by Daniel Heck
“I’m to lend you my only weapon for this?” you groan.
“We had a deal,” the fisherman insists.
Bartleby urges, “Come. It is all we have.”
You climb in, and with some effort, push off from the shore. You take turns at the helm, one of you rowing while the other uses some prominent shoreline landmarks to keep your path straight. Glancing into the water as dusk approaches, you note that a school of gigantic rainbow struggles against the waves, and your stomach rumbles. Some jerky from your pack sates your hunger. Eventually, the sight of torchlight from a handful of Sungaze port guards in the distance distracts your body and energizes your soul.
“Put out your light,” the cleric whispers. You comply. Bartleby stops rowing, and you float in complete silence for what seems an eternity.
Finally, the distant light goes out.
“Their overconfidence shall be their downfall,” you whisper.
“We cannot afford to get cocky,” Bartleby cautions.
You ignore this, take the oar, and row with vigor. Soon, your eyes ache for more light than the full moon alone can provide, and you lose certainty of just how far away you are from port.
At that moment, your vessel comes to a jarring halt, with a creaking crash of wood against wood. Your arms flail outward, and you catch a plank sticking out of the pier, but Bartleby’s luck fails him; he splashes into the water with a shout. He slowly stands within the shallows, unhurt but dripping and frowning fiercely.
Together, you tie the boat to the pier. The cleric takes a moment to look into the horizon, as the stiff breeze whipps his soaked hair into his eyes. He pats the pockets of his tunic.
“Well, that is an unpleasant surprise,” he intones.
“What?”
“In the spill, I seem to have lost my sun talisman.”
You grimace. “No sense in looking for it now. The waves may have already carried it away. But, are you saying we plan to enter Sungaze completely unarmed?”
“After all this, do you wish to turn back?”
You sigh, and concede, “The clues have led us here.”
Feeling around by hand as you delve farther into the city, you find an isolated alley, and hide yourselves in some old, near-empty crates.
“Déjà vu, all over again,” quips the cleric, as you drift into sleep.
Dawn forces your body awake despite overwhelming fatigue. You poke your head out of the crate and scan the area, surprised that no one has yet confronted you. The main avenue appears deserted, as wisps of dust and leaves circle in mini-tornadoes, bothering a rat or two but no one of humanoid persuasion.
“Somebody must be here, somewhere,” you muse. When you look into windows, you realize that the town’s population has been largely locked down; women and children sleep or play in listless stupor. One man presses his hands and face against the glass as you peer in, staring back at you with desperation, although he says not a word.
“Fear rules this city,” the cleric says.
“Where do we even begin?”
“Someone with some authoritative connection to Thomerion must be here” Bartleby theorizes, “I can feel it.”
From behind you, within the nearby street, comes the quiet gnashing of bones, as well as the stamp of many footfalls. The noises sound coordinated and simultaneous, and grow louder over time. As you press your back against the wall, your worst fear is confirmed: a full troop of skeletons, organized in rows six across and four deep, files past you, marching in double-time and led by a gigantic orcblood.
Behind the troop follows, to the best degree his withered body will allow, a one-eyed fellow dressed in black and red robes. A black weasel with deep mats in its fur rides on the man’s shoulder. The man holds his hands extended outward, and controls a thin cloud of white energy that hovers around and through all the undead. One of the skeletons begins to turn out of formation, but the crony closes his fist and stares intently at the dissenter. It falls back in line.
“Losing your touch, are you, Termulus?” the orcblood grunts over his shoulder.
“Shut your mouth,” the necromancer snaps. “Without the Black Rose, I am lucky I can handle this many at once.”
Black Rose? You scratch your beard in thought.
“This shall become much easier once we arrive at the training grounds,” the orcblood says.
“It had better. After that, I will need rest.”
You wait until the troop is out of earshot, and say, “We shall need to catch the crony alone. But, when, and where?”
What do you do?
We confront the necromancer near the training grounds.
We follow him to his resting place.
“Please, go on ahead,” you instruct the rest of your party while glancing inside your coin pouch, “and I’ll catch up to you.”
The ranger nods, and leads Mikhail and Bartleby deeper into the wood. You watch after them for a moment as they begin to search for the entrance to the labyrinth.
The old man clears his throat.
“I’ll pay you what I can, good sir,” you call up. You take a small sack from your pack, place five gold pieces in it, and beckon.
“My knees are going…” he croaks, “and I prefer to climb the ladder as little as possible. Could you kindly toss that up to me?”
You arch an eyebrow, but comply. The old man catches the bag, but fumbles it to the wooden floor. He bends over, retrieves it and examines the contents. He takes one coin out of the bag and allows the light to shine on it. He stretches his arm out long, then holds the coin within inches of his eyes, and squints. A minute of this passes.
“Ahem,” you grunt, “Pardon me, but about that information?”
The man glances in the bag again, then back at you. “I thought you were handling platinum pieces! This offer is an insult!” He begins to shuffle toward the main door of his treehouse, taking the bag with him.
“Hey!” you shout, “Come back here!”
The old man enters, and slams the door.
You growl and admit to yourself that maybe this was a waste of time. You hear Bartleby call, “We’ve found it!”
The injustice of the situation tears you in two. The idea of letting the man traipse away with your gold makes your blood boil, but embarrassing yourself by making the group wait even longer for you hardly seems a better alternative.
What do you do?
I cut my losses and rejoin the others...
I climb the ladder and demand my gold back!
Whoever told you to avoid getting dirty as a child can bugger off. Something about the low tunnel intrigues you, even as it may involve getting on hands and knees.
A few hundred yards in, the passage, otherwise plain, lowers and narrows to where you would be surprised if a gnome could squeeze through. You attempt to turn around, but fail, wedging yourself in between crags of crumbly dirt. With a wrench of your shoulder, you face forward again and shout, “Can you hear me back there?”
The cleric lags behind. “I can,” he replies, “but I begin to doubt the wisdom of this choice. We have no idea to where this leads.”
“We had no idea to where any of it led,” you grunt, “So kindly refrain from your whining.”
“Yes, sir,” your companion snarks, “Whatever you say.”
As you crawl ever forward, the passage widens again. You go a few more yards forward, and reach a small earthen chamber. Bones and a few remnants of wooden coffins jut out from within the walls here as well, but in a more haphazard fashion, as if they long ago served as an extension of the original crypt.
“Fascinating,” Bartleby mutters as he pushes past you to examine the far wall. He handles its rough surface, finds a broken relic of some sort, and pulls at it. It stays entrenched.
“Are we at a dead end?”
“Hard to tell…”
With his next step, the cleric trips and stumbles to the ground. His shout of pain nearly bursts your eardrums. You close the distance, and see a monster-size
d femur that juts out of the floor where he stepped. The next moment, you hear a deep rumble from the squat passage. As you look up, a choking cloud of dust and detritus emerges from the passage and into where you stand. You cover your mouths and noses and take shallow breaths until the air clears.
“A cave-in trap!” you grumble.
You roll back Bartleby’s right pant leg to reveal a disgusting patch of purple and red on his ankle.
“I’ve… got this…” Bartleby grunts, breathing heavily, “… under control.” He sits and pulls himself back against the chamber wall. Through gritted teeth, he recites a prayer, and holds his hands out over his ankle. The skin there flashes white for an instant, and over several minutes thereafter, the purple patch fades to a normal pink.
The cleric attempts to stand, and wobbles a bit.
“It seems I’m losing my touch,” he groans.
You scan the ceiling and floor. You wrest several coffin pieces from their places in the wall, and find nothing behind them but more dirt, bone, and stone. With no other alternatives, you move to the entryway and dig by hand. After a few hours, you begin to feel that you’re making progress, when a vague light-headedness creeps into you. Your breaths become shallow and quick, and you turn toward Bartleby to find that he’s sweating profusely, ready to pass out.
“Airtight,” he whispers, “We’ve… used… what little oxygen… was in here…” Even the torch you took into this place is now not much more than a bundle of faint, flickering sparks. You claw and scratch at the blockage like an enraged badger.
There must be a thin spot somewhere, you think, somewhere that if I just… break… through… we’ll… be …
A lightness purer than angels conquers your mind, and your final thoughts are hopes that, as you learned from legend, your ghost can pass through the very walls that killed you.
Your travels cease here, but don’t give up.
Go back to the previous choice, or…
Restart from the beginning.
After you place the four of hearts, Saul deals the ten of hearts, thinks for a moment, and places it in the lower-left corner. The grid now looks like this:
He then deals the three of hearts, and there are only two spots left to place a card.
Where do you place the three of hearts?
To the right of the three of spades.
To the right of the jack.
Your wonderment about the glow from the upper nook nearly overwhelms you, and you point toward it.
“Let’s see what’s up there,” you implore.
Bartleby nods. “That option spoke to me as well.”
You tromp toward the wall below the nook, and grip and pull against the stone, letting your weight stand on a large crag.
“Seems safe,” you grunt, “I’ll head up first.” Bartleby nods his agreement.
The climb exhilarates you, and employs muscles you had almost forgotten you had and skills that last saw action in your army years. Only one obstacle presents itself: the final few yards requires a tough stretch of the arms and a huge pull, up and over the lip of a small outcropping. With a tremendous heave, you find yourself on flat ground again, breathing heavily. You look about.
The area is little more than a chamber of ten feet by ten feet, forged naturally and of the same materials as the rest. The source of the glow, however, stands in the far corner: a statue of a succubus, made of reflective, silverish metal. Its face is twisted into an evil scowl.
“By the gods,” you whisper, moving closer.
Its mouth hangs agape. Its wings spread to a majestic distance. The statue’s eyes are made of the purest ruby you’ve ever seen.
“Those alone have got to be worth several hundred gold each,” you marvel. “Although, if there were a way to take the whole thing…”
“What are you talking about?” you hear Bartleby call.
You stand on tiptoe, and stretch as far as you can, but the statue is too tall. Your reach falls just short.
What do you do?
I call down to Bartleby for help.
I repress my temptation and climb back down.
The sun has climbed only a hand’s breadth into the sky by the time you reach the City of Storms. Light rain pelts the ground, but the wind is still. Passing through the town gate seems a formality here, for the watchman pulls double duty as a cattle rancher, and is busy preening his herd. One mottled specimen moos as you pass, and you reach up and over a fence to scratch it between the ears.
Zander informs you that Argent’s compound is on the far side of town, so you trek along several dirt streets, and observe as you go the considerable bubble of space most residents grant themselves. At one point, after you pass one treehouse, you estimate that a quarter mile passes before you circumnavigate the next. Miles turn into more miles. The ranger leads you over a knoll and through a sudden turn to the left, and confusion sets in as the trees become thicker, even though you never recognized whether you passed the northeast city limit.
“The entrance should be somewhere nearby,” Zander says. “Look for a large stone with a symbol of a bow and arrow etched into it.”
As you and Bartleby search, questions swirl in your mind. After a few minutes, you’re unable to focus on much else.
“You appear distracted,” the cleric notes, as you kick aside a stone and stare toward the sky.
“The note I found on Mikhail…” you say, “It was from an…”
“Orcblood general,” the cleric finishes, “Yes, I read it over your shoulder.”
You arch an eyebrow. “Did the squirrel’s message include the details?”
Bartleby nods as he examines the trunk of a large oak. “Sufficient detail. It will be taken care of.”
You scratch your beard. “The orcbloods have their own god. Why would they send a servant of Thomerion?”
“These concerns,” your companion chides, remaining focused on the foliage, “must be left to others, should we wish to save your friend.”
“The messenger said something about an army of Thomerion.”
Bartleby turns toward you. “An army?” Alarm tinges his voice.
You cross your arms.
The cleric places a hand on your shoulder. “We are but three men. We could turn back now and take more direct action, but at what point does this become bigger than us? We must prioritize.”
You nod, pensive. “You speak wise words.”
“The Ambrosinian government, while often slow to act, is one with which I have established an unusual rapport. I was once, after all, a chaplain in the castle temple.”
“Impressive. Of this I was not aware,” you marvel.
“If I say something is true, they believe me,” your companion continues.
This argument seals the deal and reaffirms your focus. The situation affords neither the time nor the need to think further about Mikhail. Yet, there his betrayal remains, in the back of your mind…
“I have found it, gentlemen,” Zander calls from several yards away. You rejoin the ranger, who shows you the boulder, and takes a few steps to the side. He pulls aside a tangle of moss to reveal a hidden path, behind the stone, made of worn, smaller stepping stones, which descends into the earth.
You light a torch, taking care not to set any foliage aflame, and proceed with your party into the tunnel. Zander takes the lead, while Bartleby brings up the rear, with you in the middle. The passage feels dusty at first but turns mustier the deeper you go. You step upon stair after stair, and ponder the motivation behind this living situation.
We have not yet met a guard or other resistance, you realize, so maybe there’s not so much for Argent to hide.
Silence prevails, beyond the occasional drip of moisture from a stalactite. It begins to feel as if you could have read the dwarven holy verses from cover to cover by now…
Finally, you see a faint light ahead. As you press forward, the passage opens up into a large squarish chamber, hewn of stone. Torches on the walls illuminate the area, so
you quell your own flame. Wooden doors sit in the exact centers of each of the side walls, and a large metal double door is set into the far wall. The area stretches maybe thirty yards in both directions, and the ceiling appears high, about three, maybe four humans tall.
Bartleby and Zander disperse, and search the area.
“Look at this…” the cleric intones. He indicates a nook in one wall, into which has been built a large hourglass. It seems connected to something within the wall, and Bartleby attempts to manipulate it, but to no avail. Shiny silver sand fills about three quarters of the bottom half.
As you explore further, you note something more about the ceiling. Chipped into the stone in the exact center, disrupting its otherwise perfect flatness, is a small indentation, covered by a thick sheet of glass.
A copper key sits upon the glass, in plain sight.
Then, a male voice from nowhere booms throughout the chamber, “Pass the test, or face my wrath. You get one chance.”
You hear the mechanical sound of gears and clashing metal, and before any of you can react, a massive iron gate falls within the passage you came in through, shutting you in. Then, the hourglass slowly turns over. Its sand rushing through to the bottom, counting down to what appears to be your deadline.
“Wonderful…” the ranger groans.
“What do we do now?” the cleric asks.
You hold a hand to your chest, to manage your breaths and keep from panicking. It seems a good time to delegate.
“Everybody, examine a door. Then, we meet in the middle and confer.”
“Agreed,” Zander says. Bartleby nods with force. The others disperse, and you head toward the door to your left. You find that it’s secured tightly. In place of a keyhole, someone built a large peephole into the center. You look through it while standing on tiptoe, and see inside a small closet of sorts. A large, transparent tank-like container has been secured to the far wall, and a transparent tube snakes out of the container, toward you, and through the stone. When you back off a step, you notice that a section of the tube, curved upward and molded into the shape of a funnel, protrudes from the wall.