The Reverse Needle

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The Reverse Needle

The reverse needle is built from five identical iron rooms, which stretch downwards from the superstructure of the Iron Maze, towards the High Energy Material sea.

Each room is 30ft x 30ft with a 20ft high ceiling. Each features a large, open circular drain, and stairwell that leads to the floor below. The iron features are decorative - think Deco cast-iron fences and railings. Each room is also open on all four walls - nearly the entire space of each wall is taken up with a broad, uncovered space that serves as a window.

This means that the whole structure is open to the incredible noise, light, and heat of the HEM sea. It is a transpierced and interpenetrated 3d volume.

Water flows from the top of the Reverse Needle at all times; it moves across and covers every surface. This cools the iron enough that the structure can be traversed without protective gear. The wet iron surfaces are uniformly black, slicked (extremely slippery), and constantly hissing and steaming. The water moves quickly and with violence, churning around the floor of each room before swirling down its central drain. Each room has a second false-floor of close set iron grillwork installed (like a catwalk - you can see down through it), that sits above the boiling, churning water.

Each level/room is furnished with ornate furniture, made from fireproof materials (mostly iron and white, carved stone). The taste takes accents from the carvings of the White Ape Monastery. 

The roughest diagram ever.

All rolls to hit are made at -1 in the Reverse Needle, due to the slippery surfaces and sheets of boiling steam. 

Notes on individual floors:

First (top) floor

• Almost empty. A single painted and etched steel panel faces the 'door' into the Reverse Needle. It is secured in place in front of the open window with four thin chains that anchor to the corners of the room. The imagery is abstract, but it appears to depict an oddly elongated and elaborately jewelled human torso. The crop of the image cuts away at the head, hips, and limbs, and the figure emerges from sheets of boiling steam or concealing fog. The etched marks layer on top of the original painted surface, and seem to have been made by the original artist. The sheet is heavy and unwieldy, but if you could get it to the surface the painting would be worth a lot of money (between 800 and 2500s, depending on the collector's interest in the study of Chaos). 
• Hidden beneath the churning water are four animated cloth manikins. A sharp-eyed character looking beneath the water will see them, but they will be playing dead/inanimate. They are aware of any trespassers, and will wait until the PCs have moved down to the second floor before climbing up out of the water to shadow them. When they emerge from the water they will be sodden with water and thus constantly shedding sheets of steam. They carry long silk ropes and scarves that they use to strangle foes. 
• Cloth Manikin. HD2-4, silk rope d2 (d10 if attacking from surprise, or if grappled), unarmoured, speed: unnervingly quick, disposition: patient and methodical stalkers. Unbreakable, and only barely intelligent. Manikins move completely silently, and will do the Weeping Angel freezing thing to attempt to avoid suspicion. 

Even rougher! The hanging system for the paintings and mirrors.

Second floor

• Low, carved stone table and chairs. On the table is an exquisite, jewelled set of smoking paraphernalia worth 600s; a long, sharp, and beautifully carved dagger made from a single piece of stamped and worked steel; and a protective carved stone box containing a book. The book has no listed title, seems to be handwritten, and contains thousands and thousands of curses - they aren't magical, but they are very creative and some of them are chillingly cruel. If it is taken out of the box the heat will cause the fragile paper to combust after ten minutes (true for all books down here). 
• There is also a strange container with an elaborately worked screw top lid. It contains water that is cold and refreshing. It's basically an insulated thermos flask, and will keep hot things hot and cold things cold. Ambiguously magical, worth 1000s easily. 
• Hanging from the ceiling, from a hook attached to a chain, is a vicious-looking, barbed duelling spear, and a heavily scratched and marked steel buckler. The hook is designed so that both can be easily grabbed, ready for use.
• If you leave this room without taking the knife or spear, and the manikins are still following you, two of them will arm themselves when passing through.

Third Floor

• Slumped in a corner is an Imperial War Body. See here for details. 
• There is a large mirror with a gold-Baroque frame, hung in the same manner as the painting on the first floor.
• Next to the mirror is a carved-stone pedestal table, and an iron box with many compartments crammed full of extremely expensive cosmetics, all obviously well-used. There are rare and gorgeous perfumes, colouring powders of all sorts, and heavy oil-based face paints, as well as compartments for various grooming implements. The contents are worth 300s in the capital. 
• It also contains also four unmarked pillboxes, each containing 50 or so pills; two with grey, one with white, and one with blue. The grey ones protect you from the HP loss that humans normally experience in Chaos - one pill protects you for 24 hours. The white and blue pills are hormonal cosmetics, that respectively feminise and masculinise your features. You have to take them every day, and results take about a week to start showing. The pills aren't labelled, but a chemist will be able to analyse them and discover their properties. 
• There is also a wrought iron stand, a bit like a coat rack, which is hung with jewellery chains of various sizes, weights, and materials - probably 3 inventory slots and 3500s worth of lucre all told. There is a marked preference towards warm gold, set with pearls, white crystal, and diamond. 
• If you make it to this room and the manikins haven't attacked yet, this is where they'll do it. One of them will try to get to the War Body and use it against you. 

Fourth Floor

• This rooms has two paintings hung up in it. They are obviously by the same artist as the paintings on the first floor (and will be worth the same). One depicts a constellation of point lights, whose beams carve up an ambiguous, chaotic, semiliquid environment. The other is of a distorted human face, with a smile and eyes that are stretched open far too wide - the eyes output the same beams as the constellation.
• There is a stone chest in this room. Resting on its lid is a messer sword with a rose-pink glass blade (longsword +1, shatters into pieces if all of your attacks crit miss). The blade rings like a bell when struck, and absorbs blood into itself like tissue paper.
• The chest contains many books. If you spend a day studying these you get truthful answers to d3 (Academics get d3+1) questions about the history of God, the dragons, and the wars against Chaos. 
• It also contains a handwritten manual of meditation and breathing techniques. Studying these over a week of downtime will triple your capacity to safely hold your breath. 
• Finally, it contains 5 doses of rare hallucinogens. If you ingest these in sight of any of the three paintings in the Reverse Needle (or any of King Magda's completed paintings) you must save INT or suffer -1 to all mental stats, in addition to the usual effects. 

Fifth Floor

• The Sainted Captain and their companion angel Adoration are here. See here for details. 
• There is a stone bed, a stone chest, a stone table, and a small iron box. The box contains many cheap notebooks and writing implements (the notes and sketches are fragmentary, encoded, and illegible), and a heavily-annotated bound work of fiction titled Dream of Golden Days. The stone chest contains many very beautiful but entirely mundane fitted jackets sewn with semi-precious stones, golden thread, mirrored sequins, etc., and other plain, tailored clothing. The whole collection is bulky, and worth 600s. 
• Another cloth manikin waits below the water. It will only emerge if the PCs open the chest with the jackets. It is non hostile, and will make the PCs understand by soft gestures that they should dress it in one of the jackets. If they do so it will pose for them, turning slowly so that they can get a good look at the way the fabric sits. If the jackets are put away, the manikin will retreat down into the water and become inanimate again.