Taking the Plunge
The corridor was short, and the party caught their breath at the new stone barrier that was before them. The dim lights of the Shadowrealm outside died fifty feet behind, as the door closed, grinding back into place. Everything was quiet and black.
Lady Balthes tapped the wall with her repeating crossbow, motioning toward the sealed entrance in the dark. “Guess we’re playin’ fer keeps now.”
Nicodemus nodded, and the others present took in the cramped passage silently. Only the nin’ki could observe it clearly with his darkvision. They were inside Tremali Keep. For myself, Nicodemus mused, the hard part was over. For them…
Sarah lit a mundane torch in the hall. Its light flickered strangely here, like a strobe. As if the normal warm orange glow of fire was peeled from the very spectrum, they were all lit by antiseptic white. The flame itself behaved irrationally; instead of a fluid dance, the burning end of the torch rapidly twitched between frozen images of fire. Nicodemus had seen the same effect once in Nizzal’s market bizarre, from a projected image on a screen by a phantasmograph. Unable to capture true life, only a succession of still images rapidly set into motion, the phantasmograph’s depiction of reality was one of jerky movements speeding along with awkward animation. Sarah’s torch now had the same result on the party. It took a moment to adjust to the phenomenon.
They looked at the wall of the dead end. It was made of a dissimilar stone; whereas the floor and walls were common long brickwork, this barricade was made of nine cubic plates. The center plate had a spread of three dozen holes at 2 inch intervals, and at its center, a flat spot baring a rune. After some scrutiny, Tessijah posited that the mark read, “Here.”
The necromancer examined the dimpled surface, tracing his finger along the many recesses. “It says ‘Here,’ does it?” He turned in the flashing torchlight. “Any suggestions?”
“Maybe it’s a map,” Sarah said. She seemed eager to join in the party’s efforts, but at the same time ill equipped. She knew little of magic or lore, and was not a fine warrior, nor (to anyone’s knowledge) a sleuth. Seeking, she looked to Nicodemus for some sign of approval.
Lady Balthes annoyingly sighed. Nicodemus tried to overshadow the derision by saying in lulled tones, “It very well may be.” Sarah smiled and held the torch aloft. “If it is a map,” Nicodemus ventured, “then what does it mean? These holes?”
The nin’ki strode forward, pushing past Balthes and Sarah, and held out its tiny clawed hand. Nicodemus took the gift, fully expecting to have to patronize the lesser humanoid, but then his fingers closed around a round stone. It seemed the perfect diameter to fit into a hole.
“Thanks,” Nicodemus said, embarrassed. He looked down where the nin’ki had picked up the peg. On the floor were about a dozen such stones. “I think he’s got the right idea.”
“Of course he does,” Tessijah said, trying not to rasp her leathery throat. “He’s quite brilliant.”
“Bah.” Lady Balthes scoffed, “He noticed them cause he’s got his face so close to the dirt.”
Nicodemus rolled the stone around in his hand and observed the grid of sockets before him. Mulling over the options, he spoke his meandering thoughts out loud. “It’s a lock.”
They all waited for the clever mage to discern the puzzle, and he could feel their anticipation. A grid of holes, except the center, marked “Here…”
Maybe an arrow would suffice? Nicodemus began placing the stones in a triangular formation under the rune. As he did so, there was a hissing noise that startled everyone. He paused with the next peg in his hand.
“I don’t think…” Sarah began.
Yellow mist began to slip from all the holes in the wall before them. Lady Balthes covered her face with her cloak and Tessijah stepped away. The nin’ki panicked at the sight of the poison, and bolted back toward the entrance of the Keep. Nicodemus’s mind reeled, realizing too late that he had triggered a trap. The venomous vapor collected around them all and the flickering torch dimmed.
“Pity,” he cursed. He dropped the stone in his hand and began prying loose those he had put into place, all the while trying to hold his breath.
It did little good. The toxin seeped into his skin, and the images before his eyes started to swirl with purple dots. His flesh tingled. Tessijah dropped to the ground almost immediately. Lady Balthes swaggered and stumbled into the necromancer, flailing mad for a hold against her increasing weight. She hit her head on the wall with a loud bump.
Nicodemus saw them all through a drugged fog, his body slipping away and his mind flittering about the passage and out through the door. His mind spun, like a bird, around Tremali Keep, around the death site of the ghost party, and drifted upward on the wings of dying. He looked down, through the brittle trees of the Shadowrealm, as his consciousness slipped away, and saw the layout of the monoliths outside.
“Pylons,” he mumbled, crashing to the floor.
Away from the group, the nin’ki was clawing at the entrance mercilessly, his mind only on escape. Tessijah was already succumbing to the gas, sliding against the wall to the floor as if suddenly asleep. Lady Balthes, lurching up from her stupor, heard the word as it dizzyingly echoed around her. She looked again at the wall of pegs, blowing poison, and saw Nicodemus’s wavering finger, clawed and pointing at the rune and around its lower half. “Pylons,” he said again, and closed his eyes.
Gathering her will, fighting against the flaccid numbness in her arms and digits, Balthes popped out the last of the stones. Then, in a dream, as if guided by another’s hand, she pushed six of the stones into the holes in a semi-circle around the ‘Here’ rune. She bent low, falling hard on her face again, but scrambled up with two more to complete the arc. Eight pegs, eight pylons, a half-moon around the center.
The hiss around them pierced the air even louder, but this time it was drawing in the poisonous cloud. Stale dusty air mingled with that of the caustic poison. There was the sound of stone moving. Their sight began to clear.
They all laid about except for Balthes, leaning on the wall, fingers clutching the lines where bricks met, gulping the purer air. Tessijah murmured and awoke. Nicodemus blinked away the afterimages of delusion. The nin’ki dubiously crept back to the party. Sarah rose off the ground and pointed ahead. The passageway before them opened, lowering into the floor.
After they all had collected themselves, and were standing woozy but upright, Nicodemus spoke. “We should be more careful here.”
“Ha!” Lady Balthes squirmed under her cloak. “There’s a maybe.”