They stepped down the thin stone stairway into the earth, Gralen leading with his lantern.
The door was barred, but when they removed the bar it was still locked.
“It feels like its barred from the other side also,” said Sam. “Hold on.”
She pulled a metal file from her pack, and tried to squeeze it in between the door and the wall.
“I’m trying to lift the bar,” she said, “but I just can’t get the leverage.”
Will tapped on the door, hard, testing it.
“Here,” he said. “Stand back.”
|
After Sarah failed Sam’s “pick locks” roll, Tony made Will’s Strength roll, which even at a penalty of three was enough to burst the age-weakened bar. |
He shoved, hard, at the door, bursting it open. He almost tripped over debris on the other side, and then discovered what the debris was. The lantern’s light illuminated more of the now common skeletons, here partially mummified.
“It doesn’t look like they died in battle,” said Will.
“Perhaps they were simply starved out?” asked Charlotte, looking back at the burst door.
“What else is down here besides skeletons?” asked Sam.
Gralen pointed the lantern around and illuminated a long hallway running cross-ways against the entrance. The walls and floors were set with large stones, boulders of granite and occasionally dark marble, inlaid with greenish metal around the stones. The hallway was taller than the previous one, leaving a foot of space above even Gralen’s head. It was only about five feet wide. The hallway curved around slightly, but by the end of the lantern’s light was a door on each side, spaced eight or nine steps part.
The nearest door on the left had on it a carving of the constellation Libra, the scale of Justice, lacquered in bright blue. A little further, on the right, a door with a carving of Taurus, the bull. The bull was carved into the dark brown wood of the door and lacquered black.
“The scales or the bull?” asked Will.
“Let’s try the scales first,” said Gralen. “They’re closer. Be careful.”
Will pulled forth his sword with one hand and with his other tried pushing on the door. It opened, easily, into a small auditorium. Stone stairs led down, past oaken seats, to a head table flanked by dark marble statues of Libra on the left, and the great crab, Cancer, on the right. The statues were veined with white streaks and blood-red streaks. Seven high-backed oaken seats, ornamented with stars, seemed still to hold ceremony here. There were torch sconces around on all of the walls, each with a torch inside, and behind the table a much larger, empty sconce.
“Is there anything of value here?” asked Sam.
“Not unless we can haul away these statues,” said Will. “Gralen, you got any statue-hauling spells?”
Gralen was already down at the other end, examining the statues and chairs.
“There doesn’t seem to be anything special here,” said Gralen. “I don’t know. Let’s go to the next room.”
“This thing has never held a torch,” said Sam, examining the larger sconce behind the table. She pulled on the sconce.
“Don’t--” cried Gralen, but nothing happened. Sam shrugged.
“You never know,” she said.
“No, you don’t,” Gralen muttered.
The bull door on the right opened as easily as the Justice door, and with only a little creaking. Inside, a huge glass table, held four feet off the floor by an obsidian bull that still shone in the lantern’s light, was covered with maps. The bull’s eyes were hollow, giving it an eerie vacant stare. Beneath the bull’s head, on the floor, were two brilliant red rubies.
“Here are the eyes,” said Sam, picking up the two gems.
|
Putting things back together is often the “key” to opening hidden doors or finding secret dangers or treasures. But sometimes things just fall apart because they’re old. |
“Put them back in,” said Charlotte.
“Be careful,” said Gralen.
Sam put the eyes back into the bull’s head. They fell back to the floor, but she caught them before they hit.
“I don’t think it’s going to be that easy,” said Sam.
Will shifted his attention from what was below the table to what was on the table. The maps were brittle, and their corners cracked at the merest touch.
“These are all maps of Highland, Byblion, and Illustrious Castle,” said Will. “It looks like they were planning an attack on Illustrious Castle before they died.”
Sam pocketed the bull’s eyes.
“It’s getting late,” said Will. “I think we need to get some sleep soon so we don’t get caught napping tomorrow if anything shows up.”
“Then let’s take a quick survey of the area,” said Charlotte. “It looks like the corridor is curving around. I’ll bet it circles back.”
“Yeah, we can always come back down here later,” said Sam.
“I’m not sure I want to,” said Will.
The next door on the inner circle had an image of a scorpion on it, and the constellation Scorpio. Charlotte marked that onto her map. The next outer door was dedicated to Sagittarius, the archer. Then another fifty or so paces down and curving in, another outer door, this one left partially open. When Gralen gingerly widened the opening with his staff and shone the lantern into the hole, they saw more tattered spider webs, and skulls and skeletal hands poking above the webbing. Beyond that some thin stairs were dug out of the dirt, going up and twisting around out of sight.
“The goat,” said Gralen, pointing to the mountain imagery carved around the door frame. “I think we could easily get lost in here.”
“Let’s continue the survey,” said Will. “We’re definitely circling back around. Then we can choose which direction we want to go tomorrow.”
A little ways down and around, another inner door, this one marked as the crab, cancer. It was oak, and when Sam tapped it with her staff it sounded thick and heavy.
There was an open entrance on the outer wall which was dedicated to Aquarius, the water-bearer. From the recesses of the twisting hallway beyond they thought they heard water and perhaps other movement, and they smelled an earthy odor emanating from it. Leo the lion ferociously guarded the next inner door, inlaid with gold with precious rubies for his eyes and tail. “Beautiful,” said Sam. Another inner door, for Virgo this time, decorated not just with the constellation but with delicately painted nobility, both men and women, their chasteness apparent from the painter’s care. And then they returned back to the entrance to the dungeon.
“This one’s Aries, the ram,” said Gralen. “I don’t remember Gemini,” he added. “How many doors did we find?”
“Ten,” said Charlotte. “And something else isn’t right. Some doors are missing.”
“Well, maybe the goblins stole them,” said Will.
She paused and just looked at him.
“What?” he said.
“No,” she replied, “I mean there should be some doors where there aren’t any. Look.”
She showed them her map, and drew lines between each of the doors on the inner wall and then did the same to the doors on the outer walls.
“It’s a six-pointed star,” she said, “or it would be, if there were another door here,” and she finished the star for the inner wall, “and here.”
She finished the star for the outer wall.
“That makes twelve,” said Sam. “One for each zodiac sign.”
“Let’s go take a look then,” said Gralen. “What symbols are missing? Gemini and...?”
Charlotte counted up on her map.
“Pisces,” she said.
“Secret doors,” said Sam. “Now we’re talking.”
Charlotte turned her map around.
“This way,” she said, “to the missing inner door.”
They walked back around.
“Ram to our right,” said Charlotte, counting off the doors.
“Scales to our left...”
“Bull to the right...”
“Scorpio on the left...”
“Sagittarius on the right...”
“The missing door,” said Charlotte, “is on our left somewhere.”
“We’re switching to Gemini right here,” said Gralen. “Lots of twin imagery.”
“I don’t see anything,” said Charlotte. “Sam, can you see any indication of a door here?”
|
Sam looked over the wall, and made her “search” roll (the second time, meaning that it took about ten minutes. It wasn’t that hard now that they knew the door was here. |
Sam looked over the wall. She traced her hands down the carvings of the twins and of Janus, and a two-headed giant. She frowned at a symmetric, mirror-image forest and mountain, and then retraced around the giant.
“Here,” she said, tracing around the lake and mountain in the symmetrical image. “This is the border of the door and the wall.”
“How do we get in?” asked Gralen.
“Let me see what I can do with it,” said Sam.
|
Picking the lock turned out to be pretty hard. She failed three times before she (barely) succeeded with a roll of 5. It took her about fifteen minutes, since she went for the bonus of 1 for taking a minute per try on the first three, and then a bonus of 2 for taking ten minutes on the final try. |
She put her pack onto the floor and dug into it for a long roll of leather. She unrolled it onto the floor, revealing a selection of small metal and wooden tools. She choose two fine metal wires, and began working them into the giants’ eyes.
After about five minutes the others began pacing restlessly.
“How long do you think this is going to take?” asked Charlotte.
“Patience,” she said, without much conviction. “They really didn’t want us in here. This is one of the best locks I’ve ever seen.”
“How many locks have you seen in this way?” asked Will.
“Your mama,” said Sam.
“Huh?”
“Never mind.”
|
The longer it takes to do stuff--such as pick locks--the more “random” encounters you’re likely to see. You don’t want to hurry to the point that you make mistakes, but you don’t want to waste time either. |
After another ten minutes, with Gralen and Will leaning against the wall discussing the merits of various bars in Hightown and Byblion, and Charlotte poring over her map, there was a soft “click” from the wall where Sam was, and she stepped back.
“Wow!” she said, “I got it! Damn, that was good!”
She smiled at them.
“I’ve never seen a lock that well made. But I got through it.”
“Great,” said Will. “Let’s go see what they were protecting.”
“Hold on,” said Sam.
She took her staff and pushed the door open. It swung inside.
Nothing happened.
She tapped her staff on the floor inside the doorway. Nothing happened.
“Well?” asked Will.
“I don’t know,” said Sam. “That was a well-made lock. Anyone who can make a lock like that can also make some dangerous traps.”
“What’s inside?” asked Charlotte.
Gralen pointed the lantern into the room. There was a short initial hallway, but otherwise it was diamond-shaped, very similar to the Libra room, but without any of the seating. The door and its short hallway was on one point of the diamond.
“What are those bells?” asked Will.
Just inside the room, past the short entrance, there was a bronze bell on either side of the entryway, mounted a few feet off of the floor.
“Bells on the floor?” asked Sam. “What kind of a room is this?”
“Maybe it’s a temple of some kind?” asked Charlotte.
Sam stood up against the doorway and extended her staff into the room. She tapped one of the bells with it. It rang softly, sweet and clear, in a high tone that faded slowly to quiet again. When she tapped the other, it rang just as sweetly, in a slightly lower note.
She tapped the first one harder. It rang louder, but just as clear, and faded slowly, very slowly, as if it never really faded completely but just kept going softer and softer.
“That’s beautiful,” said Gralen. “But it doesn’t appear to be doing anything.”
“What do we do next?” asked Will.
“I guess we step inside,” said Gralen.
He stepped gingerly into the short entrance, and walked slowly into the room, followed by Sam, then Will and finally Charlotte.
The walls on the far half of the diamond were lined with counters with benches in front of them. On the counters were quills and inkwells, and an abacus stood on each side. On the far wall a large tapestry hung from ceiling to floor, and side to side it was eight or nine feet wide.
“It’s not a temple,” said Charlotte. “It’s just a work room.”
“Maybe they worshipped work,” said Sam. “Or maybe they worshipped this tapestry.”
Sam went over to touch the cloth of the tapestry. It was fine, silk-like, soft to the touch. It was woven into an image of the castle itself, and above it in the night sky the moon greeting the sun, and between them the stars in silver. Written across the bottom of the tapestry were words in the ancient tongue: “Praeluxi Astralis Eruditio”.
“What does it say?” asked Sam.
“Knowledge shines forth from the stars,” said Gralen.
Sam lifted the bottom of the tapestry and hefted it in her hands.
“Much too heavy,” she said. “I wish we could bring this back with us. I’ll bet it would go for a lot of money.”
“If we keep quiet about the place,” said Gralen, “maybe we can come back with more pack animals.”
“Good idea,” said Will. “Just remember that the more we bring, the more we’re going to attract the things that live down here.”
“Hey,” said Sam, “there’s a door behind this! It looks like a safe!”
Charlotte spun around to look back at the entrance.
“There’s something coming!” she hissed.
A dark shaped scuttled towards them through the entrance hall.
“Holy Christ, it’s the mother spider,” said Sam.
“That thing is impossible,” said Will, drawing his crossbow and aiming it at the creature.
Sam did the same.
It was a huge, huge spider, the size of a dog, easily two and a half feet in diameter just for its body. It was black with a purple sheen, and its spindly, hairy black legs snapped against the wall as it started to climb up the side.
“If I hadn’t seen the big ones up in the tower, I would never believe it,” said Will.
“How much bigger do they get?” asked Gralen.
They all backed up against the wall as the creature crawled around the doorway, ambling sideways into the room on the right wall. Sam and Will quickly cranked their crossbows, while Gralen fumbled in his pouch for his tiny arrows.
“Do we shoot?” asked Will.
“It isn’t going to stop now,” said Charlotte.
“But what if we don’t kill it?” asked Will.
|
Four rounds: it had 10 survival points. The crossbow attacks hit for 3 and 5, the creature gained the advantage but missed, Will hit for a single point but Sam missed, the creature gained the advantage but all three of them missed, Will gained the advantage and killed the creature with 3 points. But didn’t we say before that unless it kills them, it didn’t hit them? Not quite: it’s up to the player and the Guide how physical a successful attack is. Like the arrow that hit Sam’s armor above, sometimes attacks can hit without being the killing blow. In the movie “The Lord of the Rings,” Boromir takes on three arrows before he dies. The writer knew ahead of time that Boromir was slated for death. It could have been as impressive even if Boromir survived, nursed slowly back to health by Aragorn. But it would not have been impressive if Boromir always took lots of arrows to the chest and simply walked away every time. |
The creature looked straight at them when they started talking, or looked like it did, and Will and Sam both pulled the triggers on their crossbows. One bolt grazed its side. It dropped to the floor and kept coming. Will hung his crossbow back onto his pack and pulled his sword. Sam dropped her crossbow and did the same, just as the creature came within biting distance. It had teeth, and a vile liquid dripped from its teeth to the floor as it bit at Will’s leg. Will kicked out at the same time that he slammed down hard with his sword, barely missing the thing. It pulled back and hissed at them, while Sam and Will used their weapons as much to keep it back as to hit it. It jumped at Will, who sliced it through its eyes.
It fell to the floor quivering. Its bloated body deflated, blurbled, and went still.
“What other creatures are out here?” asked Sam.
Will wiped the goo off of his boots and legs.
“We could’ve used some of those magic bolts you used against the goblins,” he said to Gralen.
|
In other words, he has enough spell slots for two spells a day, which are currently both magic bolt because he expected to be getting into fights. Still, I hope Gralen would have felt bad if the spider successfully poisoned his best friend. Beginning adventurers are rarely any match for poisonous creatures if the poison gets in. |
“I know,” Gralen replied, “but we might need them later as well. Sam’s right: we have no idea what else is down here. And I only have the control for a few of those at a time.”
“This door is locked,” said Sam. “Let’s see what’s behind it.”
She unrolled her leather strap onto the floor, once again displaying its tools. Will held the tapestry clear for her to work. After examining the lock closely for a few moments, she selected one tool and went to work. Everyone except Sam practically held their breath with expectation as she carefully twisted and turned the blade in the keyhole. After a short while she pulled another tool from her collection and inserted it into the lock at a slightly different angle.
One more deft flick of her wrist--and they all heard the click of something inside the wall beyond the locked door.
|
Some say that the perfect trap takes place ten to twenty feet back from where it’s set off, because it gets the rest of the party. |
“There’s no guarantee that I’ve done it right,” said Sam, “even though I always do. You should all stand back, just in case.”
“We should stand together,” said Gralen.
“I need someone alive to rescue my barely living body if there’s a trap,” said Sam.
“She’s right,” said Will, and then, to Sam, “no heroics.”
“It’s a safe, not a dragon,” she replied.
They all but Sam stepped back to the door of the room, Gralen still clutching his tiny arrows. Will lifted Sam’s crossbow from the floor, and loaded it along with his own.
“Watch your aim there,” said Sam, as she pried the safe open, slowly, with her knife.
Inside were papers, books, and scrolls. Everyone exhaled and walked back up.
“Careful,” said Sam. “It could still be trapped.”
She reached inside the safe and pulled out one of the scrolls.
“It’s okay,” she said.
They all heard a ‘thwip’ as an arrow lodged in her leather jacket.
“Shit,” said Will.
“Fuck,” said Sam, gazing in wide-eyed wonder at the arrow sticking out of her stomach.
“Are you okay?” asked Charlotte.
|
She made her saving roll, and the Guide decided to let it hit, but hit in a way that didn’t cause her any damage. |
“I feel okay...”
“Jesus,” said Will, examining the arrow. “It didn’t get through the leather.”
“The mechanism is probably old,” said Charlotte.
“You’re lucky it didn’t hit you somewhere unprotected,” said Will.
“I’ve got a thick head, too,” she replied.
Will pulled the arrow out of her jacket and offered it to her.
“Memento?”
“Thanks,” she said, “but I think I’d rather have gold,” and she tossed it back into the safe.
Another arrow flew out and shattered against the far wall.
“Are we sure we want what’s in there?” she asked.
“No,” said Gralen.
Sam took her staff and poked it into the safe, being careful to stay away from the opening. She hit against all sides, and nothing more came out.
“Let’s look at the scroll I’ve already taken,” she said. “First.”
“I don’t understand this,” said Will. “What else is in there?”
Charlotte and Gralen began pulling out the papers and poring over them.
“Most of this paper is just contracts and treaties,” said Gralen. “All of it written in the ancient tongue--the same language that the tapestry’s words are in.”
“This one’s Anglish,” said Charlotte. “It appears to be a contract--”
Gralen looked over her shoulder.
“With Dwarves. For building this dungeon, I think,” he said.
“Dwarves? That might explain the clock,” said Charlotte. “I didn’t think these people could build something like that.”
“I broke through a Dwarven lock?” said Sam. “I am hot shit!”
“Ha! Listen to this!” said Gralen, taking the contract from Charlotte. “In their ridiculously long preamble they forgive the Dwarves for working with their enemy.”
He paused and looked at it for a few seconds.
“Hm,” he said, finally, “I wonder what the Dwarves would have built for the Knights of Illustration? Another dungeon? I don’t remember anyone talking about a Dwarven dungeon in Illustrious Castle...”
“Don’t you even think about going into another wilderness,” said Charlotte.
“When we get home I’m never leaving Crosspoint again,” said Sam.
“This one’s north, remember?” said Gralen. “Anyway, before we decide where we aren’t going when we get home, we should finish here and get home.”
“Here’s a peace treaty, I think,” said Charlotte. “Some of it is in Anglish. Looks like a peace treaty with the Order of Illustration.”
“That worked well,” said Will. “Any peace treaties with the goblins in there?”
“Holy, shit,” said Gralen.
“What?” asked Will. “Did they really have one?”
“No. This is even more incredible.”
“A treaty with the goblin mage?”
He rolled the scroll up and put it back into its casing.
“These are spells of some kind,” said Gralen, awed. “They’re old: they’re older than mnemonic magic. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like them.”
“What do they do?”
“This one... this one claims to control dreams.”
“That's really useful. Is there one in there that can kill ghosts?”
Everyone laughed.
|
There are probably three ways to get new spells: find them, steal them, pay for them, and share them. The third one is too expensive and the last one doesn’t count. One of the reasons that sorcerers go into abandoned places is to find abandoned spells. After this adventure, Gralen (if he survives) will be able to add Dreams, Sleep, Dream Omen, and Dream Walk to his spell books, although he’ll have to wait until he is the appropriate level to use the latter two. Because these are older than mnemonic magic, it will take some work to convert them. But when he gets them, he’ll have spells that no other living sorceror in Highland has. |
“You don’t understand,” said Gralen. “These are new. I’ve never heard of anything like them. This is like finding a completely new animal or, or, or something.”
“I would rather not find a completely new animal, either,” said Will, looking at the bloated spider’s corpse.
“What about this one?”
Charlotte handed a piece of paper to Gralen. He looked at it, scratched his head, and sat down at the counter. Charlotte looked at Will and raised her eyebrows in question. “He never scratches his head,” she whispered to Sam. “He’s never confused. Not about this sort of thing.”
“I don’t know,” said Gralen. “It looks like it’s in Anglish, but it sounds nonsense. ‘So the four maps to Charon were cured here of war. Ten fun games cause doom to man in his writing, creating the lament that is his fee due god. We issue in you this world of humor, you mute women known. Test semen under no fat woman gods you nurture, you who mint them the noxious musks. He who draws to worlds will knit one toy net. Hinges vow to better hinge, and bar shale. Harm all strange metal, and adhere to the thin hate of the freer sin there.’ What the hell is this?”
“It starts out okay,” said Will. “But it loses me fair quickly.”
“It sounds like it ought to mean something,” said Charlotte.
“Let’s take what looks to be the most important stuff,” said Gralen, “and lock the rest back up.”
Sam helped Gralen and Charlotte load paper into their packs, while Will stepped back outside, sword drawn, and looked down the hallway.
“There’s nothing else coming, is there?” asked Sam.
“No,” he replied. “But I thought I’d better check. We really need to set up camp somewhere, and I don’t like being underground like this. We could easily get trapped.”
“Let’s find the other secret room and then go back upstairs then,” said Sam. “Maybe the next one will hold something useful.”
“You mean like gold,” said Gralen.
“Exactly,” said Sam. “You can keep your dream spells.”
They completed another circle around the dungeon.
“The only zodiac sign missing is Pisces,” said Charlotte.
“I’m sure I saw some fish symbolism on the outer wall,” said Sam. “Near the lion.”
The engravings on the wall around the Aquarius entrance began to switch from forest to river when they passed that entrance, and then to sea, and the sea to storm. There were whales in the sea, and great kraken in the storm feeding on the whales.
They examined the scene in silence.
“Look,” said Charlotte, finally, “the eyes of these monsters are the stars of the constellation Pisces!”
Sam touched one.
“They press in,” she said.
“Good, but could you be more careful about what you touch?” asked Will.
“Aw, I’m glad you care,” said Sam.
“Nothing’s happening when you press them,” said Gralen.
“Maybe we need to press them all,” said Sam, “at the same time. But I can’t make my hands reach them all.”
Will put his hand up to the other end of the constellation and pressed in on six of the eyes with this hands. When Sam went back and pressed the remaining ones, there was a loud click from behind the wall. One of the waves rolled over, revealing a keyhole.
“Um, Sam?” asked Gralen.
“Sure,” she said, and began unrolling her locksmithing tools again.
|
Sam has been doing very well at picking locks today. This time she rolled a “3”, and got it on the first try. |
Sam worked at it for about a minute and then stepped back and smiled proudly.
“One more Dwarven lock down,” said Sam.
A great wind blew dust through the darkness as they opened the door, blowing Charlotte’s map right out of her hands. Sam and Will blocked their eyes; Will grabbed it as the wind blew it past him, and handed it back to her. She didn’t take it immediately, instead squinting and rubbing her eyes. Gralen was doing the same.
“Christ, I can’t see a thing,” said Charlotte.
“Where’d this dust come from?” asked Gralen. “Where’d this wind come from?”
“Good reflexes, sugar,” said Sam to Will.
She took the map from his hand and handed it to Charlotte.
The wind, cold and dry, died down, and the dust with it.
“My god,” said Will, “look at all the gold!”
Inside, the room was filled with sacks overflowing with treasure: gems, coins of gold and silver, necklaces covered in silver and gems, goblets embedded with rubies.
“This is way wrong,” said Sam. “Let’s go get it.”
“I don’t like this at all,” said Gralen. “There isn’t anything in there that should be sending a wind out.”
“We can’t back out now,” said Will. “This is what we came for, isn’t it?”
“No,” said Gralen, “I came for the lost knowledge of the scholars here.”
“Well, I came for the gold,” said Sam. “But you’re right.”
She pushed her staff into the room. As it passed the end of the very tiny hallway, something sucked it out of her hand; as it went into the room it disappeared.
“Uh, crap?” asked Will.
“Shit,” said Sam.
“That’s what I came looking for,” said Gralen. “The knowledge of how to do things like that.”
“What is it?” asked Charlotte.
“It could be anything,” said Gralen, “but most likely it’s one of two things: a spell of destruction, destroying everything that passes through the doorway, or a spell of transport, which automatically transports anything passing through to somewhere else.”
“To where?” asked Sam. “Where is my staff?”
“Could be to another place somewhere in the castle,” said Gralen.
“If I were them, I’d make it go straight to their dungeon,” said Will.
“That’d be good,” said Gralen, “because the dungeon is probably right nearby. Or it might be even more powerful, and transport to a nearby mountain peak. We can’t know for sure unless we go in.”
“And I don’t recommend that,” he added.
“Well, how do we get the treasure?” asked Sam. “God damn it, look at all that stuff!”
She took the lantern from Gralen and tried to shine it into the room.
“Huh,” she said, much more calmly. “That’s not right.”
She moved the lantern back and forth to illuminate different things in the room.
“There are no shadows,” said Sam.
“I just noticed the same thing,” said Will.
|
There are different kinds of illusions. Charlotte is used to a smarter kind that use the observer’s mind to create small bits of believability. This is a purely visual illusion that does none of that. |
“It’s an illusion,” said Gralen.
“Not a very good one,” said Charlotte.
“You mean there might not even be treasure here?” asked Sam.
“Maybe not,” said Gralen. “Although except for the illusion, none of this is easy magic, so it seems like a lot of work to go for just a red herring.”
“Let’s toss some rope through,” said Will.
“We gotta be careful with this,” said Gralen. “You saw how it sucked her staff through. We don’t want to lose all of our rope.”
Will cut off a five-yard piece of rope with his dagger, and tossed one end down the hallway, holding tightly to the other end.
It flopped beyond the illusion, and fell to the ground. They heard the rope hit the ground on the other side.
“What the fuck does that mean?” asked Sam.
“Maybe it only likes eating wood,” said Will.
“I’m not touching that line with a, um, ten foot pole,” said Sam.
“Good,” said Will.
He pulled the rope back out.
“It looks perfectly fine to me,” he added.
“Give me your staff, Gralen” said Sam.
“My staff?” he asked, holding it away from her.
“Okay,” she said, “fine.”
And she took a dagger from her belt and tossed it through the hallway. It went behind the illusion and they heard it clatter against stone and fall to the stone floor.
|
At some point around here one of the players is going to make the point that this is getting needlessly suggestive. |
Gralen poked his long wooden staff up the hallway. When it went past the illusion, nothing happened. It didn’t pull away; it didn’t disappear; he could pull it back out again. Sam grabbed it from him and tossed it through. They heard it clatter on the other side and then it bounced back half visible on this side of the illusion.
“I think whatever the trap was, it only worked once,” she said, when it came to a rest.
“That seems pretty stupid,” said Gralen.
“Maybe they only expected one person to try to rob them,” said Sam.
“Or maybe we don’t really understand what was happening,” said Charlotte.
“Whatever,” said Sam. “I’m following that staff.”
“Hold hands,” said Will.
She looked at him.
“Just in case,” he said.
They walked, hand in hand, through the illusion, and found themselves on the other side. Sam picked up her dagger. Gralen picked up his staff. Beyond the illusion the hallway forked into three halls, each lined with swords, spears, or maces.
Will examined one of the spears down the middle hallway.
“They’re in pretty good shape,” he said, “for their age. But you wouldn’t want to trust them in combat. Wood needs to be cared for to keep it strong.”
“This all was a whole lot of trouble to protect some weapons,” said Gralen.
“I preferred the illusion,” said Sam.
“There’s nothing special about these at all,” said Will. “I mean, there are a lot of weapons here, okay, and I’m sure it cost a pretty penny to acquire them, but...”
“It still seems like overkill, right?” said Gralen.
“Yeah,” he replied. “These are perfectly normal, serviceable, but nothing special that I can see.”
“Then we look for yet another secret door?” asked Sam.
“Where?” said Gralen.
The walls here were different from the walls in the main hallway. There were no engravings. The walls were made of large stones set in some form of pebbled mortar. Racks were embedded in the halls to hold the various weapons.
“It could be one of these hooks...” said Sam, “maybe.”
“What, we try pulling on them all?” asked Gralen.
“What else?” said Sam.
“Okay, let’s do it.”
They tried pulling, twisting, and pushing the various hooks holding the weapons. The hooks were well made; none broke. But no secret doors slid open to reveal great treasure, nor to reveal anything else. Nothing happened.
“Give up?” asked Gralen.
“No,” said Sam and Will, nearly in unison.
Sam gave Will a look.
“I thought you wanted to give up too?” she said.
“I want to go home rich,” he replied. “We’re here, now is not the time to give up.”
“Let’s search the end of each of these hallways,” she said. “You take the left, I’ll take the middle, and Charlotte and Gralen, you take the right.”
After a few minutes, Sam yelled out, “I found something!”
And then a few seconds later, when the rest of them rounded the corner to join her, they heard a faint “crap” and she crumpled to the ground, her locksmithing tools clattering on the stone floor next to her. The small bag she was holding fell away from her hands, and jangled as it hit the ground. Something shiny was barely visible inside the lip of the bag. A hole had opened in the wall.
Will ran towards her.
“Wait!” yelled Gralen, but Will ignored him.
Gralen held Charlotte back.
“Don’t go yet,” he said. “We can’t know what the trap is. It looks like it might be gas.”
|
He rolled a 4 on his Health roll to avoid the effects of the gas. He needed 6 or less. |
Will lifted Sam in his arms and carried her back to the end of the hallway, depositing her next to Charlotte and Gralen.
“I feel really tired,” he said.
“You probably just breathed sleep gas,” said Gralen.
“Oh,” he said, and sat down on the ground next to Charlotte.
“Stand up,” said Charlotte. “Keep moving.”
“We should move down one of the other hallways,” said Gralen, “or back out of the room entirely.”
“Here, I’ll help,” said Charlotte, as Will prepared to lift Sam up again. They dragged her around the corner into the hallway filled with swords, then lay her down again.
“She seems to be okay,” said Charlotte. “She’s breathing, anyway.”
“What the hell are we doing out here?” asked Will. “I mean, what did we think we were doing?”
“Gold and knowledge,” said Gralen, “we never said it was going to be easy.”
“Easy?” said Will, “we’ve been trailed by orcs, attacked by huge spiders, shot at by people who’ve been dead for a hundred years, gassed by the same people, and almost transported to god knows where. Yeah, I never expected it would be easy, but what’s next?”
“Next would be when the dragons burst out of the earth looking for mead,” said Charlotte.
“Ha, ha.”
Will took the cork from his water bag and poured a little on Sam’s face.
“Giving her a bath?” asked Gralen.
“Trying to wake her up,” said Will.
“Oh.”
“Well, we’ve got to do something,” he said.
He started examining the swords hanging on the wall of the hallway. After about ten minutes of looking at, choosing, and hefting swords, he chose one and kept it.
Gralen studied some of the notebooks they’d taken from the other safe, shaking his head in wonder and occasionally checking Sam for a pulse. Charlotte drew this room into her maps, and annotated the map with notes about what they’d seen in each part of the castle.
After about fifteen minutes of this, Sam lifted her head and dazedly looked around.
“What are you guys all hanging around for?” she asked.
“We’re waiting for you to wake up so we can tell the dragons it’s okay to come out,” said Will.
“Huh?”
“How are you feeling, Sam,” he asked.
“I think I feel fine,” said Sam.
“You shouldn’t really open things that could be trapped without waiting for us,” said Gralen.
“I can buy that,” said Sam.
“But I found some coins,” she added. “Um... I must have dropped them. Let’s go back and take a look at the gold.”
She wiped her cheeks with her hands.
“Why is my face all wet?” she asked.
“Here,” said Will. “This is an even better sword. It still needs to be fixed up, but it should last you a good long time if you don’t use it as a walking stick.”
They walked carefully back towards the hole in the wall, and examined the bag Sam had dropped. It wasn’t gold, but it was silver--“probably a hundred” silver coins, “maybe more!” said Will. “What else is in there?”
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The bags each contain a hundred coins, so they now have two hundred silver coins and one hundred gold coins. That’s a total of about 1,200 to 2,200 monetary units, depending on how much the coins are worth back in Crosspoint. |
Sam slipped into the secret hole, and returned with another bag that did contain gold coins, and another full of silver. They examined the coins.
“I’ve never seen money like this,” said Will.
“It’s all astrological,” said Charlotte. “They must have had them minted themselves.”
There were also larger bags filled with powders, spices, and dried plants. One bag contained nothing but a large rock, heavy and blackened. There were jars of feathers, horns, teeth, and bones. Insects and insect parts, lizard tails, and animal hair.
“No idea,” said Gralen in response to the questioning looks of the others. “But I think it safe to say that most of these are magical ingredients. Let’s close this up and we can come back with a wagon later.”
Will pocketed a tiny bag of cinnamon, Gralen a jar of horns. They walked back through the illusion of the gold and jewel-covered room, and went back upstairs to the entrance hall.