Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn
From: arsmith@nyx.cs.du.edu (Alan Smith)
Subject: [NTY] How to live in a dungeon
Message-ID: <1993Jul24.221546.6706@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 93 22:15:46 GMT

First Rule of Adventure Outfitting: BRING ROPE.

  "Gee, I wish I'd brought some rope."  Palandun said to himself as he picked
his way through the tombs of Ahmey.  He stared at the little chasm across
his path, too far to jump, but not too far to pitch a little grappling hook     
across.
  "Damn." He said to himself, "Maybe I can go around."  he turned around and
headed back the way he came.

Palandun knew there were nasty things about, and a person alone was most 
vulnerable.  He had set his light-gem in a little miners hat and kept his
eyes peeled and mouth shut.  "Hear, see, and smell: use all your distance-
senses all the time." His drill instructor had taught him.  "You cannot
cast a seeing-spell or a warding-spell, so must be doubly aware."

His studies of preadator-prey interactions aided him also, by spotting where
a predator was likely to lurk and clearing those places first.

He looked at his little map, and adjudged himself to be in the right place
to drift a tunnel to the path he had been following.  He reached in his
pack and pulled out his pickadze.  The tool itself, a pick on one end and
an axe turned on it's side on the other, was old as man, an archeologist at
the University in Generica had said that he found similar things in digs with
the Heathens, a race that had crossed the Mysty mountains 4000 years ago.

Palandun's pickadze, like his sword, was magic, imbued with spells to aid
in it's primary purpose.  Even with help, Palandun did not find drifting
a tunnel through 100 yards of living rock to be easy.  When he had finished, he
had to rest.

He hid his light, put away his pickadze, got a good grip on his sword, and
curled up in his cloak, trying to pretend to be a boulder.  He woke in time
to see some giant scorpions, hovering around him trying to make out what he was.He used their reluctance to don his cap and draw his sword, then take in the
situation.

           ######################################
              S..............................S
              S..............................S
              S...................p..........S
           ###########.#######################
                     #S#    going that way ->

As palandun could see, he was surrounded.  He had fewer enemies in the tunnel
he had just cut, but he hadn't cut it large enough for combat.  Palandun
found himself running out of options, and had to resort to a tactic he had
last used in the fourth orc war:  When surrounded, clobber one side and leave
the other one alone.  He raised his sword, gave a war whoop, and charged.