Hex 3

3. Old King's Watch
Every 20 miles along the road are these 80' tall round towers, most of which have fallen to ruin. The people of the Highlands use the Watches as waystations along the King's Road. Here, just north of the King's Road, is one of the few towers fully intact.

3.1 The Waystation
Over the years, travelers have added beds, a table, chairs and a small sideboard to this room. The fireplace has ashes from an old fire in it. Once a wooden staircase climbed to the second story, but only the top few steps dangle from the opening as travelers have scavenged the wood for fires. A stack of branches is piled up next to the fireplace.  Generally, this is a safe haven for travelers.

If the Eye of the Moon (see the King Under the Water) is brought into this room, phantom soldiers will be seen living out their daily life - talking, walking around, climbing the phantom stairs to the second story. After 2d8 rounds, one of the phantom soldiers will "open" the secret trap door in the floor and descend.

The secret trap door can be detected by normal means as well. It is locked and was once trapped, but the trap was long ago sprung by a curious Highland traveler.

3.2 Second Story
Untouched for generations, there is little left here. A candle chandielier composed of five 12" diamter rings soldered together side-by-side hangs from a chain from the ceiling. The candles have long since been pillaged.

The rings are the circlets which control the skeleton warriors in the crypt below.

3.3 Third Story
A few broken chairs and an overturned table, an empty weapons rack and a dozen broken arrows. Tucked among the rafters is skeletal human hand clutching a small leather pouch containing 3 gp, a tiny ruby (50 gp value) and a medallion of St.Turias (Silver plated brass medallion with the image of St. Turias on one side and the Reliquary, hex14, on the obverse - medallion is magical, TO BE DETAILED LATER)

The Grave of the Five Champions of St. Turias
3.4 Grave Entrance
The stairs lead to a small chamber with five doors onthe east wall. A headless human skeleton lays at the foot of the northern most door, the skull behind the steps. The doors are unremarkable iron-strapped wooden doors, and there is nothing to indicate what caused the beheading.

Doors can be numbered 1-5 from north to south. When any door is opened, the skeleton warrior in the tomb behind the door south of the room is awakened and will exit its tomb in 3 rounds (if door 1 is opened, the skeleton warrior behind door 4 is roused and comes out of his tomb to attack the intruder). Any door opened from the outside, freezes the skeleton warrior in its tomb as long as the door is left open. Any animated skeleton warrior will seek to dispatch intruders and close any open doors. The solution is to begin with door 5, the door farthest south, as there is no door to the south of it and opening the door will freeze the skeletal warrior in his sarcophagus. Inanimate skeleton warriors appear to simply be armored skeletons and their weapons and armor can be removed (though if the skeleton warriors animate, they will attempt to track down the looters and retrieve their equipment). Four of the five knights wear full chainmail and bear two-handed swords, the fifth (in the southernmost tomb) wears full platemail and a longsword +1 (Turias' Wrath, a sword+1, +3 vs. demons, devils and undead, continuous detect evil, heals 2d4 hp once per day).



TO FINISH: Map, images