The Vault of Greed (Abadius (I) 5th, 4713 AR)

Boudoir: This smoky chamber has no furniture, but mounds of blankets, pillows, and sheets lie heaped on the floor, in some places built into nests. A stone golem stood silent and motionless in the corner of this room. The stone golem fought the intruders to the death. While the opening between this room and the previous was left open, a touch at a small spot can trigger a curtain to swing down to seal off this room completely. The heroes looted some treasure and moved on to the Vault of Greed.

The Vault of Greed

Many parts of this nearly empty branch of Runeforge are gold or festooned with precious gems. All areas are lit with flames that spring forth from gems set high on the walls, unless noted otherwise in a room’s description.

Pilferer's Bane: A large iron door studded with dozens of colorful gemstones stood in the southern wall at the end of the corridor leading to the Vault of Greed. Although the door appeared to have no latch, a depression in the center contained a keyhole. The door was in fact a trap. It was actually a thick iron plate set in the wall. It had a nonfunctional internal lock, but no handle. The iron slab was attached to a metal piston in a recessed area behind it. When the heroes touched the fake door, the piston thrust forward with incredible force, smashing Gryxxa against the opposing wall. A chamber behind the piston houses complex counterweights and gears that retracted the piston and reset the trap. The precious stones embedded in the fake iron door are only worth a total of 50 gp in all. The actual entrance into the Vault of Greed was hidden at the end of the corridor, just to the left of the trapped door — the heroes found this secret door.

Morphic Mist: A beautiful tunnel of polished wood inlaid with silver and gold runes stretches for at least a hundred feet before ending at a wall of greenish mist sparkling with silver motes of light. The mist acted as a secondary defense against intruders, starting at the eastern end of the tunnel and continuing all the way to the entrance to the next area. The heroes studied the mist and identified that it could transform living creatures into goldfish and then teleport them. They temporarily suppressed the mist via dispel magic.

Trouble with Mephits: The next chamber is paved with ivory tiles, each one engraved with a silver rune depicting what appears to be a claw gripping a gemstone. The walls and ceiling are of polished marble. A large silver basin in the center of the room contains an icy sculpture of a whale spraying crystal-clear water from its blowhole. The water cascades around it to keep the basin full, but never quite overflowing. The water itself is cool and refreshing, but hardly required for those dwelling in the complex. Four mephits frolic in the waters of this pool. Despite their small stature, the mephits are brave to the point of being foolhardy. Initially hostile, the mephits nonetheless didn’t initiate attacks on the heroes, instead hurled insults (“Oh look! Another group of fleshies come to slobber in our pool!”). The heroes managed to converse with the creatures. The water mephits complained that while they enjoy playing in the fountain, a “mean silver man” keeps coming and casting hurtful spells at them. They know a little bit about his combat tactics (each mephit knows at least a dozen others of its kind who were killed by the silver man), and the mephits gave the heroes a few tips on how to fight the “silver man”; he usually has illusory doubles and shoots at them with shimmering multicolored beams of light.  At some point, the mephits also volunteered that they know of a lot more fountains in this complex, particularly that the goldfish pools are all linked to each other and the morphic mist, and that the biggest of the pools is “made of magic.”

Fountain: A fountain sprays water toward the ceiling, thirty feet above. The water cascades back into a pool in which colorful goldfish swim. The fountain featured a nine-foot-tall stone statue of a human wizard holding a staff in one hand. The other hand was raised over his head, and it’s from this hand’s palm that the water issued. The statue that stood within this fountain was in fact a stone golem. The heroes attracted the attention of the golem and it attacked at once. When the golem attacked, three more stationed in other rooms activated as well and moved to converge on the room where the fight was taking place. The heroes worked quickly enough to defeat the golems, and they only had to face two at once. When all four golems were destroyed, the morphic mist vanished.