86 lines
7 KiB
Markdown
86 lines
7 KiB
Markdown
### Location Name:
|
|
|
|
The Collapsed Reach *(in Suits paperwork: "site III" / "the Reach")*
|
|
|
|
---
|
|
|
|
### Type:
|
|
|
|
Condemned Deep Shaft — active clandestine ley-siphon site
|
|
|
|
---
|
|
|
|
### Region:
|
|
|
|
[[Falduhir]] — high in the Ironreach Range above [[Brefield]], at the head of **Shaft III**, driven down through dwarven-era tunnels into ground that "hums."
|
|
|
|
---
|
|
|
|
### Geography:
|
|
|
|
- The deepest and oldest of Brefield's working veins. Officially the **sealed lower level** where miners report echoes of picks long stopped.
|
|
- Reached by switchback and a **crew-only lift** above town — a climb Magistrate [[Magistrate Corvin Hale - Brefield|Hale]] has never dared make himself. There is also the **cave mouth the [[Ashfall Squad]] used**, connected to the mine workings, which the party has marked on their Brefield map — a back door in, off the lift the Suits control.
|
|
- Below the false "flood line," the shaft opens into a worked-out gallery the conspiracy has re-timbered and lit: not a dead mine but a **running work-site.**
|
|
|
|
---
|
|
|
|
### Current State — The Cover:
|
|
|
|
- Certified **flooded and condemned** to keep inspectors out, on a **falsified survey** signed by Mine-Warden [[Magistrate Corvin Hale - Brefield|Corvin Hale]] in exchange for [[House of Suits Overview|Suits]] coin.
|
|
- It is **not** flooded. Dig crews and crated apparatus move up to it by night, hauled past Brefield's ore-scales manifest-free with the bribed scale-master [[Hobb Tallow - Brefield|Hobb Tallow]]'s blessing, brokered by the keeper [[Wren Maddox - Brefield|Wren Maddox]].
|
|
- The "flood" is a lie told twice: once to bury the dig, and once to bury the [[Ashfall Squad]] who walked in and never out.
|
|
|
|
---
|
|
|
|
### Role in the Conspiracy:
|
|
|
|
- This is a working face of the central plot (see [[Campaign Premise]]): the conspiracy is **fracturing and sealing the ley lines** that carry magic through Baltun'ia — to choke magic, break the [[Automatons|automatons]], and revive [[King Rangrim the Unyielding|Rangrim]]'s imperial order.
|
|
- [[Vezra's Room|Vezra]]'s letter: *"the third line is nearly sealed. Two more and the Reach goes quiet for good."* Money out of Brefield routes here as a **"tithe to the Reach."**
|
|
- **Corroborated in play (Session 8, [[8. Oils - 6-29-26|Oils]]):** the automaton Oils placed "the Reach" as an *objective* the [[House of Suits Casino|Casino]] set talks around, and recalled a private meeting where several groups carved up a map with a man matching [[Commander Taylor]] among them and the Spade standing watch.
|
|
|
|
---
|
|
|
|
### What Is Actually Down There:
|
|
|
|
- **The Ley-Siphon Engine.** At the deep face, driven into an exposed **ley convergence**, stands a purpose-built conspiracy apparatus — a modern arcane machine, not a dwarven relic. Think a great gimbaled drill-head ringed by **capping-rods** and glass ley-conduits that run milk-blue when the line is flowing and choke to a sick grey as it seals. It does not mine ore; it **fractures the line and clamps the wound shut.** Its low, wrong hum is the "echo of picks long stopped" the town legend describes.
|
|
- **The Cost, Made Visible.** Where the engine has already bitten, the stone is *dead* — no ley-spark leaks, no glow. Spellcasters near the face feel their magic **stutter and thin** (a fine at-the-table dread: rising disadvantage on casting the deeper they go, or a spell fizzling as a line is capped). This is the endgame in miniature — the party feels what a sealed world would be like.
|
|
- **The Purpose of the Site:** seal the **third line** (nearly done) and stage for the fourth. Shutting this engine down buys time and evidence; it does not end the conspiracy — there are more lines, and other sites.
|
|
|
|
---
|
|
|
|
### Guardians & Opposition:
|
|
|
|
- **Site Overseer** — a [[House of Suits Overview|Suits]] operative running the face; cold, procedural, treats the dead squad as a solved logistics problem. The person who *ordered* the second flooding.
|
|
- **Conspiracy casters** — a knot of Suits mages and hired **[[The Sable Coven|Sable Coven]]** hands who tend and defend the engine; the necromantic reek some feel near ley-work clings to them. They know the machine's failsafes.
|
|
- **Dig crews & muscle** — conditioned or well-paid laborers and guards; not fanatics, but they'll fight to protect the payroll and the secret.
|
|
- **The mountain itself** — flood-gates that *can* be opened for real (the cover made true as a weapon), unstable re-timbered galleries, and the spring-thaw "Shifting" overhead.
|
|
|
|
---
|
|
|
|
### The Ashfall Squad — What the Party Finds:
|
|
|
|
- **They are all dead.** Janos's vanished unit reached the mountains through the cave mouth, walked into the dig, and were sealed in — the shaft "flooded the very next day" was them being buried, not water.
|
|
- **The evidence remains, and it is damning:**
|
|
- Their bodies where they fell — not eaten, not risen, just *executed and left*, because the Suits treat cleanup as paperwork.
|
|
- A squad member's **field log / last entries** describing the engine, the capping of a line, and the order that came down to seal the shaft with them inside.
|
|
- **Dog-tags or unit insignia** Janos can name — the gut-punch confirmation, no rescue at the end of it.
|
|
- A **Suits disposal order** (or the Overseer's ledger line) that names the flooding as deliberate and ties it up the chain — proof, and a name to carry back.
|
|
- **The turn:** the party came to *save* them. There is no one to save — only to avenge, to prove, and to stop the next line. Let the room be quiet before it's a fight.
|
|
|
|
---
|
|
|
|
### Potential Adventure & Plot Hooks:
|
|
|
|
- **The clock:** *"before the season turns"* — the spring thaw / "the Shifting." Two lines left; the third seals soon.
|
|
- **Two ways in:** the crew-only lift (needs a forged pass, a caravan to hide in, or Hobb's route) versus the Ashfall cave mouth (off the Suits' control, but unknown ground).
|
|
- **Getting in past a condemnation that's a lie:** forged flooding, posted guards, a lift that only runs for known crews — everything the party learned from Hale, Hobb, and Wren pays off here.
|
|
- **The choice at the face:** sabotage/destroy the engine (loud, buys time, may collapse the shaft), quietly *steal its plans and a conduit-core* (evidence for the wider fight), or free/reverse a capped line (dangerous, arcane, spectacular).
|
|
- **Getting out** as the party's meddling triggers the real flood-gates — the cover made true beneath them.
|
|
|
|
---
|
|
|
|
### Miscellaneous Notes:
|
|
|
|
- The in-town legend (echoes below, vanished miners) is the rumor-layer over the real dig; "**the mountain remembers every cut**" is truer than the townsfolk know — but the wound is a *machine's*, not a ghost's.
|
|
- Ties every Brefield thread together: [[Magistrate Corvin Hale - Brefield|Hale]]'s signature, [[Hobb Tallow - Brefield|Hobb]]'s scales, [[Wren Maddox - Brefield|Wren]]'s tithe, [[Vezra's Room|Vezra]]'s letter, [[Commander Taylor]]'s map, and Janos's [[Ashfall Squad]] all lead here.
|
|
- *(For DM to stat:)* the Overseer and lead caster, the engine's HP/failsafes and what breaking it *does* to the ley line and everyone standing on it, and the flood-gate hazard as a chase clock on the way out.
|