June: Week Four

 Salutations skillful spelunkers! Welcome to this week's installment of The Crucible of Oxyus, my year long Dungeon 23 mega-dungeon. Bellow you will find seven new rooms of dark and dangerous dungeon denizens! This week brings secret treasures, hooked monstrosities, fading murals, and the echoing darkness of a vast underground sea. At the end of the dungeon writeup you will find a complete level map and the encounter table for this month's dungeon. If you like what you've read and want to see how it all began, click here. If you want to start at the beginning of the month, click here. 

Week Four

6/25: The Dead Die Hard

This natural limestone cave is approximately 20 to 30 feet in diameter with  stalactite covered ceilings about 15 feet in height. The floor is heaped with desiccated bones and mostly rotting corpse parts. The stench inside this chamber is putrid. To add insult to injury, there are about ten zombies milling about the chamber, occasionally trying to eat what’s been left on the floor. Their clothes range from the torn rags of adventurers to priest frocks to nothing but crude iron slave collars. 

• South: A natural tunnel leads from the south end of the cave back to the cave with the carrion crawlers, room 6/10
• West: A 35’ long tunnel connects this room’s northwestern corner to room 6/26.
• The Zombies: These zombies are the corpses of those who have died in this miserable underground labyrinth. Their souls unable to find their way back to the surface, these persons’ bodies have reanimated as zombies. Among the adventurers there can be found 2d10 platinum coins, 4d20 gold coins, 2d8 silver coins, and 100 feet of silk rope.

6/26: Pillars of Gold

This limestone cave is roughly 50’ long by 35’ wide with 20’ tall ceilings dripping with stalactites. The room is dominated by two large natural pillars and most of the walls and ceiling in the southern half of the chamber are covered in spikey yellow, lichen-like mold. The musty air is thick with spores and it is hard to breathe. The sounds of clicking and gnashing can be heard faintly to the west.

• South: A hallway has been cut out of bare stone on the southern end of the room that runs for 20 feet before joining a wide, vaulted corridor that runs east/west through the mountain. These two hallways are separated from each other by a  wooden door painted yellow. The door seems to have swelled shut and is stuck.
• East: A natural limestone tunnel from room 6/25 connects to this chamber on the northeastern side of the cave.
• West: A tunnel runs from the northwestern edge of this cave to cavern 6/27. The clicking noises are coming from the direction of this cave.
• The Mold: The lichen-like Yellow Mold is rather toxic if disturbed, releasing choking clouds of spores. Skilled adventurers should have no trouble identifying the dungeon hazard.

6/27: A Hunting Party

This natural limestone cave is approximately 45 feet long by 35 feet wide with a ceiling topping out at 15 feet high. Two natural pillars of rippled limestone keep silent watch over what transpires within the chamber. Inside the cavern, four hook beasts are stooped over a pile of what may have once been lizardfolk as the hungry creatures feast away. The sound of their odd, self-satisfied clicking can be heard mingling in between noises of wet crunches and splatters.

• North: A five-foot-wide corridor has been cut from the rock on the western end of the cave. It leads north to cave 6/28.
• East: On the northeastern end of the room, a tunnel connects this cave to cavern 6/26.
• West: On the western side of the chamber where the cut stone tunnel leading north begins is another carved tunnel. This tunnel leads due west ten feet further into the mountain before stopping at a locked bronze door that bars entrance to room 7/1 beyond.
• The Hook Beasts: The Hook Beasts are bipedal monsters with vulture-like beaks, hardened carapaces, and long hooks for appendages. The beasts are curious by nature and also quite territorial, making them dangerous to most dungeon adventurers. These particular hook beasts are momentarily distracted by their meal and won’t initially notice quiet characters when they first approach.

6/28: The Gallery

This natural limestone gallery runs 85 feet and is approximately 10 to 20 feet wide at most. The ceiling in this cavern is 30 feet tall, and a natural pillar of limestone rises up to support it on the western end of the chamber. The limestone that makes up this cave gallery has some kind of special acoustic qualities to it, noticeably amplifying even the smallest of sounds made in the chamber.

• East: The eastern end of this chamber is connected to a north/south hallway that travels down to room 6/27.
• West: A narrow limestone tunnel on the western side of the cave leads to room 6/29. Human-sized characters will have to squeeze to make it through the tunnel.
• The Echo: Even the quietest of characters will produce loud, overlapping echoes by the time they’re even halfway through this chamber. It is simply impossible to attempt to remain quiet inside the chamber unless one is standing completely still. Characters traveling through the room will trigger a chance of a random encounter. Anyone traveling through the room can be easily heard by anyone in either adjoining cavern.

6/29: The Kitchen

This oddly shaped natural limestone cavern is roughly 45 feet long by 35 feet wide with 15 foot tall ceilings. The room has three rippled limestone pillars that rise up from the floor like the trunks of great trees. This chamber has the look of a kitchen about it. There is a large, rusted iron cooking range with a stove pipe coming out of it and sticking into the wall, and an ancient wooden table against the eastern wall. A series of rusted metal chains have been fixed to the cavern wall with metal cleats. At the end of each chain is a manacle. The sound of lapping waves can be faintly heard from within the chamber with no obvious source. A damp fishy smell hangs in the air here.

• East: There are two entrances into this chamber, both originating on the eastern end of the cave. A narrow natural tunnel in the northeast leads back to cave 6/28. In the southeast, an iron-banded wooden door leads to a small T-section hallway carved out of the living rock. Traveling further east will bring one to the door to room 6/30. Taking the southern passage will take one down a long corridor to a heavy stone door that separates the corridor from the vaulted hallway beyond it.
• The Range: The ancient doors to the range’s firebox have long ago rusted shut. With a successful Open Doors check a character can force the doors open and discover some hidden treasure! Poorly hidden among the ashes of ancient cookfires are four 50-pound ingots of gold worth 500 gp each, two jars of rancid lamp oil, and a stoppered glass bottle with a Scroll of Striking and two Scrolls of Wall of Fire inside it.
• The Secret Doors: If characters are quiet enough, they can discern that the noise of lapping water is coming from the other side of the secret door on the western wall. A cool but stinky breeze can also be felt and smelled coming from the edges of the secretly concealed door. If the fake wall is pushed back, it will slide backwards on a concealed track behind the door and move to the side to reveal a small chamber. From within the concealed chamber, one can see a handle on the opposite wall. The handle is mirrored on the inside of the concealed door from room 6/29. By pulling on either door from inside the concealed chamber, one can open the secret door with ease. Beyond the door is the shore of a vast underground sea.

6/30: Faded Glories

This chamber is constructed out of dressed sandstone blocks and is 25’ long by 20’ wide with 10’ tall ceilings. The only things within the room are three ancient wooden chairs and a few other scattered bits of wood on the floor. Some planks show signs of burning. The four walls of this room are covered in the fractured remains of fading painted plaster murals. The murals depict barren wastelands of striated stone mesas and smoldering, smoking craters dappled with the occasional spikey looking cactus. An angry red sun dominates the eastern wall. Loops of brass have been fixed to the walls around the entire chamber every few feet to allow for ample torches to occupy the chamber.

• East: Through a short ten-foot-long corridor on the eastern end of the room can be found a heavy bronze door, its surface etched with verdigris. This door leads to room 7/1 beyond.
• West: On the western side of the room is a battered and hacked wooden door. Beyond the door is a hallway leading to either room 6/29 or down to the vaulted hallway to the south.

7/1: The Bedchamber

This chamber is made of dressed sandstone blocks and measures 35’ long by 30’ wide. The ceiling within the chamber is 10’ tall. The room is bifurcated by a thin interior wall that splits the chamber between north and south. Behind the wall is a carved stone sleeping platform with shaped stone headrests for pillows. There is a long wooden table and a carved stone chair here as well. In the northern half of the room are two rusted iron chains fixed to the wall by iron cleats, each with a chain that has a manacle attached to the other end. On the western end of the chamber near the entrance is a small niche carved out of the wall  with the remnants of candlewax still pooled at the bottom of it.

• East: On the eastern side of the room is a locked bronze door that leads to cave 6/27.
• West: The room can be entered on the western side by a heavy bronze door between this room and room 6/30.
• Atop the Table: Atop the table are a few crumbling pages of parchment and a thick brass key with an ornate handle. The parchment is a letter written in Demonic, detailing the writer’s obsession with acquiring more slaves for some kind impending sacrifice. The letter gives very specific details on which of the elf, dwarf, mantis folk, or human slaves were to be brought to him and how they are to be prepared for the ritual. The only actual details about the ritual sacrifice are that it is being performed to ameliorate  powerful fire elementals  and gain their magical aid. The letter is incomplete, ending abruptly mid-sentence. The key that can also be found atop the table can be used to lock or unlock either bronze door to this room.

The Underground Sea

To the west of the dungeon level through a set of large double doors can be found an absolutely titanic cavern. The cave ceiling and its farthest shores are completely swallowed by the immense darkness that permeates this chamber. Formed in long-ago eons far from the light of the sun or stars, this underground expanse of inky black water seems to stretch on into nothingness. The reality is that these dangerous waters are also replete with vast wonderous and immense wealth and power. Far to the west lie the technocratic city-states of the lizard folk, and other awe inspiring dangers never before glimpsed by surface dwellers. The lizard folk who occupy cavern 6/24 have two metal boats with odd metal boxes hanging off the ends where the rudder should be pulled up onto the shore to the south of the double doors. To the north, the shore runs for another 200 feet along the cavern wall before ending at the waterline. Keen-eyed characters may be able to just make out an island of some kind looming out of the abyssal waters of the sea to the northwest. 

June’s Encounter Table:

1. 2d6 Lizardfolk with odd electronic backpacks are taking field samples of minerals from the walls of this chamber.
2. Two odd broken wooden shafts with metal and glass baubles attached to each of the shafts like spearheads lie on the floor here.
3. Two Carcass Crawlers are fighting with each other over who gets to devour half of a zombie that is trying to crawl away.
4. 1d4 Lizardfolk, some with stun batons (1d8 and save against paralysis or become paralyzed till the end of your next round), carving up the dead body of a carcass crawler.
5. Three severed arms of a Hook Beast.
6. 2d6 Zombies listlessly trying to recreate a popular folk dance with each other.
7. 1d6 Giant Cave Crabs (use regular Giant Crabs) inspecting the area for a new home.
8. The Sound of clicking can be heard coming from the direction of a previously unexplored area.
9. 1d6 Hook Beasts digging a warren in a corner of the chamber.
10. Odd wet tracks of web-footed bipeds that head off toward the west of the map.