drums echoed through the open emergency exit in the back, indicating the berserkers were fast approaching. Ivaqirax tossed his second and last Hold Portal on the door, locking it magically. Portal thus held, the gang went back to exploring the labs. The gang used the controls to cut off the smog flow, activated the vents opened all the doors, allowing them access to the cell block North of the smog vents. The cells were empty except for a single unconscious berserker, heavily sedated to stop him breaking all his bones throwing himself at the inside of the cell door. Zigar the Thug went to see if any berserkers died when they got caught in the smog, and found four of them dead on the floor. He went through their possessions, picking up a nice ruby and some loose change.
The shrill voice of a sadistic old man echoed through the room, seeming to come from every direction at once.
Buckets of blood
Barrels of booze
Best beware
By Mike Mignola
Levenbrech the Red Cap hit Zigar from surprise with a flying double foot press, stunning him. The feisty fairy went to kick the downed man, but Ivaqirax rushed to his defense, swinging widlly and driving the fey back. The Red Cap swore and turned invisible. Then the little bastard threw his voice, shouting to the berserkers that the door was open and they should come around this side again. Zigar and Ivaqirax fled back through the lab, shouting to Laguna to get in the control room and shut the doors. The mage stuffed a staff into the mechanism, yanked it and sealed the door to the smog room before the warriors could enter.
With a captive, some interesting items, some treasure, and two prisoners rescued, the group decided to go back to the surface the way they came. Protesilaus dropped some healing on the bear-headed man, closing up his half-autopsy wound, and together they got the unconscious centipede woman up the 50 foot flight of stairs with them.
Back on the surface, the team took stock. The bear-headed mutant couldn't speak, but he could scratch letters in the dirt with his scorpion claws. He said his name was Gowonry and he was a soldier from the Commonwealth. He had been kidnapped by a bunch of elven crackheads who flew around on pteranadons and sold him to the Vivisectionists in exchange for drugs. The woman couldn't make herself understood, her mandibles couldn't form speech and she was illiterate.
Neither of the monster people had anything to look forward to if they returned to civilization, and elected to stick with the party. They wanted to kill Irene for doing horrible experiments on them, but Protesilaus stopped them. If they wanted to adventure with the party, they needed to seriously consider embracing his own homemade doctrine of discipline and self-improvement, mastering their impulse toward revenge. He strongly encouraged Irene to do the same if she knew what was good for her, giving up her cruel medical experiments and using her talents for more constructive purposes. Vile magical experiments were one of the things that got the Hanged King hanged after all.
Irene agreed, but wasn't thrilled about it. She had already been making prosocial discoveries as part of a team of scientists - they had a solution for poison, disease and severed limbs, and all of that was gone now, burned up or soon-to-be smashed by the Berserkers. And if the adventurers thought the Vivisectionists were bad, they were going to be real distressed when they met the lizardmen, and the dragon cult.
Jack Fatherd went into withdrawal after coming down from the draconic drug he took earlier. Irene told him to ignore any urges to devour precious metals.
"He had been kidnapped by a bunch of elven crackheads who flew around on pteranadons and sold him to the Vivisectionists in exchange for drugs." This one line could inspire a whole campaign.
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