H7 - Comparative Laboratory
H7 — Comparative Laboratory
The Work Corven Did Not Want Anyone Else to See
The final chamber is colder than the rooms behind you.
A single long worktable stands beneath a row of hooded lamps. Numbered racks hold narrow glass tubes packed in dark felt. Brass instruments are bolted directly to the stone. A fitted darkwood case rests closed at the center of the table.
On the far wall, dozens of handwritten cards have been pinned into columns and connected with black thread.
At the top of the arrangement, Corven has written one sentence:
THEY ARE NOT IDENTICAL.
H7 contains Corven's comparative blight research. His breakthrough was simple but important: separate seedlings and growths retain measurable traces of their source material and preparation environment.
The Comparison Wall
Corven compared root fibers, sap residues, soil, preservatives, mineral dust, and reagent traces from multiple samples. The pattern suggests that at least some of the growths were propagated from prepared stock rather than spontaneously created wherever they were found.
Corven has not identified the mastermind, the complete origin of the blight, or every Golden Hand site. His method tells the party how to compare specimens later; it does not solve the campaign while standing in this room.
Corven Vell's Comparative Assay Kit
The fitted darkwood case is the scene-level item artifact. It contains Corven's calibrated tools, reference samples, comparison matrices, and enough documentation for a trained alchemist to reproduce his method.
Comparative Reagents — 2 gp
Specialized stains, silver salts, absorbent powders, and preserved controls provide the final 2 gp of the house's 12 gp crafting-material cache.
When the party later neutralizes a sufficiently developed blight specimen, the assay can reveal a distinctive preparation signature. Use that result to open an optional earlier lead toward the Golden Hand operation connected to the Pulgari Estate or another future site that best fits the campaign's pace.
Archive Purge
Alchemical · Fire · Inhaled · Trap
Stealth DC 18 (trained) to notice thin copper tubes running from the security door to reagent bulbs above the worktable.
Description If H7 is breached incorrectly, the system releases choking preservative smoke while heating a destruction tray beneath Corven's most sensitive papers.
Disable Three total successes before two failures:
- Crafting DC 17 to close a reagent line.
- Thievery DC 18 to lock a valve in place.
- Medicine or Nature DC 18 to identify which bulb can be safely vented.
Trigger The H7 door is forced, opened after a failed H6 security challenge, or sensitive papers are removed while the system remains armed.
Routine At the end of each round, creatures in H7 attempt a DC 18 Fortitude save. On a failure, a creature takes 1d6 poison damage and becomes sickened 1. On a critical failure it takes 2d6 poison damage and becomes sickened 1.
After 3 rounds, if the hazard has not been disabled, the destruction tray ignites. The party can still seize the Comparative Assay Kit, but some correspondence and secondary research notes are destroyed.
The Archive Purge never destroys the Comparative Assay Kit. The optional campaign unlock survives. Failure costs supporting evidence and convenience, not the entire reward for completing the hideout.