The Town:


The Dungeon:

The Descent

Main Chamber 1a:
- The spiral path leading down from the revealed quarry enters into a steamy chamber. The mists obscure just how far down the chamber goes, but two passages can easily be discerned from where the pathway abruptly ends, in what looks to be a broken stair. One tunnel is near the end of the stairway while the other is on the other side of the chamber, requiring players to devise a way to cross the broken stairway to reach it. (See Crossing the Broken Path skill challenge) Players who succeed on a DC 15 Perception check see that there is a third and fourth tunnel near the bottom of the chamber and stairs that spiral down even further into the shrouding steam. An impromptu waterfall has formed from the creek by the mill draining into the chasm below. It seems as though something down there is converting the water to steam as fast as it is draining down the hole.
- Crossing the Broken Path: In order to cross the broken path, players must succeed in a DC 10-15-20 (depending on choices) skill challenge that requires six successes before three failures. Failure leaves the group with one level of Exhaustion until they complete a short rest. Taking this rest increases the number of Giant Fire Beetles found in Area 3 from four to six.)

Area 1:
- The easiest area to get to, this passageway opens in to a medium sized (20x30ft) room that looks like it might have been a supply room long ago. Almost everything inside is ruined, looking to have been burned ages ago and waterlogged for ages longer. There is a soft ashy mud covering the ground. Players investigating the remains find a skeletal arm in the muck wearing an iron gauntlet with a brass lens fastened to the palm (trinket item).

Area 2:
- The three chambers that comprise this area seem to be religious in nature. Old, worn murals of three eyed metal giants razing the land. Some depict one of the giants shooting fire from its third eye, and fiery monsters (or people on fire? It’s hard to tell.) blooming from where the burning beam makes contact. A DC 20 History or Religion check reveals these murals to be somewhat similar to a legend from the times of the Dawn War where metal giants fell from the sky and set fire to the world with the help of fiery demons that they summoned via their third eye. The central chamber has what is left of a small stone shrine and altar where an iron candlestick with a fell symbol on it and a bronze figurine of a long-forgotten monstrous god (trinket items) can be found. There are also a couple of charred looking skeletons jumbled around the altar.

Area 3:
- On the stairway down, players can make a DC 15 Perception check to notice the sounds of clicking and skittering over the noise of the waterfall. The smell of rotten fish is somewhat prevalent the closer they get to the room below. The room itself seems to have been a somewhat large (40x40ft) meeting room or mess hall. Broken, burned, waterlogged, or otherwise ruined remains of tables and chairs, as well as slippery dead rotting fish carcasses, litter the ground making the area difficult terrain. The room is fully lit however by four (or six) Giant Fire Beetles that were “peacefully” fighting over fish remains until the party interrupted them. Seeing as how they outnumber the party, the beetles click menacingly in their direction and attack. The beetles’ glands can be harvested with a DC 10 Nature or Survival check.

Main Chamber 1b:
- The passage from Area 3 reenters the main chamber area on the “lower level.” The path around the Main Chamber’s lower level circles behind the small waterfall and past another passage opening before spiraling down further into the steam-filled hole.

Area 4:
- The passageway to this area is blocked by some sort of locked iron gate. The gate itself rusty and corroded in places. A DC 15 Strength or Dexterity (Thieves Tools) check is required to break down or unlock the gate. There is a skeleton tangled up in the gate that looks like the person was trying to get in before they died. The skeleton has a single cloth glove with an alien symbol in the palm (trinket item) of its right hand. The room itself is long (20x40) with stairs leading off to the right. In the alcove opposite the gated entryway, a somewhat intact suit of armor. All around the edges of the room, broken stone bookshelves are filled with ashy remains of books while what were probably once work tables and a desk sit mostly rotted away. If the players enter the area, the suit of armor comes to life as an Animated Armor and demands to see the players’ credentials…or badges…or it wants a password, it’s hard to tell. The Animated Armor cycles through the request in two or three languages (Celestial, Sylvan, and Primordial), but its use of the language is so old that it requires listeners to make a DC 10 Intelligence check to get the basic gist of what it is after. If a player puts on the glove from the skeleton and shows the symbol to the armor, the suit will return to its alcove and deactivate. Otherwise, it will attack until slain.

Area 5:
- The stairs from Area 4 lead to an antechamber and what looks like a private quarters that, other than hundreds of years of water damage, is otherwise preserved. What remains of a stone bedframe, a trunk, some stone tables, ruined alchemical tools, and what was probably a desk sit mostly undisturbed. The trunk is locked, but the materials are so rotted and corroded that the lid breaks off easily. Inside are the desiccated remains of some clothes, parts of a broken compass in a small leather bag, a jade chess piece engraved with the symbol of a legendary alchemist, a crystalline orb filled with filings of iridescent metal, and a perfectly preserved scroll tube with half of a map of a dungeon in a distant kingdom (trinket items). The antechamber is mostly empty save for a large standing mirror that stands covered opposite the secret door leading to Area 6. The mirror radiates slight divination magic if Detect Magic is cast on it. The player wearing the symbol glove can see the secret door if the mirror is uncovered and they either look in the mirror or pass by it with a Passive Perception of 12.

Area 6:
- The door is locked, but the metal is corroded enough that a DC 15 Strength check can bash it down. The small room is surprisingly dry (thanks to the previously airtight door, and later the resulting air pocket), and mostly empty, save for a chest propped up on a stone bench. The Chest is locked and trapped. (See Mechanical Trap) The chest, when opened, contains 2100 cp, 1400 sp, 80 gp, and 11 gems worth about 110 gp in value.
- Mechanical Trap: A Poisoned needle is hidden within a Treasure chest’s lock, or in something else that a creature might open. Opening the chest without the proper key causes the needle to spring out, delivering a dose of poison. When the trap is triggered, the needle extends 3 inches straight out from the lock. A creature within range takes 1 piercing damage and 11 (2d10) poison damage, and must succeed on a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or be Poisoned for 1 hour. A successful DC 20 Intelligence (Investigation) check allows a character to deduce the trap’s presence from alterations made to the lock to accommodate the needle. A successful DC 15 Dexterity (Thieves’ Tools) check disarms the trap, removing the needle from the lock. Unsuccessfully attempting to pick the lock triggers the trap.

Main Chamber 2:
- The stairway leading down to this area ends abruptly at a passageway and a broken gap. The air down here is thick with steam and there seems to be an unearthly glow coming from further down below. The players can hear the water from the waterfall making contact with what is surely the bottom floor, but there is too much steam to see much of anything. The passageway is partially blocked by a calcified skeleton that seems to be propping up a cave-in by itself. There is a broken bottle on the ground with a label in an old Common that reads “get stronger.” There are two other bottles as well. One is labeled “get away” (Potion of Gaseous Form) while the other is labeled “get better” (Potion of Superior Healing). The passage is dangerous, and is considered a Falling Rocks trap if the players do not find the weak points and shore them up before entering.
- Falling Rocks: DC 15 to find, DC 10 to disable; affects all targets within a 10 ft. square area, DC 14 Dexterity save or take 2d10 damage; apprentice tier, dangerous.

Area 7:
- This area appears to be an old worker recreation room. Tables and chairs have long since decayed away and there are more than a few skeletons lying about the muddy, ashen floor. To the right is a passageway that leads to what might have been the private room of a foreman or taskmaster as well as some stairs that lead down to a hallway that splits to the left and to the right.

Area 8:
- These rooms appear to have probably been bunk rooms for workers. Rotted remains of bunks litter the floors and more than a few skeletons poke up from the debris. The fetid muck on the ground isn’t the healthiest of stuff to be breathing in, but pressure from the steam being generated in Area 10 sometimes causes pockets of steam to squeeze through cracks in the floor here, causing an eruption of poisonous gas like a Poisonous Gas Trap that players may be caught in if they investigate the rooms.
- Poison Gas Trap: DC 15 to find; affects all targets within a 10 ft. square area, DC 15 Constitution save or take 2d10 poison damage; apprentice tier, dangerous.


Area 9:
- This hallway leads to an old trash hole. A Gray Ooze has lived in this hole for a very long time, eating the trash dumped by the ancient inhabitants, and then later, after whatever incident caused the dungeon to flood, it left the hole occasionally to scavenge the remains. It isn’t particularly fond of the heat and has remained in its hole for now. If a player gets too close to the trash hole, it looks like it is filled with water and goes down a fair depth. The ooze will attack if disturbed, or if the players linger. It will not give chase if they flee from it.

Area 10:
- The broken stairway leading down to Area 10 can be circumvented with a DC 15 Dexterity (Acrobatics) or Strength (Athletics) check (or other means). Fail could end in a dangerous situation ending in a level of Exhaustion, or a fall several feet down to the ground bellow (as well as corresponding falling damage). Falling damage is 5d6 halved due to the soft conditions of the walls and ground as well as the growing pile of dead fish at the bottom of the waterfall.
- At the bottom the stairway, large piles of mostly dead fish are baking on the rather hot floor at the bottom of the waterfall. The water from the fall is quickly converted to steam, making visibility in the room hard. This area leads into an excavation site where a giant metal head is partially exhumed. A large red stone that is cracked on one side on the head of the metal giant is the source of the mysterious light as well as, most likely, the heat. If the players tamper with the stone in any way, a burst of energy issues forth causing a Steam Mephit and two Spitfires (Custom 1/4 CR monsters) to appear and fight the party.