Dungeon Master

by Andrew Bardsley

  As the circular stone slab locked into place, Ceras and Rinaldo could only hear the slight thud of the orcs hitting the slab on the other side.

  "Let me show you an image of what is happening on the other side of the doorway," said Hidden-Caverns in an excited voice, as a three-dimensional image appeared in front of the two adventures.

  Ceras notice that now several orcs were pounding the door with a large fist and any blunt object that they could swing at the rock, but there was no sign of any indentations in the rock. One particularly large orc was running and shouting for the others to clear a path as he ran with his head down and smashed it into the wall. Ceras noticed that just as he was about to hit the rock a glow of magical energy appears around his head, as the head hit, both the adventures on the other side of the door heard, a loud thud, but no cracks appeared on the slab. The orc warrior that had just headbutted the wall fell to the side. As he was on the ground as some of the other orcs were laughing at him and placing a few kicks into his exposed body.

  His plight that he had befallen he because he hit the door did not stop them fighting over who would head butt the door next. Thus, started a round of bashing head against the rock doorway, as each contender ran with their head down, seemed to get more completive as each orc tried to hit it rock harder to, only fall to the ground produced more laughter and kick to the bodies on the floor.

  The largest orc that Ceras had seen so far entered the room with leather armor and a large helmet with horns curving upward and shouted in some language Ceras didn't understand, as he hit and shoved the orcs head-butting the door's rock, away so he could have a look at it.

  Name of Monster

  Level

  Agility

  HP

  MP

  Skills

  Orc War-band Leader

  13

  5

  200

  -

  Head butt

  "Let me translate for you," said Hidden-Caverns.

  "Stupid, human games," said the large orc as he examined the doorway and them looked at the chess board with its color tiles.

  More orcs were entering from the tunnels, as the War-Band leader walked over to the tiles on the board and hit one at random. Nothing happened for a few seconds, as only a slight grinding noise could be heard from the holes about the chess board, then all at once rabid rabbits started to pour down through the holes. As the rabbits fell, they turned their bodies to fall face first onto the large orc bellow, biting madly with their large incisors at any exposed flesh.

  Most of them were just swatted of by the orc warriors, but one of the smaller orcs that had been directly under a falling stream of rabbits found that he has fluffy balls of madness biting attacking rabbits all over his body. Soon his blood started to pool onto the ground as he tried to rip each of the rabbits of from all over his body, but there was just too many for him to be effective. Ceras saw that one luck rabbit managed to find the jugular vein on the small orc's bulging neck and sink its sharp incisor in. This opened up the vein and allowing blood to spray everywhere. The orc eventual fell to the ground with blood loss as rabid rabbits turn red with the blood sprayed on them.

  As the rest of the orcs laughed at the fate of one of the war-band members, the rest of the rabbits were torn appear with the big ape like a hand. Ceras saw many of the orcs feeding greedily on the body of the rabbit, smiling seeming happy to have any meal.

  "I really don't know whom to cheer for," said Rinaldo in a hushed voice, "the orcs or the rabbits."

  The orc leader then hit another square on the board, and this time, nothing seemed to happen to produce a grim smile from the orc leader. Seemingly at random, he hit another square with a stick that he was holding, this time the door in the middle opened as the stone circle rolled the side.

  One of the orcs walked to the edge of the doorway and sniffed the air, and said in a growing deep voice, "Smells of human and kobold."

  The large war-band leader pointed to several orcs around him and started to hit them to get them moving toward the door.

  "You scum go that way and see what you find," he said in a loudly, "if find any human holla and save some for us."

  One of the orcs grabbed a lit touch from another orc that was smaller and stepped through the archway into the darkness, as about seven others followed him.

  Smiling with some measure of success, the war-band leader hit another tile; a grating noise followed that. As the orcs looked up to the ceiling oily liquid started to pour down on top of them, some of the orcs were now covered in the oil as they were directly under the oil streams. As the oil stopped flowing from the ceilings, several balls of fire fell, burning brightly in the darkened room, and lit up the oil. Quick as a flash the surface of the oil caught on fire where the ball hit, a wave of flame them washed over all surfaces that were covered in oil.

  At this point the orcs as one ran toward either of the two exits, to try and escape the flames, that was open to the room. The orcs that were covered in oil found that they were soon torches of flame, and tried to roll on the ground to put the flames out. This had no effect as the sooty yellow flame seem to stick to the rolling orcs as they were burned to death. The rest of the orcs were now trying to beat the fire of their legs, taking injuries to their hands.

  "Your sister is a sick person," said Ceras as he turned away from the grim scene.

  "Yeah, she does a good job," said the smiling twin brother as he looked upon the grim scene with satisfaction.

  Looking back, Ceras saw the orcs creeping back into the room, more cautious than before, as they looked at the dead bodies that were burning on the ground. The leader grunted as he kicked one of the bodies of the chess board, seeming not to care for the death of his war-band members.

  In anger and frustration, he started to hit all of the tiles of the chess board, which open some of the other doors, as each one opened, he sent squads of a soldier to explore the maze in that direction.

  "Better get moving," said Hidden-Caverns in a concerned tone of voice that reverberated from the dark empty corridor, "they're going to open this door soon. I show you the way and indicate the traps to avoid."

  The two young men walked down the dark corridor with Ceras leading with his staff held high, lighting the way. He followed a glowing red-light line on the rocks, passed corridors branching off into the different direction. The first indicated trap they came to was a simple pit trap that was indicated as it glowed red with Hidden-Caverns warning.

  "You can step on the white tiles," said Hidden-Caverns informing them of a safe route across.

  As Ceras went first, he saw tiles on the floor marked with a white glow. When he stepped onto the first one, he looked down onto the floor and could just see the faint movement of webbing across the floor that was covering the pit. Only when he was up close could he distinguish between the solid floor and the webbing but from a distance it was indistinguishable.

  Once both the adventures were over the pit, they heard the footsteps in the distance from the chasing orcs. The glowing path led them to a large wall that had circular hand hold caved into the wall, allowing you to climb up to the top, at least fifty foot. Some of the indents were glowing red.

  "Don't use the red hold," said Hidden-Caverns.

  The boys climbed up the wall safety avoiding all the marked red holds as they wonder what would happen if they used them. At the top, they stopped and looked back toward the bottom of the wall from the higher level. They could just make out the pit they had passed. In the darkness, Ceras could just see the large shapes of the orc running along the corridor toward the pit. The first orc was sniffing in the air as if he was following a scent trail left by the two boys.

  Suddenly the first orc stepped out onto the webbing, that coved the pit, and fell face first into the depth of the pit. Ceras headed a loud crash and imagined the orc being impaled by the spike on the bottom of the pit. The second orc behind him, with too much momentum from his running, did not have time to st
op and also toppled into the pit to suffer the same fate.

  The orc behind the two front orcs managed to stop in time with his torch held high looking into the deep pit. He laughed and pointed at the orc impaled at the bottom of the pit to an orc beside him. This suddenly stopped as an orc from behind ran into the two laughing orcs who fell into the pit screaming initial until it suddenly stopped with a loud thud.

  "Not too clever, are they, "said Rinaldo, who was crouching next to Ceras smiling.

  "Yea there seems to be no love lost between the member of the war-band," said Ceras with a curious expression as the living orcs were laughing at the fallen comrades.

  Some of the larger orcs grabbed one of, the smaller ones and swung him a few times as if getting ready to throw him, at the top of a swinging arc they let go and he wants flying over the pit, to land safely on his face, on the other side. Getting up, he made a rude gesture to the orcs on the other side of the pit and started to look around sniffing for the prey they were following. The rest of the orcs started to jump, with a run-up, across the pit, some of them didn't make it as the fall back into the pit screaming much to the amusement of the other.

  Ceras saw one of the large orcs was started to scale the wall using the handholds until he placed his hand in one of the traps holds. Ceras heard a grinding sound as a rock trap door opened below, allowing several orcs that had been standing at the bottom to fall into another pit. Ceras was able to see the bodies impaled on many spikes at the bottom of the hole in a twisted mess of broken limbs. The orc on the wall started to fall backward, into the pit and join the collection of bodies at the bottom, that was now being absorbed by the dungeon with a slight glow of light. Looking at the cliff face, Ceras could see that all the holes were gone and the only circular stone was where they had been a hole.

  The orcs at the bottom started to shout as they could see Rinaldo head above the top of the wall looking down upon them with a smile. Rinaldo moved his head backward as several arrow and rocks hit to top edge of the wall.

  "Shall we move on, "he said with a smile, "our work here seems to be done."

  The two boys again followed the glowing light line that led them deeper into the labyrinth. Passing many different traps carefully, they finally made it to a section of the wall that the light led to.

  "I'll open up the secret passageway for you," said the voice of Hidden-Caverns from the wall.

  It seemed that the whole face of the wall moved backward with a grinding sound as the two boys slipped into a lit passageway behind the hidden doorway, that had kobold walking pass. They were carrying tools in leather bags around their waist, that would be used for maintaining some of the traps of the labyrinth. All of them nodded to Ceras and Rinaldo and hurried on their way, looking busy with what they were doing.

  Rinaldo shouted with happiness to see his sister approaching flanked by a large well-kept kobold who was also smiling at the two boys.

  "How do you like my labyrinth," she said as she gestured all around her.

  "Very deadly, "said Rinaldo with a smile and a warm embrace, "just like my lovely little sister!"

  "Let me show you to the grand finale then," she said as she indicated for the two to follow her and the smiling kobold deeper into the labyrinth. The group of four seemed to walk down the endless twisting passageway, climbing up and down a level until they came to a mechanism that Rhef pushed that started a rock wall to open.

  As Ceras eyes got used to the new level of brightness of the large open room, the first thing he saw was about twenty large orc warriors standing with bows and shield. His first reaction was to start moving towards them with the magic flowing through his staff about the hit the first one in the side.

  "They're on our side, stupid," shouted Hidden-Caverns.

  This stopped Ceras in his track, as he noticed the signs of the dungeon creation on the orcs. Walking back slightly embarrassed, he was glad to see that Rinaldo was in a fighting stance as well, with his sister laughing at him.

  The large room they had entered from the side wall, he recognized as the exit from the labyrinth, with the final doorway leading to the corridor going down to the next level. The large room was in a T-shape about one hundred meters long. They were standing across from a large twenty-meter pit that fell into the depth of the earth, at its bottom were thousands of spikes protruding from the ground and sides of the wall like a porcupine quill. On the tips of the spikes, he could see a green liquid substance that would drip every now and then. Across the pit was a thin bridge that would only allow one person to walk across at once's, with no handrails for a safe crossing. The other side of the pit was a long hall with the end closes to the pit sloping downwards. The hall was well lit from magical lights in the ceiling, showing large square tiles, that Ceras was sure had some hidden traps.

  "We'll have to wait for some of the orcs to get here to a show of the final traps that we've set for them," said Rhef as she sat on a ledge for a long wait.

  As they waited for about an hour, more orcs joined them, bring the number up to about forty warriors. The new orcs were all carrying large crossbow with extra bolt in a bag at their side.

  "Just to make sure," whispered Hidden-Cavern into Ceras ear, "I'm sure that Rhef has done a great job, but it not her live on the line here."

  Ceras nodded agreeing with the dungeons voices as he was happy for all the defenses, they could muster due to the fact that his life was on the line too. Loud noises of shouting and thuds started to come from the other side of the room, where the entrance to the labyrinth was, and soon the first orc ran into the room to see the large open space and the orcs on the other side. His first reaction was to stare for a second before running back out again.

  The waiting defenders than saw more orcs pile into the room, about ten in total, all were battered with low health bars, and bleeding from several places on their body. When the large orc war-band leader walked into the room, his expression was full of wrath as he surveyed the defenders beyond the pit. Moving slightly forward, he made a very striking gesture to the defending orcs, who all seemed to bristle with anger at the sign.

  "Do you want me to translate the meaning of the gesture?" said Hidden-Caverns with a tone of a smile in his voice," be warned that its very rude and has to do with their birth."

  "Don't worry, I can get the gist of it," said Ceras, laughing, "he does seem to be very unhappy through."

  The war-band leader started to strike the orcs around him to the move forward, who all seemed to be eying the long hall with frightened eyes that they had not had went they entered the dungeon. As they creped forward, the first trap triggered, when one of the orcs stepped on a normal looking tile. Out of the walls shot dozens of arrows all the way to the back of the room as they thudded into the orcs. A few orcs fell as their health bars dropped to zero and were quickly absorbed into the dungeon, but the leader who had been hit in the arm just pulled the arrow out and threw it on the floor as if he was challenging them.

  It now took a lot more kicking and shoving, by the large orc to get the remaining orcs moving again, which proved to be a fatal mistake for most of them, as they dropped into pits or large rock fell on them claiming their lives the leader found himself in the middle of the hall alone. With a roar, he ran forward toward the bridge seeming to be able to dodge the trap he set of, and soon reached the edge of the bridge.

  "Don't fire just yet," Rhef shouted to the orc crossbow creatures.

  As all watch, the leader starts to run across the bridge toward them with his ax raised above his head, bent on murder. When he was a third of a way across, he suddenly seemed to lose all traction with his foot grip on the bridge surface. With a bewildered look on his face, he found himself falling back into the deep pit, only be met by the shape spikes that penetrated his body as it thrashed for a few seconds and died, to be absorbed into the dungeon.

  A deep clapping sound could be heard echoing around the dungeon as the voice of Hidden-Caverns said," Well done, Rhef, that was perf
ect. I just love the effects of a slippery surface."

  Rheg gave a small bow to her audience and then walked up to the smart kobold.

  "I've some improvement to make shall we check out how the rest of the labyrinth worked," she said with excitement in her voices.

  Rinaldo ran after here asking if he could help as if they were young children playing games again.

  Chapter 5 Advancement to Journeymen

  Ceras watched the two-twins disappeared into the labyrinthian and felt a wave of tiredness overcome him as he had not had any proper sleep for a few days.

  “I think that you could use one of the room that Symania has been preparing for you, “said Hidden-Caverns with a slight hint of compassion in the tone of his voices, “just follow the white trail as before.”

  Moving past the orcs that were guarding the dungeon, Ceras started to walk his way downwards into the heart of the dungeon, past all the walls with magical marking that seemed to glow softly. In a few minutes, he was led to a door to a large apartment, that open for him. Not really noticing the fine furniture rooms he passed straight into the bedroom, and saw a large bed with clean sheets. Before he could get undressed, he just fell onto the bed and was asleep within seconds.

  He awoke sometime later lying on a luxurious bed, with the linen covers still on it, as he had not bothered to even get under the covers before falling asleep. Feeling the pillows, he felt duck feathers that he thought only the rich could afford, as they were soft to the touch, under the cotton covers adding a high level of comfort that he did not use to. Turning over he saw the room was set out with beautiful furniture, all elegantly designed with carved wooden patterns, in one corner was a desk with writing equipment on it, all set out neatly in an orderly manner as if somebody had measured the exact angle of all the item against each other. He also had a large caved cupboard that he wonders if it had anything in it.