Black Waters (Arodus [VIII] 8th-9th 4707 AR)

Beldrin’s Bluff was once an affluent cliff side neighborhood of Absalom, overlooking the Inner Sea’s glittering surface. Nobles and wizards alike erected estates and towers there, and merchants and artists flocked to the cliffs to entertain them. Then came the great quake 10 years ago — half of Beldrin’s Bluff tore from the land and fell into the sea, taking most of its citizens with it. The rest of the area was laid to ruin by the trembling earth and the surging sea. Some of Absalom’s oldest families were utterly erased. Terror and hatred filled the hearts of the survivors and restless spirits of the dead rose from their watery graves and prowled the night.

Perhaps the most terrifying loss was the drowning of the Tri-Towers Yard, an elite academy for the youth of the noblest families of Beldrin’s Bluff. The quake struck at noonday. The children were buried in rubble, and as the sea frothed up from below, it carried dead long ago interred in a hidden necropolis beneath the academy. No one survived. Now the Tri-Towers Yard is known as the Drownyard, a desolate ruin filled with strange black ichors and salty brine. Within lie the secrets of an ancient necropolis.

Getting Started

When the heroes prepared to depart Venture-Captain Drandle Drenge’s company, he pulled an iron key from his waistcoat. “I leave you with the key to the Drownyard gate. Remember, the Drownyard is a deeply personal site for many powerful Inner Sea families. You will tread upon the graves of their children. Be sure to give the site the respect it deserves.”

The Drownyard

When the heroes arrived at Beldrin’s Bluff in Absalom’s Precipice District, they saw a rotting ghost town at the edge of a hungry sea. Throughout the derelict landscape, seagulls perched on splintered timbers reflected their passage in their glassy black eyes. Overhead, dark clouds moved ashore with the promise of a storm.

As the heroes approached the Drownyard on Beldrin’s Bluff’s west side, they saw a fence of black iron pikes surrounded a block-wide yard. Dead tree branches reached out from the fence like the arms of emaciated prisoners desperate to escape. A man was on the inside, cutting the trees down. Some of the dismembered branches remained, stuck in place by knotty elbows swollen around the iron.

Deris Marlinchen looked up from his sawing and watched the heroes approach. His thinning hair was matted and sweaty. Regardless of any address, he maintained his silent staring. Beyond Marlinchen, partially collapsed buildings and three whitewashed towers leaned in a lake-filled yard.

When the heroes opened the padlocked gate with the Drownyard key, Marlinchen approached them with an abruptly friendly demeanor. He dropped his gloves, smiled, and reached out a hand to shake those of the newcomers. Deris Marlinchen was educated, charismatic, and softspoken.

He answered the following questions:

Who are you? “Deris Marlinchen. My daughter Cassiel attends this school. You should see how she’s grown. Those beautiful long braids!”

What are you doing here? “I thought I’d tend the grounds while I wait for Cassiel.”

Do you know how to enter the necropolis? “I don’t know anything about that. Mrs. Heracks was down there the longest though. Perhaps she can help. Come on, I’ll introduce you. She’s in Headmistress Kiwu’s old office now.”

The ruined paths of the Tri-Towers Yard wound their way around black ponds and gray, shattered buildings. Powerful fragrances preceded one roofless hall where a thin path meandered through an abundance of flower arrangements in wild bloom. Just off this path was the entrance to a small classroom — this is where Marlinchen led the heroes.

Once the heroes arrived at the classroom, they saw ten students dressed in checkered uniforms sat stiffly at wooden desks, staring straight ahead. No one moved. At the front of the class, a conservatively dressed woman leaned against the wall.

The heroes noticed that the students and the teacher were not what they seemed. They were spirits — wispy, see-through haunts. Marlinchen could manipulate them with prestidigitation, immediately affecting a lively classroom upon his entrance to the room. The teacher silently gestured, the students nodded and silently whispered to one another — this was a creepy scene. Marlinchen's control turned the teacher into a freakishly silent pantomime that was talking to him. During this “conversation", Marlinchen relayed to the heroes that Mrs. Heracks knew the way to the necropolis and would be happy to show it to them. When allowed, Marlinchen led the spirit of the teacher, who moved in short, jerking steps, to the underwater entrance to the necropolis. The heroes immediately noticed that Marlinchen was somehow “puppeteering” the spirits in the classroom.

Into the Necropolis

When the heroes let Marlinchen guide Mrs. Heracks’s spirit to the necropolis entrance, they eventually arrived at a wide, black pool with an occasional bubble percolating up in the center. The gently bubbling black water was waist deep. A fully-submerged, severed human arm was jutting up from the blackened silt near the center of the pool. When the heroes failed to spot the arm, Marlinchen spent a few moments talking silently to Mrs. Herack and gestured at the bubbles, saying, “She says the entrance is beneath that arm.”

When the heroes tried to pull the arm to the surface, it was immediately obvious that the arm was tightly gripping a metal handle and was also covered in giant, bulbous white eggs. When the heroes disturbed the arm further (by tugging on it) the source of the eggs, a giant water bug, emerged from the silt and attacked Gryxxa. Some of the heroes noticed it — but others were completely caught off guard by the bug’s assault.

The water bug attempted to bite and then use its grab ability. The heroes killed it.

Once the water bug was dealt with, entering the necropolis was a simple matter of tugging on the metal handle that the severed arm was attached to — the heroes figured this out. The heroes identified the arm to be from an adult human, and it appeared to be recent and fresh, judging by the decay.

The heroes pried the heavy, iron plug open, providing access to the necropolis. Unfortunately, it also drained the entire pool into the dungeons below. Once the water drained, the heroes and Marlinchen climbed down a series of slippery handholds.

Necropolis Features

A network of 6-foot-wide, arched tunnels connected double-vaulted ossuary chambers. The chambers were a patchwork of brown stone walls, faded paint, and crumbling plaster. Water seeped through the walls and collected in floor cracks and ankle-deep puddles. The entire necropolis was unlit. All of the doors were made of heavy stone and were unlocked and ajar.

Most of the rooms were flooded and lined with alcoves filled with multitudes of ancient, skeletal remains. These rooms contained nothing of value. Several passageways ended in cave-ins—evidence of the great geological violence visited upon the necropolis 10 years ago.

The Tomb of Grishan Maldris

The heroes entered a chamber with carved pillars in the corners holding aloft a double-vaulted ceiling of cracked frescos. On either side of the chamber, a single step led up into a deeply recessed area that formed an arched room of its own.

When the heroes peered into the east recess, they found on the floor the perfectly preserved body of a young boy laying in a puddle and staring silently upward. This was the body of Grishan Maldris, the younger brother of Colson Maldris (now the head of the Andoran faction in Absalom). Andoran faction heroes were interested in the diary of Grishan Maldris that lay beneath his preserved body.

The remains of a bugbear warrior, now turned zombie, had taken up residence in this room. It wandered the room aimlessly until the heroes killed it.

A detect magic spell found a magic ring, crafted with a feather pattern all around its edge, in the rubble. 

The Ghoul Trap

The heroes entered a room where water dripped from the double-vaulted ceiling and trickled down the walls to pool on the floor. Bone shards of a hundred skulls littered the room like shattered seashells. Wide stairs climbed to the west. Narrow stairs dove to the north. On the north wall, an open doorway gaped, a carved relief depicting a massive battle filling the archway over the door. The rest of the walls were filled floor to ceiling with nooks that housed ancient, but drenched, skeletal remains. In the center of the room sat twelve school children in a circle on the floor. One child seemed to be silently telling a story, her arms moving rapidly as she made scary faces.

Since Marlinchen was with the heroes, he immediately recognized the spirit telling the story as his daughter Cassiel. He said, “See! Alive! I knew it!” and pointed at her. Now that he had seen his daughter, Marlinchen continued no further.

Three ghouls converged on the chamber from the bottom of the stairs to the north soon after the heroes entered. It took them a while to reach the room, where they surprised most of the heroes and attacked. Some of the heroes heard the ghouls approaching and killed them.

The members of the Andoran faction found the Gebbite general’s corpse and his shield that they were seeking. The bronze full plate armor worn by the Gebbite general was magic and was in excellent condition.

More Remains

A steep set of 100 stairs led down from the area with the ghostly children to the west landing and a solid stone door. Though the door was closed, the heroes heard the sounds of the ocean beyond.

The heroes entered a large hexagonal room where with the frequency of storm waves approaching the shore, salt water erupted from cracks in the floor. Foamy, blinding spray jumped in every direction, then drained from calf-height to ankle-deep before the next wave hit. Occasionally a length of black-brown seaweed shot in and added one more strand to a room that already appeared draped in long wet hair. In each of the chamber’s six corners, a fluted pillar rose to the fifty-foot ceiling. Between each pair of pillars, an open arch connected the chamber to an attached space. Beyond the northwest and southwest arches, three tiers of recessed spaces formed three massive steps. A stone sarcophagus rested on each step.

The west alcove of this room was home to a ghast. This particular ghast was dressed in rotting finery, wisps of fetid, expensive cloth still dangling from its limbs. Perched atop its head was a golden crown, resplendent with a dozen glittering gems, while its putrid fingers each bore extravagant rings made from a dozen different precious gems and metals.