Shattered Tomb of Acheron Zul

1 Chamber Entrance

Stairs come down from the mausoleum to the burial chamber. The steps look ruined and crumble a bit when stepped on. The south wall is adorned with stone skulls and the door is only half the height of a normal door. Written above it "All that enter must bow in humility to death."

There's some half-burned firewood in a corner with a few bones. The ceiling is stained black from smoke.

If the adventurers haven't killed them upstairs, 2 reanimated husks are crawling here, and there's a void demon.

Other than that, there's nothing important in this room, just some cracked stones and skull ornaments on the walls.

The firewood can be used for camping.

2 Twisting Corridors

The dusty corridor twists in strange ways, and the walls are made of very large rectangular stones. Trails of black blood start and end all over the place - there was a fight here, but there are no corpses.

There's an iron nail between the floor and the wall right after the entrance.

There is a secret passage to the Corpse-Shrinking Lab. The iron nail is keeping the door closed, but after it's removed, that section of the wall can be pulled and it will snap open.

3 Corpse-Shrinking Lab

This room's the lab of Acheron Zul. It's filled with failed experiments. Tall, glass tubes with a glowing green liquid and corpses inside are all over the place. At some point, Acheron Zul tried a popular technique of that time - to dry and shrink the corpses in an effort to make them harmless. It obviously backfired.

• When the adventurer get in, 4 shrunken corpses attack them. 2 break from their glass tubes, 2 come from under the table.
• The other corpses inside the tubes twitch and look at the adventurers when they move around, but are harmless.
• The green liquid is highly toxic: any contact with it will cause one intelligence wound (can't be reduced), and the nauseated affliction.
• 2 ether and 2 fire extract can be found here.
• An alchemic kit is on the table.
• A bottle labeled wine of Yoros is on the floor.
• There's a journal here; the last passage says:

  "By absorbing corpses into the void, the weavers can certainly stop the dead vigil from happening. However, whenever they feed, everyone in the tomb feels sick and dizzy, and food rots and spoils. Worryingly, the area of effect is getting larger and larger with every corpse disposed. The question I have is whether there is a limit."

4 Flooded Tunnel

Continuing south, the corridor starts to go down and part of it is flooded up to 1 meter deep. Rusty and leaky pipes can be seen running along the ground.

If the adventurers keep going south, they will notice that the corridor walls are crumbling and covered in spider webs.

• A spiderling runs back to Guhlat's Lair as soon as it sees the adventurers.
• A rusty, metal door leads to the mining supply room.

5 Sacrificial Pit Entrance

Many vines have overgrown the passage to the sacrificial pit above. Small bones and dry pieces of animal leather cover the floor. There are some shackles on the wall.

6 Flooded Mine

This room is part of a cave system and is flooded with water. The ceiling is very high, except for northeast corner, which has a huge depression. That corner has a lot of pipes leading to it and so much water is falling from there that it looks like it's raining inside.

The walls glimmer with small black rocks from the cave system.

A water pump, connected to the water source, is present, and it's pumping water upstairs. A valve can be closed, which will drain the water from the flooded embalming room upstairs.

• A giant crab is lurking under the water; it will wait for the adventurers to get distracted and get out of the water very slowly. Unless someone is watching the water, it will surprise them.
• The water raining from the ceiling will snuff out any torch. Lanterns are safe.

7 Guhlat's Lair

This is the nest of a giant spider, named Guhlat by the people of Trinta. It's a big cave, but clearly not natural, instead being dug out by the spiders, since it's a bit too rounded. The walls and floors are covered in spider webs and filled with small dried animal carcasses and thousands of very little spiders.

• Guhlat, the giant spider is here.
• 4 spiderlings will protect guhlat, but will run away immediately if she dies.

If the combat is too easy, you can add 1 or 2 dire spiders coming from the outside tunnel.

• Several corpses are tangled in the walls, a few of them moving, but most of them are too destroyed even for the dead vigil. In the corpses, the adventurers can find:
  • A short sword.
  • A damaged scale armor (AP 3 - 2 damage).
  • Metal helmet (1 AP).
  • 3 torches.

8 Mining Supply Room

This looks like an old supply room for some kind of mining operation.

• There's a small cart with rocks; if the rocks are searched, a small valuable precious stone can be found.
• Mining tools, a pickaxe (STR 2P) and a shovel.
• Lantern
• There is a hydraulic machine here, with a valve. Opening the valve will spill some water and a mechanical noise can be heard from far away.

9 Abandoned Vault

The entrance to this room is hidden: if someone pushes the wall, an audible click can be heard and the wall will open.

A terrified bounty hunter is here. He really doesn't want to fight, and locked himself in this room to hide from the goblins and the void demon that was roaming the corridors.

• There is a hydraulic machine here, with a valve. Opening the valve will spill some water and a mechanical noise far away can be heard.

10 Tainted Shrine

The room is foggy, with scented vapors coming from the pool in the middle and from 4 braziers burning around the room. The braziers are emitting a very soft glow of embers. Stairs lead to an upper area of the room.

• 2 goblin scrappers will try to sneak up on the adventurers while 2 boggart snipers fire from above.
• A sturdy ornate metal door is in the west, and it has no handle. An inscription above says "From the void, to the void". Two pipes are coming out from the door and down the stairs, one going north and one south. They disappear into the wall.
  • When both valves in the abandoned vault and in the mining supply room are open, this door will open, sliding into the floor.
• The 4 braziers were not lit by the goblins, but they are there all these years. Each has a piece of everlasting ember, a piece of coal that never stops burning. They are small and all of them occupy one slot, but must be placed in some heat resistant container, or they will burn through it. Each ember can be sold as a valuable item.

11 Summoning Room

A big stone room with a high ceiling. There's a big drawing on the floor of an orb with tentacles and an eye. To the south, there's an iron grate, where the corpse storage can be seen. In the north wall, there's a slightly ornate door covered by many chains and locks. Upon inspection, each lock has a family name written.

A group of goblins is camped here. When the adventurers get in, they see that one of them is sawing one of the corpses into smaller parts while another is carrying those parts to the west gate. A small gremlin is waiting at the gate. 2 bugbears and 1 sack men are guarding the place. A caged golden ridge maneater is also here; the nearest goblin not on corpse duty will open the cage as soon as possible.

If you believe this fight is too easy, add a goblin hunter firing arrows from behind the bars. If it's too hard, the goblins might have trouble opening the golden ridge maneater cage, or one of the corpses wakes up and starts attacking the goblins.

Even when the fight breaks out, the goblins sawing the corpses keep doing the job, and will not stop until someone stops them.

• The west gate is disgusting, and everything is covered with years-old corpse fluids. It's locked. There's a huge keyhole (too big to lockpick) on the wall to the right, with a symbol on top, of a cross with tree beams. The key is the metal cross in the chapel upstairs.
• The north wall is covered by chains; one can pick each individual lock, taking at least 2 turns, but the chains are rusty. A crowbar or similar tool can break them down faster (1 turn). Alternatively the door itself can be chopped with an axe, since is just old wood. Other than holding the door, the chains don't really block the path - they seem more like a symbol than a real security measure.
• When the big goblins die, the others will surrender and leave, if allowed. They look very distressed and sad (for losing their matriarch) and some will even cry.
• If interrogated, the goblins will spill some words about the weavers, saying something like, "Corpses! It feeds on corpses and makes us feel bad!" and, "We can't leave mother to die, it wants to eat mother!"

12 Corpse Storage

Big iron bars and a gate separate this room from the other summoning room. Dozens of vases with human corpses inside are stored here, all heavily bound but still moving. If any are freed, they will attack anyone near. They are starved cadavers.

The southeast section of this room is partially flooded. The water is foul, mixed with the corpse fluids.

13 Cave Antechamber

The goblin matriarch is locked in here, sitting in the corner, her fungus now partially attached to the wall. Two gremlins are carrying pieces of corpses downstairs and running back up, with a terrified look on their faces. The matriarch doesn't want to fight, and will leave if allowed.

In the corner of the room, there's a pile of clothes, shoes, old armor and hats.

• If the adventurers free the matriarch, the goblins will be very confused and a bit jumpy - they don't really know how to react to human kindness. The matriarch will give the adventurers a dry piece of her fungus, with a strange symbol on it. The symbol is a "friendship symbol" for goblins. Showing it to any goblin will usually cause them to leave the adventurers alone. A large group of goblins will take the symbol before leaving, though.

Going downstairs will lead to the primordial cave

14 Achereon Zul's Vault

This place is empty - only scattered clothes and a statue of Acheron Zul remain. The statue has a distinct symbol on his face.