Hellgate

**Hellgate** is one of the locations in the Empire.

Described by many as a mysterious temple cut into the face of a mountain, Hellgate has a dark reputation. Few men who have entered its ancient halls have lived to tell their tales. Out of those who ventured into the lower levels, none have returned.

## Lore

Long ago, a hunting party from a desert tribe pursued a strange, triple-horned beast into the mountains and discovered a towering metal door, set into a stone cliffside. They later revisited the site with wise men and tools for breaking rock. With no idea how to open the door itself, the desert folk chiseled through the stone jamb and inside...

A great treasure of ancient weapons, magic charms, and precious metals awaited them. While looting the complex another hidden door, this one in the floor, was revealed quite by accident. It accessed the lower levels. The shaman decreed that the great treasure was a ruse, a distraction to placate fools. As their tribe was clearly not comprised of fools, it only made sense to send a scouting party to explore further.
The scouts descended into the blackness and the others waited.

Waking from dark dreams of weirdly angled corridors and chambers, of indistinct shapes always at the edge of his vision, the shaman heard a low moaning from the doorway, like a wind from the bowels of the earth.

The scouting party did not return.

The shaman was angered and held the hidden folk beneath the mountain responsible for this turn of events. He gathered the strongest among the tribe to form a war party. They prayed and fasted through a long night, making shallow cuts in their flesh, as was the custom, and smearing red clay on their faces. At dawn the war party descended with the shaman's strongest blessings.

The war party did not return.

Giving up on whatever secrets lay buried below the mountain, the tribe set its artisans to carve the ornate facade of a temple into the mountain, a shrine to the brave warriors whose spirits were trapped forever in the underworld.

For the first and only sacrifice to the temple, they performed a ritual called the Impalement of the Three Suns, passed down from their ancestors at the dawn of the world. The name designated both the three bright red wounds of three stakes in flesh, and the number of sunrises he who was offered could expect to see before enjoying the merciful embrace of death. The shaman protested at length that this ancient tradition did him too much honor, but his modesty was roundly ignored.

### Research

By Gaius Laevinus...

"I found an old manuscript written by someone returning from a pilgrimage to the temple. This is from the end of the War, so the account is sketchy at best. Apparently, the scribe went to seek refuge at the temple, a place he had visited many times before. The soldiers turned him back, but when he retraced his steps to the river crossing, it was struck by a terrifying weapon. His account read, 'Day turned into night, men and ships burned, and water and sky switched places...'" The man pauses.
"I've read such stories before but this one I believed, every word of it. He made no embellishments, used no fancy words. It was nothing but an honest record of sheer horror" He looks away again.
"The scribe went back, not to the temple but to what he described as the **command center** under the mountains. He begged and pleaded and the guards eventually allowed him to pass.

 on **Hellgate**

### Recording

From the console...

*A tall, eagle-faced man stands very still; only his eyes move over the broad crystal screen before him.*

"Are the Sentinels ready to be activated?"

“Almost, Commander,” says a younger man, his hands moving feverishly over the controls. In response, a blur of confused images appear and disappear over the console.
“We received new orders this morning,” says the commander. “We have twenty-four hours to evacuate **the base**.”

“What about the lake?” asks the man at the console.

The base commander makes an unfamiliar gesture. “We’ll blame it on the Qantari.”

The other man gives a low whistle. “And the ziggurat, do we give that up too?”

“The ziggurat they want intact,” says the commander with a shrug.

“Then why are we pulling the plug?” asks the Centurion.

“That kind of intelligence is above my station,” the Commander says bitterly, "or so I've been told. Someone at the top decided the base has to go dead, so that's what we're doing. The ziggurat is a different sort of animal. That we will preserve for the worst case scenario.”

The subordinate thinks about this for a moment, then asks,“Have you ever met Him?”

“I did, once,” nods the commander, his jaw working silently while he chooses his words. “He's supposed to be on our side, but what does something inhuman care for what we want? We just happen to be on his side. For now.”

“What do you mean?” The man's hands are in his lap now, the console forgotten.

“He’s fighting his own war and we’re helping him to win it, not the other way around,” says the commander.

“And when the war’s over?“

“My guess is that’s why they’re pulling the plug now, so we don’t have to find out the hard way,” says the commander.

## Hellgate Underground

*Warning: This point onward contains spoilers*

* The first obstacle is a Construct.
	+ *At first glance it appears to be a kind of hideous shrine or statue, a metal spider rearing up on its back legs. But taking a few steps forward you see it's a machine, a mechanical construct straight out of some sorcerer's nightmare. The top half is humanoid, with arms ending in blades, and not the kind used for chopping vegetables. This upper part is perched on four spike-tipped legs, any one of them long enough to run a man through.*
	+ If you have the Nullifier (a.k.a. Mysterious artefact), you can use it to kill the Construct without a battle - requires Lore:7.
	+ You can use Mysterious Contraption to engage it, or craft enough Black powder bomb.
	+ Alternatively, you can convince a mercenary near the entrance in Ganezzar to fight it after you approach the Construct. To achieve that, you need to pass Streetwise:[3] and then Streetwise+Persuasion=[12] check.
* Bentanagbal will reveal himself afterwards.
	+ He will offer to help you, if you help him to find the The Divine Spear (Word of Honor).
		- If you agree, he will ask how can he trust you. So, you will have to pass a Persuasion:[6] or a Streetwise:[6] check.
			* If you convince him to help you, he will give you a Protection Amulet that will make the Constructs ignore you.
			* Otherwise, you will have to fight them on the way.
* Next, you will face three doors.
	+ The ones on the side have a corridor with two barriers of magic rays that lower your Constitution by 1 when you pass.
	+ The one in the middle has two Constructs and the generators of the magic rays. To access the generators, you will have to unlock the doors Lockpick:[6] and disable the generators (Lore + Crafting: [15]).
* After this section, the door on the right leads to The Temple.
	+ You have to open it by yourself Lockpick or get the Hellgate Key on the small chest in the next room.
		- After that, there will be an elevator after the Construct that will take you there.
			* **Remember that you cannot leave that area once you get in!**
* In the console room you will find a small chest with the Hellgate Key, which opens the door to The Temple.
	+ To activate the console, you need (Intelligence + Lore: [18]).
		- The console provide you information about the portal network and the last records about this facility.
* The last room on the left has a Construct guarding the door and three more in the inside.
	+ The next room has seven chests and the The Divine Spear is in the bigger one on the front. The chests on the borders have 2 lb Sky Metal, 2.5 Blue Steel, 1 Whetstone, 1 Power Module. The ones in the middle have traps that will kill you if you fail a Traps:[7] check. There is an extra Power Module in one of the chests.
* When you return the spear to Bentanagbal, you will gain +6 skill points, and +1 Word of Honor.
	+ You can also ask him about the Surgical Kit and he will inquire you if you have found the room in which they used to perform the ritual. This is one of the requisites for the God Ending (see list at Ending).

### Items

* Power tube x2
* The Divine Spear
* Hellgate Key
* Mysterious Contraption
* Blue Steel 4.5 lbs
* Meteor Metal 2 lbs