Encounter 5: The Statue in the Water

The True and Rightful King

Encounter 5:  The Statue in the Water

Level 1:  Hard Level 5

1 Deathrattle Viper, Level 5 Brute, 200 xp (1 player)
1 Deathrattle Viper, Level 5 Brute, 200 xp (2 players)
1 Deathrattle Viper, Level 5 Brute, 200 xp (3 players)
1 Young Black Dragon, Level 4 Solo Lurker, 875 xp (4 players, delete 3 Deathrattle Vipers)
1 Deathrattle Viper, Level 5 Brute, 200 xp (5 players)
1 Deathrattle Viper, Level 5 Brute, 200 xp (6 players)

Setup

Beneath the trap door there is a shaft, square, and lined with worked stone, seeping water and moist to the touch.  Set in the stone is a ladder of rusty iron bars.  Perhaps they are still strong enough to support your weight.  The glowing moss only gives you enough light to see a few feet down.  Below that it is dark.

You climb down the ladder for what you judge to be about 60 feet.  When you step off the ladder onto the floor of the shaft you can feel a thin film of mud beneath your feet and stone beneath the mud.  Directly ahead is a set of steep, narrow stone stairs leading down with a ceiling so low it almost touches your head as you descend the stairs.

The stairs go down for about ten feet then level out into a long stone-walled passage, a tunnel just high enough to stand.  A human’s head would almost brush the stone ceiling.  Like the stairs before it, this passage is seeping water.

At the end of the passage is a rusty metal door.  It is smooth, unworked.  There are massive hinges and a knob which feels sticky to your touch.  It will not turn.  You feel beneath the knob and find a keyhole.  The door is apparently locked.

A Strength check DC 25 will break the door down.  A Theivery check DC 15 will pick the lock.  The door has AC/Ref 5, Fort 10, and HP 20.

When the door opens you see before you a modest-sized chamber, about 25 feet wide and about 30 feet long.  But, the ceiling is somewhere above, so high it is in darkness.  The five feet of the room closest to the door has a stone floor, but beyond that the entire room is a pool of dark, stagnant, stinking water.

In the center of the pool rises a ten-foot statue of a human man, set on a square base about five feet high.  The man is obviously noble.  He is crowned and is wearing magnificent robes that drape off his shoulders down to his feet.  His eyes seem to be looking straight at you.  One arm is extended toward you, palm up, while his other arm is lifted, finger pointed, as if he is giving a speech.  Cradled across his arms, real, not a part of the statue, is a sword in a scabbard.  Though the sword looks old and decrepit, useless for any actual combat, this is obviously the sword of House Silverkin.

Tactics and Development

If there are 4 players or more, the water is deep and players entering it have to swim.  If there are 3 players or less, then the water is about 18 inches deep.  If the players have to swim, then as soon as one of them gets into the water, the dragon suddenly emerges (on that turn), looks at them with evil in his eyes, and says, “So, you’ve come!  Dinner is served, it would seem!”  If there are vipers involved, they come slithering down the walls from the darkness above on the turn when any player first enters the water.

The vipers fight to the death.  The dragon is smarter, and when it reaches 50 HP or less, it submerges and disappears into the depths.

Features of the Area

Illumination:  If there is only the dragon, the room is dark.  If there are vipers, then there is some moss growing in the corners and on the walls that gives low-light.

Water:  If shallow, the water is difficult terrain for the adventurers, but not for the vipers.  If it is deep, then the adventurers must swim, while the vipers move freely through the water.

Statue:  Climb DC 15.  It would be easier, but it’s wet.  Any adventurer fighting from the statue must make an Acrobatics check DC 15 as an immediate interrupt of his or her attack or fall into the water.

Treasure

1 amber stone (100 gp)
20 gold pieces

Perception DC 10:  The hilt of the sword is wrapped in leather.  When you uncurl the leather, you find on it this inscription:

EAST

WEST

DIRT

LEFT

Give the players the inscription with the letters on it.

At the edge of the clearing, Baron Silverkin’s captain, the dwarf Xanros Tarmikos, is waiting for you.  He escorts you back through the forest and down the road, back to Linden Keep.  He says little, but he keeps glancing at you, cutting his eyes over to study you when he thinks you aren’t looking.

As you ride through the village of Linden, the villagers seem to look at you differently than the day before, when you first rode in.  Apparently, some word has leaked out about the quest on which you embarked, and there is a sense of surprise and a little awe to see you return.

When you reach Linden Keep, Baron Silverkin is waiting for you in his solar.  He is with a red-bearded, grim looking dwarf you haven’t seen before, who stands in the corner, his arms folded over a tunic with Baron Silverkin’s colors and crest.  He watches you carefully out of deep blue eyes.  No one introduces him.

When you present Baron Silverkin with the sword, he takes it tenderly, carefully draws it from its scabbard, and caresses it almost lovingly, running his hand slowly and softly up its rusted length and then back down.

Then he turns to you, smiles, and says, “Thank you.  House Silverkin is in your debt.  More than we can repay you.  I promised you gold if you returned this sword.  You will have it, though I must tell you, it is little reward compared to the service you have done my house.”

He walks over to a chest, uses a key from a pouch at his belt to unlock it, and removes several small, leather bags.  These he brings to the table and sets them there, one for each of you.

The bags contain the promised 100 gp each for completion of the quest.  Each character gains 100 xp each for completion of the quest.

If Baron Silverkin sees the leather with the word search, he asks you if you know what it means.  If you don’t, then he turns around to Marril Onyxarm and hands him the leather.

“So, Dauntless, does this make any sense to you?” he asks.  The red-haired dwarf seems reluctant to take his eyes off you, but he takes the leather and looks down at it.  He studies it for a moment, then says, “This is a puzzle form that the goblins seem to like.  Apparently it keeps their secrets well because so few goblins can actually read.  They put together random words, whatever fit, but the words don’t matter or make any sense.  The point is to hide the real message, usually just one word, in the jumble of letters in the puzzle.”

The dwarf hands it back to Baron Silverkin, steps back to his place in the corner, recrosses his arms, and resumes his careful watching of you.  The Baron slides the leather across to you.  “Well.  It seems there’s something here to be discovered.  What do you make of it?”

If the adventurers do not pick out the word “tree,” then Marril Onyxarm finally volunteers the word.

“Tree?  Tree!  What in Avandra’s name could that possibly mean?  Tree?” the Baron huffs.  Then he chuckles softly.  “Well, someone here will know.  He turns to the red-haired dwarf.  “Marril, what good are you if you can’t tell me what these infernal goblins mean by ‘tree’?”

Without taking his eyes off you, the dwarf, whom you have now heard called “Dauntless” and “Marril,” says quietly, “No doubt it means the ancient cypress that grows on the banks of the Wildepond.”

Baron Silverkin bangs his fist on the table and, his eyes now sparkling, exclaims, “By Pelor, you must be right, you foxy old dwarf!  Of a certainty, that must be it!”  Then his face slowly takes on a puzzled expression.  He turns back to Marril.  “But, so?  Why put a puzzle on my son’s sword that tells us of that old tree?”

The dwarf slowly moves his eyes from watching you to the Baron.  “They hid the sword there on that statue.  Mayhap they’ve hid the shield or the amulet there at the tree.”

The Baron thinks about this for a moment, then looks at you.  “Will you go to the old cypress and bring back whatever you find?  If you can fetch our shield or our amulet, there’ll be another 100 gold coins in it for each of you.”