The Quality of Gold

Part 16: The Beginning of the End

Comments in Blue have been added after publishing.

Details

Sometimes, I create a section from an idea and then re-write it later in a sequence. I do not usually have time to go back and make things pretty, so this part takes place in the previous part called “Prison Break!”

The Beginning of End

Once Brunin has had a chance to meet the party and they have gained his trust, he can see that the time is almost here. He will explain his plan which has three parts that must be timed to minimize the casualties to the innocent. He has a rough sketch to show them.

“It may not be perfectly accurate, but it’s close”

When the time is ready –

1. The guards should be taken out as quickly as possible
2. The prisoners need to be freed and directed to the escape route

There were reports of skulking creatures near the river crossing

• The Necro and Rowena can be defeated (or if not go to #4)
• The three river branches need to be diverted and then get away from the Citadel asap!

Brunin will have Feister get a hold of Qualin to prepare for the prisoner exodus

The Plan in Motion

The party can take advantage of Brunin’s advice and intel, or they can come up with their own plan. If the party is planning to assault the guards and find the Necromancer and her Lt. first, then he will begin freeing the prisoners and sending them toward Stonehaven with a note from him to Feister that the time is ready and to contact Qualin and prepare for the move of dozens of people to safer lands. Qualin will know when the time is right because it will be very obvious. Until then, the prisoners should stay near the camps or close to the exit under the Opera House.

Osanna and Rowena were informed the previous night of the party’s capture and they are relieved and overconfident. Osanna wants to save them for rituals to raise them as powerful undead commanders so she wants them unharmed and intact. Rowena is wary and skeptical, but she follows Osanna’s orders. She has placed a few guards near the egress points just to give them a chance to prepare in case something goes wrong, but this will take most of the day to set up, so the party may get the drop on her plans.

The party can also forego trying to find the Necromancer and just collapse the Citadel. This will have the same effect to defeat her as she will have to flee or be imprisoned or squashed beneath the ruined Keep. If Osanna learns of the party’s plans, she will D-Door to the Pens and release her hordes upon the countryside with orders to kill anything living in their way.

Timeline of Events:

• Overnight – Brunin tells Feister what’s happening and to let Qualin know that something big is going to happen soon – prepare to help scores of refugees
• Early morning: guards leave their posts to feed the prisoners
• Brunin enlists one of his entrusted fellow prisoners to act sick/dead which will bring the third guard out of their post. He will have a few empty sacks with him that he will swap for the ones with the party’s gear, then head to a friend’s cell until the guards go back to their post.
• He will return to the party and give their good back, but will tell them that the guards have appropriated a few of their items for themselves.
• The dwarf will tell them his plan, the sketch and ask what they want to do. They have until evening when the guards return with second meal.
• Osanna is gone most of the day, posing as HM Lethia in classes at Molentide.
• The party will escort the freed prisoners through the underground river area to the camps under Stonehaven
• Brunin will meet with Feister to get plans in place to relocate the refugees than he will return to the underground river caverns and begin the diversion of the streams
• The party should return to the dungeons and find the secret entrance to the Necromancer’s labs/lair

Start here for 3/12/24

Labs of the Necromancer

The secret door leading down the stairs to the Labs is hidden, but once found can be easily opened. Per DC20 to fins the door and another DC20 roll to find a stone in the wall the can be pushed to lower the section of wall into the ground.

Osanna has an extensive operation in these chambers where she has been working diligently to convert living and deceased captives into undead. Some are minor such as zombies and ghouls, but on occasion she will create a more powerful undead to assist her, protect her labs or scout the countryside.

If the party explorers this section, Lady Rowena has not had much time to set up guards so only a few are available. There are a few more dangerous creatures in the area which she hopes will deal with any unwanted intruders.

Rowena does not trust the Knights to do their jobs so she has stationed herself near Osanna until she feels that the party has been fully neutralized.

L1 – Sleeping Quarters. Rowena and Osanna have sleeping quarters in the labs for the times when they do not need to be elsewhere or are involved in a long ritual. Osanna rarely stays here, so her quarters seem unused except for a bathtub that keeps magically hot water in it and robes and several changes of clothing. A common room is comfortable with a heat-producing fire, which is illusory but functional and does not make smoke. Several bottles of expensive wine sit upon side tables worth about 200 gp if sold. Rowena’s quarters are more functional than comfortable and it looks like she slept here last night. In a locked chest (good lock) and trapped with a poisoned lock (Lionlodge-DC23 Stealth/Thievery) she has three changes of normal clothing and a small box with a ring in it sculpted with a grinning skull in gold (Grim Ring (5)).

L2 – Storeroom. Shelves and cabinets store thousands of jars, vials, bottles and urns of reagents. Two tables have sets of unlabeled bottles, some red and the others green. Both detect as Necromancy school magic. One set contains Lesser Oil of Unlife (3) and the other set are Moderate Necrotic Bombs (3). There are 20 of each.

L3 – Alchemy Lab. (Show pictures) This is Osanna’s main alchemist lab. Besides plenty of chemical reagents, she has a few recipe books with all level 1-4 recipes (Common) and 16 Uncommon recipes. A secret door which can be detected with a DC20 Per (search) check leads to the Rendering Vats room. In the center drawer of her desk is a ledger with some interesting information:

• She has been creating undead for about 4 years
• She mainly creates plague zombies and ghouls, but occasionally she creates zombie lords or husk zombies
• She has at least 600 undead penned nearby and ready to ‘deploy’
• She receives regular deliveries (1/month) of alchemical supplies

L4 – Rendering Vats. This area smells awful and anyone who enters the room, must make a DC18 Fort save or be Sickened 1 (Sickened 2 on crit fail) while in the room. Undead creations that did not go as planned, or those unworthy are placed in these vats to render the flesh from the bones for future use in creating Skeletal Warriors – her next phase of her creations. The bottoms of these vats are loaded with thousands of bones and the remains sloughs off through metal conduits into the floor.

There is also a hidden elevator that leads to Osanna’s magical sanctum where she studies and meditates and where she and Rowena are currently located. DC 20 Per (search) to find.

L5 – Mass Production Room. The Necromancer uses this room to process large numbers of undead at one time. These are usually low-level creations and she is preparing the room for a mass skeleton creation next. She has placed a Zombie Lord in charge of organizing bones and guarding the area.

A secret door to the Rendering Vats can be found with a DC 20 Per (search) check.

Start here for 3/26/24

L6 – Blood Pool. (Show picture) This bizarre room has human-sized cages and a pulley/crane rig that is used to transfer the cages from the floor into a pool of viscous blood-looking liquid. The experiment that Osanna was doing here went awry and so she just keeps the room closed for now. A strange creature now inhabits the pool and if the party looks into the pool, it will shake the body it inhabits in order to draw them closer to itself, then will explode and attack.

Passage to The Dead Army

When the party gets to the 10’ wide opening to the Dead Pens, the air from the outside wafts into their faces with the horrid stench of death. If they venture down the recently carved passageway, the odor gets even stronger and faint moaning and growls can be heard from the darkness.

It takes about 2 minutes of walking until they spot torchlight ahead. (go to new map)

Through the Back Door

If the group decides to enter the Citadel underground via the caves they found when tracking the undead earlier, they will find the staging area for an imminent invasion. Mistress Cadell has been creating and converting normal people into her undead minions for months and has at her command (so she thinks) hundreds of lower-level undead (ghouls and zombies) in 5 sets of pens which can be accessed via long, wide and winding, but direct access tunnels from the base of the Citadel into the holding areas. This is also where cartloads of dead refugees are brought for the necromancer to perform her unholy rites.

The tunnels travel for about 500 feet until they converge on the five identical holding cell pens. A zombie lord walks the cells every hour to make sure that everything is under control and when not on patrol, stands in the hallway leading to the Labs. If he hears a commotion, he will check it out, but if he hears sounds of combat or voices (the ghouls and zombies should not be talking) he will report back to the masters in the Labs.

If the party gets into the Pens and begins riling up the undead, they will quickly begin ripping the doors open and will attack the party in force, most likely finishing their careers.