Atop this ten foot tall rise you can survey the entire azure valley. A metal post is embedded into the ground. There are words on the post.
The hill is three yards tall. A rune-post tells a riddle, which, if answered correctly, transports the riddler into the center of the hill. The riddle-mark will appear to be written in the native language of the reader. If the reader does not read their native language, it will speak.
This you need, to fill a room that is already full.
I take what I cannot return, and if you would turn me away, keep me by your side.
When you lose me they tell you to use me. No matter how big I am, you will not see further by standing upon me, but this you must do to begin this contest.
This tells them what they need to bring (a light and a weapon), and how to enter the hill (stand on your head).
Note that the first two riddles are language-independent for the most part. The third one requires that the viewer have a head and that the head be considered the source of calm and intellect. If not, that riddle will appear as hash marks on the stone.
If any person stands on their head in front of the stone, they will fly up a few feet, land again, and then bounce high into the sky, disappearing through the sky but actually ending up inside the hill.
This second riddle changes within ten minutes of the time it is used. You may have to come up with your own. Riddles must result in something the characters can do. For example:
“Never begin and never end, walk in me, run in me.”
The answer to this is to make a circle around the stone.
You feel yourself fly up, down again, and then you bounce high into the air. You rise quickly towards the sky, and fall right into the sky, past green and yellow threads, almost like grass, that hang from the roof of the sky.
Then everything is dark. Your feet alight upon a solid surface as your eyes adjust to the flickering light of your torch. In the flickering light a grey lizard rears motionless beside a small, ornate chest. The lizard glints in your torch’s light.
The lizard’s head creaks as it turns toward you and raises a sword and shield.
Inside the hill an onyx mail statue guards a chest that holds a small amphora, Alcalig. The area inside the hill is a cylinder eight yards wide and two and a half yards tall. The onyx statue and the chest are in the northwest of the area.
The onyx statue is in the form of a Barcelasian (saurian) and is made of small interlocking onyx rings. It can attack with its tail or its hands. The lizard has magic resistance 6. Magic will thus sometimes work, and sometimes not work, inside the hill.
Onyx Lizard: (Fantastic: 4; Survival: 20; Move: 10; Attack: tail or sword; Damage: 1d4 or 1d8; Defense: 6, Magic Resistance: 6)
The huge onyx lizard shatters into thousands of rings that roll around you on the stone floor.
A plaque to the northeast blocks the way out. To leave (before or after defeating the onyx lizard), the character must answer the riddle upon it. The words will be heard by any character that cannot read well, and appears in the reader’s native tongue.
I call without words. In storm I escape the closed door, but die when it is opened. If you would escape, make me now.
If they whistle, they will fly out of the hill and be back on top of the hill. Whistling requires an agility roll at a bonus of 4.
