Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Path: netcom.com!netcomsv!decwrl!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!xlink.net!rz.uni-karlsruhe.de!stepsun.uni-kl.de!sun.rhrk.uni-kl.de!physik.uni-kl.de!kring From: kring@physik.uni-kl.de (Thomas Kettenring) Subject: [Welcome] BT: Dungeon Crawling For Beginners Part 2 Message-ID: <1993Aug10.145121.24620@rhrk.uni-kl.de> Sender: news@rhrk.uni-kl.de Organization: FB Physik, Universitaet Kaiserslautern, Germany Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1993 14:51:21 GMT Lines: 191 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bakr's Tales: Dungeon Crawling For Beginners Part 2 of 3 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was evening now. After we had rested and eaten, we approached the entry. I got a bit moldy now, and Ormgwen didn't look too happy too when we two went in as silently as we could. Compass followed us with doubt in his face. Directly behind the arc there was a curtain on the right side; I pulled it away with a jerk, and a black, deformed, pig-faced humanoid sitting on a stool awoke, grabbed his short sword, and attacked us. This must be an orc, I thought. I tried to go into melee with him but he brushed me off, so I landed in the niche where he had been sitting. He fought the two others vigorously, and Ormgwen fell after a few strokes. He can deal out, but he can't take blows so well. I guess assassins need attack more than defense. While the ranger crossed swords with the orc I dragged a bleeding Ormgwen outside, where Tarik was still standing. He said I should go back, and he'd tend to Ormgwen and cover our backs in case more of them came from behind. Later I thought that a bit strange... enemies were more likely to come from inside, and he was the fighter, not me. I went back in and aided my companion, and when Compass got a small wound, Tarik finally came in and fought in my stead. I looked after the wounded burglar, who looked really bad. This was not like I had imagined adventuring. Would this be our first and last fight? I could see how the orc slashed Tarik's leg... but then Compass could finally slay him. At least I had those healing herbs. Ormgwen got most of them, Tarik the rest, but it wasn't nearly enough to remove their wounds. We decided to get a bit healthier before we entered that hole again. So I dragged Ormgwen through the creek, Compass supported the limping Tarik, and we retired around twenty metres into the woods. We stayed there for three days, and we fed on what we had in our backpacks, and some of those roots, and fish. But in the first night, some hours after the fight, we heard voices from the direction of the entry, and it sounded as you expect voices of creatures to sound that have noses such as orcs have. There must have been between three and eight of them, I guessed then. We didn't dare to get closer to find out; if one of those beings had almost defeated us four, we surely had no chance against a whole bunch of them. After a while, the voices disappeared in the direction of the stairs. They did not come back as long as we were in the woods. So they had found their dead companion, and they were looking for us out there, perhaps they took revenge on the village at the lake. During those days of rest I thought about my new style of living, and I found it a bit more disturbing than I had when I was a kid: we had broken into those people's home and killed one of them. Yes, I had heard of orcs' evil deeds from Musa my grandfather, but still, it took getting used to. I also thought about my impression that we definitely weren't the most competent bunch of adventurers. When Musa had mentioned orcs, there were always much more than one of them, and they were always defeated without any problem. Compass seemed to be the best of us... Now he scouted the vicinity, climbed trees, and looked out in every direction. He reported nothing of interest. Generally we talked as little as possible for fear of the orcs. ----- When the wounded had recovered, we went back to the arc. The orc's body had been removed, and there was no trace of living orcs too, so we cautiously entered. The niche was empty now. We lighted a few torches and proceeded into the hole, myself leading. The corridor was about two metres high and broad, and the walls were nicely ornamented... After a few seconds the floor gave way, and I fell and hurt myself badly on a stone floor. After recovering from the surprise and part of the pain I found that I lay in a small room bounded by three solid walls and a grating, three metres above me the faces of my companions. I couldn't get out on my own account, as I can't lift my own weight with my arms, and the others had to help me. It took them a while - Ormgwen jumped in and lifted me up, Tarik pulled from above, and Compass held open the trapdoor. I kept more in the background from then on. The others found more traps, crossbow bolts shooting out of holes in the wall, in pretty the same way as I had found the trapdoor. After that we were very careful with every inch we moved, but there were no more traps. All we found were strange holes in the walls leading up. I don't want to describe the whole place, but we found two sleeping chambers, one of which apparently hadn't been used for centuries, while the other showed signs of use by four persons. We concluded that there were probably three orcs left. In the first chamber Ormgwen destroyed one of the beds with his two-handed sword. He seemed to think that there must be something hidden in it but all he found was dust, and besides he had problems with the low ceiling and his sword when he hit the bed. He got rather frustrated by all that, and he proceeded in the same way with the beds used by the orcs in the second chamber. Next we found a sort of guard room with crossbows in the walls, for the traps, and a lever for arresting the trapdoor. We actually tested that, and we activated all the traps, in case the orcs came back. But they wouldn't fall for their own traps, would they? There was a bit of junk too, and weapons, and keys or so, but I didn't pay much attention. ----- When we went on, we heard barking. A single dog, but it could attract all sorts of attention to us. We had to silence it somehow. Ormgwen found him first, the dog was tied to the wall in an otherwise empty room, and he tried to attack but the rope held him. He kept barking so Ormgwen had to hit him with the sword (he still had problems with the ceiling). The dog stopped barking and started whining. He was such a miserable beast, dirty and shaggy and gaunt and bleeding, we just couldn't kill him. We deliberated for a while, and Compass convinced us of taking the dog with us. Miraculously, he also convinced the dog. The animal seemed to be used to bad treatment, it snarled and ruffled but it followed us and didn't attack us, for which I think the rope and fear were responsible, respectively. Smoked meat may also have played a part. Compass kept him and named him Caramon. He got more and more friendly later, he was still young and easy to influence. He never learned to trust Ormgwen though, and refused to take food from him or let him come too close. He helped us in some of the easier fights. But for now the dog was mainly a rather unwieldy loot. In the back wall of the dog room there was a hole that had apparently been made by violence long after the wall had been built. Strangely, the second room behind it didn't have any doors, only that makeshift hole... ----- We turned round several corners, then Tarik found a thin fissure in the wall. Everybody got excited and tried to open that apparent secret door, but nothing worked. Pushing, pulling, shifting in every directions, looking for levers, pushing two men at a time, nothing. After a while I got bored and walked on. I found a real door, a candid one, so I approached it as silently as I could, cursing the shuffling noises behind me where the others tried to find the mechanism, when a loud CLING-CLANG made me freeze. Later I was told that Ormgwen had tried to open the secret door with his sword. CLING was the ceiling, CLANG the wall. A moment later two humanoids came out of the door in front of me, weapons in their hands. Dark hide, white hair, pointed ears, fierce look. I didn't know dark elves then but I turned and ran. They were not far behind me. I passed the three others and stopped behind them, round the next corner. I was fully occupied with breathing after that, and with listening to the sounds of fighting (the sound most familiar to me was that of a two-handed sword colliding with a ceiling). Once Compass came and asked me to hold the dog's rope for a while, then returned to the fight. When finally the noise stopped, I looked and found that we had won. One of the drow lay dead, the other was seriously wounded, but my companions were well and searched the victims. Tarik found one more key. The dead drow seemed to have been the boss of the other and perhaps of the orcs, to judge from his clothing. Now I know that drow live in a matriarchal society, but maybe that isn't the case on Midgard. It is also strange that they didn't use magic, but maybe Midgard drow are different in that respect too. Compass tied up the surviving drow, Ormgwen and Tarik searched the room from where the dark elves had come, and I took the adjacent one which turned out to be a kitchen. There was a pantry too, and I filled my backpack with food. When I joined the others Ormgwen was trying to open some chest with his burglary tools but failed, so Tarik suggested he should use one of the keys we had found earlier. Indeed one of them worked, and we found heaps of gold, some jewels, and an iron headband. There were lots of good clothes too, in a closet, not in the chest, but we let them be. Now I felt even more guilty than before. This was just plain robbery. But... they must be evil, living with orcs. I hoped. We interrogated the drow but he wouldn't say anything so we put him in the pantry. At least he would have food until the orcs came back and freed him. There was not much left: the corridor ended blind some steps after the kitchen door. Of course there was much searching after secret doors, and they found a similar fissure as before. Again the trial-and-error process started, and finally Compass found out the way it worked: he leaned against the wall for several seconds, and it gave way. I could have done that too! Behind the door there was a spiral staircase leading down. We rested for half a day. The ranger befriended his dog, Tarik tried to examine the drow without success, and we all slept part of the time. Then we descended, leaving the locked chest between secret door and staircase. We closed the door behind us after making sure that it was easy to open from the inside. -- thomas kettenring, 3 dan, kaiserslautern, germany If you have to smoke and curse and drink to prove that you're grown-up, you aren't. If you have to do sports and have young mates to prove you're still young, you aren't.