Doom in the Red Wastes

Floor 1: Intake — Danger Level. Risky. Check for an encounter every 2 crawling rounds. Light. Total darkness.

1. Awakening Room. Desolate, dark. Stifling heat and a distant, mechanical thrum. Grit and grime crunches underfoot on the red metal floors.

2. Humanoid Camp. Three hollow-eyed, filthy humans (as guards) crouch around a weak campfire and stare into the flames. They leap up in fear at noise, grabbing weapons.

• Humans. Carina, Marvis, Bolrin. Explorers; woke up here a week ago. Starving, terrified. They hide from the ankhegs (Area 4) who killed and dragged away their friend Tirius two days ago. They've caught glimpses of a "brass man" wandering around who ignores their pleas for help.

3. Crossroads. Battered hall littered with junk (shattered weapons, clothes, bones). The reek of a recently dead mountain lion sours the air (it's covered in acid burns). In the debris is a Potion of Healing and a broken jade hair comb (60 gp).

4. Ankheg Nest. Shadowy, horse-sized cockroaches (ankhegs) scuttle around in abrupt bursts. They're busy chewing bones into hive pulp to glob onto the walls. The sandy, pocked hive material covers all surfaces. A muffled voice screeches from somewhere in the room.

• Voice. Smizzik, an indignant imp, is trapped inside a drying lump of hive pulp. He's a guest of Barghavera but teleported to the wrong floor. He "came with my mistress to see a battle" (a cubi).

5. Scrap Heap. A mangled pile of brass scrap lies on the floor (destroyed brass automaton). A shattered glass bottle lies nearby with a label that says "lion." (silver stopper worth 20 gp).

• Ceiling Panel. Faint white light peeks around a loose ceiling panel 10' up. It leads to Area 8.

6. Locked Room. Brass double doors. Dented, smeared with filth. Locked (STR/DEX DC 20). Inside, spotlessly clean. Smells of bleach. Disks on ceiling glow a harsh white. The occasional animalistic roar echoes down stairs.

Floor 2: Fabrication — Danger Level. Unsafe. Check for an encounter every 3 crawling rounds. Light. Blindingly lit by sterile, white ceiling domes (break if removed).

7. Holding Cells. Agitated desert creatures pace around in locked cages inside this room. The thick bars cannot be bent (DEX DC 20 to pick locks). Odor of filth just underneath the sterile bleach smell.

• Creatures. Canyon ape (tan, shaggy gorilla), cave brute (blinded by locked steel helm), hippogriff, giant scorpion, two velociraptors.

8. Zookeeper's Room. Animal control tools hung neatly on wall pegs (leashes, blinder helms, muzzles, manacles, collars, nets). Two barrels of fresh water and one of powder that says "Protein Slop. Add Water." Sign over west door: "Days since last fatal incident: 6."

• Zookeeper. 1:4 chance each round a whistling brass automaton enters from Area 9 carrying steel feeding bowls.
• Floor Panel. Loose; can be lifted. Drops into Area 5.

9. Work Room. Six industrious brass automatons bustle around work tables creating Magic Bottles or spying on "potential specimens" in Areas 1-6 with their Scry Sight. One has the key to the doors in Area 6. There are two completed Magic Bottles sitting on a work table.

• Magic Bottle. Simple glass bottles with silver stoppers. Opening an empty bottle toward a creature within close shrinks the creature and pulls it inside the bottle (DC 15 STR to resist each round). A creature inside does not age or need to eat/drink. When the bottle breaks, the creature is set free.

10. Storage Room. Shelves stuffed with pipes and tubes, tools, buckets, mops, cleaning solution, and five half-assembled brass automatons.

11. Creature Collection. Dark. Red-lit shelves house rows upon rows of labeled Magic Bottles with tiny, seething creatures inside (one of each creature from Shadowdark RPG of level 10 or less). A blue-lit shelf that says "Champions" displays a dozen of the strongest creatures.

Floor 3: Quarters — Danger Level. Unsafe. Check for an encounter every 3 crawling rounds. Light. Lit by torches in wall sconces.

12. Battle Arena. Two tittering cubi and their three imp attendants loll on plush chairs with Barghavera (rakshasa), a fat panther-man with striking yellow eyes and silk robes. They sip glass flutes of fizzy wine. An extradimensional pit dominates the floor (30' deep, 60' wide at the bottom). A lever extends retractable steel bars over the opening.

• Fight. If a fight breaks out, the scandalized cubi and their imps teleport back to hell.
• Bottles. Barghavera has two Magic Bottles in his pocket that he planned to throw into the pit. One holds a wyvern and the other a silver-haired gorilla. He throws them at the ground near the PCs as a distraction and tries to escape to Area 13 to use the Snow Globe.
• Enemies. The wyvern and gorilla spend 2 rounds attacking each other before turning on the PCs.

13. Apartments. Double doors open into a rich bedroom with red silk furnishings and gold accents. Books and trinkets line the wall shelves. A bay window looks out into a bleak desert canyon (where the characters originated).

• Treasure. The bookshelves hold the Tome of Hadebe (Shadowdark RPG pg. 319, spell scrolls of burning hands, fireball, prismatic orb), a Potion of Forgetfulness (Shadowdark RPG pg. 310, imbiber forgets one memory you choose), a hissing cat dipped in gold (200 gp), a faceted ruby carved to look like a cat eye (150 gp), and a tiny snow globe (below).
• Snow Globe. Depicts a twisted, black tower perched over a lava-filled ravine. If shaken, it teleports the person holding it to Barghavera's keep in the lower reaches of hell.