D&D 5E Tap Tap Tap

"Well," continued Clotbert, thoughtfully weaving a protective circle of holy water around himself, "even if we destroy them now with spells or weapons they will come back tomorrow night anyway, so what's the point?"

"The point is, we stay alive!" cried BoldItalic as he shot a shimmering green spray of acid from the end of his staff, then "Gotcha!" he shouted, as a manes struck by the acid dissolved into a formless cloud of reeking vapour.

Fingers emerged briefly from behind the fallen timbers he had ducked behind at the first sign of trouble, emptied his crossbow into the back of a manes that was confronting Rylnethaz, and lept nimbly out of the way of another as it turned on him, screeching wordlessly, and raked him with its claws. His jerkin was ruined and several surprising objects fell from its interior pockets but fortunately he seemed to be wearing something shiny underneath and he was unharmed. He would have some explaining to do later, though.

By now, Rylnethaz had recovered his composure and, though bleeding profusely from a gash on his face, sliced through two of the horrors with a single sweep of his sword and they were gone.

The battle over, Clotbert attended to Rylnethaz' wound. "There may be scarring," he said, "but I will make a compress of seaweed to keep the cut from going rotten." Rynethaz mumbled his thanks, though he had difficulty talking, while thinking that perhaps Clotbert's way of speaking fell a little short on the 'reassuring the patient' scale.

BoldItalic felt obliged to take command for the moment. "You can come out now, Fingers," he called. "And you can pick up that diamond necklace you dropped. And the rolled-up map. And the bunch of skeleton keys. You do know that they are illegal, don't you?"

"Is that what they are? Gosh. I was just keeping them for a friend," said Fingers innocently. No-one believed him, of course.

"Nice vest," continued BoldItalic. "Wool from a mithril sheep, was it?"

"I found it in a museum, over in the Shire," explained Fingers. "No-one wanted it, really."

"Hmm. Well now. We won't be getting much more rest tonight, so perhaps we should be heading for the mausoleum. Would you care to lead the way?" asked the old wizard as he made his staff blaze like a yellow torch, dispelling the shadows of the night.

And so Fingers took them down an overgrown path between bramble hedges to where the boarded-up doorway to a sombre stone edifice stood waiting. He gave it a heave with his shoulder and it yielded.

The smell of rot and stale air was felt immediately but it was not as overwhelming as one would think. Clotbert commented on this.

“It’s a confirmation that there have been others, going in and out of the tomb,” said Rylnethaz, “see here, the moss around the edges is not intact. Someone has been here recently.”

“Then, they may be still here or they might return at any moment,” Clotbert replied warily.

“BoldItalic, could you do something about this?” asked Rylnethaz.

“I will ward the entrance with a minor spell,” BoldItalic replied as he begun casting and tracing runes around entryway, “nothing can enter or leave without us knowing it know!”

With a final look around the stone remnants (ruins actually, no more than a few stones set in an orderly way) of the old surrounding buildings, they entered the tomb.

Before entering, Clotbert enchanted a rod with a light spell so that they could see in the darkness of the tomb.

The four adventurers went down the stairs and found themselves in a large burial chamber with two opposing exits. Various niches were cut on the rock where the dead would be laid to rest. Engraved scenes of otherworldly creatures covered every free surface. A faint droning sound could be heard from the eastern exit.

“Someone must be here already BoldItalic,” said Rylnethaz, “however this place must be larger than we initially thought. The sound does not seem to be very close.”

"Do we need to know the source of the humming noise down yonder?" wondered BoldItalic.

"Oh, yes," agreed Clotbert, and declaimed "'Tis folly to rush headlong into the unknown" as if he was reciting something he had learnt, which indeed he was.

"What we need," suggested Rylnethaz, is someone to creep stealthily down the eastern passage and investigate," and here he stared hard at Fingers.

"You mean, tread carefully along the passage alert for loose stones and tripwires, peer round the next corner, glance into the chamber full of demons practicing some hideous sacrificial rite but conveniently all with their backs turned, then come back and tell you about it, all in the dark?" asked Fingers

"Exactly. I knew you were right for the job."

Fingers scratched the back of one ear thoughtfully for a while. "Is is true that elves can see in the dark?", he asked artlessly.

"Yes, and?"

Fingers grared defiantly at Clotbert, then BoltItalic, then back to Clotbert again. Then he shrugged, screwed up his eyes tightly and said "Alright, turn me into an elf, then."

"Er, it's not exactly my ..."

"Um, Myrristra forbids it. Yes, definitely, I've read it somewhere. Thou shalt not turn halflings into elves."

Rynethaz sighed. "If you want a job done, ..."

They walked carefully down the eastern passage, two-by-two, with Rylnethaz and BoldItalic leading the way. BoldItalic tapped the flagstones with the end of his staff as they went along, because he remembered that in the stories that his grandfather had told him, that was what people did. Tap, tap, tap.

[ TAP! TAP! TAP! roared the audience ]

They side-stepped a suspiciously square flagstone with a large red circle painted on it. As they did so, a disembodied voice from somewhere far above them said something like "Darn!" but in a strange language that none of them knew. Clotbert felt a tingle in his spine, as if he was in the presence of some potent deity, but didn't mention it to the others.

The passage grew wider. Passing through a pair of great bronze doors that stood open, they found themselves on a small gallery overlooking a great cavern. The floor was far below them, the vaulted roof was far above, and the walls were out of sight in a mist that filled the cavern. The humming noise seemed to be coming from a row of huge grey things the size of whales, except they weren't whales. It wasn't obvious what they were, but they definitely weren't aquatic mammals. Here and there, gnomes in sunshine-yellow overalls and white helmets were busying about doing incomprehensble things, peering into crystal windows and pushing levers, or polishing brassy columns with greasy rags.

To one side of the gallery where the four adventurers stood in amazement there was a walkway like a castle parapet, running around the wall of the cavern. They followed it for a short way and came to a ramp that led upwards to another segment of the parapet. Painted on the ramp was the word 'N W O D'. BoldItalic studied for a moment, then turned round and bent down, trying to read it between his legs. Now it said 'CI O M N', which wasn't much better. "Perhaps it's a secret password?" suggested Clotbert.

“These don’t look like cultists at all to me, at least they don’t look like demon worshiping kind of cultists. They do seem rather preoccupied though,”Rylnethaz commented.

However, no one paid any attention to him because all three were busy figuring out what the letters meant.

“I think you should stop worrying about the letters, which by the way are the letters that form the word DOWN in reverse, and take a look at what those creatures are doing,” said Rylnethaz.

“I knew it was DOWN,” Fingers boasted, “I was just testing the others that’s all.”

“The ramp does go upwards though,” said Clotbert.

“This should be UP or rather PU to keep with the reversing trend,” said BoldItalic.

“By the glory of my ancestors, would you stop with these letters and finally take a look at those creatures? We will deal with the incongruity of directional conflict right after that.”

All four were now peering across the chamber, at the gnomes serving the strange grey things, trying to figure out what they were seeing.

“Any suggestions from my High Visier?”

“As a matter of fact yes, I do have a theory.”

"If I'm right," continued BoldItalic, "the big grey things are What Engines. Generators of Uncertainty. They power, not just the whether but the whither and the whence and everything else that is doubtful in the world. Inside of them are hundreds of multi-sided dice, constantly rolling. That's what makes the humming sound. They are the source of chaos."

Clotbert flourished his holy symbol. "Chaos is anathema," he declared. "We must destroy them."

"I agree, but it will not be easy. You have noticed the brass columns? Their roots go right down into the Abyss, the Nether Hells, the abode of demons. It is not enough to destroy what we see here on the floor of this cavern; like the tenacious stingweed, they will just grow back."

"You are talking about actually going down into the layers of the Abyss? Where all the demons live?" asked Fingers incredulously, "Couldn't we just, you know, stop the engines going round? Sort of spike the works or something?"

"If we were allowed to, yes, and if we could be sure that no-one would repair them, but I fancy the yellow-clad gnomes would soon have them running again. But, perhaps I am wrong and those engines down there are something else entirely."

"It would seem to be quite important to find out," thought Rylnethaz. "Perhaps we should question one of the gnomes?"

"That would seem sensible. We need to find a way down to the floor of this cavern."

"There is a small, nondescript door up there, a little way ahead," observed Fingers. "It might lead to an equally nondescript stairway."

"Well spotted. Isn't there some sort of inscription on it? I can't read it from here."

"It says 'To Page Fifty Eight', I think. Mean anything to anyone?"

"Not me."

Clotbert had a strong sense of déjà vu. Something about the phrase "nondescript door" and "equally nondescript stairway" nagged at the back of his mind. "I have a terrible premonition," he announced solemly, "that behind that dusty, half-forgotten door is a small landing where an unworldly monster guards an extradimensional spiral staircase."

"Not the ..."

"Possibly."

"This could be interesting."

"That's one way to describe it."

Fingers opened the door carefully and peered through. He saw a small square room with a spiral staircase just visible though an archway at the back. Obviously, the room was occupied.

Standing before a large mirror mounted on the left wall, was a creature with the head of a man, the wings of crocodile and the body of a lion. It was grooming its fur with a large hairbrush held, rather awkwardly, in one paw, and humming quietly to itself. Strangely, its reflection in the mirror seemed to be fast asleep.

"Ah, good, you're here at last," said the creature. It had a slightly odd voice, as if it were speaking from right to left, but that might have just been the acoustics playing tricks. "Do come in, all of you. Is my mane straight?"

"Your mane is quite splendid," said BoldItalic carefully. "Um, I hardly like to ask, but, are you a sphinx?"

"I am the mirror sphinx," was the reply. "I'm unique. Practically mythical, in fact." The sphinx put down its hairbrush and gave them its full attention. "I expect you have come for the riddle?"

Fingers was meanwhile staring at the mirror, trying to estimate how difficult it would be to remove it from the wall and how much it would be worth to a collector. It was a buyers' market but he might know someone who knew someone, he thought.

"Shall we get this over with?" the sphinx continued, giving Fingers a stern look as if it knew exactly what was going through the halfling's mind, and how the halfling should forget it, he wouldn't get ten yards, "Only, I have a date this evening and I don't want to be late. You are familiar with the procedure, I take it?"

"I think so," offered BoldItalic, "but could you explain it, for the benefit of the others?"

"You each ask me a riddle," explained the sphinx patiently, "and if I guess it correctly, you are free to use the Infinite Staircase."

"Have I got this right?" asked Clotbert, "We ask you the riddles?"

"Of course," replied the mirror sphinx. "Choose carefully," it warned, "for if I fail to guess it, not only will I disappear from this plane of existence but so will that doorway behind you, and you will stranded here, doomed to toil up and down the Infinite Staircase forever, visiting plane after plane but never getting home. Oh, and please don't even think about attacking me, Sir Rylnethaz Redshield, I've just had my claws lionicured."

"Perish the thought," said Rylnethaz, hastily removing his hand from his sword hilt, "Who wants to go first?"

"The Evening Moon," said the sphinx.

"I beg your pardon?"

"The Evening Moon. That's my answer. Now, each of you tell me your riddles and let's see if I've guessed right."

Rylnethaz mused for a moment. He quite liked making up riddles but he wasn't so sure that the others did, so he made a suggestion to give them all some wriggle room. "As you are anxious to be off, O Worthy Sphynx, to save time, would it be acceptable if we each made up one couplet of a larger riddle?"

The sphynx looked askance at this. It suspected Rylnethaz was trying to short-change it and thrashed its tail, as cats do when they are annoyed. "This is rather irregular. Oh, very well, but it will have to be good. I've waited about five thousand years for you people to get here, you know. Let's see now, you must give me four heroic couplets, each a complete clue to the riddle, and to make it more difficult they must be in iambic tetrameters so that each line has four feet, like me."

Rylnethaz looked at the others and they looked at him. "Got any idea what he's talking about?" asked Fingers. BoldItalic muttered something about "There's never a bard about when you need one." After a while, though, and after much head-scratching, they came up with a suitable riddle which Clotbert orated in a solemn voice.

A sister to your father's sun,
No maid am I, the child of none.

Towards the west forever drawn,
And never have I seen the dawn.

Though lofted in the dark'ning sky,
I have no wings and cannot fly.

Arriving near the close of day,
For all below I light the way.

What am I?

Click to expand...

The sphinx listened politely, then considered. Its tail went up, then down, then up again as it worked through the lines in its mind. "That's quite good," it said eventually. "The pun on son is fun but not overdone. Very well, you have all passed the test. You may use the Infinite Staircase freely. Now, if you will excuse me, I really must fly."

So saying, the sphinx bounded through the archway at the back of the room and disappeared up the staircase. Rather surprisingly, its reflection leapt out of the mirror and followed it.

"I wasn't expecting that," confessed BoldItalic.

"Sphinxes always go around in pairs," explained Clotbert. "They were created to guard temple gateways in ancient Er."

"Er, what?" asked Fingers.

"No, Er was a city in Mesopantamia. It was destroyed a long time ago and buried by the sands of the desert. I suppose some of the sphinxes escaped when their gateways fell into ruins. I'm glad we met one."

But Fingers wasn't really listening to Clotbert. "Give us a hand with this mirror," he said.

“Grab this end,” said Rylnethaz as he helped Fingers get the mirror of the wall, “It seems like a valuable piece, a collector’s item I’d say. All right gentlemen, since we have dealt with the sphinx, more or less, I think it would be a good time for a reassessment of our situation. It seems like we are saving the world anyway. On the other hand we can always liberate potential world destroyers from their valuables.”

At the mention of liberated valuables Fingers said emphatically “Amen to that” while lifting the mirror.

Clotbert replied in frustration, “That’s not how you use that phrase!”

“It has always worked for me,” said Fingers while stuffing the mirror in his oversized pack.

Rylnethaz ignored the philosophical debate and asked BoldItalic, “So, the Infinite Staircase, if I recall correctly, it connects various points in reality, even between planes, is that so?”

“Yes, as its name implies, the Staircase itself is essentially infinite. It leads to an infinite number of places on a number of infinite planes. Despite the Staircase’s endless nature, its planar connections are frequent enough so that nearly any destination accessible by the Stair can be reached in two or three days. A journey on the Staircase will take us over stairs of many different materials and constructions. Straight wooden stairs, spiral staircases wrought of metals or bamboo, and winding, curving stairs of marble, granite, or other stone are just a few examples. Landings are frequent on the Infinite Staircase so our most immediate concern should be falling off the stairs and the occasional hostile traveller.”

“Excellent information, so now we have to find the correct path and one of the doors that lead to the Abyss, preferably in the layer where the brass machinery originates from,” Rylnethaz concluded.

“That is more or less what we need. We will most probably have to consult some books or find a guide for this though. None of us has extensive knowledge of the place.”

“All right then, “said Rylnethaz,” let us move, to the Staircase!”

They went up the staircase for some way, without meeting anyone else. As they ascended, the steps changed from stone to wood. It was a curious kind of wood, like the wood of a gnarled oak tree. Eventually, they came to a platform of sorts where daylight was filtering in through tightly-woven tree branches.

At a touch, the branches parted like a curtain revealing a huge tree fork where some birds were nesting. Two white fluffy chicks the size of elephants were sitting in an untidy mass of branches and leaves, looking adorably cute. The chicks opened their beaks and made screeching noises, fighting on impossibly ungainly legs to get over each other to grasp the food that had suddenly appeared. The food consisting, that is, of Fingers, Clotbert, Rylnethaz and BoldItalic. The chicks weren't fussy. Nor were they suddenly so adorably cute.

BoldItalic quickly subdued them with a Sleep spell, warning the others that it would only hold for a minute. Fingers and Rylnethaz hastily unstrapped some lengths of rope from their packs and they all slid down to the ground, far below. It was not a moment too soon, for the parent birds returned, wheeling and calling in the sky above and, seeing the four juicy creatures on the ground, swooped down to snatch them in their mighty talons.

This was a problem.

“What are these things anyway, they are huge,” Fingers asked BoldItalic as they all run for the cover of the trees on the other side of the platform.

“Prehistoric hawks? I don’t know Fingers, does it really matter? Nomenclature is the least of our problems now. One of them is swooping in! Get ready!”

“Let’s be a little proactive,” said Rylnethaz, “Fingers, give me the bow and arrows!”

“Oh, ehm, yes, the bow and arrows, so it’s time for the bow and arrows eh?”

“What do you mean, of course it’s the time for the bow and arrows, you bought a brand new bow and arrows just in case we had to deal with something like that, where is it?”

They all hit the ground, barely avoiding the birds who circled above, ready for another dive.

Clotbert turned to BoldItalic and said, “I have a bad feeling about this, I mean not as bad as those birds swooping on us bad, but I don’t think we have a bow and arrows.”

“Er, well, I thought about what you had said at some point when we discussed military matters, that an army fights on its stomach and I thought it better to buy some more food instead. By the way, you said that the smoked venison was perfect yesterday, so it is money well spent and you can really fight well now,” said Fingers with an air of accomplishment.

Rylnethaz buried his face in his palm.

BoldItalic tried to comfort Rylnethaz, “Come on, it’s not that bad, I still have my spells and you can attack them when they get down. We can hit them when they fly by.”

“I liked the venison too,” said Clotbert.

“That is not the point!” both BoldItalic and Rylnethaz shouted to Clotbert.

“All right Fingers,” said Rylnethaz, “since you are such a renowned acrobat, besides being a gourmet chef, climb up that tree and when one of them flies by, I will try to slow it by attacking it and then you jump up on its back and deliver the killing blow. Then we are doing it again with the other.”

“I am doing what? That’s crazy!”

“Nonsense,” said BoldItalic, “it is a perfectly viable plan, get on with it because last I checked you didn’t even buy enough food, so we might as well do something about it now.”

And with that BoldItalic hurled a lightning bolt that seemed to hurt, disorient and slow down the first hawk. Fingers started climbing and grumbling all the way. Clotbert said a prayer of protection for all of them and prepared his mace. Rylnethaz adjusted the grip on his shield and sword and set himself for the attack.