[Realms #386] We three Keys
Huzair looked up at Morier's proclamation and eased back from the chest he was examining, then he shoved his cigar back into his mouth and shook his head. "Nope. It can't be green slime," he said matter-of-factly. "If it were, it'd eat right through this glass." Karak stepped up and rapped his knuckles on the top of the nearest chest.
"This nae be glass, wizard. This is clearstone," he said admiring. "Oi. I have nae seen this in a long, long time."
"Clearstone?" the mage asked. "Never heard of it." Karak snorted.
"Few o' the surface folk 'ave," the dwarf explained. "It be a substance created by a clan o' dwarves who call themselves the Sons o' the Earth. They live their whole lives underground, never once seein' the light o' the sun. They take their love o' stone an' metal quite serious. Everythin' they make be made o' one or th' other.
"Sounds like very other dwarf, to me," Huzair puffed and Karak fixed him with skeptical eye.
"Ye only say that because ye've never met a Son o' the Earth," the dwarf replied. "They're a great many things, but they're nae like other dwarfves an' tha' be certain!"
"So this IS green slime?" Shamalin asked, looking from Karak to Huzair to Morier. When Morier and Karak both nodded, she asked, "And that's bad?"
"Oh, aye!" Karak mused. "Green slime be nasty stuff. I never encountered it myself, but the dwarves in me clan did in the mines. We lost whole tunnels when the damnable stuff ate through the supports. They say it can eat through solid plate steel. It drops down from above and tries to envelop ye in its mass. All the while its acid be eating away at flesh, ye armor, ye weapons. Basically all of ye."
"I'd say that qualifies as bad," the priestess replied and for a moment there was silence as the group stared at the three chests of slime.
"So what's the point?" Ayremac asked suddenly. "I mean, why go to all the trouble of putting these chests made of some obscure material here just to fill them with green slime?"
"Perhaps it was disguised with the notion that someone would just try to smash the chests open, thus spewing green slime on the unsuspecting chest smasher," Morier offered. Karak shuddered at that thought and turned to Shamalin.
"That be nice work casting the dispell illusion magick," the dwarf confided. "That would have been a great mess to whoever open what we thought were brass chests."
"That was Huzair's idea," Shamalin admitted, giving the mage a brief nod. Karak snorted at that and turned back to the conversation.
"Maybe the slime is protecting some powerful magic items," Huzair suggested but Morier shook his head.
"There have not been significant rewards in any of the other tests of skill, so I don't think they're holding anything we have to have," the albino argued.
"Should we try opening one and finding out what's inside?" Ayremac asked and the wizard laughed sarcastically.
"Sure let's open up the stone chests and let it fly all over us. Good idea, just like tossing the coin," Huzair sniped. "The people who designed these traps are brilliant. I notice when the person springs a trap, the trap gets everyone!"
"As much as it pains me to say it, Huzair's right," Morier said. "We may well have passed this test by identifying the danger of the slime and not exposing ourselves to it. I see no reason to risk springing the trap."
"Well I certainly will not open these boxes of death," Huzair added. "There's no need to get into them."
"Okay. Then what do we do now?" Ayremac asked.
"Leave the chests be, rest and move on," Morier offered.
"That's my point, Morier. Move on to where?" the holy warrior said. "I'm focusing on the chests because we are otherwise at a dead end. Literally. We don't have a clue how to get passed the trapped room with the eyes."
"We have a keyhole," Huzair reminded.
"But no key," Ayremac countered. "And I think the key is in one of these chests."
"I agree with the winged one," Karak announced. "I think what we need be in these chests and more importantly in the green slime."
"So how do you propose we get it?" Huzair asked. "I really do not want to pick the lock on a chest full of green slime."
"Well according to the clan the two best way to deal wi' slime is to either burn it or freeze it. I have a Frost Blade but it needs to be in hand-to-hand combat," Karak said, stroking his beard. A little glumly he added, "I do nae have one o' the elemental blades... but what we do 'ave is a dragon." He pointed at Ixin and the drakeling's eyes narrowed uncertainly; she had no idea what they were all talking about.
"I say we stand back and we burn it with Ixin's fiery breath," the dwarf said, proudly crossing his arms over his mailed chest. "According to me best guess, I think the clearstone will melt right along with the slime."
"Alright," Morier agreed. "I can go along with that. Huzair ask Ixin if she's willing." The mage began explaining the situation to the half-dragon and Morier turned back to Karak. "Should we be concerned that fire-breathing the chests and the slime could in any way hurt, destroy, disfigure whatever is in the chests that we might need to be getting at?"
"Good point," Ayremac nodded.
"I have a spell that should allow me to see what's inside one of the chests before we burn them," Shamalin told the others. "I'd hate to find out what's inside is something like a map and we burn it."
"Good plan, lass," Karak nodded.
"Ixin agrees," Huzair announced. "But she'll only be able to do this once until she sleeps."
"Another vote for resting before we move on," Morier said and the others nodded.
"Then let's begin," Shamalin said, clutching her holy symbol and striding purposefully forward.
Shamalin's
Clairvoyance spell revealed that the box was not actually filled with green slime. It looked as if the slime was pressed between two layers of clearstone leaving a small inner area empty of slime. In it lay an ornate brass key etched everywhere with a filigree of twisting vines. The handle portion of the key was wrought in the shape of an eye. Other than the key, the interior of the chest was empty.
Her work done, Shamalin stepped well back behind Ixin as the drakeling concentrated on her draconis fundamentum infusing her breath with a portion of her innate elemental power. She exhaled a 30 foot cone of fire that filled the hallway from edge to edge and engulfed all three chests completely. She reveled in the power of her heritage actualized and when the exhalation had passed, she was smiling broadly, curls of smoke rising from between her teeth.
The hallway was blackened and filled with the stench of cooked slime. Of the chests there was little left but a rapidly cooling puddle of slag. And amidst the ruins of each lay a brass key. Huzair stepped forward to retrieve these, heedless of the lingering heat and held them up for all to see. All were essentially the same although the eye worked into their grips was unique to each.
"Three keys, one keyhole," Ayremac observed.
"Why does this not seem a good thing," Morier mused.
DAY FIVE IN THE ELEMENTAL NODES
They slept and in the morning Shamalin
Restored some of the damage done the day before by the poisoned blades. Over breakfast they debated how to proceed. Ayremac and Ixin both advocated for trying to determine the means by which the trap in the eye room was triggered, but in the end, Karak's suggestion was the one taken.
"We need to be mindful of the trap. We still do nae know what spings it. But we must press on," the dwarf had explained. "I say we levitate someone to the key hole and insert the keys into the hole - assuming I am right and one of these key fits in the hole. Maybe we can tie some rope around the levitated person so we can yank him back should the trap be spung. Or is there a spell that can make the person impervious to the trap? Mayhap invisible and levitatin' would do the trick?"
They took his suggestion, but no one volunteered to test it out. So Karak was chosen by virtue of the fact that it was his plan and he was generally tough enough to endure getting flattened by the trap should it be sprung. Using another pinch of
Pixie Dust, they poled his armored body out to the spot where Huzair indicated the tile with the keyhole and, as they had hoped, one of the eyes in the key handle matched the eye with the keyhole. Karak inserted the key and gave it a twist, listening with satisfaction as he heard the sound of a bolt sliding back within the round door to his right. He pushed against the door, however and it still wouldn't budge.
"Try to find holes for the other keys," Huzair suggested and the dwarf went to work. His eyes were not as keen as Huzair's, but with the keys in hand it was a fairly simple (if lengthy) process to find tiles that matched the keys. Each contained a keyhole and once Karak had inserted the proper key into each and given them each a turn, the circular door thunked open, revealing another chamber beyond.
Karak peered inside and saw a mostly-barren octagonal room. Directly across from the door the wall was jacketed in iron, and set in that wall was a gleaming mechanism involving blades mounted on shafts of various lengths. Just beyond the shafts he could see a large and prominent lock. The other walls were rough-hewn stone, but on the wall to the left of the metal one was carved a grimacing face, holding an hourglass in its mouth.
Turning back to look at the others huddled in the entryway to the eye room, Karak shook his head. "I do nae think ye'll like the looks o' this next room any better than th' others," he scowled.
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