Dungeons and Noobs

by Ryan Rimmel

Glorious Robert chuckled, cleared his throat, and replied in an even deeper voice, “Lesser leather never weathered wetter weather better.”

  “With your accent?” scoffed Bashara, “No likely. Sir Dalton, dear, could you come over and repeat after me?”

  Bashara explained the situation and Sir Dalton nodded. Speaking deep and clear, he said, “Lesser leather never weathered wetter weather better.”

  “Lesser leather never weathered wetter weather better,” repeated Fenris, as several pairs of eyes turned toward him. “I didn’t want to be left out.”

  “Nothing,” said Bashara, as the door remained stubbornly closed.

  “Let me try,” Jarra said. “Perhaps it takes a truly feminine voice to say it.” The healer looked Bashara up and down. “Lesser leather never weathered wetter weather better.” Still nothing.

  Bashara smirked nastily. “What a surprise. The commoner once again proves useless.”

  Jarra the Healer drew herself up to her full height, took a deep breath, and was promptly interrupted by Sir Dalton.

  “Maybe it's this one. What’s it say?” the Knight against. I shot him a look of thanks for his excellent defusal. Jarra went back to work on my armor.

  “The sixth sick Sheik’s sixth sheep is sick,” Bashara responded.

  We all waited a moment, but nothing happened. Bashara grumbled and started working on an incantation. As she finished, several of the earlier gibberish characters suddenly changed into actual words. A jumbled mess of words, but actual words, nonetheless. Bashara looked quite pleased with herself.

  “What did you just do?” I asked.

  “I was able to isolate which words were used in the possible passphrase,” she grinned. “It has to be a phrase made up of some of these floating words. We just have to pick the right words and put them in the correct order.” That still left hundreds of possible choices, but it was a limited data set. We would eventually find the right one.

  “She sells seashells on the seashore. The shells she sells are seashells, I’m sure,” said Glorious Robert. “I’ve heard that one before, at least.”

  “Me, too,” replied SueLeeta. “She sells seashells on the seashore. The shells she sells are seashells, I’m sure.”

  The phrase vanished, and Bashara said, “Nope, no resonance.”

  “How about ‘Red Robin, the red river rat, ran right round the rabbit’s rickety rocking chair and rubbed his rosy, rusty, red rump on the rumpled red rug’?” said SueLeeta. As soon as she finished, the phrase glittered for a moment. Just as we were getting our hopes up, the words poofed away.

  “Perhaps we all need to say it together,” Fenris suggested.

  Eight voices rang out, loud and clear, “Red Robin, the red river rat, ran right round the rabbit’s rickety rocking chair and rubbed his rosy, rusty, red rump on the rumpled red rug.” Still nothing.

  “Let I, Zorlando, try, “proclaimed Zorlando. “The thirty-three thieves thought that they thrilled the throne throughout Thursday.” His phrase vanished.

  Fenris said, “Six sleek swans swam swiftly southward!”

  Sir Dalton found one and declared, “Rory the warrior and Roger the worrier were reared wrongly in a rural brewery!”

  Still the rune was intact. I sent a mental question off to Shart, who just groaned. “I’m not going to say some hard to pronounce phrase like ‘Brisk brave brigadiers brandished broad bright blades, blunderbusses, and bludgeons, balancing them badly’, so don’t even bother asking. I doubt they made it such that an elder demon in his chibi form had to say the passphrase anyway.”

  “Chibi form?” I groaned.

  “I’m cute, ain’t I,” replied Shart, fluttering his non-existent eyelashes.

  “By process of elimination, Jarra the Healer must be able to open it,” said Sir Dalton confidently. That wasn’t how that worked, AT ALL, but damn was he confident.

  Jarra walked back over and handed me my armor. Then, she turned to the door and said in a loud, clear voice, “Rubber baby buggy bumpers, rubber baby buggy bumpers, rubber baby buggy bumpers!”

  “What are those?” said Fenris. Jarra shrugged.

  Nothing happened. We continued uttering phrases, one right after another, for nearly an hour. Finally, Badgelor groaned and lifted up his head.

  “Pad kid poured curd pulled cod,” growled Badgelor in Badger. He then repeated the phrase five more times in rapid succession. The rune-guarded door suddenly vanished. “Now, shut your traps. I’m trying to sleep.”

  I looked over to Badgelor, impressed. “Wow, that was amazing! That’s got to be one of the hardest phrases to pronounce I’ve ever heard, and you did it so quickly so many times!”

  “There is no way you could do it twice in a row,” groused Shart.

  “Ahem,” began Badgelor, inhaling sharply.

  Chapter 30: Deep Thoughts by Sir Dalton

  “We’ve gotten past the arcane traps, though,” stated Glorious Robert, giving Bashara the side-eye. Fenris and Sir Dalton were walking with him, and even Sir Dalton looked apprehensive about the situation. Bashara, on the other hand, was trying her level best to be completely invisible. She was failing.

  “Probably because she isn’t using magic,” stated Shart from the comfort of my mind.

  “Really?” I thought back. “That doesn’t seem like her.”

  “We could eat her now,” stated Badgelor. “I could just hop over there for a quick snack. No one would stop me.”

  “Not as long as she is part of the party and behaving,” I retorted, but I lacked any real emphasis behind the words. Bashara was lucky that no one else was likely to need the treasures she could use. That fact had led to the assumption that her general untrustworthy nature wasn’t going to screw over someone else.

  However, since she had been in the dungeon, she’d been a model party member. Sure, she had shot Jarra the Healer a few barbs, but that was tame compared to how manipulative and tricky she could be. It was almost as if the Wizard was daring me to act against her, given her total lack of provocation at the moment. Bashara was complicated and untrustworthy, but, as Shart had pointed out, she was unlikely to be some sort of super villain.

  I glanced over at her. She smiled at me prettily and waved a bit before continuing to walk, scanning the corridors for threats. Jarra frowned at the exchange and moved a pace closer to me. The healer’s gaze returned to SueLeeta. The archer was ranging forward. In actuality, she was far enough away that there wasn’t much of anything Jarra could do to aid her, if push came to shove.

  Sir Dalton had fallen back from the group, now walking by himself. He was scanning the area carefully, but he more or less seemed to be glumly walking forward. I thought about walking over to talk to him, but then I remembered I could mentally communicate with him.

  “Sir Dalton,” I thought, through the party communication system, “Why so glum?”

  “I’m not in the mood for this now, brain,” replied Sir Dalton.

  Sir Dalton had interesting internal conversations between various parts of his anatomy. His brain and gut seemed to be the main “voices.” Fortunately, I had a tried and true method of conversing with Dalton.

  I pitched my voice higher. “Dalton, this is your gut. I think we should talk about it.”

  “I think not,” growled Sir Dalton. “We are not on speaking terms after what you just did!”

  Sir Dalton had always trusted his gut before. Now, I was even more curious. I pitched my voice lower and tried again.

  “Sir Dalton, it is I, your elbow. Do you want to talk?” I asked.

  There was a long pause. Just as I decided the Knight wasn’t actually that stupid, I received a gasping sob through the connection. “Oh, elbow, I don’t know who to trust anymore!”

  “What happened?” I, as his elbow, continued.

  “Well, as you know, I ‘ve always trusted my gut before. Yet, when we got into the dungeon it started asking me about the Drak-ish. We talked for a moment, and I decided I should do a gut check about Jarra
the Healer.”

  “That sounds reasonable,” I replied, running my mind back to the battle with the Drak-ish.

  “When I did, my gut told me to give up on Jarra the Healer. She has her heart set on another,” said Dalton hotly. “Isn’t that ridiculous? Of course, I knew my gut was lying to me. Look at me! I’m Sir Dalton!”

  “That is true,” I replied. “You are Sir Dalton.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short, elbow. You are part of the mighty carriage of Sir Dalton,” continued the very humble Knight.

  “Good point,” I continued. “Have you talked to anyone about this?”

  “Wouldn’t you know? You are my elbow, after all,” replied Sir Dalton questioningly.

  “Um, I, uh, don’t have ears,” I reached.

  “Oh, so sorry, of course” replied Sir Dalton. “Well, I talked to SueLeeta about it, and she agreed. She also thinks I should find another woman. Someone who likes being around me. Someone that I have fun with. Someone who’s interested in me, and the like.”

  “So. someone like SueLeeta?” I asked.

  “Like SueLeeta?” repeated Sir Dalton. “Elbow, you have a lot to learn about women. She’s a powerful Chosen. She’s hardly interested in a Knight from the sticks, like myself. ”

  “That’s why you are so interested in Jarra the Healer? You’re settling?” ‘elbow’ replied.

  “No, I’m not settling. Jarra the Healer is a fine woman,” said Sir Dalton contemplatively. “But SueLeeta is not going to be interested in someone like me. I am a single father with ten daughters. She isn’t going to want to be tied down. SueLeeta can do much better than me.”

  “I think you might be wrong,” I said and left the Knight to his own mind. If I had even briefly considered the direction this conversation had gone, I would have kept my mind shut. Then, I considered who else might have been in mental communication with Sir Dalton. Who knew he talked to himself and could have caused this rift with his gut in the first place?

  After considering Bashara for a moment, I ruled her out. She liked manipulating people, but this didn’t fit her motive of screwing everyone over. It was almost like SueLeeta had used the party communication system herself, in her higher pitched voice.

  Oh, shit.

  Realizing that, I filled in the rest of the blanks easily enough. SueLeeta had contacted Sir Dalton during the battle for some innocent reason, and he thought it was his gut talking to him. She then went down the path near and dear to her heart and walked into that pile of worms.

  “What are you blathering on about?” asked Shart.

  “Relationships are complicated,” I said, glancing between the melancholy Sir Dalton and the tigress of a Hunter, SueLeeta.

  SueLeeta arrived at a junction and abruptly stopped. Stepping back a pace, she shook her head, “Nope.” The rest of the party stopped, as well, several paces behind SueLeeta. She had her weapon in hand but was not seeking out a target. I broke from the group and walked over, so I could look down the hall.

  I had that instant feeling of dread. The hair on the back of my neck stood up, as I looked down the hallway. The formerly broad passageway had regressed to a small entrance that was on the low end of man-sized. There were a few shafts of light running through the hallway, but they were so dim that I wouldn’t have noticed them without my Perception skill. “This has to be a trap,” I stated, as I examined the changes.

  Most of the passages we had been down were rectangular, or squarish. This hallway was square on top, but the bottom was circular. Plus, it was much smaller than the previous passages. Calling those other areas hallways was just not doing them justice. Here, I could have reached my hands straight out and touched both sides of the hallway at points. “I mean, it has to be a massive boulder that runs down this track and crushes everyone,” I continued.

  “Maybe some liquid,” said SueLeeta, looking at me oddly.

  “Liquid would go down this thing just fine, even if it was square,” I countered. She shrugged.

  “I guess,” she finally responded, “But what’s up with you and boulders? I was figuring something like a pit, or maybe wall spikes.”

  “Or darts shooting from the walls,” I said, nodding.

  “Wait, what?” asked SueLeeta. “Why would you think that darts would shoot from the walls?”

  “I don’t know. I just get a solid impression that this would be a good place for them,” I stated.

  “Think I should get Bashara?” asked SueLeeta, as I continued peering down the hallway.

  “Na, I’ll just go on ahead. You guys follow up in a bit,” I announced, before clambering through the entrance. SueLeeta shrugged, watching me for a long moment. Then, she turned around to gather up the rest of the party.

  I started strolling down the hallway without a care in the world.

  “What are we doing here?” asked Shart.

  “We are avoiding traps,” I responded.

  Shart frowned, as I ducked and twisted around. “I’m not even detecting any traps.”

  Grumbling, I grabbed an empty potion vial and tossed it into one of the streams of light. Instantly, a spike shot up from the floor, impaling the air that the bottle had occupied. “Child’s play.”

  Shart stared at me incredulously. “Look, Dum Dum, I’m impressed when a monkey finds a banana, just like anyone else. How did you know that was a trap? I can tell your Trap Finding isn’t even triggering.”

  “It’s just too obvious,” I replied, focusing on the point where the spike came out. Now that I had a reference point, dozens more popped up from the ground. I sent a message over to SueLeeta. She could use her scouting prowess to avoid them, now that she was aware of them.

  I got a mental buzz from her that could best be interpreted as “annoyed.”

  As we continued, carefully avoiding the splashes of light, Badgelor began snoring loudly. “You know, he does trust you a little,” commented Shart. I was so startled by the comment that I almost lost my balance and brushed into the light.

  I recovered quickly, “Maybe.” Badgelor was a tricky little critter. When he wasn’t in full murder mode, he generally used me more than asked for my help. Then again, his personality might be best described as ‘murderer of Charles’, with all other points being secondary.

  Bringing up my Path tab, I checked to see that I still needed to raise Badgelor’s attitude to Friendly. Then, I could take the next step on my Path.

  “What exactly happens when I become a Beast Lord?” I asked, as we reached a break in the hallway that led into another chamber.

  “What happens when you advance on your Path to ultimate enlightenment, Dum Dum?” chuckled Shart. “Well, first off, Badgelor will grow even stronger. The Beast Lord Path is mainly about further enhancing your companion. It's not going to do shit for you.”

  “Joy,” I decided, “And I’m stuck with it?”

  “Well, you can technically break a Path and try to take a new one. There tends to be a large reputation hit, though,” said Shart, pointedly looking toward Badgelor.

  “So, he’s an angry git and won’t be friends with me, but if I break the Path he’ll know I broke it?” I groaned.

  “He’ll know you betrayed him,” stated Shart.

  “Charles, you son of a bitch! You betrayed me, and I’ll hunt you to the ends of the world,” growled Badgelor in his sleep.

  “Yup, I think I put fifty cents in the music box, and now I’m going to have to listen to the whole tune,” I said.

  “Whatever passes for language in your world must be atrocious,” said Shart. shaking his head. “I don’t think any of those words made sense.”

  I hopped over a crack in the ground, landing safely on the other side. It was only about four logs wide, barely worth the notice.

  “If I had a whip, I could have swung over,” I said, gesturing toward a large root that had grown out of the wall.

  “Why in the hell would you do that?” grumbled Shart, as we entered the next chamber.

  The f
inal chamber was actually pretty straight forward. There was a small dais made of sandstone in the middle of the room with a little golden statue. The floor was a combination of rocks and moss, and the entire room stank. The smell of old rot seemed to scream of danger.

  “There are dart traps on the floor and some sort of idol in the middle of the room,” I said confidently.

  “That’s moronic. The darts would hit the souls of your boots,” said Shart.

  “No, the triggers are on the floor. They shoot out of tubes in the walls,” I said. “I’ve seen this place before.”

  “Really?” asked Shart incredulously. “Exactly where have you seen this place before?”

  “In an old movie,” I said, looking around. “It was in an old adventure movie. The room is not an exact replica, mind you, but it's a respectable copy.”

  “Well then, please, move on,” commented Shart.

  I sent a mental message back to SueLeeta and then started carefully walking on the stone bits of the floor, careful to avoid the dirt patches. It took me only a few moments to get to the dais. In the middle of the platform was a large pile of dirt.

  “So, where’s the idol?” asked Shart. I grumbled before yanking Shart off my shoulder and pointing him toward the dirt. “What the hell are you doing?”

  I pulled my hand back and delivered a powerful slap to Shart’s ass, causing the little zit to pop. Well, more like yell really indignantly for several seconds. That yelling was enough to blast most of the dust off of the dais, revealing a large golden idol.

  “See,” I said, gesturing.

  “Well, Dum Dum, it looks like you figured something out,” grumbled Shart, returning to my shoulder. His eyes grew wider and more hopeful. “Are we going to take it?”

  “Fuck, no! That’s a trap,” I said, gesturing toward the other side of the room. I hopped off the dais and continued walking, noticing two sets of tracks in the ceiling of the room. A quick hop and a jump later, I was to the other side and searching for a doorway.

  “Shart, can you pop through the wall here and find out where the door should be?” I asked.

  Shart grumbled but vanished, only to return a moment later. “It looks like the chasm room we just passed on the other side, but bigger.”