The Trapmaster's Gauntlet

The Huntress's Tomb

Before leaving the burial vault, Herald turned his attention to the stone sarcophagus on the raised platform and read the worn inscription aloud:

Here lies Aesephana Menhemes, the Huntress. May she rest in peace.

Beside the words, a shallow indentation had been carved into the stone, clearly waiting for something to be set inside it — shaped like a hunting bow formed from a pair of antlers. Whatever belonged there had not been placed in a very long time. The party recognized the shape: the holy symbol of Erastil, god of the hunt, the harvest, and the family hearth.

The name was familiar too. Aesephana Menhemes was the Huntress — the youngest of the Roseguard, the small band of legendary adventurers said to have founded Otari itself some five hundred years ago. She was their cleric, and she fought with bow and arrow. She was the last of the Roseguard to pass away, and her distant descendant, Oseph Menhemes, is the mayor of Otari today.

Which raised an uncomfortable question. Why is one of the founders of Otari buried in unhallowed ground beneath a fishery, walled in behind a barricade someone built to keep the way shut?

Ja-ja, ever the empiricist, rapped the sarcophagus with one of his new skeleton-bone toothpicks. Shiro had been tracing the dark aura of this place since they arrived, and noted that it radiates most strongly from this very stone — whatever power sleeps inside is almost certainly beyond the party's strength, and the dead are best left to rest. The heroes left the Huntress where she lay and moved on.

The Forgotten Shrine

Deeper through the caverns, the party climbed a rough ten-foot cliff to a ledge and a door that was easy to miss from the passage below. Beyond it lay a ruined chamber, mold and rot staining every surface. On the far side stood a stone statue of a giant squid, its tentacles reaching toward an altar in the center of the room. The scum covered almost everything — but it had not touched the silver bowl sitting atop the altar, and the water inside it was perfectly clear.

They identified the shrine as one dedicated to Gozreh, god of nature and the fury of the ocean. Corpi made a gesture of respect toward the statue, but no one dared drink from the bowl, reasoning that centuries of stagnant water was a fine way to make oneself sick, blessing or no.

The Abandoned Storeroom

Angry chittering carried down the passage ahead. The room beyond had once been a storeroom for some building above; at the far side, what was left of a cage or cell stood packed with crates and barrels. Six lizardlike creatures the size of human children were clustered around its door, prying at it without success — kobolds.

The kobolds fought with discipline, working in pairs to flank whoever stood closest and driving their spears into the openings that created. Ja-ja went down under a flurry of them and was hauled back from the edge by one of Finn's healing potions.

With four of their number slaughtered, the last two broke and ran. Finn was first after them — and promptly put his foot on a pressure plate, bringing a rain of stone down from the ceiling. The wily halfling threw himself clear as the blocks came down, and the fleeing kobolds were caught up with and swiftly killed. While the chase played out, Beans went to work on the cage's lock and popped it open.

Inside the crates and barrels, most of it long-spoiled, was a small pile of treasure: 200 silver pieces, a gold ring, and a beautiful +1 shortsword. Beans relieved the room of all of it, Ja-ja harvested some kobold meat for the cart, and the party took a moment to breathe and regain their focus before pressing on.

Abadar's Judgment

The next chamber was long and quiet. Two stone priests stood in the corners, facing a towering statue of a man holding out both hands, palms up. On the altar before him lay nine golden coins. As the party entered, the statue spoke:

In my hands I judge the value of all wealth, raising up whichever is greater. One of these coins is a deception. Find it using only two judgments and receive my blessing.

The statue depicted Abadar, god of cities, law, merchants, and wealth. Every coin looked and weighed the same — but one was false, and the god's hands would only weight the coins twice before resetting.

Several attempts came and went, the coins vanishing and reappearing in a new order each time the party guessed wrong. In the end it was Shiro who saw it: split the nine into three groups of three, weigh two groups against each other to find which trio hides the fake, then repeat with a single coin in each hand. Two judgments, no more.

The fake turned to lead, the true coins fell to the floor, and a stone door ground slowly open on a hidden chamber.

Abadar's Vault

The small room beyond held an old wooden chest emblazoned with a key, and behind it a massive contraption of gears and pulleys. The chest was unlocked: inside were coins (214 cp, 22 sp, and 3 gp), a single emerald in a glass box, and a rolled parchment that proved to be a scroll of force barrage.

Ja-ja examined the machinery and determined it was the control for a trap somewhere else — and it was currently set to the disarmed position.

The Audience Hall

The final room of the level was a massive chamber that must once have been an audience hall. A broad set of stairs on the far side climbed to where a throne had stood; pillars held up the high ceiling, ruined tatters of decorative banners still hanging from them. Beneath the grime on the floor, a decorative tile pattern showed through at the center of the room.

The kobolds waiting here were better trained fighters than the storeroom rabble. They fought from cover, ducking behind pillars to loose spears and vanishing again, while a kobold trapmaster stood at the back, methodically laying snares across the ground in front of the stairs leading down.

The fight was long and brutal. Beans slipped out of the room to spring the trap — three spears shot from the western wall into the middle of the battlefield. One flew wide, the second narrowly missed Finn, and the third caught Rygel square in the chest, dropping him unconscious and dematerializing Vega with him.

Finn poured a healing potion into Rygel while Shiro called up spirits of comfort and respite, knitting the party's vitality back together as the melee raged on. As the others cut down the last of the kobold lackeys — Ja-ja finishing the final one — Corpi vaulted clean over the trapmaster's snares to meet him face-to-face.

Then Herald threw his dread ampule struck the trapmaster dead center, flooding his mind with terror. Back to the wall, surrounded by seven proven kobold-slayers, her warriors dead, he broke — and fled down the spiral stairs and out of sight.

Whoever waits below will hear about the heroes before they arrive.