Beware The Doors With Teeth
Waterday, Harvester 5.
In the morning, Simon was sent out for food, returning with enough trail rations to last the five of them for four days.
Keygan produced an ancient map that he claimed was a map of Jzadirune left to him by his father. Simon poured over it, and he puzzled over the parchment Tateland had given to the locksmith on which was written the strange riddle Jenya received.
The heroes unblocked the secret door and peered into the darkness. Jack lit his bullseye lantern and took the lead. Oberyn, Tateland, and Keygan--bearing another lantern--were in the middle of the procession, while Simon followed behind.
A stone staircase, its steps shrouded with cobwebs and dust, descended twenty feet to a small dark landing. The walls were of fitted stone, and there was an empty iron torch sconce. To the right the stairs descended again to a second landing, turned right again, and continued down to a larger room.
Standing on the second landing, Jack heard strange sounds emanating from the chamber below. "Do you hear that?" he asked the others. "Chirping birds, rustling leaves, and even the faint sound of laughter."
Slowly they descended to a 40-foot-square room from which a slight breeze could be felt, entering perhaps from an open passage in the far wall directly across the room from the stairs. Mounted to the walls around the room were twelve tarnished copper masks, each two feet in height, depicting a smiling dwarf's visage. The soft giggling, rustling, and chirping seemed to pour from the very walls.
Into the left wall were set two large circular portals of wood, framed with a ring of mortared granite stones. The far portal seemed to be closed and bore a strange glyph upon it, while the nearer door appeared to half-open, revealing an iron rim of gear-like teeth.
"Beware the doors with teeth," mumbled Simon, remembering the words of the riddle.
"Look," said Oberyn. "I see a dim light beyond the crescent-shaped opening of this door." He approached the door cautiously and peered within. The glowing tip of a foot-long iron rod shed enough light to cast lurid shadows on the walls of the room. A dozen small cots and chests lined the walls. Cobwebs blanketed many of the cots and chests, and tiny spiders scurried about. A rough hewn tunnel, circular and about 5 feet in diameter, breached the far wall, and another one just like it had been burrowed into the left-hand wall as well. Stony rubble covered the floor near each tunnel.
First Oberyn tested the door, trying to push it farther open. It budged only slightly, then came to rest where it was again. He stepped into the room, followed by Jack.
"A sunrod," said Oberyn, picking up the wand-like device.
As Jack reached the centre of the room, two of the naked grey-skinned creatures seemed to appear from nowhere on either side of him, though it was clear they had been skulking there the whole time. Their blades flashed, spilling Jack's blood on the floor.
Oberyn and Jack leapt to riposte, but the two creatures fled immediately, each streaking down a separate tunnel.
"They are trying to divide us!" called Oberyn.
The heroes decided not to pursue the fleeing creatures. Instead they retreat to the larger room, and Tateland called upon the name of St. Cuthbert to close Jack's wounds.
"What is this rune?" asked Oberyn, shining the light of the sunrod on the closed gear door.
Keygan examined it. "That is the letter J, probably for Jzadirune."
"Might this small, square aperture in the stone beside the door be a keyhole?"
The locksmith examined it briefly. "It is likely, though I know not what manner of mundane or magical key is required."
"Perhaps I can open it," said Simon, pulling some slender metal tools from his pouch. After a moment of working with the tools in the keyhole, the door rolled open, and from a hidden jet sprayed a brackish green gas. Simon rolled out of the cloud, clawing at his face, hands, and other bits of skin exposed to the vile substance.
Oberyn, too, took a step back to avoid the cloud, and when he did, a gruff voice behind him spoke: "Welcome to Jzadirune! Behold the wonder! But beware, ye who seek to plunder; traps abound and guardians peer beyond every portal, behind every gear."
Oberyn spun around, ready to lop off someone's head, but the voice seemed to come from the unmoving tarnished copper mask on the wall.
Simon uncorked the tiny flask given him by the priestess of St. Cuthbert the night before and drank its contents. Immediately the boils and lesions on his skin diminished.
Jack carefully made his way around the quickly dispersing green cloud and shone his lantern into the room beyond the newly opened door. More than a dozen cots and small chests were in the dark room, all covered in cobwebs and dust.
Jack and Oberyn moved into the room to investigate.
Oberyn opened a chest and ransacked its contents, finding a moth-eaten wool blanket, some worthless personal effects, and an off-white tabard emblazoned with a curious symbol: a brown gear shape with a yellow, eight-pointed star in its hollow centre.
Jack opened other chests. They all held similar contents.
Keygan examined one of the tabards with interest, then folded it carefully and placed it into his small backpack.
The heroes regrouped and decided not to fall for the shadowy creatures' shrewd tactics. Instead they wandered down the wide corridor that led out of the original large room. This dusty hallway was carved with frescoes depicting dour dwarves clad in chain shirts and helms, brandishing all manner of weapons. In a few feet, the passage turned both left and right, and as Jack shone his lantern beam in each direction, the group saw that both sides of the halls were lined with more round doors, perhaps a dozen all told.
"Well, which way?" asked Oberyn, grumpily.
Simon held up Keygan's map in the light of the dwarf's lantern. "The passageway to the left should open into another chamber."
As the heroes approached, Oberyn could see that the corridor plainly ended in a stone wall, not a chamber as Simon had predicted. "That map is unreliable," he commented.
No sooner had be spoken these words than the floor beneath him opened up, and he fell 20 feet into a spiked pit. Jack caught himself at the last moment, diving backwards to avoid the same fate.
Tateland and Jack peered grimly into the pit. Luckily the sunrod still burned, and they could see the outlines of two bodies at the bottom of the pit. One of these groaned in pain and pulled itself to its feet.
Oberyn picked up the fallen sunrod and looked around the floor of the pit. The corpse of a grey-skinned being was impaled on several spikes, its rapier and crossbow lying nearby. He collected the crossbow and bolts, then climbed out of the pit on a rope tossed down to him by Simon.
Oberyn spoke words of healing and closed Oberyn's wounds, while Jack and Simon inched around the now open pit.
When he reached it, Jack began to search the stone wall at the end of the hallway for a secret doorway. Immediately he jerked back his hand. "The wall!" he exclaimed. "It's not really there." He tested it again, passing his hand right into the stone as if it were composed of air.
Next Jack summoned his courage and stepped completely through the wall into a chamber thirty feet long and wide, completely bare of furnishings and exits. What drew his attention immediately, however, was the faintly glowing outline of a map on the far wall. It seemed to be an exact copy of the hand-drawn version that Keygan had handed to Simon.
Jack called for the others, and soon everyone stood staring at the map.
"The two smaller tunnels down which the greyskins fled," mused Simon, "are not shown on the map. Perhaps, like us, those beings don't have keys to these doors, so they dug tunnels to avoid them."
"Then we will follow them," stated Oberyn, "though just because they are newer tunnels doesn't mean they aren't trapped as well."
The group back-tracked to the room in which Jack was attacked by the grey-skins. They selected the far tunnel to explore. This passage seemed to branch off in several directions. Jack led the way and exited from the cramped tunnel into a majestic hall, fully thirty feet high, forty wide, and perhaps a hundred or more long. Eight black marble pillars were carved to resemble dwarven artisans and warriors standing on each others' shoulders, bracing the vaulted roof with their collective strength. The walls were adorned with faded murals depicting dwarves in reverie--playing instruments, dancing, wrestling, drinking ale, and so forth.
What was most amazing were the four bright lights that flickered and danced like animated torchlight, drifting aimlessly about the hall from end to end, changing altitude and direction on a whim.
Closed gear doors and open passageways adorned both the left and right walls, but the group's attention was drawn to the far end of the hall, where it widened to form a chamber around a large circular pool, into which water spilled from the cheshire grin of an enormous dwarven face carved in the stone of the wall.
Oberyn led the way toward the pool, but before he had crossed even half of the distance, a crossbow bolt struck him in the chest and another whizzed past him. He shouted in pain and ducked for cover behind the closest column. Everyone else scattered for cover as well.
"They are shooting from the farthest pillars on either side," called Oberyn to his comrades as he yanked the bitter bolt from his flesh.
They waited, but no further attack came.
Oberyn gritted his teeth, spun out from behind his column and advanced to the next one in line.
At this, the two cloaked figures that had been holding positions behind the last pillars fled across the room to another tunnel hewn into the rock.
Oberyn charged forward, intent on pursuing at their heels, then thought better of it, and waited for the others to catch up. He relinquished the lead to Jack, who used his bullseye lantern to examine each section of the twisting tunnel.
Around the third bend, Jack could see that the tunnel clearly ended up ahead.
"Let me investigate," said Simon, moving cautiously forward. He had taken only a few steps when a crossbow bolt ricocheted off the rough-hewn floor of the tunnel beside him. The tell-tale sound of reloading told him it wasn't a mechanical trap but an ambush. He retreated.
"They are shooting from a hole in the ceiling," said Simon.
The heroes began to form a plan. One they all had their marching orders, Jack proceeded down the tunnel with Oberyn behind him.
The crossbow fired again, missing its mark a second time.
At the end of the tunnel, Jack turned and allowed Oberyn, sword drawn, to climb atop him. In the harsh shadows of the room, Oberyn saw a figure directly in front of him reloading its crossbow. Oberyn hacked at it, but was surprised by the other grey-skin, who stabbed at Oberyn from behind. Oberyn tumbled to his right, away from the attack and onto the floor of the small room in which the two grey-skins were making their final stand.
In moments, Simon approached and boosted Jack up into the room as well. The battle was brief, and the grey-skins were slain. Soon the whole group climbed up into the room to have a look. Tateland healed Oberyn's wounds once more.
Patches of green mold grew on the walls and clung to the ceiling. Lying in a heap in the corner were the gutted, putrified remains of an eight-foot-long green worm with multiple legs and eight slimy tentacles sprouting from its bulbous head. Next to it was a pile of entrails pulled from the creature, and on the other side of the room was heap of armour and shields.
"Why did they disembowl this thing?" said Jack, examining the entrails of the giant worm-like thing.