Map20 - Salt and Blood

Salt and Blood is the tenth level of Hedon Bloodrite, connecting to Paradise Lost and Place Afoul as part of Act 2's level cluster. It is located beneath the surface of the Core of Hell, covering the mortuary Crypts of the Cultists in service of the Demons, as well as the Salt Mine producing the island's main export. The areas containing the Crypts have a long history that shows when traversing the various layers of underground dungeons, ranging from ancient vestiges dating from the times of the underground human kingdoms, to the old and new crypts built by the Cult after the religious schism.

The Salt Mine is located to the east of the Crypts, dug into a massive conglomerate of salt. Although the rock features natural caverns and large fissures (likely created by tectonic activity during the eruption of the Sea of Fire), the largest tunnels are the ones carved with a clean geometric profile by the slaves, during centuries of toil. After the Blue Baron commenced his plans to reach the Nether (along with Nithriel), the slaves were worked to death in order to mine rare salts and speed up the Icon's upcoming ritual at the top of his Citadel's Spire.

## Crypts

### Pit Crypt

Due to the unstable surface rock layer of the Core of Hell, most of the newer crypts were built into deep shafts, bearing a vertical, often times multi-level layout. The Pit Crypt is the first part of the new crypt complex, being located right underneath the graveyard inside the island's central forest.

Each of the four levels of the Crypt connects to another key area of the Crypts, with the top level containing the main entrance linking to the surface, and the bottom one being extended with two additional burial chambers and a small chapel at the northern end. As more and more Cultists were sacrificed during the apex of the Blue Baron's reign, the burial niches were swiftly filled, and the Demons ended up throwing the bodies into the structure's central hole which led to the bottom level filling up with a pile of bones (hence the name "Pit Crypt").

### Worship Chamber

Accessible from the eastern side of the second level of the Pit Crypt, the Worship Chamber is one of the centers of the complex, destined for meetings and various religious rituals of the Cult. Quite remarkable in size, and furnished with decorations, the Worship Chamber is a place of recollection, where the initiates pay tribute to the four pillars of the Cult (Knowledge, Worship, Hedonism, Death) by offering hellfire oil to the four fonts.

Pouring the oil in that order causes the retracted stairways to rise and allow access to the other premises of the Crypt, such as the crypt keeper's office and the sacrificial basin of the Old Chapel on the south or the bridged antechambers leading to the Blue Primarch's Shrine and the Old Crypt on the north.

### Vertical Crypt

Located on the opposite side of the Worship Chamber, to the west, and accessible from the third level of the Pit Crypt, the Vertical Crypt has an unusual layout. The design and furnishings indicate that it is destined to the masters of the Cult, who are laid to rest across six different levels which can only be accessed with an unholy elevator moving along a decorated pillar in the center.

On the western side, a small shrine keeps a cursed chalice relic safe behind grates. The eastern side, above the entrance, around the mid-section of the Vertical Crypt allows access into a separate tomb containing a switch that can open all grates around the premises.

### New Crypt

Perched at the top of the Vertical Crypt, on the northern side, the New Chapel was built as a fancier alternative to the crumbling Old Chapel, allowing more initiates to learn the teachings of the Cult and practice their dark rituals.

The New Crypt is divided between a conventional space containing three naves separated by columns and an oversized altar area, with half-circle shaped side areas built around two basins - one filled with sacrificial blood, and the other with hellfire oil. The southern and northern sides also conceal entrances to secret tombs, including a newer one to the south that holds a teleporter to the crypt keeper office and an older one on the north, which once used to be part of the Dirt Crypt.

### Dirt Crypt

Covering the north-western part of the underground complex, the Dirt Crypt was dug out as an impromptu way to lay the increasing amount of bodies to rest, coming both from the Baron's Citadel as well as the nearby Salt Mine. The maze of tunnels leads all the way to the tomb and graveyard by the cathedral inside Yzbeth's domain towards the west, while also reaching into the older parts of the crypts at the eastern end. The Dirt Crypt is also crudely connected to the Old Crypt via an improvised tomb and tunnel linked to one of the old mortuary towers.

### Old Crypt

Dating from the primordial times of the Cult, the Old Crypt contrasts with the new ones through its aging architecture engraved with skeletal and gothic symbols and often times washed with the blue light of magic powder braziers. The central part of the Old Crypt consists of an ensemble of towers built into salt rock and connected through a set of bridges and parapets overlooking a dark, seemingly endless chasm.

Although the Old Crypt is decrepit and eroded by the moving walls of salt, it is still frequented by pilgrims and members of the Cult - sometimes, even renegades or escaped slaves seeking to hide from their masters.

### Obelisk Chamber

Although most of the Crypts have been built by the Demons and the Cultists, some of the areas still reveal the vestiges of ancient humans. Located just north of the Old Chapel, the Obelisk Chamber was revealed after the island's tectonic movements quaked open a new path. The presence of the riddle obelisk behind a wall of salt and the architectural style of the structure lead to the Windrider family belonging to one of the traveler guilds who originally discovered the Core of Hell.

### Portal Chamber & Rebel Hideout

An elevated path resulted from a salt rock fissure overlooks the Old Crypt from the east side. Following it southwards leads to a secluded area of the Blue Primarch Shrine which was partially constructed over the ruins of an ancient temple of Air. That side of the Primarch Shrine also contains a special alchemy machine designed to aid the Cultists in creating substances for various rituals, with the adjacent tunnel leading to a drain located just above the sacrificial basin of the Old Crypt.

The other side of the ruined chamber is occupied by one of the many portals built by the traveler guilds across the Underworld to aid them in their trade. Two doorways flank it, blocked off by illusory walls cast by a small group of renegade Cultists hiding behind the locked off antechamber. The area behind is comprised of a hallway leading to a mana pool altar and two side chambers with angelic statues.

### Blue Primarch Shrine

Located between the Dirt Crypt to the west, the Old Crypt to the north, the Portal Chamber to the east and the Old Chapel and Worship Chamber to the south, the Blue Primarch Shrine is sealed off at the heart of the complex, inside a sizable cage of iron. The metallic floors were built over the stone walls to segment the Shrine both horizontally and vertically, creating elevated walkways around the central altar area, and separating the worship space from the mortuary bone pit below.

### Fountain of Life

Although the Fountain of Life is located far away from the Core of Hell, somewhere in the Overworld, Zan can access a dreamlike version of it after awakening the Blue Primarch. The vision includes a dark forest with giant trees surrounding narrow pathways which lead to a clearing containing the legendary Fountain of Life. The water is located in a stone basin flanked by rocks arranged in a circular pattern, with crude stone monoliths resembling hands and fists surrounding the area from above.

### Old Chapel

The Old Chapel is located just east of the central Worship Chamber, from which it is the most accessible from. It was most likely built into the salt rock during the early days of the Cult, although the tectonic movements have caused large fissures to split it into three different segments. The segment in the back was pushed upwards by the moving rock and turned into an overpass, while the opposite northern segment was slightly pushed away. A bridge was built to connect the main nave with the sacrificial altar in order to allow Cultists to use the Old Chapel for religious practice despite its shoddy, crumbling condition.

## Salt Mine

### Upper Salt Tunnels

The rift extending east of the Old Chapel reaches into the Upper Salt Tunnels dating from the older excavations, back when Demons tried to establish the first mining galleries inside the giant salt rock. After the main access tunnels collapsed, the place was abandoned, with the side cavities that once served as an improvised kitchen for the miners being turned into a ritual chamber by one of Nithriel's Warlocks. Behind a thick layer of cobwebs, a rusty elevator can be found above the shaft leading down into the Crimson Caves.

### Crimson Caves

Some claim that while the spirits of the sacrificed slaves are bound to roam the surroundings of the Baron's Citadel, their blood is cursed to remain below the ground, pooling into the very salt caverns they once toiled over. Others claim that the blood pouring from the salt walls is from the countless victims falling to the demonic hordes in the upper layers of the Underworld. Regardless of the source, the blood filling the Salt Mine has flooded and destroyed a significant part of the galleries, especially the lower ones located to the south-east.

After the miners abandoned the premises, the aptly named Crimson Caves became a place of pain and suffering for all the slaves and cultists who failed to meet their quotas or conspired to rebel against the Baron's regime.

### Salt Crypt

Although it is located far away from the western conglomerate of Crypts, the Salt Crypt serves the same purpose as a resting place for the higher Cult members in charge of the mine's slaves, or even distinguished mine workers. Built among the hexagonal salt crystals at the southern extremity of the Crimson Caves, the Salt Crypt features a unique access device which causes the entrance to quake open when unlocked with a particular bloody axe key.

The interior is entirely carved into the salt rock, with the neat, perpendicular walls being chiselled into the pristine white material down to the finest ornamental detail. The Crypt has a symmetric layout, with two sets of side chambers leading to the central tomb where the bones of the dead are lied to rest. Since the tomb contains a highly valuable sacrificial sword made of ruby (most likely a family heirloom), the Demons have an active gating channel tied to the Salt Crypt, allowing them to teleport inside quickly in the case of an intruder alert.

### Red Primarch Shrine

Judging by the blood dripping from the corpses hanging from the ceiling or oozing from the walls and pooling over the salt floor, the Red Primarch Shrine may well be regarded as a part of the Crimson Caves, to the east of which it is closely located to. When Demons ordered the excavation of the Salt Mine Tunnels, a portion of the complex was dedicated to Primarch Erudin, who had her blood red shrine carved inside a large cave pocket opening towards the southern side of the main mine gallery. The Shrine also extends across the southernmost tunnel via a bridge carved from salt, leading up to a secondary altar. Behind the altar, a portal allows quick travel between the Salt Mine and the Crypts above.

### Salt Mine Tunnels

After losing countless conventional mining tunnels to the island's tectonic activity, the demonic engineers have concluded that the most effective way to mine the salt would be to treat the gallery itself as a building. The main Salt Mine Tunnels are staggeringly giant compared to any other part of the Salt Mine, being carved with a precise geometry that treats the ceiling of the tunnel much like the arch of a cathedral meant to sustain extensive amounts of weight from above.

The newly excavated ends appear as a stack of salt blocks which indicates that the gallery has been carved out by cutting out precise blocks with the aid of giant saws and other mining tools. The ceiling of the Salt Mine Tunnels is traversed by a wooden walkway which allows the engineers to verify the excavation from above and check the structural integrity of the surrounding walls.

After the Baron's increase in demand for rare salt and sacrifices, the Salt Mine Tunnels have been largely abandoned, with only a handful of Cultists remaining inside to guard the mines, along with a giant Pit Lord and his Cerberi who were once employed to haul the massive blocks of salt, crates and heavy equipment.

### Salt Cutting

After a giant block of salt is dislodged from the ongoing tunnel, it is usually transported to one of the cutting areas where the blocks are split into smaller pieces and sent further to be ground into powder. Before the Salt Mine stopped its regular production, the Salt Cutting was located in the eastern end of the gallery, having remained there for years after the main tunnel could no longer be dug forward because of a cavernous fissure to the north jeopardizing the walls' structure.

The upper part of the Salt Cutting is occupied by a series of platforms from where the engineers could oversee the slaves' activity and manage the stock and size of the cut blocks. Since salt is greatly corrosive against iron (as the engineers have found out with the old upper galleries), they had to resort to building their scaffolding and structures from wood and thread alone.

### Mess Hall

Located just to the north west of the Salt Cutting area, to which it also connects via a small cave on the top of the tunnel, the Mess Hall is comprised of two wooden platforms anchored into the side walls and elevated on an un-excavated pile of salt blocks. The small size only allows a few table and seats to be filled, which in contrast with the massive size of the mine indicates that the slaves would often remain hungry, being only able to use the mess hall in shifts. As the slave population dwindled, the upper part of the Mess Hall was converted into a storage space, being conveniently placed near the primary tunnel exit to the north.

### Lower Salt Tunnels

The Lower Salt Tunnels pre-date the main Salt Mine Tunnels, holding one of the primary access leading out towards the northern half of the island. After the slaves commenced the excavation of the giant galleries, the Lower Tunnels were equipped with a salt crushing machine and used to pack ground salt for transport. The area also has a small forge for crafting the few indispensable metal parts that would often deteriorate under the salt's corrosive effect.

The tunnels sprawl towards the south west, connecting to the main gallery and going further on towards the Salt Grinder.

### Salt Grinder

Currently a relic of the past, the Salt Grinder was once used by the miners to grind through the rock by pushing it in a circular motion (often times with the aid of bovas or other burden beasts). Judging by the shape of the cave, the Salt Grinder was at one point re-built or upgraded with longer blades, but the salt rusting the metal caused it to be ineffective and require constant repair. Although the Grinder was abandoned, some of the cave pockets it revealed were used for various purposes, such as a secondary workshop or an alchemy lab for the mine's apothecary.

### Workshop

Located above the Salt Grinder, for which it was built to support, the Workshop became less and less of a vital part of the mining operation as the foremen ditched the heavy machinery, ending up being used to repair wheelbarrows, grindstones and other simple equipment from time to time. The most interesting part of the Workshop, however, has always been the giant reservoir located above the Salt Grinder, which would allow water to be released in order to smooth out the blades' friction against the salt rock.

The Workshop also connects to the Crypts via a rusty grate door poking into the northern side of the Obelisk Chamber.

### Access Elevator

With the northern exit tunnel being too long and cumbersome to travel, the demonic engineers devised a plan to introduce a large Access Elevator which would connect the Salt Mine Tunnels to the exterior outskirts of the quarry just outside Lord Eberon's fort. Since a metallic elevator would be doomed to rust away and malfunction, the engineers had to resort to using wood and thread alone for the creation of this rather impressive device.

Since wood is much less resistant than iron, Lord Eberon and the other demon lords managing the mine decided to erect a defensive perimeter around the Access Elevator in order to protect it in case of a slave uprising.