This adventure is meant to be run as a one-shot side quest during travel sequences; something to break up the potential monotony.
The adventure begins as the party is travelling along one of the well maintained roads in the inner
Kingdoms. Just as the sun sets, they come across a roadside inn, which is not so strange in and of itself. What
is unusual is the large crowd that has formed around what looks to be a statue of four individuals.
Read the following aloud
Travelling along Pax's roads and lanes brings with it an element of danger. As much as the roads are patrolled, and there is always help around the next corner, the lands are still rural and people can get desperate. So it is always best to travel in groups, of course, and to arm oneself against the chance of highway robbery. So, imagine your surprise as you come around the last corner of your travel for the day, and you find the Come Along Inn. The inn, itself, is not the surprising thing, however; what brings you up short is the crowd of people gathered outside of the establishment, all of whom seem to be appreciating a statue of four men in various poses. Two men, who are are contemplating a pile of copper coins, crouch down next to a third fellow who is standing tall. A fourth, a metal statue which is wearing a jockey's garb, stands a short ways away, and holds up a large glass snow globe, with an intricate ice skating scene within it, with its left hand.
The figure of the jockey stands in a classic pose, right arm akimbo as his left holds up the snow globe. The jockey's smiling mouth has a small slit in it, and its eyes are covered with electrum coins. A sign, stating "the fewest possible", hangs round the jockey's neck. The other three statues are much more realistic looking, and in fact some of the onlookers describe them as locals who drink at the Inn regularly. The statues' eyes are covered with silver pieces.
Structure
Only the jockey is an actual statue, placed there by Caliphaius, the Fey Lord of Trickery and Deceit. Caliphaius has been summoned by
Lydia Hartunian to mess with an adventuring party, but his prank affects everyone and anyone who messes with the pile of copper coins at the feet of the three statues.
A
See Invisibility, or any other method of detecting
Scrying, will reveal Lydia's scrying eye hovering close by so she can watch the excitement from the comfort of her
Noble's Prison in
Craysilt.
The choices, here, are limited. Either try to help the petrified locals, or do not. Either try to take the coins, or do not. The party is, of course, free to slope on past the entire affair and head on into the tap-room. Feel free to wipe your hands of the entire session and improvise the rest of the night, if you wish.
In any case, whether the party gets involved through greed or altruism, investigation of the statues will reveal that the three men are, indeed, petrified locals. Witnesses say they were trying to figure out a puzzle so they could win the pile of coins at the base of the statue; something to do with slipping coins into the slit in the jockey's mouth, and pulling down on it's outstretched arm. Successful
DC15 Investigation checks will reveal a few clues:
- Three of the ice skaters inside the snow globe look like the three statues that are arranged around the pile of coins. They skate around in patterns, oblivious to any attempt to communicate.
- The jockey is some sort of clockwork automaton
- The slit in the jockey's mouth is a coin slot
- The jockey's outstretched arm is a spring-loaded lever that activates the device
- The coins are piled on top of a pressure plate
- There are one hundred copper coins in the pile
Greed
Should the party try to take, or otherwise mess with, the pile of copper coins, it will trigger a Time Stop spell, and the ghostly image of a game show host will appear, giving the party three minutes to solve the puzzle. A giant countdown will begin in the sky. If the puzzle is not solved in time, the first character to have touched the coins gets shrunk, and teleported into the snow globe, where they begin skating around an ice rink in figure eight patterns. The whole diorama is overseen by a burly snowman dressed as a priest of Tymora.
Altruism
Should the party try to figure out the puzzle out of the kindness of their hearts, they will not initially have a time limit to try to figure out the puzzle. However, inserting the wrong coin, or series of coins, into the jockey's mouth will teleport whoever pulls the jockey's arm into the snow globe, where they unconsciously skate around in figure eights on a tiny replica of an ice skating rink. The whole diorama is overseen by a burly snowman dressed as a priest of Tymora.
A polished turd
The whole episode comes to a head when the proper coin, or series of coins, is slipped into the jockey's mouth, and its left arm is pulled downward toi activate the mechanism. When this happens, the jockey cocks its arm back, and shatters the snow globe on the ground!
[container:box-contain box-grey]
Read the following aloud:
In a rainbow colored cloud of smoke, the three statues reanimate with deep inhalations of precious breath. At least a dozen commoners, wearing clothing from wildly different eras in time, wander around, blinking in the sunshine, confused as to what has happened to them. The jockey's spring loaded arm whizzes around again, and you a hear a deep kerklunk! from somewhere within the automaton; then again, the arm spins and a loud thunk! is heard simultaneously. A trap door opens on the bottom of the jockey, and out drops a twenty-seven-and-a-half pound brick of gold bullion, for all the world as if the statue was taking a giant, twenty-four carat dump. The jockey then shudders, begins to leak oil and smoke from its seams, and collapses into a heap of broken parts and random sprockets.
What the party decides to do with their newfound wealth is entirely up to them, but while they are in possession of the gold bar,
Lydia will be sending theives and rogues out trying to knick it from them. She covets the gold bar, believing it (rightly) to be alchemically formed. She thinks (wrongly) that she would be able to reverse engineer the alchemical processes, and start farming her own gold, if she could just get ahold of that bar.
The party continues on, now with targets on their back for theives and robbers in the area, who have been tipped off or outright hired by Lydia Hartunian to steal the party's shiny new gold bar.
Comments