Making enemies and friends

Yesterday we finished up going through the room. The half orc with the broken arm (she's still giving me dirty looks) tried to escape, but Saul caught her. It's hard to do anything when you have a broken arm.

While going through the wizard's room, Anna accidentally set off a trap. Fire exploded everywhere. She managed to shield her face, but it burned her pretty good. Audry did the "lay on hands" paladin trick, but we still had to give her a couple of super healing potions before she was better. Still, it shook her up pretty bad. She sat in a chair for a while, nursing a headache.

Our little half orc friend thought it was pretty funny. I drew my sword and nudged her broken arm with the flat of the blade. She cried out in pain.

"Hah hah hah," I said. "That's pretty damn funny, isn't it?" Audry poked me in the arm and gave me a dirty look.

Saul held up one of the potions. "Want one?"

She remained silent for a moment. Finally, she nodded.

"Then tell us about the traps in this room," Marc said. "And yours."

She tried to stand, and winced. Finally, she agreed. She pointed out the traps on the chest in her room and the runes on a map in the wizard's room. She knew nothing about the side room where the wizard retreated or the neat little skull in the box. We checked everything to be sure. She hated us, that much was obvious, but she was defeated and she knew it.

Finally, we gave her the healing potion. She winced as her arms snapped back into place. She still had some minor wounds here and there, but her arm was pretty much better. We let her go through the side passage and to freedom. She refused to go through the main part of the temple.

"She probably doesn't want to face the denizens of the temple," Saul said. "Means she won't tell anyone about this. Too much shame."

"Cry me a river," I said. They laughed at that one. Old sayings are new ones in this world.

We found a lot of cool stuff. Marc managed to remove magical runes from a map on the wall. The map showed this level, or much of it anyway. A triangular room nearby showed a set of stairs. We didn't know if they went up or down. Hopefully they went down and we could find the leaders of this place.

We also found a bunch of potions, a large book that Marc said was magical, and a bunch of wand. All but one turned out to be useless. What that wand did, though, Marc couldn't be sure.

We found a magical mirror within a black cabinet, but it broke when we tried to get to it (oops). Marc hit the jackpot. He found the spell books for our mage friend. He was like a kid in a candy shop at that point.

Speaking of kid in a candy shop, Anna found gobs of jewelry, gems, coins, and other valuables. The bad news--there was too much of it to carry with us. Pouting, she gathered as many gems as she could (and us--Saul and I became pack mules).

The two biggest things were a crystal ball and the golden skull. Well, the crystal ball was a bad thing, that's for sure. Marc stared into its depths briefly. I saw colors swirl within. Suddenly, he smashed it against the wall. He fell into a chair, shaking his head.

"What'd you see?" Anna asked.

Marc stared at the shards of glass on the floor. "Trapped."

"Guess I should have looked at it more closely," Anna said.

"You wouldn't have discovered anything amiss," Marc said. "It was a magical trap. It caused my will to be focused upon...something."

"On what?" I asked.

"A woman," Marc said. "I know that much. Whoever it was had a very powerful mind."

"Well if she were a woman you'd expect that," Anna said. Marc said nothing. Anna went to him and put her hand on his. "You gonna be okay?"

He looked at her and nodded. "This individual was powerful, but I got away soon...not soon enough."

"She knows we're here," Saul said. "Whoever she is."

"I believe she is close," Marc said. "She tried to convince me to join the temple For a split second it seemed agreeable."

"Agreeable?" Audry asked. "You would never do such a thing."

"Like I said, she was a powerful mind," Marc said. "I fear they are aware of us now, or at least me."

"Well, we've killed enough of them they probably know something's wrong," Saul said. "So whoever this individual was they know nothing more."

"I hope so," Marc said.

We took a good look at the skull after that. A skull of gold big enough to fit in my hand. Well, it looked like it anyway. I didn't actually pick it up. I tried to, but Audry stopped me.

"It's evil," she said. "No one touches it."

I was about to say that just because it looks nasty doesn't mean that it is. Kind of like spaghetti. I then remembered that Paladins had a since for this kind of thing. If she said it was evil, then it was evil. We left it in its case. Then I remembered a line from the poem.

Many now have gone to die
in water, flame, in earth, or sky.
They did not bear the key of old
that must be found--the orb of gold.

"So this orb is a key?" Audry asked. "A key to what?"

"They talk about a key throughout the poem," Marc said. "A key without a lock they made, of gold and gems, and overlaid with spells, I believe it went."

"Don't forget the last line," I said. "But with the key, you might succeed in throwing down Her power and greed. Destroy the key when you are done and then rejoice, the battle won."

"What, you memorized it?" Saul asked.

"Yeah, it takes so long to get from one place to another around here and I don't have a book." I thumped the iron box containing the gold skull. "Well, whatever we have to do with this, we should definitely keep it with us."

I stuck it in the bottom of my bag and off we went. We had decided that we should check out the stairs in the triangular room (the map seemed to indicate this was the third level, and there were apparently two more). They were ungodly steep and narrow. At the top of the stairs was a trap door that opened up into a small, circular room with one passage leading out. We made our way down the hall and through a door. The passage on the other side of that door eventually led into the triangular room.

Every wall had eyes. Literally, they were painted on every wall. Some eyes looked human, others looked less human. Some eyes looked like a blind man's eyes. They were all of different colors. One thing they had in common--they all stared with a sense of anger or fear. Trash was strewn everywhere, and it smelled like someone used it as a bathroom.

There were four doors in the room and, as the map indicated, there was a set of stairs. The stairs went up, not down as we had hoped.

"Well, at least we know how to get out of here now," Saul said.

It was then that one of the doors opened. A massive humanoid stepped out. The elongated facial features and green mottled skin raised no doubts about what it was.

"What? You are intruders?" it asked.

"Uh, no, of course not," Anna said, even as she dropped her pack on the floor and dug for oil. "We're supposed to be here."

He wasn't in the mood for jokes, or maybe the flask of oil was a hint. In any case, the troll let out a long howl. It sounded like Godzooki doing his call for Godzilla, only in this case it didn't bring Godzilla, it brought out some bugbears and ogres from behind two other doors.

I'd like to say hilarity ensued, but combat ensued instead. The troll charged us first. I stepped aside and lopped off its legs. Anna broke the bottle of oil over its skull and Marc followed up with a spell. A jet of flames issued forth from his hands. It engulfed the troll completely. It flopped around while we turned to face the bugbears and ogres. That would be eight bugbears and four trolls.

There was a time when this would have worried me, but we were getting good at this. In real life, you don't exactly level up at the end of the day. But you do get better. I could never have held up my end of the fight when I first got here. Now, it was just a day at the office.

In the end the room smelled like burning troll (reminiscent of a burned tator tots) and dead bugbears and ogres. We didn't come out of it unscathed, though. Healing potions were passed around. Next time, I thought, we need to bring a priest. I looked inside the potion bag. We still had a good number, but we were running low.

The last door in the room opened up, and out stepped the biggest, ugliest man I have ever seen. He was easily over twelve feet. He ducked as he came out of the room, scratching his exposed belly. He carried a massive club.

"What go on here! You mess around and wake me up? I--" Finally, the big man took a look around the room. "Wha--? You kill all dem?"

"Yeah," I said. I took a step forward and pointed my sword at him. Blood still dripped from the end of it. "You want some?"

"Sum o' what?"

"Some of what your friends got?" I took another step, and Andre the giant backed away. He stopped when he hit the wall.

"I no 'cause trouble," he said. "Look, I sorry. I got tired of guard stuff. It boring, and there no money. That grubby cook troll not feed me enough. It bad. Here good."

"You were a guard?" Audry asked. "But not now?"

"No, I no do no more," he said. His voice bellowed like a tuba. "I get half uh what these guys get, and then me happy."

"I get it," Anna said. "He was a guard and ran away. Didn't run far, though."

"I run far 'nuff," he said.

"And how far would that be?" Marc asked.

"Upstairs. I was on last level with all da bosses." He picked his nose. "I go to next level but all dose priests get mad and tell on me."

"Fire and water priests?" I asked. He nodded.

"That's the second level," Marc said. "The first had the earth priests. So this is the third level, and there's one more below us. I believe our friend in the tower said there were three levels."

"Der is," the giant said. "No one go there, though. No one know how or where it is."

"If they don't know where it is or how to get there," Audry said, "how do they know its there?"

"'Cause she's there."

"She?" I asked. "What she would this be?"

"Uh, I not say," the giant said. "She hear and get mad. They say she close. This all used to be hers, but long ago when big fight go on, she get stuck here and can't leave."

"The battle of Emridy Meadows," Marc said. "What do you know of her?"

"She powerful," the giant said. "She like mold and stuff. And mushrooms. Not me, though. I ate mushroom once and got sick. Then I saw funny colors. I tried to touch them but they went away and--"

"You said she's powerful," Saul said. "Is she a mage?"

"Well, maybe." The giant shrugged his gigantic shoulders. "I hear she do spells and stuff. She not supposed to be here, though."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"She from elsewhere. Some kinda pit that's not here."

"A pit that's not here?" Marc thought for a moment. "Do you mean another plane of existence?"

"Oh yeah," he said. "Head rack say something about that. He big boss, know everything. He say she from pit. He call it a biss."

"A biss?" Audry said. "Do you mean the Abyss?"

The giant nodded thoughtfully.

"A goddess?" Saul said. "Maybe that's what you sensed in that crystal ball."

"Makes sense," Marc said. "There's a goddess trapped here somewhere."

"Dunno 'bout that," the giant said.

"How many guards are there on the boss level?" Anna asked. I tried not to snicker. She sounded like a gaming geek (like me).

"Whole bunches," he said. "Bugbears, ogres, more giants like me, couple-three ettins."

"Ettins?" I asked.

"Uh huh," the giant said. "Like one down the hall."

"Down which hall?" I asked.

"Duh one you come from?" he asked. "You not see him?"

"How many of each are there?" Audry asked.

"Each what?"

"Guards," Anna said. "How many bugbears, how many ogres...."

"Oh, lots," he scratches his head. "More bugbears than I got fingers and toes. Lots o' ogres and hill giants. Lots." He glanced at the staircase. "Can I go?"

We looked at each other and shrugged. The boy was about as sharp as an egg and we probably got all out of him we could.

"You promise not to tell anyone we're here?" Saul asked.

He nodded.

"Good," I said. "Now beat it."

And he did just that. He took off running toward the staircase, ducking as he entered it. The ground shook as he pounded up the stairs. He grunted as his head bumped on the ceiling at one point, but he kept going. After a few moments, we no longer heard him...and then we, heard his footsteps again.

"Did he forget something?" Anna asked.

Saul put his hand on the ground. "It's coming from the other way." He pointed down the hall.

"Didn't Gigantor say there was an Ettin down there?" I said.

My question was answered almost immediately. "What all dis racket!"

The voice came from down the hall. The footsteps got louder. We darted into the closest room and shut the door. Part of me wanted to actually see an Ettin. Two-headed giants sounded cool--except when they're squashing you, I suppose.

We managed to get the door shut just as the Ettin squeezed into the room. He grunted as he forced his way through the human-sized door. "Ah! They dead!"

"Who kill?" a second voice said. It sounded remarkably like the first.

"Is he talking to himself?" I whispered.

Anna lay on the floor, looking underneath the door. "Probably talking to his other head."

"Other head?" I asked.

"Yeah," Saul said. "They're giants with two heads. Didn't you know?"

"They didn't talk about that in my biology class in school, no."

"Do we wait here or do we take him?" Audry asked.

"How about we just leave." He pointed behind us. There was a passage in the wall. A door to the passage hung open. It was designed to look like part of the wall.

We left the room as the Ettin continued to talk to itself...or each other, I guess it depends on the perspective. We shut the secret door behind us. The hall continued for another twenty feet or so and opened into another room. Again, it looked like a secret door that had been opened earlier.

Dung and trash covered the floor. In one corner there was a pile of garbage that looked like someone had been laying in it. There was a single door in the room, other than the secret door.

"The troll's room, I take it," Marc said. He gestured at the door. "Wonder what that's for."

At first I thought he meant the door. Then I saw what hung next to the door. On a large hook hung a key on a ring.

Anna walked over to it and examined it for a moment before taking it. "Let's find out."

From the secret passage we heard the Ettin mumbling something. It sounded like he was still in the triangular room, but we didn't want to take chances. We shut the secret door and left the room through the main door. It led into a room that looked like a twenty-sided die. There were a number of doors on the diagonal walls and one against a normal wall. There were also stairs leading up.

Cool. Another way out of here.

We took the door against the normal wall. Beyond it were stairs leading down a short way and opened into a big room with four doors, each with a big lock. There was a huge pit in the room that looked like it might have been used as a fire pit, but it was cold. There was a big kettle sitting over it. I didn't even want to know what was in there.

"So," Anna said. "Which door does this key open."

We heard footsteps getting closer. Big ones, the kind that might belong to a giant. Or an ettin.

"Better find out fast," Saul said.

Anna went to the door closest to the stairs. She tried the key. The door opened right away.

"Door number one," Marc said. He sounded like Monty Haul, only I doubted there was much of a prize behind any of these doors. "Our lucky day."

We went through the door and shut it behind us. A set of stairs led upward for a short ways and the hallway leveled out. And, like all the halls around here, it twisted and turned for a while.

"How does anyone find there way around here?" Anna asked. "Why make it so complex?"

"Tactically sound," Saul said. "People who know this place can find their way around easy. People who shouldn't be here get lost easily, making it easier to track them down."

"You mean people like us?" I said.

The hall split up. I went "eenie meenie miney moe" and chose the left passage.

"What does that mean?" Audry asked.

"What?"

"Eenie meenie...." Anna said.

"Miney moe," I finished. "Just a ritual."

"Ritual for what?" Marc asked.

"For choosing something when you don't know what to choose," I said.

"Why not just choose something," Saul said.

"What fun is that?" I said. "Look, you want to go another way?"

"No, no," Saul said. "I suppose this way is as good as any."

They kept looking at me strangely as we followed the hall. It turned once and kept going, but I stopped everyone about twenty feet from the turn. I saw something, something on the wall. Something was different about the wall here.

I smiled. Oh yeah.

I felt along the wall. It didn't take long to find the pressure place in the floor. A section of the wall swung open.

"Sweet. My first secret door."

"Not bad," Saul said.

"For a human," Anna said, and winked.

We went through the secret door. The hall beyond turned once and opened into a black stone room. Against one wall stood a wooden alter. It had been painted white. Some kind of bowl stood on stand nearby, and silver lamp hung from over the altar. A white cloth covered the altar.

"Looks peaceful," Anna said.

"It's not," Audry said. "This whole place is evil."

"What about that?" Saul pointed toward a wall. In a little niche in the wall stood a silver statue of some sort. "Isn't that the symbol of Pholtus?"

"Pholtus of the blinding light," Audry said. "Doesn't mean this place is holy. The people of the Pale worship him. They have a saying: cold weather is a sign from Pholtus to throw another heretic on the fire."

"You think this place is evil then?" I asked.

She nodded. "Not because of that, though." She pointed to the back of the room. A large cross made of silver hung from the wall, but it was the wrong shape to be any kind of Christian cross. "I can sense it, over here. This place reeks of evil."

"Look at this," Marc said. He pointed at the cloth on the alter. Words were printed on it:

Venerate this shrine of Good, then haste away, all ye of true and Good faith!

"Sounds like they are mocking those of faith," Marc said.

Saul looked behind the altar. He ran his fingers along the wall.

"Let me guess," I said, just as Saul pushed open a section of wall.

"They love their secrets," Audry said. She leaned into the room and flinched. "There is evil everywhere." She went in anyway, her sword at the ready.

We followed her. The hexagonal room had no other exits or decorations. A skeleton laid on the ground near the door, dressed in a rotting robe. In the center of the room stood a black, iron coffin.

"Not good," I said. "You know what they got in those things?"

They looked at me. "Vampires?" Anna suggested.

I nodded. "Anyone got a wooden stake?"

"Fresh out," Saul said.

We went to the coffin. It stood open. I imagine a vampire wouldn't have to worry about much here. Inside was a man dressed in black. He appeared dead. Through his chest was a large, wooden stake.

"That makes no sense," Marc said. "He's too fresh."

"Shouldn't he turn to dust, or something?" Anna asked.

"The stake keeps him from movement only," Marc said. "If it is removed he will be animate again." He rubbed his chin. "Then this must have happened recently. His body would decay if he did not feed often."

"So if he was staked not long ago," I said, "where's the blood."

"Good question," Marc said. "I have an idea. Everyone stand by the door please."

We did as he was told. Marc joined us. At the door, he spoke arcane words and formed patterns in the air with his fingers. Abruptly, a burst of light emanated from the coffin along with a brief hum.

"It's safe now," Marc said. "I merely didn't want the spell to disrupt any of our magic."

"You think it's an illusion?" Saul asked.

"Yes," Marc said. He walked toward the coffin. "Or it was one." He stopped at the coffin. "Oh my."

We went to stand by Marc. Inside the coffin the body of the vampire had disappeared. In its place was the body of a man. He wore plate mail with an emblem I did not recognize. He was young and handsome, and his face had color.

Audry put a hand to his neck. "He has a pulse." She looked at him and caught her breath. "This is the symbol of Veluna. Gods, you know who this looks like?"

We shrugged.

"This looks like Prince Thrommel, the Grand Marshall of Furyondy and Provost of Veluna," Audry said. She touched the emblem on his chest. "He is a Paladin."

We stared at the young man. I thought I could see him breathing.

"I guess that eenie meenie miney moe thing works pretty well," Anna said.