Tirana's Lair, Part 3 (Gozran (IV) 29th-30th, 4709 AR)

The heroes rested and then continued their exploration.

Secret Guard Room. Other than a few simple wooden chairs, this room is dark and empty. A peephole on the southern wall allows a narrow shaft of light to pierce the gloom.

Tirana kept three of the Splitstreet gang here as guards, using this bare anteroom to keep an eye on visitors and surprise unwanted intruders.

Fool's Gold. This small stone room was dominated at the north end by a massive pile of treasure. Gold coins spilled from open coffers draped with fine silks and furs, and glowing swords stood propped against barrels and crates holding gem-encrusted armor.

The treasure in this room was actually an illusion. When Gryxxa stepped where the illusory hoard was, the wall collapsed in a shower of rock, dust, and mortar, smashing her.

Behind the north wall lurked a gray render. Upon the collapse of the wall, it immediately broke free and attacked Aranthor before the heroes killed it.

Failed Goblin Trap. This twisting passage is full of debris. Broken scythes protrude from the walls, shattered arrows and darts line the floor, and in several places it appears the stone itself has been pitted and scarred by some sort of acid. Where the passage widens at its southern end, the mangled corpses of three goblins hung impaled on a cluster of metal spikes protruding from the floor.

None of the sprung traps posed any threat to the heroes. When searched, the goblins’ pockets contained 47 gp, a roughly scribbled schematic of this corridor’s defenses, and a small dead mouse.

Alchemy Lab. The acrid chemical smell of sulfur and burnt earth fills this chamber, the smooth stone walls covered with an oily black film. Near the center of the room stand a fire-scarred black cauldron and three ominous bone pillars. Atop each pile of bones rests an open skull from which emanates a steady bubbling sound and a soft, colored glow. This strange radiance illuminates three oil paintings hung at intervals across the north wall: a skeleton with a red apple, a blue jaybird, and a golden ring in its chest, a dark castle being shattered by a tidal wave, its highest tower marked with the shape of a rose; and a demon drinking from a golden goblet while holding a heart. A shelved alcove to the south lay in shadows.

This unusual alchemy lab has three main features: the skulls, the alcove, and the cauldron. Shelves cut into the alcove contain two pouches of blue powder, two of red, and two of yellow, as well as half a dozen hunks of raw lead and a key trapped in a lump of clear orange amber. Each of the skulls atop the pillars contains a liquid glowing with the same colors as the powders: blue, red, and yellow.

Library. This oddly shaped room is packed with bookshelves, arranged both along the wall and in a freestanding island in the room’s center. Each is crammed to bursting with tomes, scrolls, and loose papers. On the floor, several books and charts lie open, their leaves in disarray and covered in handwritten notes.

When the heroes examined the open books they learned some information regarding the Seven Swords of Sin. As a collection, the books in this library are worth almost 2,564 gp, but individual books are rarely worth more than 13 gp each.

Long ago, the region known today as Varisia was part of a single great empire called Thassilon. Seven wizards wielding almost godlike power ruled this empire, and indeed many of their vassals worshiped them as deities. Each of the wizard-kings styled himself after one of the seven different Virtues of Rule: wealth, fertility, honest pride, abundance, eager striving, righteous anger, and well-deserved rest. Yet disputes between the seven rulers, dubbed Runelords for the powerful sigils used in their spellcasting, were common. Rather than wage war on each other, conflicts were settled via champions wielding magic blades, each tied to one of the seven virtues.

Over time, the power and decadence of Thassilon’s expansion corrupted its rulers, and the seven virtues became twisted mockeries of themselves — fertility became lust, abundance turned to gluttony, and so on. When a mysterious, cataclysmic event finally brought the empire to ruin, the swords and their creators disappeared. At present, most of those living in Varisia have forgotten all about the empire of Thassilon, looking on the immense monuments peppering their landscape with ignorant awe. The lessons of the past live on, though, in parents who instruct their children about the dangers of the seven deadly sins.

Recently, however, Tirana has begun unearthing and gathering together the lost swords of the Runelords. The only one she has failed to unearth is the sword of greed. The rest, she has been blatantly stealing from vaults where wiser minds concealed them. If allowed to proceed unchecked, this usurper could soon wield a power second only to the ancient Thassilonians themselves.

Cave-In. Massive chunks of natural stone and cracked masonry block the passage here, although the floor in front of it is remarkably clean.

The tunnel here obviously once extended farther to the north at some point, but a cave-in has since buried it under dozens of feet of rubble. Clearing a path through it is beyond the scope of the heroes' mission.

Incinerator. The door to this room is solid steel and festooned with cross-bracing and rivets. As soon as Gryxxa stepped directly in front of it, the door retracted into the ceiling with startling speed. It stayed retracted until the heroes stepped off the front of the door.

This rectangular room is bare save for a ten-foot-wide chasm at the southern end, which drops down twenty feet into a roaring fire. Beyond it, a large cauldron filled with glowing molten stone bubbles softly. The air in the room is stiflingly hot.

Hedgehog's Dilemma. This large, open room is fifteen feet tall and covered in square stone tiles five feet to a side. Set into these tiles on the floor and ceiling is a forest of standing metallic spikes and nails, some nearly a foot long. Opposite the two sets of double doors leading into this room is an alcove. Within are ornate stone lintels set into the floor, framing the mouth of a steep shaft filled with stairs.

Moving through the spikes in this room required a great deal of care. Anyone traversing the floor or ceiling at normal speed ran the risk of accidentally skewering a foot.

Many squares on the floor and ceiling covered a pressure plate that activated whenever weight was placed on it. Some of the squares reversed gravity in the whole room, slamming nonflying creatures into the ceiling. Each creature that fell in this way could also have damage inflicted on it by the spikes. Other squares reversed the effect, sending creatures on the ceiling slamming back down onto the floor.

There was an invisible presence in the room. After a while the presence attacked Gryxxa when she was falling up or down as a result of the trap. When it appeared that the heroes were close to escaping, the presence moved to block the exit.