In The Cards

Regular monsters are one thing. All dungeons have those, to some extent. What you really need to watch out for is a dungeon built by somebody who was trying to be creative. Then there’ll be odd riddles, annoying word puzzles, strange challenges and if you’re really unlucky, an endless and boring maze.

Excerpt from ‘Ruminations Of A Master Bard’

Past the Dragon Chamber the corridor led past four closed doors and into a room where two giant stone heads watched the adventurers with what Zaerini thought was mute disapproval. The reaction of the two uncommonly large ghouls that shambled towards her was even more hostile, and they turned out to be quite a bit more dangerous than the normal breed. They sort of remind me of Abduh, Rini thought. Oh gods. I almost miss him. Shows how much I want to get out of this place, I guess.

“There are more inscriptions here,” Yeslick said as he walked up to the large stone heads. “More dwarven runes. Let me see. The first one says: ‘Down four tunnels lie four foes. Kill all four and the game begins.’”

“We did pass four doors,” Jaheira said, frowning. “I suppose these ‘foes’ can be found there. I do not like the sound of that ‘game’ though.”

“Me neither,” Rini said, “but we can’t really do anything except try to be prepared for the worst. What do the others say, Yeslick?”

“Well,” the dwarf answered, “the second reads: ‘Ooze only parts before blows and spells, but evaporates in the cleansing fire.’”

“Hm,” Edwin said, rubbing the bridge of his nose thoughtfully. “That reminds me of something, but I can’t recall what at the moment. Still, between us we have several spells that use fire, so we should manage.”

“And arrows!” Imoen eagerly piped up. “I’ve got lots of fire arrows as well.”

“The third inscription,” Yeslick went on, “says: ‘Fire, ice, slime and wind. All must perish to continue. She who fires flame must be killed before her bow is drawn.’”

Zaerini thought about this for a moment. “So it seems Durlag is up to his usual tricks,” she said, her golden eyes flashing with annoyance. “Looks like we must fight these ‘four foes’ made up of ‘fire, ice, slime and wind’ in order to continue. The ‘slime’ monster we need to use fire against. I wonder who ‘she who fires flame’ is. Doesn’t sound like anybody I want to meet.”

“There is one more,” Yeslick said, sounding puzzled. “Strange…this I do nay understand at all… It says: ‘Queening can change a match – much for the worse if you’re the other player.’ What would that mean, I wonder?”

“Oh, honestly!” Edwin said with a superior look on his face. “Don’t you know anything? It’s obviously a reference to chess, the monarch of all games. If you can maneuver one of your pawns to the eighth square, then it becomes a queen, the most powerful piece of the game. (As I certainly know. Ah, it’s been so long since I played a good game. I’ll never manage to win if I don’t get to practice regularly.”

“But there’s no chessboard here,” a confused Imoen said. “What does chess have to do with any of the rest of it?” Nobody was able to make a good suggestion, and eventually it was decided that they would simply have to brave the four challenges regardless.

The first one proved easy enough. In a cold and frosty cave lay the old bones of what seemed to have been a large pack of wolves, as well as a polar bear. They had obviously been dead for a very long time. “Poor beasts,” Jaheira said, her face tight with anger. “They were shut up in here with no food or water. Durlag’s insanity was more far-reaching than I would have thought.”

“And even if he had fed them,” Rini added, “it’s not as if they could have survived for hundreds of years. Looks like there’s not much of a challenge here anymore. Let’s try the next one.”

The second cave seemed to be empty at first. There was just a platform of bare rock, with a deep chasm surrounding it on all sounds, and the near deafening sound of rushing wind. However, it soon became all too obvious that the emptiness was an illusion.

“Look,” Imoen suddenly said. “Can you see that? It’s like the air is…rippling…”

Zaerini tried to see what her friend meant. Yes…there was something there. Like the shimmer in the air one might see on a very hot summer day, almost invisible. And then the air was pushed out of her lungs with a * whoosh * as something hit her in the stomach, and invisible fists of air pummeled her from all sides. Then there was a loud screeching noise, and the dazed bard looked up to see a strange creature hovering in the air above her. It looked a lot like a small wyvern, but it was strangely insubstantial, as if it was made from the air itself. It also had very sharp teeth.

The fight proved a difficult one, and in the end only strength and speed enhancing spells saw them through. The invisible creatures obviously couldn’t be targeted by spells, and hitting them with weapons proved almost equally difficult. The wyvern-like beast had a nasty bite that turned out to be poisonous, and thick skin that was almost impossible to pierce. Still, in the end they all fell, with Rini and her friends still mostly unharmed. And to think that Immy and I almost got ourselves killed by an ogre before we reached the Friendly Arm, the bard thought. Guess we’ve come a long way since then…

The third cave was the nastiest so far. Slimy green goo dripped down the walls and lay in deep puddles on the floor. “Oh yuck!” Imoen exclaimed. “That stuff had better not mess up my new boots.”

“It can do worse than that if you let it,” Edwin said. “Observe and learn.” He touched the end of his staff to one of the green puddles, and the wood hissed where it touched the slime. “You would be lucky if you had any feet left.”

“There is a p-path between the puddles,” Khalid said. “It l-looks very narrow but I t-think we should be able to follow it.” Navigating between the dangerous puddles of slime was quite nerve-wracking Rini thought. She kept expecting to make a mistake and feel her toes starting to dissolve. Possibly even her legs. Softpaws had climbed into her backpack and refused to set a single paw on the ground.

I’m not risking my paws, the cat informed her. You carry me.

I suppose I can’t blame you. I just wish there was somebody who’d carry .

Eventually the path widened and the footing became safer. The adventurers felt a short moment’s relief. The shortness was mostly caused by the fact that they now found themselves face to slime with a very large puddle of living ooze that came sliding towards them across the ground, spitting generous dollops of searing slime at them. One of them hit Jaheira in the throat, and the druid was hardly able to bite back a scream of pain.

“NOOOO!” Khalid screamed, charging at the slime with his sword drawn. “Don’t touch her! Don’t you dare t-touch her!” For a moment it seemed like the ooze was going to succumb easily to his wild flurry of blows. But then, to her horror, Zaerini saw it bubble and twitch, stretch and grow, and then split itself in two, each one identical to the first.”

“Of course!” Edwin exclaimed. “Now I remember! It’s a Fission Slime, it will divide when it’s close to death.”

Fire, Rini thought, remembering the verse outside. That’s it. “Khalid!” she screamed. “Pull back! Only fire will kill it!” She started launching fire arrows at one of the slimes, Imoen following her example as Edwin started an incantation. Khalid was just able to get out of the way before a large fireball landed on the two slimes, wounding them severely. A few more fire arrows finished them off for good.

“Have I mentioned recently,” Rini said as the now healed Jaheira started tending to a nasty burn on her leg, “how much I loathe Durlag? It’s a pity he’s already dead, I’m very tempted to kill him myself. I hope he really is buried down here, I have this wild urge to dance on his grave.”

“Only one challenge left now,” the druid said. “Let us hope the last one will prove less dangerous than this.”

In the fourth and final cave rivers of molten lave surrounded the path that one must walk in order to enter it, and the heat made it difficult to even breathe properly. As she entered, Zaerini turned towards her best friend and was startled when she couldn’t see Imoen anywhere.

“Don’t worry!” the thief’s cheerful voice said right next to her ear. “I’m here! Thought a little potion of invisibility could give me an extra edge, there aren’t enough shadows here.”

“Oh. Well, that’s a good idea. Apart from the scaring me half to death bit.”

“Aw, don’t be like that! I thought it was fun. You should have seen the look on your face, you nearly jumped out of your skin…”

Inside the cave were what at first glance appeared to be human beings. However, Rini was quite sure that she’d never seen any humans with glowing skin like these had, and especially not radiating intense heat that made it painful to even go close to them. As they noticed the adventurers they turned as one, their eyes flickering like fire. Most of them were male and armed with swords, but there was one woman, and she carried a bow that glowed with a white fire so bright that it hurt to look at it.

She who fires flame must be killed before her bow is drawn, Zaerini thought. I really don’t want to know what happens if she manages to get a shot off. Probably we all wind up as a tiny heap of mixed ashes.

The woman was over on the other side of the room, and it was obvious that her guards didn’t intend to let anybody get close enough to hurt her. She smiled lazily, raising her bow, as the warriors attempted to smash their way through the enemy ranks, fighting against heat as well as steel.

And then the fiery woman stumbled forwards; a very surprised and pained look on her face as burning blood welled out of a wound in her back. Imoen appeared behind her, looking very pleased with herself despite the heat that assaulted her. “See?” she cried out. “Told you it would come in handy. Wasn’t that a really nifty move? First time I manage to pull it off!”

Zaerini didn’t have the time to answer. She could feel a twisting and tugging sensation at the center of her abdomen, and heard an unearthly voice booming throughout the chamber.

You have come far, but more trials still wait. The final of the four has fallen, and now the game will begin in earnest.

Then the world started spinning around her, shifting and changing, and once the disorientation eased up a bit she found herself in a very strange place indeed, and a totally unexpected one.

“Well, what do you know,” Edwin said as he looked about himself. “It seems that Durlag is a more hospitable host than we had thought. Deranged, to be sure, but eager to provide some classy entertainment.”