KEY TO LEVEL VI: Annointed Servants of the Eldest and Chambers of the Highest of Lords.
There is no lighting on this floor. The hallways here are mostly circular and lined with unusual abstract carvings consisting of narrow triangles and lines in various shapes and sizes in bizarre geometric patterns. This part of the ship is skeletal, as though whatever might have grown over these surfaces has died away. The result is a bit like looking at a dead coral that has been carefully grown into curious architectural structures. It feels like very fine but hard sandstone, It is clear now that there are voids that run through the structure where smaller creatures can move in and out of passageways without worrying about emblems.
WANDERING MONSTERS
Encounter occurs 1 in 20, check each turn.
1. 7-12 gasbats (ILLUSTRATION #45)
2. umber hulk
3. Extruder Golem (ILLUSTRATION #5)
4. worker Golem (ILLUSTRATION #6)
Hall of Curiosities:
This is a special storage area that roughly resembles a crude tomb. Carved into the walls are a series of recessions that contain stores of luxury items. Rare foodstuffs, materials contains stores of luxury items. Various rare foodstuffs, materials, stasis tombs and special supplies are stored in here. It's clear that somebody has been tending to this area as a number of the stasis tombs are still operational.
Hall Of Guilt (Auditorium):
The smooth sand-stone like walls give way to a chilling stone veneer in this large room. It seems to be built in the way of traditional Kanshai architecture, with few if any right angles and many elaborate carvings. Beautiful but bizarre reliefs of the 'Eldest' cover the walls and high ceilings, dwarfing everything else in the room and impressing a sense of both hostility and disgust on whoever is in it. It resembles a Chaldean court of the law in many ways. Rows of seats all face a raised area where three raised podiums sit, carved in the same style as the rest of the room. Behind this raised area is a huge stone wall with massive, alien-looking eye carved into it. If the players inspect the podium, they'll notice a lever for opening the stone wall. It will loudly rumble open, exposing a crystal pane that looks into the Eldest's tank. Stirred by the currents, the huge and palid corpse of the Eldest with drift into sight, its tentacles tangled with long streamers of decayed skin, eye sockets empty and black. The creature is huge, measuring about a hundred feet long at least.
Chamber of the Visionaries (Theatre)
This appears to be some sort of speaking hall. It is spartan and without decoration, though it is now filled with plants and the detritus of many small animals that live here. They can be heard flitting through the underbrush. There are plenty of bones here, many with tiny gnaw marks. What once must have been a stage for addressing a large crowd is now a tangle of strange and exotic plants. Just past them, something shiny glows from beneath droppings and other rubbish.
ENCOUNTER 1: LURKER ABOVE
It smothers prey in 2-5 rounds unless slain; surprises on 1-4 (d6). The lurker preys on the small creatures which roam the level, and it has grown quite large from a broken nutriment conduit nearby. Things coming to get a bite to eat there are usually the eaten instead. Beneath the monster are bones, husks, and other remains, but there is no treasure, for it has been taken by the Mindflayer that lives here.
Preparation Room
FLESHPRIESTS There are three ancient fleshpriests living in here who maintain this level of the Hive to the best of their abilities. They have sealed themselves in this room and armed themselves with weapons in anticipation of the approaching players, who they falsely believe to be some of the other more menacing creatures that roam here.
Let the players do a search check. When they do, let them know that..
These Fleshpriests maintain a record of the final days of the uprising and the events that have transpired between now and then. The log at first seems to be updated daily, but quickly peters off into updates that seem to be hundreds of thousands of years old. It covers everything from the death of The Eldest at the hands of the Quandlo to the ship being sealed up a few thousand years ago after an exploration party of dwarves took up residence in the lower levels and conducted a 'campaign of terror' against the residents. It also contains notes about attempted communications from other Aboleth in cycles ranging from years to thousands of years to hundreds of thousands of years, all with various claims about the legitimacy of their age and holdings. The records span across thousands of years.
Torpor Pool (Swimming Pool)
The Torpor Pool is a 30 foot deep mire of hardened mucus and charred corpses, including some large, very well cooked 'mucusbergs' surrounded by scorch-marks. Some creatures appear to be 'fossilized' into these protrusions, viewable from certain angles where the mucus-bergs have 'calved' over the course of time, leaving sheer panes of pale green amber which torch-light can be shined through. If one stares for long enough, one will begin to make out the remains of gigantic fish-like creatures with long tentacles. All these millions of years later, the room still stinks like the most foul fishery imaginable.
ENCOUNTER 3: EYE OF THE DEEP: Ages ago the Fleshpriests attempted to save the Kanshai entombed in the Torpor pool by filling it with water from the False Sea. They failed, but they did manage to import a small colony of Deep Eyes. One survived despite the horrible conditions, and it lives in a briny den beneath the crust of mucus. There is a 10% chance that the party will catch it coming or going, and it will use disguise self spell to appear as a pile of bones. It preys upon the smaller inhabitants of the pool which include (blind crayfish-like creatures and bizarre small squid that have a symbiotic relationship with the sleeping Aboleth.
The Eye has set a distracting trap: 27 10 g.p. base value gems, 341 p.p., and a gem encrusted pendant that is actually stuck to the floor of the pool. These items are placed to be noticeable and easily reachable through fissures in the mucus in the gel-like layer below. The eye of the deep will watch and wait. At the best time, it will flash a light beam with its central eye in order to dazzle the bulk of the party, while it attacks a smaller portion by charm and weaponry.
Within the deepest recesses of the pool, there is a glinting metal tube which has been hermetically sealed and encased in petrified Aboleth mucus. Within it contains a scorched missive from the Kanshai Masters, commanding the Eldest to build a hive and travel from a world near Athwei, the homeworld of the Quandlo, in order to barter with the Eldritch Houses. The tube contains a map of the proposed Hive.
Entertainment Pit (Gymnasium)
By the look of it, this was once an arena Remains of all manner now fill what was once the fighting pit, and the stands are now a pile of filth and garbage. Somebody or something has made a path to a number of rooms adjacent to this one, and they haven't done a very good job hiding their tracks.
This room contains a trip-mine trap with a number of sleep bombs that are hidden along the paths. The traps are detectable with a DC25 perception check or with 'detect traps'.
PATHS: These are a series of bath-like pits that are now filled with refuse and some small fish.
Preparation Chamber
This room contains all the equipment that people sentenced to the fighting pit would use. Roll some items here.
L
This is a room where a bunch of rubbish and body parts have been placed. Some of them are long mummified, others are relatively fresh. The freshest bodies are mostly animal parts, with the oldest bodies belonging to a number of squat humanoids. They seem to have survived the years relatively intact, but are shriveled beyond obvious recognition as though somebody sucked out all their bodily fluids.
ST
This closet-like enclosure is full of adventuring equipment from thousands of years ago stacked in a heap. Much of the equipment has been made for adventurers with dwarven proportions, but it could certainly be resized by a smith.
NUMBERED ENCOUNTERS:
2. STORAGE ROOM
The storage room is a mess of bones and junk. A smashed worker golem can be found at the bottom of the heap. It has a flying belt with 6 chargers left. Beneath it are 4 pieces of jewelry (400 g.p., 900 g.p., 1,500 g.p., and 3,000 g.p.).
4. 2 SHEDU - http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/magical-beasts/shedu-
As with most of the other creatures aboard, these were freed from stasis during the Quandlo uprising due to a malfunctioning worker golem. The hive's powerful insular magics prevent them from escaping through other planes of existence, and they fear to travel around the hive, knowing it to be full of dangerous creatures. They have an uneasy peace with the Fleshpriests, who regularly try to capture the Shedu and return them to their stasis tombs. They have fabricated a hold that extends ld they are in extends under the tiers of seats (dotted line shows this extension) in the swim-ming pool area, and the 2 shedu dwell in this hidden area, using the small north maw for occasional forays. If the party is friendly and promises to show them how to get out of the hive immediately, the shedu will tell them where there are 6 power discs and a red emblem, and warn them that there is a mind flayer loose in the northwest (“in the large hall-with-many-seats area”). If the party is non-friendly (such as sending a nonlawful good person to converse with them), the shedu will tend to ignore the party. If they are attacked, the shedu will use their psionic powers (although they hate to do so in this place) to counter - energy control, telepathic projection, telekinesis, and molecular agitation being the most likely. Once attacked, the shedu will never befriend any member of the party. They will flee if the encounter is likely to bring them to certain destruction, but there is only a 1%chance per searcher that their treasure will be found during each round of such searching by the party.
5. 4 DOPPLEGANGERS: AC 5. MV 9", HD 4, hp 30, 27, 24, 20, #AT 1 , D 1-12; surprise on 1-4; very intelligent; man-sized. ESP/imitate with 90% accuracy to mimic and gain free melee rounds if unable to kill and take the person’s place; dopplegangers save as if they were 10th level fighters.
these four creatures left their fellows above for greener pastures and eventually ended up residing in the BATHS area. Whenever any creature steps into the front part of this complex, robo mechanisms cause the various baths to begin functioning, so the party will enter room A, the sauna, when it is filled with rolling steam. The dopplegangers will wait here, or in the regular steam bath room (B), and attack 4 members of the party by surprise - roil d6 for the number of free strikes which each doppleganger is entitled to. Determine if it knocks its opponent unconscious by using the pummeling table (automatic chance to hit during free rounds). Those knocked out will be killed on the following
round (drowning in the whirlpool bath area is favored), and the doppleganger will then take the person’s place in the party, immediately working to slay the others. If any are spotted, the other dopplegangers will still use their imitative powers to confound the party, Hidden under a rotting heap of clothing in the locker room are 12 50 g.p. gems, a healing spray cannister with 4 charges (2-24 h.p. healing per charge), a paralyzer pistol with 1 charge in its power disc, and a ring worth 1,200 g.p. There is an obvious suit of powered armor, but it is non-functioning. A small pouch clipped to the back of the armor contains an incendiary grenade and a clip for a needler.
6. PHYSICAL FITNESS FLESHPRIEST: USE ILLUSTRATION #49. Another malfunctioning Fleshpriest awaits the party herein. As soon as the party enters it will spring into action. There are a number of plates for bar bells, dumbbells, and other heavy objects nearby, and the Fleshpriest will hurl these at the party. These missiles strike as 7 HD monsters, causing 2-20 hit points of damage when they hit. A score of 20 “to hit” means the victim has a broken limb (determine randomly). All the while the Fleshpriest is throwing these objects it will be shouting: “WORK UP A SWEAT THERE!“, “CATCH! Butterfingers”, “LET’S HAVE SOME HUSTLE!“, and “You’ll never make the team THAT way!“. If the Fleshpriest is disabled and taken apart, a workable language translator will be gained.
7. TRAPPED FLESHPRIEST and 40 GASBATS: Fleshpriest standard specs. Gasbats: AC 8, MV 1"/9", HD 1/2 These flatulent plant-animal suicide bombs conform to the statistics given for 19., level III. They enter and emerge from the hold via a small opening high in the east wall (a plate blasted away and never noticed).
The Fleshpriest is pinned under a very heavy crate which shifted and trapped it. It has been thus for many, many years, and it has shut itself down and only comes to alert when noise occurs nearby. The worker Golems ignore it. It was a body-guard for an important political official aboard, and when its master went insane, it followed him in his wandering. Eventually, the human died, here in a narrow aisle of the cargo hold, and as the Fleshpriest was carrying the body out the accident occurred. The skeleton of the official is nearby. Amidst its tattered rags is a belt with a gray emblem, a power disc, and 20 base 100 g.p. gems. When the party comes near the Fleshpriest will call weakly for help, slowly moving an empty laser pistol back and forth as its circuits warm up from its induced shut down. If the party does not attack it, the Fleshpriest can be freed and enlisted as a bodyguard for its rescuers. Naturally, any damage it sustains can never be regained as the repair section for Fleshpriests is not part of this module of the hive.
8. 5 SHRIEKERS: The area has been filled with rubbish and materials for these creatures to feed on by the mind flayer (9. ,below). These fungi, and some others growing in the humus, attract other creatures as well, so waiting above are4 piercers of huge size: AC 3, MV 1”, (but drop quickly), HD 4, hp 26, 21, 19, 19, #AT 1, D 4-24. The noise of the shriekers alerts the piercers, and 9. as well.
9. MIND FLAYER: USE ILLUSTRATION on cover of artbook to depict this monster. AC 5, MV 12", HD 8+4, hp 43, 4 tentacle attacks for 2 hit points of damage each; mind blast; 90%magic resistance; genius, man-sized. Psionic strength is 257. Psionic abilities are: ody equilibrium domination
ESP
levitation
astral projection probability travel
Abilities are at 7th level of mastery
It is likely that this creature was taken when it was using probability travel. It is kept on the hive by the force fields. During the course of its living upon the vessel the mind flayer has accumulated:
an orange emblem
- a blaster pistol with 1 charge left
- a portable spotlight
- 1 poison and 2 sleep gas grenades
- 37 base 10 g.p. gems
5 pieces of jewelry (1,000 - 6,000 g.p. value)
- 109 p.p.
All but the spotlight are on the creature’s body. There is a 10%chance that it will be away, checking up on the shedu, which it hates and fears. If the mind flayer is away, there is a 20%chance per turn that it will come back. As soon as it hears the shriekers - or sees intruders - the monster will attack. As it fears to use its psionic strength, it will use the blaster and grenades, hoping they will suffice. If given warning, the mind flayer will set up the spotlight, with a trip cord by the north maw, so that when the party is in the PROPS section they will trigger the light (about the position of the second Pin PROPS). The mind flayer will then cut loose with its blaster, hurl grenades, and head east, then through the south maw, west, and back through the Hall Of Guilt (Auditorium) service maws (staying behind the curtain), if all opponents are not killed by the first weapons used. Sneaking up from behind, the mind flayer will give the party a mind blast as a last resort.
10. 6 WORKER GOLEMS
USE lLLUSTRATlON #50. This cargo hold is nearly empty, for it contained many stasis cages, and these worker Golems have been periodically ordered to unload such by the computer. They are shut down now, although the computer can reactivate them at any time. If the party enters the hold there is a 10% chance per round that this very thing will happen! If it does, the Golems will grind to action, tossing the characters out through the open cargo hatch. If they resist, or attempt to reenter, the workers will summon 5-8 other workers to aid them, as well as 2-5 Extruder Golems. These reinforcements will arrive in 2-5 rounds. When the characters are all out of the hold, the Golems will toss out a stasis cage containing a bulette, and shut the hatch. USE ILLUSTRATION #51. The bulette will be out of stasis the next round.
