Kevik shook his head. “Not sure,” he replied. “It doesn’t feel bad though.” He stepped on the bottom step next to Bart then spoke a series of magical words as he cast a spell. When nothing happened, he cast another which failed to produce any effect.
Glancing to Bart he said, “There’s no magic here.”
“That’s good to hear,” he replied.
The floor of the passage moving away from the steps showed signs of others passing this way. Despite that evidence, Bart took it slow and easy as he left the bottom step. Moving along, he kept his senses alert for any shift in the floor or anything else that might foreshadow danger. Behind him, the others moved along in silence. It was almost as if none dared to disturb the darkness.
Not far from the steps, they came to an obstruction in the passage. Two thick timbers stood on end and were wedged in between the floor and ceiling.
“What do we have here?” Bart mumbled to himself. Turning to the others, he said, “Stay back a moment.” Then returning his gaze to the timbers, he moved closer.
The ends of the timbers showed evidence of having been wedged into place by the use of hammers. Bart touched one of the timbers gingerly, then applied more pressure to see if it would move. It was wedged tightly in place. He then knelt down and examined the floor more closely. There was a faint red hue to the surface of the floor around the base of the timbers, kind of the color of dried blood.
Using his fingers, he examined the floor more closely. When he discovered an area two foot by one that was slightly lower than the rest of the floor, he nodded to himself. “It was a trap,” he said as he came to his feet. Glancing back to the others, he pointed to the reddish area at the base of the timbers, “I’m not completely sure, but I think that when someone steps here, the ceiling smashes down onto them.”
“Brutal,” Chyfe observed.
Bart nodded. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Should be safe now that they have it braced. But just to be on the safe side, try not to step in the reddish area.” Turning back to the timbers bracing the ceiling, he made his way carefully between them.
One by one the others followed without mishap. As they began moving away, Chad commented to Riyan, “How do you suppose they put it back in the ceiling?”
Shrugging, Riyan replied, “I don’t know. Maybe it resets by itself.”
Chad nodded then cast one last glance back at the timbers before Kevik’s light moved on and they disappeared back into the darkness.
A minute later Bart announced, “There’s another one.” And sure enough, another pair of timbers was braced against the ceiling. At their base, the floor was also stained a reddish hue, testament to the lethality of the trap.
“Deadly sort of place,” quipped Chyfe.
“You could say that,” Bart replied. Then just as before, they slipped through the two timbers and proceeded on.
The timbers had barely faded back into the darkness behind them when they noticed the floor beginning to slant downward at a gentle angle. Not far after that they came to another open pit in the floor. Planks were placed across to allow movement from one side to the other. As they crossed over, Kevik’s light illuminated iron spikes dotting the bottom. Unlike the pit trap they had found previously, there was no rotting corpse.
“Nice of them to trip all the traps for us,” Riyan said.
“Sure is a lot easier than what we went through in Algoth,” Bart said. Then he glanced back at Riyan and grinned. “But not as much fun.”
“Fun he calls it,” argued Kevik as he rolled his eyes. “We almost died time and again.”
“Almost, Kevik,” replied Bart. “That’s what made it a great adventure.”
Kevik just shook his head. Putting one’s life in jeopardy wasn’t what he would call a ‘great adventure’.
Ten feet past the pit, they came to an area with irregular charcoal outlines drawn on the floor. Bart had them pause a couple feet before reaching them. It looked like someone had drawn odd shaped ovals along the floor. “Kevik,” he said to the magic user, “hold out your light as close to those as you can.”
Kevik nodded then stretched his arm out. They could see at least ten of the oval shaped markings spaced along the passage ahead. Half of the last one disappeared where the illumination of Kevik’s light ended.
“Pressure plates,” Bart said. “Has to be.”
“What do they do?” Kevik asked.
“Let’s find out,” Bart said. Then he motioned for the others to step back a ways. Removing a length of rope from his pack, Bart secured it to the shoulder straps of his pack. Once it was on tight, he took the rope in hand and began swinging the pack back and forth above the floor. When he had sufficient momentum built up, he let it go. Sailing across the floor, the pack landed dead center on the first of the charcoal outlines.
Ping!
Something shot from the right and struck the stone wall on the left, three feet from the floor before falling to the ground. Bart moved forward and found it to be a two inch dart with a jagged, glistening point.
He avoided any contact with the glistening substance as he picked it up. Holding it for the others to see he said, “Poisoned dart. Stepping on any of the pressure plates would have a similar affect I’m sure.” Tossing the dart to the ground, he added, “Make sure to avoid the charcoal outlines and we should be fine.” When he stepped back from where he had retrieved the dart, he pulled in the rope.
Untying his pack, he slung it again over his back and began making his way through the field of pressure plates. “Kevik,” he said. “Cast a light spell every few feet until we get through. That should give everyone sufficient light to make their way.”
“You got it,” replied Kevik. A moment later, a bobbing sphere appeared and began moving about. He heard Bart sigh when he saw it. He knew how much they annoyed him. “Just like Algoth,” he said with a grin. “Part of the ‘fun’ we had.”
Bart glanced back at him and grinned, then laughed. “Come on,” he said. Riyan and Chad chuckled too. They then began carefully wending their way between the deadly pressure plates outlined on the floor.
The pressure plates extended for a good thirty feet before they ended. After that, the passage returned to a more level state as it continued on.
“How far does this go?” asked Chyfe. “Doesn’t it seem a bit excessive?”
“It does seem that way,” agreed Chad. “But who knows what purpose this place originally had?”
“True,” Chyfe agreed.
The passage continued for another forty feet before opening up onto a room. Murals adorned two of the four walls. One depicted a scene of warriors fighting demons, the same demons that had been portrayed in a similar mural in The Crypt, and as demonic statues beneath the Ruins of Algoth. The third wall, the one directly opposite where they stood, bore a large rendition of the coat of arms bearing the stripe. Beneath the coat of arms were four separate, indented spaces. Each of the indented spaces was curved and sank three inches into the wall with a two inch space separating each from its neighbors. Looking at the spaces as a whole, they appeared to form a broken circle.
“Yes!” Riyan exclaimed. It was just like what Bart and Kevik had found deep beneath the Ruins of Algoth. Back then, Bart had placed one of the key segments within one of the indented spaces which had caused a secret door to open revealing the hiding place of another key segment.
“Take it easy,” cautioned Bart. He could tell his friend was barely able to restrain the urge to rush forward. “Let me have a look around, first.”
Aside from the murals and coat of arms adorning the walls, the floor was littered with the shattered remains of over a score of chests. Whatever treasures they once contained were long gone.
“Kevik, cast your detect magic spell if you would,” Bart said before entering the room. Behind him he heard Kevik mutter the magical words, then the wall bearing the coat of arms began to glow blue, indicating that there was magic present.
“Thanks,” Bart said as he moved into the room and slowly crossed over to the glowing wall. When he drew closer, he discovered indications that someone had tried breaking through the wall bearing the coat of arms. Hundreds of nicks scored the wall in the area of the four indented spaces, but none had caused much damage.
Raising his voice so it would carry to where the others still stood in the passage, he said, “Looks like they tried to break their way through here and failed.”
