Navero 57

• Navero, male human cleric, 6th level
• Dania, female 1/2-elf MU, 5th level
• Kortul, male human fighter, 6th level
• Kory, male elf bard, 5th level
• Topash, male elf druid, 5th level
• Serga, male half-ogre fighter, 4th level
• Lao Tsu, male human monk, 4th level

Now that we were all going down the long corridor, deeper into what we feared would be a wizard's lair, certain precautions had to be taken. Two lanterns were lit, with Navero carrying one and Kory carrying the other. Kortul and Kory went in the lead, with Kortul lightly tapping the floor before him with a long stick, as it seemed very likely that the corridor would be trapped.

Kory: "Hsst!" (Everyone stops.)

Dania: "What?"

Kory: "See that? The line in the ceiling? Going across the corridor about 10 feet ahead of us?"

Kortul: "See it. Trap door?"

Navero: "Why is it in the ceiling?"

Topash: "To drop something. Look around the floor."

Kory: "I don't see anything here."

Dania: "No, don't look. The trigger's magical. There's a field in the corridor. I'll bet if you enter it, the trapdoor will open and dump something out."

Kortul: "Where?"

Dania: "The field's about 5 feet in front of you. And it covers the whole corridor."

Topash: "Well, that's inconvenient. Is there any way we can wedge the trap door shut?"

Navero: "I have some iron spikes we could wedge into it."

Kory: "Hmmmmm, let's try it. Unless there's some way to dispel it?"

Dania: "Save our magic. Is there any way we can pound the spikes in quietly?"

Navero: "Um... no. Unless I cast Silence."

Topash: "Let's just try pounding them in, and hope we're far enough away from whatever's in there that it won't matter."

(Serga and Kortul, being the tallest, pound 6 iron spikes into the edge of the door.)

Kory: "Ok, ok, you can stop now. Kortul, throw the stick down the corridor and see what happens."

Kortul: (Tosses stick. A click sounds in the ceiling above us, and the trap door drops a hair, but nothing happens.)

Dania: "Great. Let's go."

We kept going, still on the alert. Kortul managed to tap the pressure plate before Kory spotted it, and a huge section of floor in front of him fell away into a pit.

Kortul: "Shit!"

Kory: "And you can quote me on that."

Topash: "We appear to be in luck. I think these traps were designed to catch people coming up the corridor, not coming down. That pit would have opened up underneath anything coming up. I think this is an escape tunnel, and the traps are designed to eliminate any pursuers."

Dania: "What about the last one?"

Topash: "There might be as password for it. If you don't say it, but run through, the trapdoor will probably fall down behind you and dump something into the corridor. Perhaps something sized to fall into that pit as well."

Dania: "And all the little pursuers go squish. What do we do about the pit?"

Navero: "It went down on a hinge. Maybe we can pull it up?"

Kortul: (Glares back.) "With what?"

Kory: "You know, pits that swing down on hinges usually swing back up by themselves when they reset."

Dania: "How do you know it'll reset?"

Kory: "Let's wait --

(Click comes from pit, and lid swings back up.)

Kory: (grin!) "...and see."

Kortul: (Steps over pressure plate to stomp directly on trapdoor. It does not budge.)

Dania: "Right. Everyone over the wire, and whatever you do, don't touch the pressure plate. You'll send everyone in front of you in. Wait, where exactly is this plate?"

Kortul: "It's... here."

Navero: "I have some chalk so we can draw a line around it."

Kory: (Draws line around large pressure plate.) "I think short people will have to jump."

Topash: "It does seem like it's sized to catch people running."

Serga: "Is it too big for me to jump?"

Kory: "Uh... how far can you jump?"

Serga: "I'm not very good at it."

Navero: "I think you can just step across."

Dania: "Fine. Let's go."

One way or another, everyone got across and we continued our careful way down the corridor. The pit cover shook noticeably under our feet, especially with Serga on it, but did not drop. This was turning out to be a very long corridor; about 100 feet separated the first two traps, and the third trap was 130 feet beyond the second. We also didn't spot the third trap before setting it off, but again, it turned out that it didn't matter.

Kory: "AHHHH!!!" (Leaps back and climbs up on top of Kortul as flames leap out of the walls and blast down the corridor, away from us.)

Topash: "A fire trap!"

Kory: "Oh, really?!? I thought it was just a dragon that had Mexican for dinner!"

Lao Tsu: "But that is not possibre. Dlagons ale cleatules of spilit, and consume nothing but dewdlops flom frowels."

Topash: "I take it you've never met a dragon."

Lao Tsu: "I have not been so foltunate."

Kortul: (Shoves Kory off his head.)

Navero: "It was aimed away from us. If we find out what triggered it, we can avoid it just like the pit trap."

Dania: "Yeah. Kory, what'd you do to set it off?"

Kory: "Just minding my own business. Most unfriendly. Check for magic."

Dania: "Yeah, magic field in the corridor. It's between 2 and 4 feet in front of Kortul."

Navero: "But the flames were further down the hall than that."

Topash: "Obviously, to catch pursuers. The flames will turn on when we're in the field. If we enter the field one at a time, then wait for them to die down, we can proceed."

Kortul: "How far down is safe?"

Topash: "That's a very good question, Kortul. Unfortunately, I don't have a good answer, so we'll just have to send someone down to see. Any volunteers?"

Kortul: "grunt" (Stomps into sensor field, waits until flames turn off, then stomps about 40 feet down corridor. The rest of us can just see

him at the edge of the lantern's glow.)

Kory: "Ok, be ready to run!" (Enters field. Flames shoot down corridor, obscuring Kortul from view.)

Topash: "Kory, move forward another foot."

Kory: "Oops." (Flames flicker down after a bit. As they do, Kortul is momentarily visible in the glow, standing a little further away than

before.) "Looks like 50 feet is a good distance."

Topash: "Mm-hmm. Go ahead, and we'll follow."

Kory: "But not too closely."

Topash: "I'll make sure Dania stays where she is. Go on."

Dania: "Hey!"

One by one, we made our way through the trap. It did occur to us that we must be making an unholy amount of noise, and would lose any surprise advantage we might have hoped for, but there also didn't seem to be anything we could do about it without completely wearing out our magic-user in the first corridor of the dungeon. Kortul did go ahead to scout a bit while everyone else walked through the fire trap, and reported that at the end of the corridor was a large room with "faces in the walls."

And indeed, some 60 feet beyond the fire trap trigger was a doorway, into a room about 40 feet across. The room was hexagonal, with a doorway in each wall, and a face carved into the wall around each doorway. To enter the doorway was to go into a face's mouth. All the faces were humanoid, but each was different; all of them were wearing various expressions of rage, disdain, fury, or confusion. One in particular, the one to our immediate right, looked like the Rev. Jim Ignatowski from "Taxi" after a particularly bad night.

We couldn't see any more traps, so we wandered into the room and looked through the doorways. Through each, we could see more corridor going out to the range of our lanterns. All of the corridors looked equally unused, there was nothing on the floor or ceiling, and all was quiet. At least until Lao poked his nose through one of the doorways.

Doorway N: "WOOOOOOHHH! TURN BACK!! THIS IS NOT THE WAY!!"

Lao Tsu: (Jumps about 7 feet due up and retreats to the center of the room.)

Party: "WHAWAZAT?!"

Lao Tsu: "In my tempre, the statues would speak to those who they consideled to be enrightened. Nevel befole have I seen such a thing take prace. I do not think I have achieved enrightenment yet, so I am in gleat confusion."

Dania: "That doorway shouted 'Turn back, this is not the way.'"

Kory: "I knew those pointy ears were good for something. I wonder what this one says." (Pokes arm through another doorway)

Doorway NE: "WOOOOOOHHH! TURN BACK!! THIS IS NOT THE WAY!!"

Dania: "They're just programmed to say that. Probably a Magic Mouth."

Topash: "At least it didn't try to bite you."

Kortul: (Jumps through another doorway into the corridor beyond.)

Doorway SW: "WOOOOOOHHH! TURN BACK!! THIS IS NOT THE WAY!!"

Kortul: "Just make noise."

Dania: "Just like Kory. Which way do we go?"

Kory: "Hey!"

Topash: "One way seems as good as another. Obviously, this is meant to confuse and disorient us, so Navero, be very careful about keeping the map."

Navero: "I will. 'With caution and care, needs not beware.'"

Topash: "Uh... yeah. Let's try that one."

GM: Aren't you even going to try the Jim Ignatowski one?

Topash: No, we've decided to go south-west.

Navero: I figure we might start out there, as its right next to the one we came in.

GM: But the Jim Ignatowski one is too, right on the other side. C'mon, try it? Please?

Dania: I'll bet it's trapped.

GM: Look, you can't, I mean, look, it's not trapped! They're all the same, but just try it?

Lao Tsu: Jeff, you usually don't steer us like this.

GM: You don't have to actually go down the corridor, just go in the doorway and trigger the door, ok?

Topash: Oh, very well.

Navero: Sayonara, babyface.

Topash: "Just to be sure, let me look down here." (Looks down SE corridor.)

Doorway SE: "WOOOOOOHHH! TURN BACK!! THIS IS NOT THE WAY!!"

Dania: "Be sure of what?"

Topash: "I don't know, I just had this feeling. Let's go." (Party goes off down SW corridor.)

Serga: Jeff, you'd been rehearsing that Jim Ignatowski impersonation all week, hadn't you?

GM: You'll never understand the depths of the sacrifices I make to make this game worthwhile.

Navero: Are we sure we want to? Some of them might involve Thor. (Thor is the GM's pet iguana. See Ch. 22-23)

GM: They do not involve Thor.

Topash: But Thor is a god. You must sacrifice to Thor.

GM: Ok, I sacrifice meal worms to Thor. That's all.

Dania: Does Thor get thor about that?

Topash: Not if Thor utheth a good lubricant.

GM: Ok, ok. There will be no more puns about the GM's iguana, he gets enough of them already. Continuing down the corridor, you see...

(Author: Daniel Parsons, parsons@chem.ucdavis.edu)

"I AM THOR!"

"Want thome athpirin?"