by Daniel Heck
Finally, reluctantly, you stand, hitch your pack, and with a yawn and a shake of your disheveled head, decide to continue forward.
I’m exhausted…
Instinct tells you the door to the left just can’t be as simple as it appears. Without touching the handle or even the door’s surface, you step closer and gaze into the keyhole.
Within, you think you see a primitive system of gears connected to a tiny launching hammer, the kind that might trigger a trap if you weren’t careful.
You frown in suspicion.
I can’t disable anything like this, you realize, but maybe something elsewhere in this cavern would open it safely…
What do you do?
I try to open the door despite appearances.
I enter the ascending passage.
I take the descending passage.
Instinct tells you the door to the left just can’t be as simple as it appears. Without touching the handle or even the door’s surface, you step closer and gaze into the keyhole.
Within, you think you see a primitive system of gears connected to a tiny launching hammer, the kind that might trigger a trap if you weren’t careful. The mechanism doesn’t appear to be loaded with anything, but that doesn’t mean for certain that it isn’t rigged to load itself quickly, even instantaneously.
You frown in suspicion.
I can’t disable anything like this, you realize, but maybe the key on the wheel would open it safely…
You return to the central chamber, and thereafter to the diamond-shaped chamber with the wheel and column.
I won’t leave until I get what I entered for.
Light is usually a sign, you tell yourself as you enter the inclined passage. The rocks under your feet become more granular, almost like sand, as you go, until your stride makes almost no noise at all.
Thankfully, mercifully quiet… you reflect after seeing ahead a hulking, leathery body sitting with its back turned to you. It wears strange red suspenders and seems to be examining a large blunt weapon. A torch on the wall gives it barely enough light to see by, so it squints and grunts occasionally, sounding frustrated. Beyond it, the tunnel continues into relative darkness.
You’ve encountered the ogre chief in charge of this place, and a lot sooner than you expected. It hasn’t seen you yet.
You duck behind the nearest wall and out of sight, then put a finger to your chin in thought.
I need to get past him somehow… but to think of how he’d acquaint that club with my skull…
What do you do?
I backstab the ogre with my dagger (and hope that kills it.)
I try to run past it and hope it doesn’t notice or care.
I quietly return to the main chamber.
Feeling combative, you slowly draw your dagger, even as trepidation and self-doubt creep into your core. You bite your lip and struggle to keep your breath in control.
What am I doing? you wonder. I’m not trained in fighting these kinds of creatures! What if it sees me coming? What if…
You frown at your cowardice, and would hold a hand to your heart, if both weren’t now full with a torch and a weapon, respectively.
My friends, my saviors… those who have helped me. Be with me as I face this test of bravery and return your favor.
You glance one more time down the tunnel and at the ogre.
You start to pad down the tunnel on tiptoe…
You fear it could turn around at any moment…
You’re almost upon it, and it’s still occupied.
You pick your mark, line up your strike and bury your dagger in the monster’s back. It half-roars, half-gurgles in agony, but then manages to stand, just as you retract the weapon and note that it only sunk in by a couple inches; the ogre’s tough hide prevented a stronger wound.
Nevertheless, blood now spurts from the ogre, painting the cavern walls a grotesque maroon. It whirls around toward you; you duck just in time to avoid a wild swing of his club, which smashes a nearby stalactite into dozens of shards.
“Abomination!” you shout, “Why are you not dead?”
You think for a moment that you might be able to outrun it, given some wider space, but the ponderance proves a distraction as you bolt toward the central chamber. Upon one large step, your foot catches within a large outcropping in the floor; your ankle twists hard and you fall to the ground with a yelp.
Unable to walk, let alone run, you cower and groan as the ogre chief catches up with you. It aims, more carefully this time, as a toothy grin stretches its mouth from ear to ear…
Your travels end here. But don’t give up! Go back to the beginning of the cavern, or start again entirely.
Ogres may be big and dumb, you theorize, but I’m willing to bet that this one’s the curious sort…
You quell your flame and set the torch on the ground. Still crouching, you glance one more time down the partially lit tunnel, then slowly, quietly pick up a jagged stone from near your feet. You turn it over a few times in your palm while visually gauging exactly where to chuck it.
A few more moments, you remind yourself, summoning patience for the exact best time.
Just when the ogre peers more closely at its club, lowering its head to almost its chest, you rear back, then hurl the stone. It thunks off the angled wall with a perfect echo, then bounces past the ogre and well down the hallway. You jump back to within the main chamber’s shadows.
You hear sniffing and some shuffling sounds that indicate the creature might have stood. A long pause ensues. Your heart pounds faster and harder, however, when you hear gigantic footsteps coming your way instead of going the other. Evidently it saw just enough of where the stone came from to deduce that another living being must be nearby.
If I run… it will be even easier to find me.
You stand frozen with your back pressed hard against the wall and watch helplessly as the ogre emerges from the tunnel. It scans in both directions, flailing its club about, then locks eyes on you. A moment of cognition seems to strike it. Then, it grins sadistically and pounds its chest with its free fist.
You’d once known that ogres had infrared vision, but seem to have forgotten that, at least in this case, your camouflage of darkness does no good whatsoever.
Don’t let evil win! Go back to the beginning of the cavern, or start again entirely.
Many yards further into the mountainside, you enter a new tunnel, perpendicular to the first. Oddly, you have somehow entered at its back end. The path inclines to the east, even more sharply than before, and a few feet ahead lies an ancient, deeply rusted mining cart, tipped over on its side.
Along the incline’s length, all the way up to the top of the passage (which is blocked off by a pile of cave-in refuse), are inlaid a pair of rails with slats connecting them below. It looks like this area was once used as part of a larger mining system, likely for the purpose of hauling gems and other valuable finds back to the main entrance.
Upon closer examination, however, you surmise there’s far more to it than that. The slats, for one, look much smoother and newer than you’d expect, and are made of monochromatic stone, not wood. As you approach, you’d swear you hear them emit a constant, subtle humming sound.
You gingerly reach forward. Upon your finger coming within about an inch of the nearest slat, before you even actually touch it, a pleasant ‘ding’ rings out, very similar in tonality to a midrange musical note.
You arch an eyebrow. Bizarre…
You reach toward the next higher slat next. It plays a different, slightly lower note.
You return to the cart and inspect it. You think you see an important item within the wall behind it…
Is that…?
Partially embedded within the stone is a three-foot-tall shield, emblazoned with a blue-and-white checker pattern and sporting large spikes across its entire surface. Despite a layer of ancient grime, it sports an obvious metallic shine, practically asking you to free it from its imprisonment.
&nb
sp; The Shield of Dragon Might.
It’s got to be retrievable somehow, you tell yourself. While there’s no way to chisel it out, since you don’t have even primitive tools with you, you swiftly become inclined to test a theory.
You climb partway up the incline, then touch the third slat. It plays a different note than the first two. Immediately after, you return to the shield, and inspect the surrounding stone. The shield’s edge is now further ensconced in the wall, as if the stone magically consumes more with every incorrect slat note.
Do they have to be played in a certain order?
It hits you that you haven’t tried some notes yet. With some effort, you climb all the way to the topmost slat, counting them as you go. The rail contains a total of seven visible slats, and touching the topmost plays a note different than the first three.
After doing so, you hear a brief, distant rumbling.
You’re not sure you’ve mentally kept track of them all perfectly, but the pitches of the notes and the order in which their slats were found don’t seem to be specifically correlated.
So, the higher ones don’t necessarily play higher notes, you observe, and the lower ones might not always play lower notes…
Without touching any more slats for right now, you return one more time to the shield.
Your heart leaps in joy to see that the stone has receded slightly, returning to the way it was when you first found it. You’ve discovered how to start the sequence!
But, you ponder, to free the shield, I’ve got to unlock the whole sequence without trying too many of them just willy-nilly…
The fact that the notes are on an incline, you conclude, must be important in some way.
You glance one more time at the mining cart, then scratch your head. And what does that thing have to do with all this?
What do you do?
I experiment until I can manually play the notes in descending order of pitch.
I push the cart up the hill and use gravity to play the slats in physical order.
After a few more moments of thought, you surmise that the notes must be played in tonally descending order.
Would it be much of a challenge otherwise?
You start playing all seven of the notes just to be sure of their pitches, but without anything to write them down on, your memory soon plays tricks on you. When you feel you’re confident of their proper order, you manage to get the third and fourth notes mixed up, which makes you feel in turn that you need to start over.
You inspect the shield, to find that it’s now nearly completely submerged by the magical stone.
Already breathing heavily from all the jogging from slat to slat, you start to panic as you feel the chances of gaining this dragon relic slipping away.
Perhaps Plan ‘B’ was better in the first place…
Intending to change tacks, you try to set the cart upright, heaving and shoving with all your strength, but your expenditure of energy up to this point comes back to haunt you. The unwieldy hunk of metal simply won’t move, let alone slide. Your arm and leg muscles burn from the exercise.
You take a moment to organize your thoughts.
One last try…
You return to the track and hastily press the topmost slat, then the third from top, then the last, then the…
A tinny ‘pwing’ sound meets your ears, from the direction of the shield. By all appearances, it’s now out of reach. The wall looks entirely smoothed over and flush to the rest of the passage, as if it contains nothing of note or importance.
“By the fate of the elves!” you pout out loud. “I should have been able to handle this…”
Pressing more notes does nothing at all. There must be some additional magical component that you could never discover now required to free the shield, or else the ogres themselves would risk never being able to use it. You sit and sulk, defeated.
I don’t dare ask… and who would I ask if I tried?
Don’t let evil win. Go back to the previous choice, or start again from the beginning.
You ponder further, eventually concluding that you’re making this harder than it appears.
Let’s just see what happens, you reflect.
You try to right the cart using pure muscle, but it proves stubborn, so you grab a long hunk of wood lying nearby and with a guttural grunt wedge it underneath one edge. With greater leverage, you put just enough force into your next effort; the creaky mass of iron flips onto its wheels with a loud thunk.
You wince, drop the lever and quickly hide among the shadows, in case anyone heard.
Silence prevails. You wait some more…
Nothing.
Slowly regaining control of your breath, you gingerly return to the cart. Pushing it uphill is surprisingly easy; for all the rust, the wheels work just fine, and the hill boasts enough extra horizontal space to accommodate the cart without rolling over the slats just yet.
With a final heave, you position the cart at the top of the incline, lining it up with the rails. You pause, cross your fingers, and push, sending it rumbling down.
Ding, ding da ding ding.
Ding. Ding!
The cart zooms past the nook. It catches the shield with a clatter as the item pops out of the stone wall, then it crashes into the opposite end of the tunnel.
I did it! You pump your fists in celebration.
So, why do I suddenly feel like getting my hair cut?
You quickly dismiss this odd afterthought, retrieve the shield and strap it onto your arm. Lighter than it looks, the item gleams with a doubly vivid shimmer, as if thanking you. You wave it about, feeling powerful.
Now, to get out of this place…
You ponder only a short while before professing, “I have some political clout with the king and others in charge under him, which would come in handy if indeed the sword is under royal watch. I choose to retrieve the sword.”
Galumnuk smiles. He volunteers to get the shield, which leaves Celestine with the amulet. “We meet in Whitetail, town square, within a week?” the orcblood asks.
Celestine chimes, “Sounds good to me,” then asks for a goodbye-for-now hug from you and Galumnuk, which you gladly give. The party splits up; the orcblood heads southwest, while your elven friend takes a northerly route.
You hike back out of the swamp, which somehow takes far less effort than it took to get in. Maybe it’s just adrenaline, but then you wonder in turn how you could be excited about a quest with such dangerous implications.
And to think I used to just stick around Sungaze all day…
Your trek toward the capital proceeds straightforwardly at first; the sun beams down with force, nearly burning your fair skin over time, and you greet dozens of strangers on the path, most of whom tip their hats or wave pleasantly. But then, near dusk, you see a face you’d hoped to never see again…
Is that…?
There she is, whether you were ready for her or not. Complete with her matronly attire and sour disposition, former friend Helmina Wilburton, who spread rumors that the extent of your relationship with Bartleby was more salacious than it was, saunters toward you with a malicious smirk.
“Titania Vermouth…” she hisses, “Well, I’ll be. Still the church-tainting hussy you always were?”
What do you do?
I completely ignore and pass by Helmina.
Let’s settle this beef here and now.
Your excitement heightens with each item you earn, and you figure at this point that you might as well go for a clean sweep. You grip the wheel, and spin yet again…
Look up again at the nearest digital timepiece. Add together the ones digit in the hours and the ones digit in the minutes, then follow the corresponding link below.
The sum is less than 5.
The sum is between 5 and 9 inclusive.
The sum is greater than 9.
You watch at rapt attention as the wheel slows. You cross your arms and grumble as the section on which the boots sat before lands in fro
nt of you once again. The entire wheel glows red briefly.
Hrm…. Do I even get to try again?
You grip the wheel by the edge one more time. When you try to move it, the wheel won’t budge.
No more.
Shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth…
Giving the circumstances little power and even less thought, you stride right by Helmina, without so much as looking her in the eye.
The only bad thing to have come from going to the royal ball… maybe Bartleby had been right to be cautious.
“Hey!” Helmina shouts in her annoying back-country twang, “You come back here, ya hear? I’m talking to ya!”
She attempts to close the distance, but you increase your pace, staring straight ahead. Your pack drags you down and your legs ache, but this is the last thing you were hoping to deal with.
Helmina starts jogging backwards, her rotund body jiggling in grotesque cycles. “Not gonna stand up to what you did, huh? Now that your precious boy toy is gone, maybe the gods might think they’ve gotten their due.”
You summon all the emotional strength you can manage. Giving in to Helmina’s taunts would likely only fuel her fire, you theorize. To compensate, you stare at the beauty of the horizon as you walk, along which a flock of gulls soar in a graceful ‘V’.
Forgive, but don’t forget, Bartleby’d say.
You shake your head in astonishment and halt in place.