by Galen Wolf
“Likewise, Peter. Bernard says you’ve got something to show me.’
We’re standing in the first stone-cut passage down from the steps that lead up to Tye’s Fire Level. It’s about ten degrees cooler. It’s also dimmer and the torches on the wall flicker in the slight breeze that comes from deeper in the dungeon.
Peter gestures to the stone wall. It’s slick with moisture. I don’t see anything, but I know there’s something there. He showed me this trap before but he must have forgotten. I smile.
‘Hover over it with your targeting recticle,’ Bernard says.
Name: Acid Shower
Type: Trap
Level: Seven
Disarm Difficulty: 165
Damage: 350
Crit Chance: 20% x 4
XP Value: 600
‘Ah,’ I say. ‘It’s gone up in Level.’
Peter bows. ‘Of course, Sir Gorrow. The Dungeon recently levelled to Level 5, thanks in no small part to your valiant efforts.’
I ignore Peter’s flattery, and he continues, ‘So because we’re Level Two of the dungeon, our traps are base dungeon level plus two.’
I see how this works. A Level 7 player will generally have a health score of three hundred and fifty so a Level 7 trap can wipe him out, especially if it crits.
‘But let me show you more,’ Peter smiles his odd smile and gestures for me to follow him further into the dungeon. Bernard tags along, grinning like a fool. This is his level and I know he’s done a lot of the design work with the NPCs.
We come to a fork in the passage. It goes three ways now like the head of a trident. I shrug. ‘Which way?’
‘Which way indeed, Sir Gorrow. Which way indeed.’ Peter’s rubbing his hands again. They sound very dry.
‘No, I mean, which way?’
He laughs a rustling sound like dead leaves. ‘We could try the left way.’
Bernard echoes. ‘We could try the left way.’
They’re irritating me. I frown. ‘Okay, left.’
I only go so far when I see in the gloom that there’s a child’s toy lying in the passage ahead. ‘I pick this up?’
Peter nods. ‘Do you want to pick it up?’
‘This triggers the trap, right? If I pick it up.’
He looks disappointed and darts a glance at Bernard who looks disappointed too. I shrug and stoop to snatch at the toy. The thing has buttons for eyes and a stitched-on smile. It doesn’t look very nice. As soon as I take it there’s a clattering sound and a thin coil of wire falls from the ceiling. It’s long like a steel ribbon and as I try to step away from it, it winds up really fast round my legs, snagging me to the spot. Then it digs in. And it burns like acid.
‘Okay, knock it off. How come I triggered it?’ I say grumpily.
‘We set it to attack friendlies too, just for the demonstration,’ Peter says.
‘Switch it back to hostiles only. We don’t want it killing NPCs on errands.’
‘Will do,’ Peter says, then looks searchingly. ‘Do you like it?’
‘So the coils wrap around your ankles?’
‘And cut off your feet!’ Bernard laughs. ‘They won’t get far without their feet. The mobs will eat them up!’
‘Can I see the stats?’
‘Just hover over them,’ Bernard says.
Name: Acid Coil
Type: Trap
Level: Seven
Disarm Difficulty: 165
Damage: 70 damage per second for five seconds
Special: Hobbles victim making movement impossible
XP Value: 600
I have to admit that is quite cool. ‘So do you have mobs here?’
Bernard nods looking smug. I don’t know why he’s being smug until I see him glancing at the stone walls. I look where he looks and see nothing until I hover over it with my targeting recticle and see
Name: Acid Golem: Type: Construct
Level: Seven
Health: 700
Dodge: 200
Armour: 1200
To Hit: 500
Special: Crushing Grasp 500 Acid Damage
XP Value: 700
Bernard says, ‘They’re never going to see them until they’re hobbled and can’t get away.’
We walk further on. We come to a stone bridge over a river of acid. It stinks and gets right up my nose, bubbling green and deadly-looking below the stone arch. ‘This collapses, right?’ I point at the bridge.
Peter nods. ‘You guessed, sir. You are a genius!’
‘I’ve played games like this before.’
Peter rubs his dry hands together. ‘A simple mechanism. If three adventurers stand on the bridge at the same time, it will collapse into the acid river.’
Bernard says, ‘But it gets better. Take a look into the acid.’
I peer down into the translucent green stuff. There are shapes moving in there. I target them and see.
Name: Acid Eel: Type: Magical Animal
Level: Seven
Health: 400
Dodge: 1400
Armour: 600
To Hit: 500
Special: Acid Bite
XP Value: 600
‘So they fall into the acid, which eats away at them, plus these worms get them too?’
Bernard sniggers. ‘And all the acid in this level eats away at their weapons and armour. They’ll only begin to notice once they’re way in.’
‘That’s nasty. It’ll cost them to repair that,’ I say.
Bernard frowns hard. ‘Don’t forget Gorrow, these adventurers will be servants of the Evil One. Good guys don’t survive in these parts.’
‘Unless they hide underground like us.’
‘Exactly. But these people would destroy everything you’ve built up, so when they face me at the end, they’re naked and weaponless and I dissolve their bones.’
‘What about loot?’
‘There’s loot down there.’ Bernard indicates the bottom of the acid river. ‘Good loot too.’
‘If they survive the acid.’
The gleam comes back into his eyes again. ‘Exactly.’
I scratch my head. ’How come the loot doesn’t get eaten up by the acid?’
‘It just doesn’t.’
‘Doesn’t seem consistent.’
‘It’s magic.’
‘You can’t just keep pulling out that every time to explain a deficiency in your story logic.’
‘Yes, I can.’
The alchemist isn’t going to be budged on this, and actually I don’t care that much. I ask, ‘What about the loot?’
Bernard says, ‘Geraint the Blacksmith is going to make some nice stuff, better than Level One upstairs—‘
‘Tye will be jealous.’
Bernard gets defensive. ‘I’m higher level than him. I’m boss of Level 2, he’s only boss of Level 1. So I need better loot on my level.’
I put up a hand. ‘Okay. You were saying.’
‘Yeah, well Geraint’s putting some choice loot down here, gold, coins, goblets, weapons. Then of course when the adventurers start dying, we can clone their loot and that will add to the attraction.’
‘Any special items?’
He nods. ‘We’ll put a couple amulets of acid resistance and, there’s a secret door up ahead that leads down a crawl passage full of acid worms, but if you get past those there’s a chest with a Sword of Golem Bane. It does triple damage to golems.’
I grin. ‘I thought you weren’t being soft on them? You give them items of acid resistance—‘
‘I put some potions of Acid Resistance 80 around the place too. Just stashed here and there and carried by the golems.’
‘So you’re giving them a hand really.’
He goes serious. ‘I thought you understood we have to incentivise the dungeon or else no one will come here. The word needs to get out then the adventurers come, we kill maybe eighty percent of them and get XP and clone their loot. It’s slot machine psychology really, like…’
‘Like rew
arding rats in a maze?’
He points his stubby finger. ‘Bang on. I knew you’d get it.’
‘I got it anyway. So lead me to your lair.’
I follow Bernard and Peter as they show me the traps and mobs they’ve laid out along the route that leads inevitably to Bernard’s Laboratory as boss of Level 2. There are exploding rune traps on the walls that go off when you read them. Some of them do damage, some give blindness for seven minutes, though Bernard stashed cure blindness potions along the way. Some even do stat damage, removing 30 points of Swordplay skill or Shieldblock skill. They are pretty mean. I gesture around. ‘So what’s the theme of this level? What’s the story? You know Tye is the Fire Mage surrounded by his Fire Dwarf helpers, what about you?’
Bernard smirks. ‘Ah. I am the Master Alchemist. I live down here producing golems for the dungeon master.’
‘That’s me, right?’
Bernard nods. ‘When we get your Level built.’
‘I’m Level Four, right?’
‘It’s your dungeon, you should know.’
I was just being polite. I wanted him to have the opportunity to demonstrate his knowledge. I sigh. ‘Go on.’
His face lights up again. He’s taken up with his subject. ‘So, I am making Iron Golems that spit acid.’
‘Naturally.’
We’ve been walking as he talks and now he stops. ‘Here we are. My lab.’
The place looks pretty impressive. Flasks and retorts filled with multi-coloured liquids that go through pipes and bubble and smoke run right through the place. There’s a rune work bench where dwarf NPC assistants, untriggered and motionless right now, stand ready to produce flat silver runes for use in books or on weapons or even as traps. We walk through to the main golem construction room. It’s a big hollowed out stone cavern. I see Thorvald and his miners are just finishing digging out the far end. Thorvald turns and waves then gets on with his work, the sounds of their picks and mattocks ringing through the cave. There are huge lumps of iron in various shapes, some nearly manufactured and recognisable as the heads and limbs of massive iron golems. Five golems stand quietly, ready to be triggered. I guess the adventurers fight them before coming across Bernard at the end. Bernard’s area will probably eventually be where Thorvald is chipping away at stone to form a huge dais.
I whistle. ‘Looking good, Bernie.’
‘You think so?’ He’s like a puppy waiting for praise.
‘Really, I do. Lots of thought has gone into this.’
He beams. ‘Thank you, Gorrow. It means a lot to me to hear you say that.’
I scratch my head. ‘What’s the boss loot on this level, by the way? If they defeat you.’
‘They never will,’ he says.
‘They will thirty percent of the time, you said so yourself.’
He shuffles. ‘Yeah, well the loot is pretty cool. I made it myself. It’s over there.’
We walk to the side of the cave and there are two shapes covered in dirty sheets.
‘These?’
He nods. They don’t look much. With a flourish Bernard yanks off the sheets, one in his left hand the other in his right. Peter the Silent stands with that weird smile on his face. Two fairly ordinary mirrors stand there. They’ve got a nice green frame, but otherwise they look unremarkable. I study the floor. ‘Trapped, correct?’
Peter nods. ‘A pressure plate just in front. A simple mechanism that triggers a gushing fountain of—‘
‘Acid?’
He blushes. ‘Yes, acid.’
I turn to Bernard. ‘So what’s so special about the mirrors.’
‘Step into one.’
‘Step into one?’
The alchemist nods. I shrug and lift my foot. I point my toe to the silvered mirror, of course expecting it to bump the glass, but it doesn’t my foot goes through. I look marvelling at Bernard.
‘Awesome, no? I made them from an old Hazidic magic book recipe. Very rare. Very expensive.’
‘I paid for them?’
He looks uncomfortable. ‘The dungeon account. You said…’
‘…it was an investment. They’re anchored here right, in the dungeon?’
Anchoring is the term used when loot is linked to the dungeon. It could never be permanently removed, even by us once it was anchored but when adventurers took their loot, it would respawn. When un-anchored, it would simply go with whoever took it and never re-appear.
Bernard is growing impatient. ‘Step in!’ He hisses.
So I do. My whole body goes into the mirror. I hear a tinkling of bells and I am in this blue tinged world of shadows. The only thing that is distinct is the other mirror standing just by the first. I go for that and put my foot up and, as I guessed I would, I step through it. I step out of the mirror into the room with Bernard, but I went into the first mirror and came out of the second.
‘Mirrors of Travelling — awesome, aren’t they?’ Bernard’s smiling the biggest smile I’ve ever seen.
’So they work like this even when they are a long way apart?’
He nods. ‘Even a thousand miles. Even the other side of the game.’
‘Wow. They are very valuable.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Can you make me a set?’
‘I nearly bankrupted us getting the ingredients. We’d have to go on a quest for new ingredients.’
That makes me think. ‘Did you ever figure out those Smoky Crystals that we got from the enemy waggon train?’
He scratches his head. ‘Not sure. They’re very special, I know that.’
‘Yes. We figured that.’
‘They add some quality to weapons. That’s what it’s looking like.’
‘What quality?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘Ah.’
‘But it’s a good one.’
‘Yes.’
‘And, there’s another ingredient. That’s obvious. To open up the upgrade. Must be.’
‘Do you know what it is?’
He thumbs his chin. ‘No. Not yet. But I’m working on it. I got side-tracked designing this level.’
‘Can you get back to working on the crystal research soon?’
‘Sure. A day probably. Then I’m right back on it.’
Just then a Fire Dwarf appears. That’s unusual because they are usually untriggered if the dungeon isn’t open and it isn’t. They’re Tye’s servants, he must have woken it for a special errand.
The Fire Dwarf bows in his golden armour. ‘Sir Gorrow, sir. High Wizard Tye, the Fire Mage…’
‘High Wizard?’ Bernard snorts. ‘The whipper-snapper’s calling himself High Wizard, I’ll be blowed…’
I put up my hand for silence. This must be serious. I smile at the dwarf. ‘Go on, please.’
The dwarf nods. ‘High Wizard Tye the Fire Mage says, come quick. He says, one of your boys is outside. That’s what he said. But he’s in real trouble.’
‘One of my boys?’ I say.
The dwarf nods. ‘A Knight of the Round Table. Come quick.’
Sir Lancelot and Sir Bors
I rush through the silent dungeon passages, my mailed feet clashing with the stone as I run. Bernard is running behind me hitching up his brown alchemist’s robe. We get to the dungeon’s front entrance. There are no adventurers in sight, but how could there be? The dungeon is offline while we finish Level 2. Even so, the door is flung open and sunlight spills in. I have to shield my eyes as I burst out into the day.
The fire wizard, Tye is standing on the crag above the dungeon door, hanging onto the wizened thorn tree. He points into the middle distance. I see smoke rising and hear the clamour of battle. A waggon train has been ambushed.
That’s usually our business and many times we have ridden from the Forgotten Chapel in secret to burn and pillage the cargo trains of the enemy. But this time it looks like the enemy are attacking someone else. I make out swarms of black clad boggarts and boggles. There are hill trolls and giants as well as dwemmer archers.
They encircle around a group of knights who wear silver and white. I see a knight hacking at the dark-clad foe and on his white shield are three red diagonals. I know those arms, though I can’t see the knight’s face behind his gleaming visor. Those are the arms of Sir Lancelot of the Lake, one of the fiercest and most capable of Arthur’s knights. No one else would dare wear his livery, it must be him. And beside him, standing back to back is another knight. His arms are similar to Lancelot’s but on the white background between the red diagonal stripes are black fleurs de lys. This is Sir Bors, Lancelot’s cousin.
But they’re having the worst of it. There are three or four enemy player characters there too, wearing the insignia of the Fangs of Koth guild. They own the nearest evil settlement of Carrionburg. It looks like they ambushed Lancelot and Bors.
Tye nods down to me. ‘They’re your guys, aren’t they? Knights?’
I nod. ‘My brothers of the Round Table. We need to help them.’
Bernard raises a hand. ‘Easy, is this really our fight?’
I turn sharply to him. ‘Of course it’s our fight. Let’s go.’
‘I’m with you,’ Tye cries and jumps down from the crag.
My stallion Spirit is grazing in the Secret Valley and I’ve no time now to bring him all the way through the underground tunnels. We’ll have to run and fight on foot.
We run down the rough path that leads to the dungeon door. On either side are the bogs and marshes. We don’t want to get stuck into them. Lancelot and Bors are about three hundred yards away, but the nearest enemy is much closer, and they have their backs to us. They’re so confident of overwhelming the knights, they’re like dogs slavering after meat and can’t tear their eyes from their prey.
‘Engage?’ Bernard asks, struggling to keep up with me.
‘Whatever you’ve got.’
Tye doesn’t need telling twice. He stops and raises both hands and a fireball shoots out, hurtling at speed into the backs of the dwemmer archers where it explodes. Dwemmers crisp up like overdone bacon, flames catching from their clothes and hair and bows. Many fall, the rest shriek and a great groan goes through the assembled enemy troops. They turn to face us, but I’m ready. I draw my sword as an alchemist’s flask containing gleaming light like the sun seen from underwater spins through the air, smashing among the enemy troops with an immense white flash. Some are killed outright, others are blinding and reel back clutching their eyes.
