This octagonal room is supported by a single large pillar with dozens of deep grooves along its sides. The seven walls of this room each bear fantastically detailed bas-relief carvings of exotic monsters in threatening poses. Starting at the wall immediately to the west of the entrance to the room and moving clockwise, the carvings depict a tentacled monster with a glaring red eye and a mouth full of teeth, a looming dragon, a fish-like creature with three eyes and four tentacles, a two-headed giant wielding a pair of immense clubs, a spherical creature with four eyestalks and a bulging central eye over a drooling maw, a gorilla-like beast with a fanged maw and six eyes, and finally a towering black spider with seven eyes. Each monster's eyes consist of a glittering red stone. The ceiling above is only ten feet high, with the now-familiar eight-pointed star pattern radiating out from the grooved pillar. The arms of this star are black, save for the one pointing south toward the entrance, which is red.
The red stone eyes sparkle nicely, yet are relatively worthless agates, as determined by Graim.
The creatures depicted (in the order described above) are an unknown monster, a red dragon, some kind of aberration, an unknown giant, some kind of beholderkin, a gray render, and a monstrous spider.
This entire room is in fact a clever combination lock designed to hide and protect the five hidden alcoves in the walls of the chamber. The grooved pillar in the room's center is an immense stone tumbler that can be rotated in both directions, as Grunk revealed.
The pillar doesn't rotate smoothly. Rather, it "clicks" in its sockets as it rotates, eight times in the course of a single revolution. As the pillar rotates, the eight-pointed star in the ceiling rotates as well, the red arm pointing to a new wall with each click. The trick to this combination lock is the number of eyes each creature on the wall possesses. Starting from the wall immediately to the west of the entrance, the eyes number 1-7.
As the Tropic Thunder realized, the scrap of paper they found with the Vanderboren signet ring actually contains the combination to this lock. As Lavinia's personal troubleshooters, it fell to the Tropic Thunder to decipher the mysterious list.
The correct combination for this immense safe is 6 right, 1 left, 2 right, 4 left, 2 right. Although the parchment lists different creatures, the code is the same: the number of eyes each creature has corresponds to the number of the combination, while the notation of "sunrise" and "sunset" indicates east and west (right and left).
Once the combination was entered, the entire room rumbled as the five alcoves rotated in place, revealing several coffers and chests.
Most of the 20 chests in the vault are empty - at best, only a few silver coins remained scattered along the bottom of each chest. As more and more chests turned up empty, Lavinia grew increasingly distraught. Finally, in the last alcove, there was a reprieve - several of the chests here remained untouched. There were gold coins and gems left in these chests, along with a large number of ledgers and a small iron coffer containing a thick pile of documents.
Most of the ledgers list debts owed to the Vanderborens from guilds and noble families in Sasserine - it seems that Lavinia's parents made a practice of doing dangerous favors for numerous organizations in Sasserine, yet rarely bothered to collect rewards. Instead, they allowed their patrons to keep their rewards with the understanding that they could collect at any time.
The documents in the iron coffer are another story. These documents are written in her mother's handwriting but in a strange language neither Lavinia nor the Tropic Thunder recognized, although they recognized the letters as being elven. Included in the document are several maps of jungles, coastlines, and other regions that seem to represent some unknown tropical location. The document also includes dozens of sketches of strange, exotic creatures.
Between the gold and the IOUs, Lavinia now had more than enough to pay the back taxes and began setting her estate back in order. Nevertheless, the missing money concerned her greatly. It'll be a rough year, especially if her aunt and uncle in Cauldron can't help her out in the months to come, but at least she now had enough to carry on. She payed each of the Tropic Thunder (except Mary Rose) 200 gp as a reward for their aid, and asked them to come visit her as soon as possible regarding an even more important job when they get the time.
As they left Castle Teraknian, Lavinia asked the clerk if anyone else had visited the vault recently. He replied with an affirmative, saying that her brother Vanthus visited the vault several times over the past month. The clerk was shocked when he learned that Vanthus had been missing for a month and that Lavinia didn't know he'd been visiting the vault - Vanthus had a signet ring (which the Tropic Thunder assume he stole over a month ago from his mother) and the clerk recognized him as a Vanderboren. The clerk agreed to inform Lavinia if Vanthus tried to enter the vault again.
Once the vault was secured and Lavinia's immediate financial concerns were taken care of, Vanthus became her primary concern. Lavinia explained to the Tropic Thunder that the two of them were quite close growing up, since their parents were rarely around. They grew to depend on each other, and got into a fair amount of trouble together. After one particularly complex prank involving several elixirs of love being emptied into the nearby water tower, their childhoods came to an end. Lavinia was sent to the Thenalar Academy to live out the next five years of her life, and Vanthus was shipped out to work on a plantation. When they returned to live in the family manor a year ago, they had both changed. Lavinia likes to think she benefited from her time at Thenalar. Vanthus, on the other hand, spent his time away nurturing his bitterness. He no longer had time for Lavinia, slept all day, and spent the nights with what Lavinia recalls as "associates of doubtful character". Eventually, he moved out of the house entirely - Lavinia believes he took up with a lover in Azure district, but she never learned the details.
When their parents died, Vanthus returned for a week to live at the manor, but he had changed even more. Gone was the easy sense of humor she recalled fondly from heir childhood, and in its place was a biter cynicism and a morbid streak that sent chills up Lavinia's spine. After several arguments, Vanthus struck her with his fist. Lavinia was shocked, and for a moment she thinks Vanthus was shocked as well, but an instant later he was back to his new self, all scowls and menace. He gathered his belongings and left - Lavinia hasn't seen him since.
She knows something profound happened to her brother at some point to change him, but she's not sure what this was. She believes he's fallen in with a bad crowd, perhaps smugglers, or thieves or even killers. Although his attitude might speak otherwise, she hopes that it's not too late, that if he can be brought back to her side she might be able to talk some sense into him and redeem him before he passes forever out of her reach. The problem is, she doesn't know where he's gone.
Lavinia has few clues as to where Vanthus has gone. She recommended asking around about him throughout the city; she doubts he hides around in Champion's or Noble District, but even these locations may hold clues. Her suspicion that he's been living with a woman in Azure District arose from half-heard rumors, but it remains the strongest lead she has.
The Tropic Thunder tried to gather information about Vanthus and his current location in the various districts.
Graim found a few people who remember seeing Vanthus at taverns in Azure District, often in the company of a woman named Brissa Santos, a notorious pick-pocket turned semi-legitimate artist who's had her fair brushes with the law. Like Vanthus, no one's seen Brissa lately.
The Tropic Thunder find nothing in Merchant District, Cudgel District, or Noble District.
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