Encounter 5: The Vault

The vault is the same narrow size as the Chamber of Sighs: sixty feet long and twenty feet wide, with a twenty foot ceiling. Lying in wait at either end of the vault are the animated skeletons of the fallen honor guard of the mysterious Cairn Builders. The skeletons stand against the front and rear walls in a sentry position until a PC reaches the floor, at which point they close and attack from all directions. The following assumes the PCs are using a light source of some kind, if they are using darkvision (See PH page 14), they clearly see the skeletons as soon as they look for them. Remember that torches only spread light in a twenty-foot radius (and last for one hour) so the PCs will not be able to see the far ten feet of either end of the room.   As your feet touch the floor of the vault, you note that the moaning of the walls has become fainter here. Faint enough, in fact, that you are able to hear a scraping sound like stone on stone from several directions. There are twelve smooth stone sarcophagi evenly spaced in this room. They are all eight feet long, two feet wide and four feet high, with eight of them on either wall and the remaining four in a row down the center of the room. This room appears to be similar to the chamber above in shape and size; it is twenty feet wide with a twenty foot high ceiling. The far ends of the room extends beyond the range of your light. However, at the edge of your light, you can see tall shadowy figures with elongated limbs clattering toward you with swords reflecting your torchlight. As they scrape closer you can clearly see they are skeletons of long-dead warriors of an unknown race. Their bodies seem to reach halfway to the ceiling, their long narrow skulls seem grotesquely stretched and pointed, their willowy limbs and stretched finger bones wield longswords with the ease of a weapon half its size and they seem almost to be able to reach you from halfway across the room.   If the PCs destroy the skeleton captain, they will find that his sword is different than the others. It is a Masterwork Longsword, meaning that it is so finely made that it has a an assit to hit.    When the PCs investigate the sarcophagi, they find that most of their lids are broken open and contain only tall, thin skeletons in rotted white robes. 

• The few lids that are intact can be lifted off with a successful Strength check (4). 
• The contents of these sarcophagi differ from the others only in that they contain a simple stone wind chime hanging over the head of the skeleton. 
• The notable exception to this is the sarcophagi second from the north end of the room, against the west wall. When the lid to this one is removed the PCs find the corpse of Uncle Stoat.

  Opening the lid of the sarcophagus reveals the mostly decayed body of a middle-aged human man. He is lying on his stomach with his arms extended over his head as though reaching for something. He appears to have died from three massive circular wounds in his torso. Whatever did this to him also put a large hole in the open book that is stuck to his chest with his own dried blood.   A successful Intellect check (4) indicates that he has been dead for several decades. 

• The book and Stoats position in the sarcophagus are important clues to the mechanism that either activates a very deadly trap or opens a trapdoor leading into the treasure chambers below.
• The book is a diary of Stoat’s journey from Seltaren in the Duchy of Urnst to the Cairn Hills seeking the Brendigund fortune. 
• Its mostly very boring stuff, including missing his wife, Bedilund, whining about having been sent into the wilderness, and rants detailing the many frightening ways he expects to die.
• Many of the pages are illegible or stuck together from the bloodstains.
• The page on which the book is stuck open describes a terrified night that Stoat spent in the Chamber of Sighs and how he held the skeletal guards at bay with his holy symbol of Fharlanghn long enough to open the lid to this sarcophagus and jump in. 
• Apparently he spent several hours in the sarcophagus before attempting to activate the mechanism. 

  The last line in the diary reads, "Bedilund said that the mechanism pattern when on my stomach is RH-LF-RF-LH." 

• Stoat had the pattern correct; however, when he jumped into the Sarcophagus his head was at the wrong end (south) of the sarcophagus. Because of this, when he activated the mechanism using the right handleft foot-right foot-left hand pattern he set off the trap rather than the trapdoor.

  Inside the sarcophagus, four two-inch high hemispheres protrude from the smooth stone. 

• The hemispheres are all in the corners of the bottom of the sarcophagus, with two located at each end. While the lid to the sarcophagus is removed the hemispheres are locked in place, but when the lid is on they can be depressed about half an inch. If a PC lies on their stomach in the sarcophagus with their head at the north end and depresses the hemispheres nearest their limbs in the right hand-left foot-right footleft hand pattern the southern half of the bottom of the sarcophagus will retract, revealing a slide leading downward.
• The PC will slide down unless they stated ahead of time that they are bracing themselves in some way. 
• The slide remains revealed until the lid is opened. If the hemispheres are depressed in any other order, four deadly sharp spikes spring from the bottom piercing anyone inside the sarcophagus. Once any of the hemispheres is depressed, the lid is locked in place until all of them are depressed. 
• The lid can be broken open but doing so will render the mechanism inoperative unless activated by a successful Disable Device check. Once activated, the spikes spring from the floor and reset almost instantly. 

  There are two ways for the PCs to move past this trap. 

• The first is for the PCs to realize that Stoat tends to have trouble with spatial orientation based on his performance in the barn and his demise. They will probably quickly figure out that RH-LF-RF-LH means right hand-left foot-right foot-left hand and realize that he was either facing the wrong way, at the wrong end of the sarcophagus, or both. It’s risky, but it can be figured out through trial and error. 
• The second way is for the PCs to make a successful Search check to locate the trap mechanisms and then a successful Disable Device check to activate the trapdoor.  A successful disable device check does not disable this trap, however it does reveal the correct order in which the hemispheres must be depressed. This leaves the role-playing opportunity to take each player aside and walk him or her through the very unnerving process of activating the trapdoor alone in the darkness of a closed sarcophagus. Remember, that once PCs enter the secret passage, they slide down and cannot help anyone behind.