Unable to
decipher the mystery of the Black Pillar, the stalwart party continued down the
main tunnel. The road they followed
weaved back-and-forth like a drunken tavern-goer, and before long they could
not see the Pillar when they looked back.
Then they came upon a strange stone outcropping.
It was about
two feet square and stuck out from the wall like a drawer that was half-pulled
out. The rock was about two-and-a-half
feet above the floor with a burning torch stuck in the wall above it. On its top were a series of small colored
crystals, arranged in even rows around a round clear crystal at the center that
was easily as large as an apple. The cavern continued on another twenty yards
before sharply turning to the right.
Without
hesitation, Padrelle bounded up to the rocky console—sized perfectly for her—and
looked over the wide assortment of crystals.
Blue, green, red, and yellow stones glistened in the dancing
torchlight.
"Oooh! Check out that baby!" she cooed as she
drew a dagger from beneath her cloak. A
quick flick of her wrist and the blade jabbed into the stone shelf, lodged
under the great clear crystal in the center.
With the tiniest bit of leverage, the crystal popped out with ease.
Then,
somewhere behind the rock wall, a pop
sounded. It was followed by a twang, and then a groan, and a series of
clacks as though some ancient machine
was reluctantly brought to life and set about its work.
Then a long
wooden arm slid out from a crack in the rocky wall. It was suspended somewhere above the ceiling
and swung across the width of the tunnel.
Behind it, another pendulum swung in the opposite direction. Beyond that, was another, and another, spaced
a few feet apart for the next fifteen yards.
They swung back and forth incessantly, obviously powered by the unseen,
complaining mechanism.
The Wizard's
face contorted with a scowl and thumped Padrelle on the head then pulled the
crystal from her hands. "Foolish
Halfling! Are you going to set off every trap that we come
across?" He pushed the stammering
Halfling aside and pushed the round crystal back in place, but the bladed
pendulums continued.
With a
perplexed frown, Gray Dan scowled down at the crystals. "Perhaps when Padrelle removed the large
crystal it somehow disturbed the smaller ones…" He reached out with two fingers and
experimentally tapped a yellow crystal.
It glowed at his touch, then died when he pulled his hand away. He tried one of each remaining color: red,
green, and blue. Each one glowed when he
pressed his fingertips against them, then went dark when he ceased contact.
"Wait a
minute!" Mediphon cried, one shaky finger pointing at the pendulum
blades. "I think they've slowed
down." The blades swung across the
cavern and he started to count the seconds.
"One, two, three, four…" The blades swung again.
"You're
right!" Sunthorn agreed, "They were swinging faster than that when
they first started."
"Too
bad we didn't bring a Thief with us, to disarm all these dastardly traps,"
Haldraginor sighed. "Even the hero
of Haven Hills can't do that."
"We
don't need a Thief," the Wizard said in an indignant tone. He held his chin as he considered the console
of jewels. "Obviously, this crystal
table controls the pendulum trap; we simply need someone clever to decipher how
it works."
Padrelle
gasped. "We're doomed!"
Gray Dan
scowled at her. "Thank you for your
confidence," he snarled. Then he
reached out for the crystals one more.
He lashed out at the crystals in a short sequence that appeared to do
nothing. A second sequence, longer than
the last, caused the blades to swing more rapidly. As his companions groaned behind him, the
Wizard sneered and tried a six-color sequence.
As he pulled
his fingers from the sixth stone, the blades swung into the side-walls of the
tunnel and did not return. Gray Dan
stood and wiped his hands with a smug grin as the Cleric clapped him on the
shoulder and exclaimed, "Well done!"
"I
know," the Wizard said as he pulled away from the Holy Man's grasp. He started down the cavern, spread his arms
wide. "Sooner or later, you will
all learn that Gray Dan is always right! Now lets g-o-o-oh!"
The cavern
floor crumbled away beneath the Wizard's foot, and grew into a wide, deep pit
that stretched from wall to wall for fifteen yards. As for Gray Dan, he quickly vanished into the
pit itself, and his fearful cry lasted for only a few moments before it was
abruptly cut off.
The
remaining five heroes stepped forward and peered down into the impassable
pit. The darkness prevented them from
seeing anything. With a shrug, Mediphon
tossed his torch into the middle of the pit.
It was easily twenty feet deep, and the Wizard's body seemed to float
just above the pit floor, held aloft by nearly a dozen of the needle-thin
spikes that covered the bottom. They
stared down at his corpse in an awkward silence.
Without
looking away from the body in the pit, Pamblyn asked, "You…uh…don't happen
to have a resurrection spell handy, do ya?"
The Holy Man
pulled at his blonde mustache. "No,
I'm not powerful enough to be granted such strong magic yet." The Warrioress nodded and harrumphed in
response.
Suddenly
Haldraginor clapped his hands together and smiled at his surrounding
companions. "Well!" he
exclaimed, "What do you say we go check out that side tunnel back at the
pillar?"
With a
disjointed murmur of agreement, they started back up the cavern from whence
they came. Only the Cleric paused,
staring down into the pit. He waved his
hand in the air, drawing a solemn sign over the corpse. "Rest now," Mediphon said, "We
may yet find some means of restoring you to life. You just wait here. …Um." He paused as though realizing what
he just said. Then he shrugged and rushed
to catch up to his comrades.
* * *
They quickly
backtracked to the Black Pillar and ventured down the side tunnel. After the wider main cavern, this fissure
seemed narrow. Two of the humans could
have walked down it side-by-side if they were pressed together, and still their
shoulders would scrape against he rocky walls.
The floor was jagged and broken into tiers, slowly descending deeper
into the ground. Finally the steps
ceased and the fissure widened into a wide, tall cave with ledges running along
the walls just above the humans' heads.
But it was well-lit with several torches jutting from the rocky walls on
both levels. The far end of the cave had
two tunnels branching off at opposite angles, giving the cavern a distorted
Y-shape.
They walked
into the cavern, straining—and failing—to see up on the ledges. With cautious strides and wary eyes they
advanced to the center of the three-way intersection.
A short
creature jumped to the edge of a rocky outcropping on the right-hand side of
the cavern. All of two-and-half feet
tall, the scrawny human-shaped thing had a dog-like face with short horns on
its head and its scaly skin was orange-red.
Its eyes glowing with hate, it pointed an accusatory clawed digit at the
heroes and barked: "Kill the
invaders from the surface! Take one of
them alive for the experiments! So Drang
commands!"
As the order
reverberated in the cavern, the ledges suddenly filled with similar little
dog-men. The foul little beasts had
rough scaly hides that were rusty brown, clad in bright but ragged clothing. Their canine snouts baring their sharp teeth,
they hurled rocks at the trespassers in the lower tier of the cavern.
Sunthorn and
Pamblyn raised their shields against the hail of stones. The others tried to cover their heads with
their arms. A blood-chilling battle howl
erupted from the tunnel at the right fork as a wave of kobolds charged in
brandishing long daggers and short spears.
Haldraginor
saw the onrushing pack of kobolds and grinned.
"Ha-haa!" he cried, "At last! This is what we've come for!"
"What? To get pummeled in an ambush?" Pamblyn
asked as stones bounced off her shield.
Heedless of
the raining rocks, Haldraginor brought his sword around. "Have no fear, my friends! Remember, they're only kobolds!" Issuing a battle cry of his own, he waded
into the oncoming wave of kobold soldiers.
Pamblyn followed him, her gleaming sword in hand.
The two
fighters whipped their swords in strong, slashing arcs that snapped the
kobolds' tiny spears, knocked their dagger-blades aside, and sliced into their
tender flesh. The kobolds pressed
onward, relentless as the sea. They
struck at the human foes with their weapons, their claws. Some of them got past the two warriors and
charged the stragglers, still suffering in a rain of stones.
Sunthorn
brought his shield around, and the kobolds slammed into him. Surprised at their collective strength, he
struggled to keep them from advancing.
On the
ledge, the squad leader, Drang, sneered at the battle below. He turned to a group of kobolds behind him
and waved them forward as he barked, "Bring the net!" At his command,
the four each grabbed a corner of a net and leapt off the ledge toward the Holy
Man and the Halfling.
Padrelle
pointed up at them, the net opening wide to engulf them. "Look out!"
Mediphon looked
skyward. "Good God!" he
exclaimed and lashed out with his flail.
The chain stretched to its length and the studded metal ball at the end
caught the net and swept it aside, throwing it and its kobold carriers crashing
into the rocky wall.
Drang slapped
his own forehead in disbelief.
"Useless kobolds!" he snarled.
He glared down at the battle and saw the two warriors, the bodies of a
half-dozen kobolds at their feet. A
growl started low in his throat, but it quickly matured into a scream as he
leapt from the ledge. He landed on
Haldraginor—the nearer of the two human warriors—clambered gracelessly up his
travelling pack and pulled at the man's helmet.
Haldraginor's
winged helm clattered on the cave floor and Drang grabbed a clawful of the
man's hair, pulled his head back.
"Prepare to die now, human!"
Then he pressed his free hand onto the warriors face. With a
gasp of breath, Haldraginor felt the heavy weight of the sword, of his arms, of
his legs. He fell to the cavern floor
with a clatter and a clang.
The kobolds
paused in their onslaught and Pamblyn cried out "Hal!", but the
fallen warrior gave no response.
"What's
happened?" the Halfling asked.
Sunthorn,
still holding up his shield, looked over his shoulder at her and the Cleric. "Hal's down!"
"What,
how?" Mediphon asked as he pushed his way past the Elf. He saw the Warrior's body lying still on the
earthen floor. "By the Bright Beams
of the Sun! What magic is this?"
"This
one did it!" Pamblyn yelled as she brought her sword down in a great
cleaving motion.
Drang jumped
back from her onrushing blade. He landed
a few feet away and smiled smugly at her.
Suddenly the metal ball of the Holy Man's flail knocked him off his
feet. He jumped up from the rocky floor,
lifted his hand to issue a command, and the Elf's strong shield slammed him
against he cavern wall.
Sunthorn
pressed against him with all the might he could muster. Despite the Elf's efforts to crush him
between the shield and the wall, Drang somehow managed to bark out another
desperate order:
"Kobolds…attack! Kill…them
all!"
The kobolds
barked and howled at their leader's command.
They leapt down from the ledges with weapons in their clawed hands. Kobold after kobold jumped down to join the
battle, their numbers seemed endless.
"Ye
Gods!" Mediphon exclaimed, "If they all have that power…we're done
for!"
"Quick! Retreat and regroup!" Pamblyn ordered as
she grabbed the Cleric's arm and started down the left-hand fork of the
Y-shaped intersection.
The Elf
gawked at the continuous stream of kobold warriors coming down into the
tunnel. Suddenly he felt small hands
pulling at him. "Sunthorn,
quick! This way!" Padrelle pleaded
as she pulled him back toward the fissure, the way they had come.
Sunthorn
looked down at her, took one tentative step toward her and felt the tiny claws
that reached over his shield to grasp his forearm. He looked back into the doglike face of the
orange-skinned kobold, Drang.
"Prepare to die, Elf!"
With a
shriek of panic, Sunthorn slammed the kobold against the wall and its grip on
him was lost. The Halfling pulled him
back the way they had come and the orange kobold fell to the floor.
Pamblyn
charged down the tunnel, the Cleric following in her wake. "Where are we going?" he cried.
"Away
from here!" she huffed in response, "Then we'll have to find a way
back to the others! One of these
side-tunnels ought to do it!"
Mediphon
heard the growls and barks of their pursuers.
He paused and glanced over his shoulder just as Pamblyn darted down a
side branch urging him to follow.
"Right behind you!" he assured her, as he turned around and
charged forward with a sudden burst of energy.
"Where did you go?"
He received
no answer, but quickly stumbled over a tripwire. To his credit, he did not fall, but a sturdy
rope net did. Weighted with rocks, it
fell from the tunnel ceiling and tangled around him as he struggled to continue
his retreat. But there was no escape,
and the kobolds were soon upon him.
* * *
Padrelle and
Sunthorn raced back up the natural steps in the fissure and up the side branch
toward the cavern that led to the surface.
The Elf frowned and he asked, "Where are we going?"
"Outside!"
the Halfling answered.
"We
can't do that!" Sunthorn argued.
"These foul kobolds have taken down two of our comrades
already! We must complete the quest, to
avenge the fallen!"
"No
kidding?" Padrelle replied, her tone incredulous. "Well to do that, we're going to need
some help, and I don't think we're going to find any here in the kobold caves,
do you?" Then she cried in alarm
and fell face-first on the tunnel floor.
Sunthorn
paused long enough to pluck her up and place her back on her hairy feet. "Be careful, you clumsy Halfling!"
She frowned
up at him and barked, "It's not my fault that I tripped!"
"You
didn't set off another trap, did you?"
His tone was accusatory as his keen eyes darted around the tunnel for
some new sign of danger.
Padrelle
heard their kobold pursuers growing louder and grinned up at the Elf. "I sure hope so! Whatever it is, it might slow them up! Come on!"
The pair
continued on and soon found themselves back at the Black Pillar. A left turn soon revealed a wide net covering
the cavern that led to the outside world.
The Elf
stared at the barrier with disbelief in his eyes. "We haven't time to cut through
this! They'll be upon us!" He
glared down at his companion. "Who's
side are you on, Halfling?"
Padrelle
snapped her fingers, started back down the cavern waving Sunthorn to
follow. "We're not licked yet. I got an idea, come on!"
The two ran
down the cavern and quickly arrived at the edge of the pit. Padrelle rushed to the console of crystals
and drew her dagger as the Elf looked on in despair.
"Perfect,"
Sunthorn lamented, "Instead of an impassable net, we have an impassable
pit."
"Uh-uh,
not impassable," the Halfling said.
The large central crystal popped out of its socket and the swinging
blades once again began their ceaseless swinging. "And there's our way across!"
Sunthorn
watched the blades swing one way, then back.
He glanced down at Padrelle with one eyebrow raised in doubt. "You're mad."
"Will
you just go!" the Halfling yelled.
"Why am
I going first? It was your idea!"
"Because
I know I'm going to make it, I'm unkillable," Padrelle said
matter-of-factly. "But if you can't
make it, this way I can save you as I go across, instead of having to come back
for you. Now go!"
"You're
mad!" the Elf repeated. The sounds
of the approaching kobolds were growing louder behind them. The Elf shrugged and said, "I must be
mad, too."
He slung his
shield onto his back and loosened up.
Then ran forward, jumped, and landed on the first swinging blade. He held on to the shaft and was fast
approaching the side wall. Suddenly, the
next blade emerged from the wall and he jumped to it. With the supernatural grace and agility of
his people, Sunthorn swiftly bounded from pendulum to pendulum and soon found
himself on the far lip of the pit.
Padrelle
watched him with awe. "I'll be
damned," she muttered beneath her breath.
"It actually worked!"
Drang's
gravelly voice issued up the tunnel:
"There they are! Get
them!"
Padrelle let
out a heavy breath, then ran forth and leapt.
To her own amazement, she landed on the swinging blade and scrambled for
a hold of the shaft. She leapt for the
second blade just as the kobolds approached the pit.
"They
will not escape us!" Drang vowed as he approached the console.
Padrelle
jumped for the next blade and Sunthorn urged her on. Drang pressed a series of crystals on the
console, and each one glowed at his touch.
Then the first pendulum fell out of the ceiling and clattered into the
pit.
Wide eyed,
the Halfling leapt for the next blade.
Drang's fingers danced across the crystals and the blade beyond Padrelle
fell into the pit. She eyed the gap to
the next available blade, now twice as far, and was unsure she could make such
a leap. With no time to reconsider, she
jumped back to the third blade.
Drang
finished another sequence and looked up at the acrobatic Halfling. The blade Padrelle was riding fell away from
the ceiling. Padrelle jumped for the
second blade, missed, and fell into the dark pit.
"No!" Sunthorn cried out in grief and
frustration. The Elf glared across the
wide pit into Drang's cold eyes, the kobold grinned hungrily in response. Sunthorn took one last mournful look into the
dark pit, then turned and ventured around the corner.
To Be Continued...
