by Daniel Heck
What do you do?
I offer fifteen silver like Nickers charged.
I offer fifty gold to improve their mood.
I find some other way to charge the sword.
While the magical word scrawled across the parchment might come in handy later, you feel like pushing your luck a bit. You spin the wheel another time, and feel the corresponding rush of adrenaline all over again, yet still cannot seem to move your feet as the mechanism slows…
The wheel stops with the section holding the key facing you. The key glows blue for a moment, then just sits there.
You reach toward it and attempt to pick it up. Its magical bond has broken; nothing holds it down. You pocket it with a mischievous smirk.
Dare I try for the very last item? you ask yourself. Especially when the odds are now tipped against me?
What do you do?
I spin the wheel yet again.
I leave the chamber.
Not wanting to stop with just one item, you spin the wheel again, and feel a slight dizziness all over again, yet still stand frozen as the turning plate slows… and slows some more…
The wheel stops with the section holding the key facing you. The toothed hunk of iron glows blue for a moment, then just sits there.
You reach forward and gingerly attempt to raise it. Its magical bond has broken; nothing holds it down. You pocket the key and press your thumb into your brow to release the tension.
That’s got to be enough, you chide yourself. Or does it?
What do you do?
I spin the wheel yet again.
I leave the chamber.
Not wanting to stop with just one item, you feel a slight dizziness all over again, yet still stand frozen as the turning plate slows… and slows some more…
The wheel stops with the section holding the scroll facing you. The tattered roll of parchment glows blue for a moment, then just sits there. You reach forward and gingerly attempt to raise it. Its magical bond has broken. You untie the scroll, then read it.
Oddly, it contains only one word.
That’s got to be enough, you chide yourself. Or does it?
Write down the keyword SCROLL, if you haven’t already.
What do you do?
I spin the wheel yet again.
I leave the chamber.
Not wanting to stop with just one item, you spin the wheel again, and feel a slight dizziness all over again, yet still stand frozen as the turning plate slows… and slows some more…
The wheel stops with the section holding the scroll facing you. The tattered roll of parchment glows blue for a moment, then just sits there. You reach forward and gingerly attempt to raise it. Its magical bond has broken. You untie the scroll, then read it.
Oddly, it contains only one word.
That’s got to be enough, you chide yourself. Or does it?
Write down the keyword SCROLL, if you haven’t already.
What do you do?
I spin the wheel yet again.
I leave the chamber.
You return to the main chamber, where you re-evaluate your options.
I enter the ascending passage now.
I test the key in the door to the left.
Instinct tells you the door to the left just can’t be as simple as it appears. Without touching the handle or even the door’s surface, you step closer and gaze into the keyhole.
Within, you think you see a primitive system of gears connected to a tiny launching hammer, the kind that might trigger a trap if you weren’t careful. The mechanism doesn’t appear to be loaded with anything, but that doesn’t mean for certain that it isn’t rigged to load itself quickly, even instantaneously.
You frown in suspicion.
I can’t disable anything like this, you realize, but maybe the key on the wheel would open it safely…
You return to the central chamber, and thereafter to the diamond-shaped chamber with the wheel and column.
I am determined not to leave until I get what I entered for.
Light is usually a sign, you tell yourself as you enter the inclined passage. The rocks under your feet become more granular, almost like sand, as you go, until your stride makes almost no noise at all.
Thankfully, mercifully quiet… you reflect after seeing ahead a hulking, leathery body sitting with its back turned to you. It wears strange red suspenders and seems to be examining a large blunt weapon. A torch on the wall gives it barely enough light to see by, so it squints and grunts occasionally, sounding frustrated. Beyond it, the tunnel continues into relative darkness.
You’ve encountered the ogre chief in charge of this place, and a lot sooner than you expected. It hasn’t seen you yet.
You duck behind the nearest wall and out of sight, then put a finger to your chin in thought.
I need to get past him somehow… but to think of how he’d acquaint that club with my skull…
What do you do?
I backstab the ogre with my dagger (and hope that kills it).
I throw something down the tunnelway (and hope the noise distracts the ogre’s attention).
I quietly return to the main chamber.
You quietly return to the ascending passage, where the ogre still sits with its back turned to you, occupied.
Who knows how much longer it will keep itself busy…
What do you do?
I backstab the ogre with my dagger (and hope that kills it).
I try to run past it and hope it doesn’t notice or care.
I quietly return to the main chamber.
Figuring that these items might go hand-in-hand, you summon even more courage and spin the wheel again, with fervor.
Look up again at the nearest digital timepiece, this time making note of the ones digit within the minutes of the current time. Then, follow the corresponding link below.
That digit is odd.
That digit is even, including zero.
Light is usually a sign, you tell yourself as you enter the inclined passage. The rocks under your feet become more granular, almost like sand, as you go, until your stride makes almost no noise at all.
Thankfully, mercifully quiet… you reflect after seeing ahead a hulking, leathery body sitting with its back turned to you. It wears strange red suspenders and seems to be examining a large blunt weapon. A torch on the wall gives it barely enough light to see by, so it squints and grunts occasionally, sounding frustrated. Beyond it, the tunnel continues into relative darkness.
You’ve encountered the ogre chief in charge of this place, and a lot sooner than you expected. It hasn’t seen you yet.
You duck behind the nearest wall and out of sight, then put a finger to your chin in thought.
I need to get past him somehow… but to think of how he’d acquaint that club with my skull…
What do you do?
I backstab the ogre with my dagger (and hope that kills it).
I try to run past it and hope it doesn’t notice or care.
I quietly return to the main chamber.
You quietly return to the ascending passage, where the ogre still sits with its back turned to you, occupied.
Who knows how much longer it will keep itself busy…
What do you do?
I backstab the ogre with my dagger (and hope that kills it).
I try to run past it and hope it doesn’t notice or care.
Feeling there must be something more you need to move ahead magically bonded to the wheel, you re-enter the descending passage and the diamond-shaped chamber at its end, determined not to leave until you get what you entered for.
What do you do?
I spin the wheel lightly.
I spin the wheel hard.
You trek toward the temple of the mountains, built on a craggy hillside south of the capital. The ornate metal doors creak when you open them. Within, stepping upon the floor’s random pattern of multi-colored cobblestones sends clacking sounds echoing through the torchlit aisles. After a littl
e searching, you find a goblet and a basin, and start making the tea.
Fedwick plods ahead of the two of you. “I’ll be examinin’ the Impactium for guidance,” he explains, “Although nothin’ here’s actually possessed, I should be pretty sure of the right words and actions after today.”
“The Impactium?” Celestine asks.
“The dwarven holy verses,” you reply. Fedwick indicates you in confirmation. “So, when you’ll be performing the exorcism for real,” you say to him, “that will be the first time you’ll have done it at all?”
“At least in the last seventy years or so.”
You wince.
The dwarf continues, “What’s more, the possessed body certainly won’t want this to happen. So, it’s up to us to figure out how to suppress it from rebelling.”
You and Celestine exchange wary glances.
“Don’t worry so,” Fedwick says. “Divine providence is with us, my god-daughters.” He finishes with a wink in Celestine’s direction, then turns toward the altar, where a gigantic book lay, its cover emblazoned with images of a hammer and moon.
Still standing, Celestine puts a palm to her chest, smiles, and watches him for a few moments. You smile in turn as a tear comes to her eye.
“I’m honored,” she whispers.
You wait a moment before joining her. Taking care not to spill the goblet’s worth of youth tea, you sit and jump right into the planning: “He’s right. As far as controlling the body goes, if we can get it into a tight spot, we should be able to use a tranquilizer dart. I have a few left over from the days in which Sungaze security had to repress some ne’er-do-wells that had laid plans to assassinate me.” You pat your belt pouch.
Celestine gasps, but notices your demeanor. “You sure do speak casually about it.”
“It was no big deal,” you comment, “One gets awfully good at self-preservation when in leadership.”
You hear the dwarf grumbling some mystical words in the background but renew your focus upon your conversation.
“But,” Celestine asks, “how will we get the host body into a ‘tight spot,’ as you say?”
As if in divine anticipation of your elf friend’s ominous question, sounds of battle and chaos meet your ears from outside the temple. Someone shouts for military help. You can’t yet see anything directly by which to determine what’s going on, but you think you detect the smell of burning and decayed flesh.
At alert, you stand, and glance in the direction of the altar.
“What’s going on?” Celestine wonders aloud.
“Let’s find out. Let’s leave Fedwick to continue his business, for now.” The dwarf seems highly occupied, from what you can tell.
Celestine nods, then cracks her knuckles. “No offense, but he might slow us down, anyway.”
You set the goblet down, then the two of you hustle back through the entrance. In the streets, a lithe dragon with steel-gray scales and deepset eyes tromps from building to building, atop which a humanoid in black and red robes rides, issuing commands.
Their backs remain turned to you as the dragon exhales fiercely, setting the Whitetail bakery on fire. You catch just enough detail to tell that the human’s face is obscured by a black mask.
“Where…” it huffs in the scraggly voice of a zombie, “is your most virtuous paragon of love?”
Townsfolk rush to put out the fires, passing buckets of water and creating pits to rein in the destruction. A pair of clerics haul the many injured toward the medical ward via two-rod stretchers. You hear a child scream. You say, “Quick, before it comes this way!” and pull Celestine into a nearby alleyway.
The being dismounts, grabs a panicked passerby by the scruff and shouts in his face, “I need her! As a sacrifice. Give her to me!!”
“Ahhh! I, I… I don’t know what you’re talking about! Please don’t hurt me!”
You cower in the shadow of a crate and wonder, Is that… Thomerion’s possession?
The masked man throws the innocent to the ground, where he lay groaning. Within moments, the dark pair passes by where you hide.
“I… I sense you,” the man croaks. “I know you’re there.”
After a moment of scanning, he turns straight toward you, and seems to prepare to attack… Your heart skips a beat, and fear courses through your every vein.
He only makes it one step, then hesitates, then holds his head with both hands, bending over as if in great pain. Summoning all the strength he can, subsequent steps seem to become all the much more difficult.
Finally, he backs down, hunched over and exhausted. He grumbles while calmly catching his breath, “Find me… in two days. At the Moonbow Arch.”
The masked man then mounts its dragon, and the pair hastily fly away, toward the south.
What in the world…. just happened?
“Are ye all right?”
You nearly jump out of your boots from hearing the familiar voice. Fedwick now stands behind you.
“Yes, godfather,” you reply, still breathing heavily, “we’re all right. But we should probably help others that have been hurt.”
As the three of you keep your bodies quite occupied in putting out fires and general recovery efforts, your mind nonetheless wanders into other territory:
The Moonbow Arch. Why would I trust this being to follow through on what it says? Yet… it seemed so taken aback by my presence, almost as if taken over by another mind…
After what seems an eternity, you feel more comfortable returning to the temple. Nearby, residents hug each other, a few crying mildly as others scratch their heads in confusion. Far too late, royal officials and militiamen on horses begin to arrive and offer what consolation and service they can. You scan the townscape one last time. Although it will take a while to rebuild, gratitude that worse was not done slowly rises within your chest.
Inside, you hand Fedwick the goblet and ask, “Did you learn what you needed?”
“Aye,” the dwarf replies. He takes a large swig of the tea, then shakes his head violently. A few drops splash upon his beard. “Bitter, kinda strong. But oh my, I can feel the effects already.”
You and Celestine tell him what happened outside, with special emphasis on the masked man’s instructions.
“The Moonbow Arch?” Fedwick asks. “I’d suspect he’s settin’ a trap for ye. In my experience, culprits like that are far more likely to return to the scene of the crime than anythin’ else.”
You arch an eyebrow. “You’re suggesting we wait for him at the dragon homeland isle?”
The dwarf nods. “Particularly if he wants to make a sacrifice, and is usin’ dragons to wreak havoc in the meantime.”
Celestine corroborates, “I did see something resembling an altar within the cavern before I flew back. It’s like the dragons have their own ways of worship! Which I suppose only makes sense.”
You scratch your head, pondering what to do next.
Where will you try to meet the possessed body?
We fly to the dragon homeland.
We travel to the Moonbow Arch.
You think better than to fight the ogre chief directly and decide to rely on newfound speed.
Here’s hoping I can take care of what’s on the other side quickly…
Glancing one more time into the passageway with an eye for the floor’s layout, you mentally plan where your footfalls will land. You adopt a sprinter’s stance, and give yourself a silent count…
One, two….
Three…
Now!
Yet, you do not move.
You shake your head in disbelief.
Come on, little miss, you chide yourself, you can do this.
Another pause ensues.
One… two…
You launch yourself through the gap at a blinding pace. Out of the corner of your eye, you think you see the ogre glance upward, then scratch its head in confusion.
Unfortunately, what lay in the chamber beyond appears anything but simple and quick. To yo
ur right, a series of slats lay ensconced in the ground along an incline. In the opposite direction, a nook is built into the wall, in which you can see only part of a large, spiked shield. Though the item emits a strange glow, it’s irretrievable as is, with the stone seeming to want to swallow it up whole.
The Shield of Dragon Might…
While you ponder the situation, you also happen to be giving the ogre time to aim his next swing, which you don’t even see coming. The club crashes into your skull with amazing force, crushing your brain. Perhaps someday, your spirit consoles once the brute starts gnawing on what meat your body offers, someone else will come finish what you were at least able to start.
Cruel fate has taken your life! Go back to the beginning of the cavern, or start again entirely.
You’ve trusted and known your elven friend a lot longer than Galumnuk has, so you decide to go with her idea.
“Let’s improvise,” you tell the others. “And we should be okay in the long run.”
The orcblood shrugs. Celestine smiles. She leads you to where the medical ward maintains a stash of primitive bandages and other equipment. Using cotton mesh doused in large quantities of the medics’ best antitoxins, as well as some strong rope to hold the padding to your faces, you each construct a primary mask, plus a backup in case the first breaks, within a matter of minutes.
