Dongle the Dungeoneeror--CLOSED--Adventure #52
- Thread starter Gray Shade
- Start date
Gray Shade
First Post
After a quarter hour or so of searching, my master had turned up no further clues. We were left with basically what we'd had when we entered the keep:
Two entrances from outside, one through the old "secret" door in the armory (now boarded up), and (if we could find a way up then back down) the chimney of the fire tower.
Two entrances from outside, one through the old "secret" door in the armory (now boarded up), and (if we could find a way up then back down) the chimney of the fire tower.
Gray Shade
First Post
Using his crowbar (produced from my Cumberbun of Holding), Dongle easily pried the boards out of the way after making sure it was a safe venture.
With a clatter and a bit of dust, the boards fell to the floor. The way open before us: a stairwell, curving into darkness.
With a clatter and a bit of dust, the boards fell to the floor. The way open before us: a stairwell, curving into darkness.
Lazlow
First Post
"Ahhhh...!" Master Dongle breathed in a deep breath, a look of deep satisfaction on his face. "I ask you, Brabinger... Is there nothing in this world more inviting, more exciting, more comforting than a hitherto unexplored stairwell, curving downward into darkness? I say thee nay." He tightened the straps on his backpack and armor, and clicking the proper lenses in place on the Precisionating Perceptivator, set about examining the immediate area.
"If memory serves, these stairs are trapped..."
"If memory serves, these stairs are trapped..."
Gray Shade
First Post
Master Dongle removed his gloves and rubbed some grit and dust between his hands to dry them. He then went to work, moving one step at a time down the curling stairwell. I stood behind him five steps, with an Everburning torch to light our way.
After thirty steps, he stopped, and with a pleased expression, withdrew his tools to deactivate a trap. It was a classic. The stairs dislodge and all turn to slopes so that anyone in the stairwell would slide quickly to the bottom, where, presumably they would be met with a deep hole bottomed by cruel spikes. Master Dongle cut a few key wires in a hidden mechanism and soon we were able to walk down the stairs at a brisk pace, unconcerned of traps.
At the bottom of the stairs, he disarmed the pit trap, which, in classic style awaited us, and then peered into the darkness of a long wide hall. The torch did nothing in a room this size, but make us a target for anything in there, so I quickly stashed it back in my cumberbun. My last sight was Master Dongle pulling his gloves back on.
I felt against the wall of the staircase with one hand, and put the other on my master's back, to orientate myself. It was completely black now. I heard the click of Dongle switiching to the darkvision lenses of Penfold's Precisionating Perceptivator into place.
* * *
You are in a stone hall about forty feet across. You're not sure how long it is as you cannot see the far end. There are pillars about every twenty feet near the walls. You hear nothing except Brabinger's calm breathing behind you.
After thirty steps, he stopped, and with a pleased expression, withdrew his tools to deactivate a trap. It was a classic. The stairs dislodge and all turn to slopes so that anyone in the stairwell would slide quickly to the bottom, where, presumably they would be met with a deep hole bottomed by cruel spikes. Master Dongle cut a few key wires in a hidden mechanism and soon we were able to walk down the stairs at a brisk pace, unconcerned of traps.
At the bottom of the stairs, he disarmed the pit trap, which, in classic style awaited us, and then peered into the darkness of a long wide hall. The torch did nothing in a room this size, but make us a target for anything in there, so I quickly stashed it back in my cumberbun. My last sight was Master Dongle pulling his gloves back on.
I felt against the wall of the staircase with one hand, and put the other on my master's back, to orientate myself. It was completely black now. I heard the click of Dongle switiching to the darkvision lenses of Penfold's Precisionating Perceptivator into place.
* * *
You are in a stone hall about forty feet across. You're not sure how long it is as you cannot see the far end. There are pillars about every twenty feet near the walls. You hear nothing except Brabinger's calm breathing behind you.
Gray Shade
First Post
Long awaited bump!
Man, it's been like a year.
Bump, already!
Man, it's been like a year.
Bump, already!
Lazlow
First Post
After a seemingly interminable pause that felt like several months ( ), Dongle finally turned to me and said quietly, "Well old chum, I think we know better than to walk through the middle of an enormous, pitch black hall. This way, I should think," and walking past me headed down the wall to our left, keeping a trained eye out for traps, doors, sigils, markings, writings, and symbols of any kind on the floor, walls, ceiling, and columns.
His mood was noticeably excited, having not delved for so long a time, and it was infectious, I must admit, and supressing the urge to hum an old drinking tune I'd heard many a time at The Delver's Den - which would have been improper for one of my esteemed position, not to mention a very bad idea in a darkened subterranean passage such as this - I followed the Master, and kept my wits all the sharper about me.
), Dongle finally turned to me and said quietly, "Well old chum, I think we know better than to walk through the middle of an enormous, pitch black hall. This way, I should think," and walking past me headed down the wall to our left, keeping a trained eye out for traps, doors, sigils, markings, writings, and symbols of any kind on the floor, walls, ceiling, and columns.His mood was noticeably excited, having not delved for so long a time, and it was infectious, I must admit, and supressing the urge to hum an old drinking tune I'd heard many a time at The Delver's Den - which would have been improper for one of my esteemed position, not to mention a very bad idea in a darkened subterranean passage such as this - I followed the Master, and kept my wits all the sharper about me.
Gray Shade
First Post
The long wait, finally over.
The smell of this dungeon was different than most. Most are dank and moist, usually moldy in places with the pungent stank of rotting flesh here and there. This dungeon was very dry and the air had a crisp "feel" to it, with a constant but not overwhelming scent of lamp oil. It was also warm, unlike most underground structures. With the warmth and the dryness, there seemed to be almost no decay or degredation of what we found.
Dongle told me later of all items in the dark that I could not see. Here's what happened in that black foyer of death:
We had travelled with cautious steps about ten paces, the comforting warmth of the walls and giant pillars radiating against my bare forearms and cheeks, drying the rain that had fallen on me.
Suddenly my liege gave me a shove backward at the exact second a click issued from beneath his foot. A trap! Only his quick reaction saved us both. Darts shot from the nearby wall, one sticking in the shaft of my cane as I lifted it to catch my balance. Ahead of me, Dongle had ridden the force of his shove to leap forward, the darts whizzing into the blackness and clattering uselessly against a pillar or the far wall.
Ahead, my master stopped his momentum just inches from stepping on another crease in the floor, indicating a similar trap. Out of the corner of his eye, toward the middle of the wide hall, he could see what seemed to be a body. Then, further up the heaps of more bodies.
Also from ahead in the black, seemingly out of range of Dongle's darkvision, something shuffled on the stone floor, like a man dragging a bag of potatoes, but without the footsteps.
The smell of this dungeon was different than most. Most are dank and moist, usually moldy in places with the pungent stank of rotting flesh here and there. This dungeon was very dry and the air had a crisp "feel" to it, with a constant but not overwhelming scent of lamp oil. It was also warm, unlike most underground structures. With the warmth and the dryness, there seemed to be almost no decay or degredation of what we found.
Dongle told me later of all items in the dark that I could not see. Here's what happened in that black foyer of death:
We had travelled with cautious steps about ten paces, the comforting warmth of the walls and giant pillars radiating against my bare forearms and cheeks, drying the rain that had fallen on me.
Suddenly my liege gave me a shove backward at the exact second a click issued from beneath his foot. A trap! Only his quick reaction saved us both. Darts shot from the nearby wall, one sticking in the shaft of my cane as I lifted it to catch my balance. Ahead of me, Dongle had ridden the force of his shove to leap forward, the darts whizzing into the blackness and clattering uselessly against a pillar or the far wall.
Ahead, my master stopped his momentum just inches from stepping on another crease in the floor, indicating a similar trap. Out of the corner of his eye, toward the middle of the wide hall, he could see what seemed to be a body. Then, further up the heaps of more bodies.
Also from ahead in the black, seemingly out of range of Dongle's darkvision, something shuffled on the stone floor, like a man dragging a bag of potatoes, but without the footsteps.
Lazlow
First Post
"Aaaaand cue the roper that the grig informed us about," my master muttered as he nodded back toward the stairs. "Unfortunately I haven't the resources at hand to effectively deal with this particular creature in a manner I would like. So... Back up we go, to try one of the other entrances. Make haste, I think we're still out of the range of it's tendrils. But mind the trapped steps, Brabinger."
