Ten Foot Poles: “We’ll be lucky to get to the end of this corridor”
Check for Traps: “I imagine instant disintegration”
Secret Doors: “We overestimated this dungeon”

---

Ten Foot Poles

---

The company arrived at the site of the demilich’s haunt. Before them was a low, flat topped hill, about 200 yards wide and 60 feet high. Only ugly weeds, thorns, and briars grew upon the steep sides and bald top of the mound. There are large black rocks covering the hill arrayed like a human skull, the jagged teeth a grinning death’s head.

The north side of the hill had a crumbling cliff of sand and gravel about 20 feet high in the middle of the whole. A low stone ledge overhung this eroded area, and shrubs and bushes obscure it from observation at a distance. Uthar led the company up to the cliff as the most likely means of egress to any tomb that may lie within.

After some prodding and poking with swords and Marko and Eli’s extendable poles, three entrances were revealed. To the left and right were short passages that both ended with a pair of double doors; the tunnels were made of plain stone, roughly worked.

The right side entrance was only thirty feet deep, though dark and full of cobwebs. The ceilings overhead were obscured by hanging strands of webbing. The dimly visible doors were reinforced and opened from the centre.

---

The left was twice the length and clear of webbing with a 10-foot ceiling. The barely visible door at the far end were wooden with skull motif frames.

---

The middle entrance was quite different. Every surface was covered with bright, brilliant colours, the stones and pigments undimmed by the passage of decades. The floor of the corridor was a colourful mosaic of stone, with a distinct, winding path of red tiles about two feet wide snaking its way south down the corridor. No stonework could be seen on the walls or the ceiling twenty feet above, as some sort of cement or plaster had been smoothed over all of the surfaces and then illustrated.

---

The scenes on the walls showed fields with kine grazing, a copse with several wolves in the background, workers of various races and strange human-animal mixtures—pig-human, ape-human, and dog-human—going about various tasks. Certain of the frescoes show rooms of some building; a library filled with many books and scrolls, the door of a torture chamber, and a wizard’s work room. There were chairs, windows, boxes, bales, doors, chests, birds, bats, spiders, and all manner of things shown on the walls.

“Middle,” Eli declared unilaterally.

“We’ll be lucky to get to the end of this corridor, let alone the end of the tomb,” Three groaned.

“Let me go first, Eli and Uthar,” Marko warned, stepping to the threshold of the corridor. The thread of red stones forming a path drew his attention and suspicion. He squatted low to the ground, following the path into darkness. He studied the small tiles that made up the whole, looking for footsteps or dirt and grit that might indicate passage. He was surprised to see nothing, not even a grain of sand. Marko stood and was about to step forward.

“Wait,” Uthar said, releasing a rope and tying it around Marko’s waist. Marko nodded his thanks, then secured his 10-foot-pole and started to prod the ground of both the path and the non-marked passageway beside. Neither budged, so he took his first tentative step into the tomb, following the red path. Three held his breath but Marko didn’t plunge to his doom.

With each step, Marko ran his blade over the mortared surface of the wall, looking and feeling for any tiny holes or indentations that might conceal needle or arrow holes. He continued his careful route, until, thirty feet into the corridor, he found a painting of two jackal-headed human figures painted so as to appear to be holding a real bronze chest that protruded from the wall.

---

“Mordenkainen mentioned a ‘Sea of Dust’, which might mean a desert which is where those creatures might be found,” he called to Marko, in case it helped his investigations.

The chest was at his head height—“headshot if it’s a trap” he muttered, and indeed there was a very obvious needle sticking 3 inches out of the wall below the chest. “Uthar, come forward and hold me while I get up the wall,” he said quietly. Uthar obeyed, bracing himself to allow Marko to reach over to the chest. He examined it closely, noting it was hinged on the bottom so as to allow the lid to swing down if a catch on the top was pressed. He cautiously removed the needle which was coated in a nasty poison.

“Thank you,” Marko said to Uthar, “But I think from now on I’ll use my winged boots.” He floated into the air in front of the chest.

“Could have done that to start with,” Idris observed, still standing well back at the entrance.

“Could have, but safety in numbers,” Marko retorted. He checked the chest for traps again, then depressed the catch. The box was empty. He waved his torch above it, which revealed a small lever protruding vertically from the bottom. “There’s a lever here I can move,” he announced.

“I’m betting a grill falls down in front of the entrance trapping him in there,” Idris said to Three, flipping his lucky coin.

Throwing caution to the wind, Marko pulled the lever. Immediately the floor below him fell away, revealing a thirty foot pit with sharpened spikes at the foot. Uthar flinched back as Marko cried “Holy crap!” before remembering he was flying.

“If he weren’t flying he would be dead,” Three observed idly to Idris.

“But there was no trap?” Marko muttered, confused. Then he realised: the floor wasn’t trapped, nor was the chest. Pulling the lever wasn’t a trap—it was more basic than that and he had fallen for it. He vowed to take a lot more care from here on in.

“Can you put the lever back to the first position?” Idris called. Marko did so, but the pit stayed open. He continued to work his way down the corridor, floating over head and prodding the ground below. Without pulling any levers, he found a total of five pit traps, some on the red path, some off.

The company slowly, carefully negotiated the corridor, avoiding the traps as Marko progressed. Idris, passing the first revealed pit, was surprised to see no bodies pinioned on the spikes below. “Self cleaning,” he mused.

Eli, running along the wall out of terror of the floor, stopped at the fresco of the jail door or torture chamber. A pit lay directly in front, but from the other side he could see pair of painted hands emerging from darkness to grasp the bars of a wooden door, trying to escape the horrors that lay within. The fresco was flat and unhinged, much as Eli peered to see if the painted door might in fact open.

At the far end of the corridor was a stone gateway shrouded in mist and a Devil’s face with a gaping maw.

---

The stone archway was filled with a veil of thick vapours. Stones on either side of the base and the keystone protruded slightly from the stones around them, and as Marko moved to within touching distance, a large gem in the left-hand base stone began to glow yellow, the right-hand orange, and the keystone seven feet above blue.

---

He called this back to the company, causing Idris to turn his attention to the frescos and visuals hoping to see a thematic link with the colours of the gems. But it was too chaotic; determining a sequence or pattern in the tilework and painting was nigh impossible.

Marko turned his attention to the relief sculpture of a Devil face formed of a mosaic of green-hued tiles. The face had a huge ‘O’ of a mouth, inside of which the space was dead black.

---

“There’s a secret here we need to reveal,” Marko said, “Watch this.” He pulled a rod from his belt and waved it around impressively—the rod would reveal any secret within thirty feet. He frowned, waved it harder, then sighed. “Nothing. It must be safe then,” he said wryly.

Sifer working his way toward Marko, paused. “Should I fire an error in there?”

“Good idea,” Marko said. “With a string attached.” He pulled out a ball of said string and Sifer tied it to the fletching. Marko cut it to a thirty foot length and held the loose end.

“The mouth points straight down the corridor,” Idris warned, pressing himself flat against the wall. Everyone quickly followed suit, other than Marko who floated to the corridor corner above the Devil-face.

Sifer fired and the arrow vanished inside, pulling the string taut before it was suddenly severed, leaving Marko clutching a limp section of string. “Sphere of annihilation,” Marko announced.

“I’m not going in there,” Sifer nodded. “Perhaps we should consider the misty portal?”

“Do you think those gems might be buttons of some sort?” Eli ventured.

“I do. Could we devise a way of testing them? Yellow, orange, blue,” Sifer said, pointing.

Eli walked back up the corridor scanning the walls and ceiling for pictures that might match the arch. He found nothing, and was on the verge of giving up when he noticed a pattern the vaguely resembled an arch in the red path half-way up the corridor. He crouched down to look closer and, to his great surprise, found that there was a tiny script traced between the mortar of the tilework. “Hello,” he murmured. “'These keys and those…'” he read, twisting his head to follow the line. With growing excitement he saw the writing continued in both directions, skipping over the pits to make a continuous phrase.

“Three! Come here!” he called. He pointed out what he had found, and Three drew a pencil, opened his notebook, and stood ready as Eli dictated. It took some time to capture the message, but once complete Three read it aloud to the company:

Acererak congratulates you on your powers of observation, so make of this whatever you wish, for you will be mine in the end no matter what!

Go back to the tormentor or through the arch, and the second great hall you’ll discover.

Shun green if you can, but night’s good colour is for those of great valour.

If shades of red stand for blood, the wise will not need sacrifice aught but a loop of magical metal—you’re well along your march.

Two pits along the way will be found to lead to a fortuitous fall, so check the wall.

These keys and those are most important of all, and beware of trembling hands and what will maul.

If you find the false you find the true, and into the columned hall you’ll come, and there the throne that’s key and keyed.

The iron men of visage grim do more than meets the viewer’s eye.

You’ve left and left and found my tomb, and now your souls will die.

“The archway colours were blue, yellow, and orange,” Three added, “Blue and yellow make green so does that mean we should pick orange?”

“Yes,” Idris nodded, thinking the same thing, “‘Shun green’.”

“‘If you find the false you find the true,'” Eli muttered, utterly nonplussed. “And who’s the ‘tormentor’?”

“The picture of the torture chamber?” Uthar guessed.

“You think it’s a secret door behind the picture?” Three asked to a shrug.

“‘Fortuitous fall’,” Uthar mused, “So maybe inside the pit there is something good, if you get down in it?”

“I feel like the things at the top of the poem are the things we need to worry about now,” Eli said, “Because the arch is right here. So the first thing we need to deal with is the first line of the poem: ‘the tormentor or through the arch’.”

“So both are somehow okay ways forward,” Uthar nodded.

“There’s no obvious green on the fresco or floor,” Idris reported, “Other than the occasional tile. Nor ‘iron men of visage grim’. Just your regular soldiers.”

“What’s ‘night’s colour’,” Eli said.

“Black normally, I would have thought,” Uthar said. “Or a navy blue, but really: black.”

“The mouth of the devil is black,” Three pointed out. “And what’s ‘a loop of magical metal’—oh! A ring?”

Uthar was still focussed on the pit. “If we want to find the ‘fortuitous fall’ we can just check the wall apparently. I’m not the best person to try and pull that off,” he said looking to Marko.

“I can check the pit below,” Marko offered. “Or the fresco?”

Idris shook his head. “I agree with Eli—I think the only part of this that refers to this hallway is the first line. I think the other stanzas refer to things we’ll find inside.”

Eli beamed.

“And there is the arch here,” Three said, reading back.

“So—through the arch?” Idris pointed.

“Or back to the tormentor,” Uthar pointed the opposite way.

“Marko—check the prison fresco to see if its a red herring,” Three directed.

“Why not bring the magic wand down there and try?” Eli suggested.

“No, no,” Three said, “It’s too valuable. Just check for secret doors and traps.”

Eli was crestfallen. From the heights of praise to the depths of criticism.

Marko did his best, but could find nothing to indicate a mechanism or entryway, both on the wall and in the pit below.

“What about if it’s simply covered by fresco,” Eli said remembering the simple lever in the chest, and trying to regain the front foot. Alas no-one seemed to pay much attention.

“Gentlemen I think we’re just going to have to walk through the arch,” Idris said, leading the company away.

“Marko’s checking won’t discover that,” Eli muttered. He refused to be so easily dissuaded. He whipped out his one foot pole and made it ten, then smashed it at the fresco depicting the jail door. To his delight, a chunk of plaster and lath beneath broke away revealing a hidden, inward-opening door. He coughed loudly, then louder again, until the company turned back to find him grinning widely.

After a round of Eli back-slapping, Marko checked the new door and opened it. He stepped into a twenty foot corridor with another door. He quickly checked the second and pushed it open, forgetting to check the floors below. He stepped into a rectangular room thirty feet long, Eli close on his tail. In the corner of the room was stone statue of an eight-foot tall, four-armed gargoyle that sprang into life before his eyes, flapping its wings and hissing.

---

“Gargoyle!” Marko cried as he sprinted over to it and striped it with his rapier. Sifer leapt over the pit and stood on the wall, shooting over Eli and burying three arrows into the beast. The gargoyle staggered and fell face down, shattering into crumbled stone. Eli, who had just drawn his sword, stuttered to a halt. “‘Horrors’ they say?” he shrugged.

Sifer crouched at the remains, shifting through the rubble. He lifted free a collar, studded with ten gleaming blue quartz gems. “100 gold each,” Marko reported with a quick glance as Sifer pocketed the collar.

---

Three doors exited the plain walled gargoyle room: two south and west. “I’m thinking the west door,” Eli said. “How bad can it be? Where could it go, it must just be a cupboard.”

“I like your thinking,” Sifer said, training his bow on said door. “But just to be clear—that creature wasn’t alive until we got into the room?”

“Correct—it came to life as Marko saw it,” Eli said.

“So it wasn’t trapped here, like the cell in the fresco. Could it be that it was the guard for these cells?”

“Oh,” Uthar nodded.

Marko sighed. “I’ll check the door.” He carefully did so and suddenly stopped. He felt sure there was something wrong, but couldn’t put his finger on what exactly. “This door is a bit dodgy. You can open it if you want…Uthar.”

Uthar grunted. This was the first time Marko had been worried.

“You don’t have to,” Three said. “Maybe we should a charge of Marko’s wand because these aren’t normal traps,” he said going back on his earlier advice.

“There’s just pits?” Idris said, unconcerned.

“Do it,” Sifer agreed.

Uthar shoved the door open…to find an empty, plain, ten-foot room. “Marko? Is there something in here I can’t see?”

Marko checked and this time he found what must have been worrying him earlier. “There’s a hidden door here—pull it down and inward, it’s hinged on bottom. I don’t think I’m strong enough,” he lied, stepping back. He suddenly had the heebies.

Uthar did as he was told, finding another identical room beyond. “Marko…” he sung out.

The process repeated itself through a series of hidden doors, each opening differently to the last; central hinges, sliding up, inward panels. Eventually Marko arrived at a door that had seven studs in a horizontal row. “This looks more complicated,” he muttered.

Uthar called the company through the doors behind. Sifer noted that the ceiling overhead in each room was pitted with tiny holes and was surprised that nothing bad had emerged, putting it down to Marko’s expertise. Or dumb luck.

They found Marko pondering the buttons but had no insight. “Did the poem say anything about this?”

“It just said it would take us to the hall,” Sifer recalled.

Marko nodded, then pressed one, three, five and seven. Nothing happened as he pressed the first three, but when he pressed the seventh the stone door suddenly collapsed inward. “Oo shit!” Marko cried leaping out of the way in the nick of time.

Beyond the door was another corridor similar to the tomb entry. The floor was inlaid tiles and the walls painted with figures of animals, strange signs and glyphs, and humans and human-like creatures posing with two-dimensional spheres of different colours. Two doors stood on the opposite wall amongst the pictures.

---

The nearest murals depicted a human holding a globe stretched high overhead, a bird-headed figure with a sphere on its shoulder, a lizard balancing a circle on one hand, and a five-headed dragon with a globe mid-claw.

Before anyone could react Marko flew over to the dragon mural and started bludgeoning it with great force, not stopping until the fresco was utterly destroyed. The company watched on, speechless, each reviewing vague memories of Marko’s fame. Some recalled how with Stormwatch he had defeated the dragon queen Tiamat? Others that Marko had protected—or was it slaughtered?—a nest of innocent Kobolds?

Despite his rage Marko managed to leave the sphere undamaged. He stood lost in thought staring at the remains of the fresco as the company started to explore the long corridor. Traps and floor-pits were forgotten (even briefly by Sifer whose eyes were on Marko) as an inventory of the coloured spheres was slowly made.

West wall: gold, orange, purple, bronze, grey, bright blue, white, turquoise, scarlet, and pale green

East wall: pale blue, silver, green, yellow, pink, black, pale violet, red, buff, and indigo

At the far end of the corridor was another stone archway filled with cloudy vapours that prevented sight beyond. As with the first arch, as Idris drew close three embedded gems in the archway began to glow. The left-hand base stone shone with an olive hue; the one on the right glowed citron, and the keystone seven feet overhead gave off russet light.

“Lucky we’re so good at solving this kind of thing,” Uthar said rubbing his head ruefully.

“So. ‘Shun green if you can’,” Idris said pointing out the matching spheres. “And ‘night’s good colour is for those of great valour’”, he said pointing to the lone black globe. “Or indigo,” he added with a nod toward it.

“I’m a bit worried about activating these things,” Sifer warned, “I think it will be the floor. Oh—and I’ve always understood that ‘night’s good colour’ is white. The full moon.”

“Ah,” Uthar said.

“Or could it be a play on knights,” Three said overthinking it.

“Well there’s two actual doors,” Eli pointed, “So they seem like a good option, surely? Rather than probing the fresco?”

Everyone seemed shocked by the simplicity of Eli’s argument.

“Because it says ‘you’re well along your march’, so we need to do things here,” Sifer muddied.

“I don’t necessarily think that’s true,” Idris frowned.

“‘These keys and those are most important of all’,” Sifer continued.

“Just open the doors!” Eli cried despairingly. “Marko! North door! Please. I’ll be right by your side.”

“Okay,” Marko nodded, breaking free of his trance.

“Wait!” Sifer insisted. “Three—can you please read us the whole thing again because I feel we’re moving in haste.”

Three nodded and reread the script as Marko checked the door. On finishing Three offered his analysis: “Some of these colours might stand for the various orbs, obviously. There’s a debate about the night colour—black, white like the moon, maybe silver like a knight? ‘Shades of red stand for blood’. A loop of magical metal is a ring, and it seemed for a little while that we might be making a ring, but that may be further along?”

“I still don’t think anything in here relates to the verse,” Idris said.

“Not even the colours?” Uthar said with surprise.

Sifer looked at Idris as if he had lost his mind. “The words have just told us all the colours that are on the walls here!”

“It’s told us some colours, many of which were in the first corridor too,” Idris countered.

“‘Shades of red’,” Sifer pointed, “One, two, three.”

“Why don’t we open the door, Marko,” Eli sighed.

Marko did.

Three mused on. “You know what I think there is a pattern—”

A spear shot out and buried itself in Three’s surprised torso.

---

“What!” Three cried.

“Let’s check the other door?” Eli said to Marko, before rushing over to Three. He looked at the spear and frowned. “The only way is to push it all the way through.”

“It didn’t go that far you idiot,” Three grimaced angrily. The spear was lodged in his armour and he hacked away at it until it was gone. “I’m ok.”

“I’ll make you a salve,” Eli said doing so.

“You don’t need to make me a salve! I am a magical healer!” He healed himself to keep Eli’s hands away.

Eli looked at his hands covered in a sticky, goopy mess, and shrugged.

“We were overly cautious in the first corridor,” Sifer frowned, “But now we’ve thrown caution to the wind.”

“Marko checked the door,” Idris protested, “He just didn’t detect the trap. And none have gone off as we walked this corridor.”

“One did,” Three grunted.

“My tutors in my creche called that a ‘statistical anomaly’,” Idris grinned. Three waved Idris away, the word ‘creche’ causing more psychic pain than the spear.

Sifer turned his mind, once more, back to the message. “‘If shades of red stand for blood, the wise will not need sacrifice aught but a loop of magical metal’.”

“The question is what’s behind this other door,” Eli said ignoring Sifer.

“Yes open the other door,” Three said, ducking behind cover.

“I think we should,” Uthar said.

Marko checked, made sure no-one was in the path, and opened the door. A second spear crashed into the mural opposite, cracking the fresco. The head of the human holding the yellow sphere split in two.

Sifer scratched his head. “‘A loop of magical metal’ could mean that yellow orb.”

“Metal isn’t yellow, it’s gold,” Eli frowned.

“We have a bronze,” Sifer started.

“Forget the yellow! It’s green or black or white!”

“But there’s also a magical metal.”

“That’s the next stanza down!”

“But it mentions a colour—‘if shades of red stand for blood’,” Idris said.

“We’re not at that stanza yet,” Eli said, incredulous.

“No, because ‘two pits two pits along…will lead to a fortuitous fall so check the wall’,” Sifer recalled.

“That’s another stanza again,” Eli scowled. “We’re just worried about shades of green or night’s good colour! Let’s check them?” He found the closest green sphere, and without touching it or getting too close, studied it. The figures holding the orb were more unpleasant than some, but there was nothing special he could see. He found another and tried to see flaws or messages in the plaster, but again there was nothing. “White and black,” he muttered, checking them next, finding both just simple pictures. The black was unusual in that it was at floor level but nothing more.

Idris followed Eli’s lead, walking to the nearest sphere, bright blue. He peered close, finding only a picture as far as he could see. The next, grey, was similar.

“Someone has to touch one,” Eli groaned from the black sphere. Idris wasn’t so sure, but he walked over and crouched next to Eli. “There’s a crawlway through this,” he said to Eli.

“What? No I’ve just checked, it’s just plaster.”

“Look,” Idris said, and Eli could suddenly see it. The black sphere was obviously an opaque illusion covering an enclosed crawlway beyond.

“I knew there was something funny about this one,” Eli muttered defensively.

Idris repeated the check on the green and white spheres but found no repeat. But at the red one next to Uthar he found another, waist-high crawlway. “This is one too,” he said, surprised Uthar hadn’t found it.

“So we have two possibilities which could link into the poem,” Idris said. “Black, requiring ‘great valour’, the red which talks about sacrificing a loop of magical metal, so pick one. Or there’s the archway.”

“I think the arches,” Uthar posited, “Might link to each other. Just transport. I don’t know that that’s true but from the poem you can get to the great hall through the arch. So I think if you went through the other arch you’d end up here.” He scratched his head. “Though there’s probably a version where the arch kills you?”

“That’s as good a supposition as any,” Idris said, agreeing with both of Uthar’s theories. “But we should double-check the rest of the sphere—look for illusions,” Idris ordered.

Everyone started checking again, following Idris’s instruction. Eli checked particularly carefully, secretly shamed by not finding the black pathway, and he was rewarded when he found the final crawlway far overhead at the northern-most gold sphere. “Here!” he cried triumphantly.

“‘A loop of magical metal’,” Sifer said with satisfaction, pointing to the gold sphere. “This is where we go first— it sounds a lot better than blood red of black valour.”

Uthar lifted Marko into the crawlway and he crept inside. A short passage bent right and he crawled into a twenty foot room. Inside was another statue of another four-armed gargoyle. “Fuck me!” Marko cried before seeing one of the arms had broken off and the gargoyle still wasn’t moving. The arm lay on the floor in front of the statue.

---

“Follow me in,” Marko called back, and the company dutifully followed. Uthar was first, finding Marko hanging from the horn of the gargoyle as he tried to rip it free. He made the generous assumption that this was some great plan. “I was going to shove it down the gargoyle’s stupid throat,” Marko explained, ruining that theory.

“Maybe we should check for secret doors?” Uthar suggested.

Marko nodded and did so. “Nope. But I did notice something while I was swinging on the horn.” He peered up at the attached arms and pointed. “There’s a divot in each palm,” he said. Uthar peered closely and saw the gem-sized carved depression in each outstretched hand.

“For holding a gem like the gem from the base of the archways?” Sifer called from outside.

“Maybe,” Eli said from inside the room. He checked the fallen arm. “This one is missing the divot,” he said curiously.

“If we reattach the arm it could animate,” Marko warned.

Outside Sifer wandered back to the archway and sized up the gems. He jumped into the crawlway and mentally compared the sizes. “I think the gems from the gate would fit…”

---

Check for Traps

“…or any of these ten,” Sifer said, holding aloft the necklace he recovered from the first gargoyle. “They look to be a perfect fit.” He prised one free and held it over the open palm. It was indeed an exact fit.

“Normally I’d say drop it in,” Three said nervously, “But in this place…maybe don’t do that? I’m terrified of everything even though it sounds like the right thing to do.”

Eli nodded his agreement. “My reasoning is this: the previous gargoyle was brought to life by the magical gems in this collar, so if we give these magical gems to another gargoyle? What could possibly go wrong.”

“Gems of animation—let’s see!” Sifer smirked hovering the gem tantalisingly.

“They’re not magical,” Marko guessed. “Just simple cut gems, not particularly valuable.”

“What are we expecting to happen?” Eli asked cautiously eying Sifer.

“Don’t know!” Sifer grinned.

Everyone slowly backed away. Marko nodded his approval, watching Sifer and the gargoyle carefully.

Sifer dropped the gem, which nestled into the divot with a soft ‘tink’. For a beat nothing happened, then the gargoyle’s stony fist slowly closed around the shining gemstone until it was no longer visible. Sifer quickly dropped a second gem in a different hand, and it too started to slowly close.

The first hand began to rotate until it was facing the floor, then stretched its fingers wide. A fine powder of crushed quartz fell to the feet of the gargoyle, then the hand returned to its original position: palm open, facing up. The second hand followed the same pattern moments later.

“Oh. It’s the gargoyle of gem devaluing,” Idris groaned.

Sifer shrugged and plonked a third gem in the last untouched hand. It repeated the performance, leaving a small collection of gem dust.

“Could be worse,” Marko ribbed Sifer, “It could be our short and curlys in that fist.

“Maybe it doesn’t like these gems?” Eli said.

“I think it does,” Sifer countered. “They fit just right.”

“Or you need to do them all at once?” Uthar shrugged.

“Put them in faster? Or one in the hand on the ground?” Eli suggested. “Or more valuable—they’re only quartz.”

“I have seven left,” Sifer counted. “I think I’ll hold on to them before we try all the combinations?”

“How much quicker could you have put them in?” Eli asked.

“If there were three of us…”

“The problem may be,” Idris interjected, “Is that one arm is snapped off. It may not work at all.”

“But it doesn’t have a divot,” Eli observed wisely.

“Maybe it was frustration from a previous user, snapping it off,” Sifer smiled. He dropped a gem in anyway: nothing happened. “Do you want to put all three in at once: one-two-three?”

“Let’s try—it eliminates something, right?” Uthar said.

“Ok,” Sifer said, passing a gem to Marko, and another to Uthar. “On three…”

The gems were dropped simultaneously. Three fists closed, rotated, and the mounds of dust on the floor grew slightly larger.

“Excellent,” Sifer groaned, looking at his four remaining gems. “I think we’ve established nothing—let’s move.”

“Wait,” Idris said, “Maybe we can put the gem power somewhere?” He scanned the room for likely a receptacle, but the only object of any interest was the gargoyle itself. “Maybe in the mouth?” he said, glancing at the open cavity.

“Or the hand on the floor?” Eli added.

Idris scooped up the dust, reached up and carefully tipped it into the mouth. Again nothing happened.

“Are you going to put your hand in there to get that back out?” Sifer teased.

Idris rolled his eyes, summonsed his magic hand, and removed as much as he could. “The gargoyle obviously has a purpose, and crushing gems seems to be integral to that purpose. But the only other thing I can think of, gentlemen,” he said, “Is to scatter the dust aerially across the room and see if anything becomes apparent.”

No-one seemed interested in his approach. “Does anyone have a coin?” Eli (a man who never failed to give away any coin he acquired) asked. Marko passed him a silver. “I assume this is not very valuable?” Eli asked.

“No. May even be fake.”

Eli nodded and dropped it into one of the open palms. It tinkled down and rested in the cavity but the fist didn’t close. “So we were right that it likes gems,” Eli observed.

“It is odd they fit perfectly,” Three agreed. “That obviously means something.”

“Give me the collar,” Marko said, then clambered up the gargoyle and attached it around the neck. It settled nicely but statue didn’t move. “Not animating this gargoyle at least,” he shrugged.

Uthar rubbed his head. “I wonder if it’s just about the number of gems. It just need to crush ten gems and then it’s happy?”

“The price of admission,” Idris nodded.

“Can I suggest that is a possible thing to once we’ve exhausted all other possibilities?” Sifer said, hosing down Uthar’s spark.

Eli nodded. “We don’t need to do this—we have two other tunnels to explore.”

---

“'Night’s good colour is for those of great valour’,” Sifer read as Eli stood before the black sphere. “After you!”

Eli stuck his ten-foot pole through the illusion, probing the crawlway beyond. It seemed safe enough, so he got down lose the floor and crawled inside, probing with his pole as he moved. He suddenly stopped when he found something peculiar ahead: “A trap!” he called. “Mister Marko?”

Marko scurred into the tunnel, shuffling past Eli. “It’s just around the corner,” Eli whispered, “Careful!”. Marko pulled his tools free and made a careful check. “There’s no trap here,” he reported. Not wanting to mistrust Eli, he pulled his Wand of Secrets free and tapped it for knowledge. “But there is something through the south-east wall, some twenty or thirty feet away,” he pointed.

“There’s a tunnel there, through the red sphere,” Eli whispered excitedly.

Marko kept moving, finding the passage wrapping back and dropping several feet. “Keep coming,” he called to Eli, who passed the message back: “Everybody in!”

Uthar grunted, not comfortable but realising there was no choice. The rest of the company followed. The claustrophobic crawlway gave Uthar the jitters; it was like the hellish tunnels under the river, something he’d rather forget. Breathing was hard, armour was heavy, and the space was pitch black.

“There is a trap ahead somewhere,” Marko called back, doing nothing to help the nerves. Sifer studied the walls, seeing they weren’t finished like the tomb so far. This was a tunnel, roughly hewn through bedrock. It gave him some hope—a shortcut, or route hidden from the Tomb’s maker, perhaps.

Ahead, Marko found the passage burrowed below the sphere corridor and bent southward. He kept shuffling forward, no longer bothering with the checks as he trusted the wand. After another few minutes of crawling the passage ended in a solid stone wall, as if whoever had dug this passage had run out of steam. But Marko was no rookie; he immediately looked for a hidden entrance, and immediately found it. “Shoddy work, not sure why they even bothered,” he relayed back to Eli.

“Good work, little Master.”

“We’re dipping in and out of being careful here,” Sifer warned, “We’re not really acting like the cohesive team we have in the past.”

“A fair comment,” Uthar agreed, brushing tunnel dirt from his armour.

“Surely we need to get a little bit shaper here, people.”

“I think the problem is your attitude,” Eli said stridently. “The fact that you’re saying ‘surely’ we need to. What you need to say is ‘Hey! We need to.'”

“Good point,” Sifer said—too late as Marko pushed open the secret door.

---

The passage opened into what was obviously some form of temple. There were scenes of normal life painted on the walls, but the people depicted had rotting flesh, skeletal hands, worms eating them, and worse. There were also various religious symbols depicted, scattered amongst the mutated figures. Another mosaic path, this one plain sandy tiles, led between four rows of wooden pews that faced a worship area.

In front of the pews a wooden railing divided the room; south of it was an softly glowing altar in front of a tiered dais, on which sat a plain wooden chair. On either side of the dais were large, free-standing brass candelabras each holding five white candles, and in each corner of the southern wall was a large white pottery urn.

“Someone tunnelled into a chapel?” Eli wondered.

“Don’t forget the journey through the tunnel is for those ‘of great valour’,” Sifer said. “People like us.”

“I’m also curious that there’s another paved pathway.”

“Like the one at the entrance,” Three nodded.

“But this one just leads to a secret door, and behind the door is a crawlway. This doesn’t make any sense—the main entrance to the chapel is by crawling through a muddy tunnel?” Eli frowned.

Three shrugged then turned to scan the symbols and was surprised at what he found. “These are all of good alignment,” he said softly. “I recognise some that I assume are Oearth variations of our gods—Lathandar, The Morning Lord, Tyr,” he pointed.

“Or this might be parody,” Eli suggested as he followed Marko’s careful path into the chapel. He pointed to the far corner of the room. “There’s another clouded archway.”

The archway was shrouded in opaque, bright orange vapours, and sprawled on the floor near the portal was a human skeleton in badly rusted and damaged black chain mail. The skeleton’s outstretched arm pointed directly to the arch.

---

“If you find the false you find the true,” Sifer recited, “And into the columned hall you’ll come, and there the throne that’s key and keyed.” He glanced meaningfully at the plain wooden chair atop the dais.

“This is not a columned hall,” Eli observed.

“True, though there is a throne here. I also note the stones in this archway aren’t glowing,” Sifer said drawing near. The orange shroud was impenetrable.

Idris stepped close to the altar. It was made of a solid block of unmarked material he did not recognise, and glowed with an inner light of opalescent blue. The top was slightly concave.

“Is this like churches where you come from, Idris?” Eli asked stepping to Idris’s side.

“No. The ‘yanki don’t have churches.”

“I get no sense of any religious meaning,” Three said as he too studied the altar. He had seen many, but could discern no symbolism. “It does look like it could be used for sacrifice—the basin shape would catch spilled blood.”

Sifer was still poring over the poem, and found something he thought relevant. He pointed to the skeleton and read: “These keys and those are most important of all, and beware of trembling hands and what will maul.”

Eli took the cue. He crouched by the skeletal body, searching it gingerly for a key given Sifer’s theory. He didn’t look hard. Three walked over and knelt, hoping to discover how the victim died. But it was too old—bones collapsed under his touch and there was no flesh remaining.

“What are we hoping to find, gentlemen?” Idris asked.

“Something that matches the poem,” Eli said. “The only thing I can see so far is that trembling hand,” he said looking to the pointing hand. “Not that it’s trembling. But it is a hand.”

Idris nodded and joined the investigation, making a more thorough search of the body and armour. But he too found nothing of any consequence. The ruined armour fell apart under his touch, but he made sure not to move the hand. “There’s nothing here. It’s a dead body that was either trying to get through the portal…or was posed. Which is a bit macabre, but given all this—not out of the question.”

“What was the colour of the other passage we didn’t take?” Eli said, stumped.

“Red,” Sifer said.

“And Shades of red stand for blood,” Eli frowned, “So this would appear to be the right way.”

“I would hazard a guess that we’re not going to be able to avoid the portals forever,” Idris said glancing to the arch.

“I think we should try the other path before we decide to go through a misty portal,” Sifer said.

“Yes. But we should check this room for more secret doors before we do,” Eli suggested.

“Surely also light these candles,” Sifer grinned.

“Surely we shouldn’t. Surely we should get Marko to check the room for secret doors.”

Marko started working his way around the walls, everyone chipping in the best they could. Idris checked around the throne; it was nicely carved and padded but seemed unremarkable and the walls behind it were smooth and unmarked.

Sifer walked along the pews starting at the second row. He noticed that each was hinged, allowing the seat to be lifted. Against his better judgement (and later he asked himself exactly why he did this without Marko’s trap-finding skills) he opened one. Inside was thousands of gold coins. “Marko!” he called, coming to his senses again.

Marko was busy on the wall opposite the archway, tracing his dagger over the fresco. He stopped when he felt a tiny inconsistency. He peered closely at the spot: “Here! A small slot, big enough for a coin—with the letter ‘O’ faintly traced above it.”

“‘O’? Like a loop of magical metal?” Sifer said sharply.

“The wise will not need sacrifice aught but a loop of magical metal,” Eli recited, filling out the prophecy.

“First get over here, Marko,” Sifer repeated. “I haven’t put my hand in, but I lifted the lid…without checking for traps,” he said ruefully.

Marko did his own checking, and was surprised to find it all looked clean. The bottom of the pew wasn’t false, the hinged seat a simple seat, the backrests plain. He put his dagger into the coins and sifted through it, again finding only what he would expect. “Coffers for the faithful I guess,” he shrugged.

“Perhaps we should check under all the seats for a ring,” Idris suggested.

Marko carefully checked each seat, working toward the back of the room. Each proved safe: the second row with at least 2000 gold per seat, the third 3000 each of some kind of dull silver he did not recognise, and the back row 4000 silver each.

He walked back to the front row, and this time found something that gave him pause: the hinges were notably larger and stronger. He compared the other three rows again and found they all matched each other. “This might mean the seat is heavier?” he pointed out.

“Or to contain something, like a cage?” Uthar warned.

“I don’t know. Maybe coffins?” Marko kneeled and made a very careful check of the hinges. The more he studied them the more suspicious he became: his intuition told him there was something wrong here. “Any cage or coffin would require the seat to be locked or sealed—the hinges would not stop anything from emerging,” he muttered. “There must be another purpose.”

“It sounds like a temptation,” Uthar said, “The back three rows tempting you to the biggest prize.”

“Could it be the hinges are only bigger to hide some internal mechanism like a gas chamber or a spring or acid?” Eli guessed.

Hearing these possibilities Sifer clambered up the wall, getting as far away as possible. “Good idea, can I suggest everyone get to the back of the room,” Marko nodded. No one hesitated. He turned his attention to the hinge. “I think I can dissemble these,” he reported, and set about doing just that. A minute or so later he had it: inside were tiny rods connected to valves inside the pew. Lifting the seat would engage the rods and open the valves. He cautiously set about reengineering the pistons so they would stay idle, and soon had the solution in place. He stood, brushed off his hands, and lifted the pew confidently while everyone held their breath. “Empty!” he laughed.

Everyone relaxed as Marko clambered in hoping to find a false bottom. Nothing. He looked at the valves under the seat, finding a reservoir of poison gap ready to be released. “Ingenious,” he grinned. He repeated the disabling procedure on the other pew and found it exactly the same and also empty.

Uther nodded, “Greed tempts you to open these hoping for more—a fatal lesson for the unwary.”

Idris spread his black circle of cloth on the ground, dropped down the rope ladder and emerged again with a handful of hessian sacks. “Fill ‘em up,” he grinned.

“I’m of the belief that this is not a good chapel despite the iconography on the walls,” Eli said piously as he filled his bag, “So I’m happy to send this gold back to those who need it.”

“A wise man once told me money can’t buy me happiness,” Idris smiled, “But neither does poverty.”

Sifer wandered over to one of the urns. It stood about chest-high, pottery finished in a simple white glaze. Each was stoppered with a brass and wooden plug, with nothing that might resemble a ring. The candelabras next to them held the fresh white candles; none had ever been lit. He lent against one of the urns and rocked it slightly, determining it was likely empty. “Gas,” he reported. “Open the stoppers, light the candles, and…”

“Well leave it alone,” Eli urged.

Sifer laughed and turned his attention to Marko’s hole in the wall. It was only small, coin or, indeed, ring sized. The O was traced faintly above it, not a perfect circle, hand drawn.

“Can you fit a ring in that O?” Idris called.

Sifer rubbed his hand over the letter, finding no depression. “No, it’s a mural flat against the fresco. Toss me a coin?” Idris flipped a gold coin over, which Sifer deftly caught and held up against the circle symbol. It was smaller than the O, but would fit into the slot. “Gentlemen—shall I?”

“Yes,” Uthar said from the far side of the room.

Sifer clambered back up the wall, hanging upside down, and slid the coin into the hole. It vanished inside the dark cavity—and there was no sound of it landing or falling. Nothing in the room had changed. “Let’s try those other coins?”

Both the silver and dull silver coins had the same result: vanishing without a trace. “This is the second thing we’ve found that I don’t know how they work,” Sifer sighed.

“What about stringing it?” Three suggested. “Tie a string, drop it in, pull it back out.”

“Or does anyone own a non-magical ring that is gold?” Eli asked.

“The wise will not need sacrifice aught but a loop of magical metal,” Sifer said. “So we don’t need to use the altar and take the blood out of a soul, instead all we need is to place a magic metal in the socket.”

“Imagine a ring—” Eli started.

“It’s not ring-shaped though,” Idris interrupted, “It’s an ‘O’.”

“No—but the slot can take a ring,” Eli clarified. “And the ‘O’ could have been drawn by somebody else. I’m just saying imagine it’s a ring and we need to put a ring in. Or alternately is there any way we can punch a hole through a gold coin?”

Uthar laughed, then reconsidered. “You know…that sounds like something we could do.” He pulled a piton from his pack and flexed his not inconsiderable muscles. Idris flipped another coin, and after a few minutes of practice swings and positioning, he punched a hole through the centre of the coin, creating a makeshift ring. “It’s not attractive,” he grinned, tossing it to Sifer.

“Nor magical,” Sifer grinned, sliding it into the slot. Nothing happened.

“I have a magical silver ring,” Uthar said, holding a finger up. “The only one I have, but it’s not of much use to me.”

Idris shook his head. “Don’t forget the full poem said If shades of red stand for blood, the wise will not need sacrifice aught but a loop of magical metal. We came down the black tunnel, not red, so this is not for here. I believe all you’d be doing is dropping your ring into a bottomless slot for no good reason.”

“It must be a thing for a ring,” Eli insisted.

Sifer, still on the wall, pulled out a string, grinning at Three. “There’s two things we can do here, Uthar. We can try the string or you can lie down on that alter.”

“I choose the first one,” Uthar deadpanned.

“Or,” Idris said, lifting his finger and pointing it to the portal in the exact same pose as the skeleton.

Uthar groaned. “I hate those. I imagine instant disintegration. If that’s the three options I choose the ring,” he said slipping it off his finger.

“I think the first two will work and the third will kill us,” Eli posited.

“Why don’t we just test the portal to start?” Idris said, “To see if it is a portal. Flick a coin through.”

“That is the lowest risk option,” Uthar nodded. Everyone cleared a path between the archway and slot as Idris directed. He magic handed a silver coin into the clouded gateway. It didn’t come back out, but everyone did hear it ping against something and again as if it dropped to the floor.

“Let me try my pole,” Eli said, extending it to a full ten-foot length. He stood on the threshold of the gateway and prodded. He couldn’t reach anything when probing directly forward, so he directed his poking toward the floor. This time he did feel it, solid beneath the pole. Similarly there felt to be a wall on either side of the gateway. “Well, there’s a space back there at least ten foot deep. And my pole is ok.”

“I hate the portals,” Uthar repeated darkly. “Hate them.” He couldn’t explain his loathing, but it was undeniable.

Eli scowled, picked up the nearest candelabra and hurled it into the archway. It crashed into something and clattered a few times as if falling to the ground.

“There’s enough stuff through there now to go and see if it came out one of the other arches,” Sifer said.

Eli grabbed the other candelabra, then with Sifer made his way back to the sphere corridor. It wasn’t an easy crawl. None of the objects were there. The portal by the green devil in the entry corridor was the same. Eli hurled the second candelabra into that portal. It clattered, then both retraced their steps. The candelabra was nowhere to be found. In the sphere room Eli hoisted the spear inside. This time there was no sound. He raced back to the first portal—no spear. Eventually both Eli and Sifer returned to the chapel and weren’t surprised to find nothing had emerged.

“It does occur to me,” Idris said when they returned, “That these might not be portals. It may just be an illusory door. An effect.”

“I want to try the ring,” Uthar sighed. “It’s not the greatest plan, but it’s a plan.”

“We’ve got enough gold now to buy you a new one,” Sifer grinned, attaching his string. He again hovered above the hole and carefully dropped Uthar’s magical ring into the slot.

The sting went instantly limp. Sifer yanked it free to find no ring attached. A moment later the entire wall slab started to grind and lower slowly, sinking into the stone to reveal a narrow walled passage. “Bingo!” Sifer smiled. “You’re well along your march!”

“That actually sounds pretty good,” Uthar smiled as he crouched to see if he could retrieve his ring. There was no sign of it, nor the coins. “Crushed under the slab I would guess,” he shrugged.

The company followed Marko into the passage beyond. All but Three, who stepped back to the altar, focussing his religious knowledge again on the slab. He was sure it was active—the glow a giveaway—but try as he might he could not discern the god it was dedicated to. Maybe none?

---

Beyond the gate stone the corridor widened to ten feet and turned southward where steps led down steeply to a west bound corridor. A stone door blocked the passage forty feet ahead, so Marko alighted with his winged boots and cleared the floor below for traps, finding none.

He dropped to the ground at the door and listened closely. “Something behind here,” he whispered, hearing a rattling beyond.

“Sifer!” Eli hissed, pulling his bow. Sifer stayed on the bottom stair, just in sight of the door if he lent—but out of the path of anything that might shoot forth.

Marko turned back and, seeing Sifer’s half-hidden form, gave him a long hard stare. It was one thing to be the back-marker, another to be a coward. He held the gaze for a long minute, perplexed as much as anything. Sifer, growing uncomfortable—and also perplexed—as Marko’s stare lingered, looked behind him in case he’d missed something. But it was just a finished stone wall. When he turned back Marko was busy opening the door.

“We are ready,” Eli whispered.

Marko shoved the door open…and toppled into a pit on the other side. “Ow!!” he cried as he was pinioned on the vicious spikes within.

“Master!” Eli cried sprinting forward and sliding on his belly to try and reach out and grab the fallen thief. He was too late, so he leapt into the pit landing cleverly between the spikes. He lifted Marko off the blades, thankful to find him still breathing. Of more concern was the foul green liquid dripping from the wounds—and the sound of his body schlupping off the spikes. He hefted Marko in his arms and sprinted up the walls of the pit in a full 360, gaining speed as he did.

“Uthar! The great Master Marko has suffered a grievous injury! Is there anything you can do or do we leave him to die?”

Uthar raised an eyebrow and knelt by Marko’s fast-breathing body, closing his eyes to pray.

“Don’t you have to suck on the wound?” Eli asked.

“No!” Marko’s strangled voice insisted.

“I don’t,” Uthar confirmed calmly. He laid his hands on the piercings and black ichor excreted from the wounds. A moment later Marko sat up. “I feel better. Thank you very much!”

“Oh. I thought that would be harder,” Eli said. “Rest here Little Master.” He raced over the pit to another door ten feet ahead, ignorant of the danger.

“No Eli!” Sifer called, too late. He sighed and descended into the corridor, ignoring another stare from Marko.

Marko flew over the pit to land by Eli’s side, checked the new door, and pushed it open…with more care. Another pit was revealed, just like the first. There as another door twenty feet ahead. Marko continued his flight, clearing the floor. “I would put two traps here,” he muttered. He opened the next door and again there was a trap beyond—but no further doors. The corridor continued some thirty feet ahead before turning north.

“Another trap here,” Marko reported, “Take care.” Eli, following on the wall, banged and poked the ‘trap’ with his pole but couldn’t get it to spring. Instead he called the rest of the company forward and warned of the possible pit. Sifer assisted by planting himself on the wall above each pit and swinging everyone over like a living fulcrum. Everyone made it safely, until Uthar stumbled on the last leap falling onto the trapped square Eli had warned of. He braced himself to fall…but nothing happened.

“Probably rusted up?” Eli said, and this time it was Sifer’s turn to take a long hard look at Marko.

Marko meanwhile had turned the corner to find a very long, very straight corridor. He sighed and started working his way along it checking for traps constantly. After some 150 feet he found another door ahead. A thick wooden door heavily bound with iron bands, and several locks securing it shut—two padlocks, two keyholes, and a locked bar. He leant his ear to the woodwork and was surprised to hear far-off music and happy singing, obviously coming from the other side of the door.

“These keys and those are most important of all” Eli read from Acererak’s poem, glancing at the keyed locks. “And wat key are those voices singing in?” Eli’s guess was clever but no-one had an answer for that.

“And I can’t pick the melody,” Sifer added. He was a huge fan of Tarquin Rose’s ballads, but this didn’t ring any bells. Oerth didn’t know what they were missing out on.

“Locks on our side,” Three pointed out. “And how has a wooden door lasted here so long?”

Marko shrugged and went to work on the five locks. Only one proved difficult and he felt lucky to solve it, and none were trapped. With each lock removed the singing became a little clearer.

“Wait!” Three suddenly said. “Block your ears—candle wax or anything you have. Could be a monster. And I have a silence spell ready.” He was very familiar with the use of music and singing to deaden minds.

“Yes! Good idea, well thought,” Marko nodded, handing out soft bees wax he used for making key impressions. Once everyone was ready Marko nodded and pushed the door. It didn’t budge. He frowned and tried pulling, but again it didn’t move at all. “Must be magic,” he muttered, pulling the wax free as everyone followed suit. He pulled out his crowbar and wedged it under a hinge, pulling for all his might. A few splinters cracked off the wood.

Eli tapped on the door. It sounded solid, thick, at least six inches if not more. “This is thick, but we could hack a hole in it?”

“The door may be a ruse,” Idris said shaking his head. He didn’t fancy attacking a door.

“Then can we dispel the magic locking it?” Eli asked.

“I could,” Three said looking to Marko.

Sifer was studying the poem again. He held a hand up: “The throne that’s key and keyed”

“You think someone’s got to sit in the throne?” Three asked.

“If the throne is key, and this is keyed, then yes, maybe?”

“It also says If you find the false you find the true,” Idris said, muddying the waters.

“I think the false and the true are the misrepresentations of good in the chapel,” Sifer said.

“I’ll fly back to the throne room,” Marko announced. Eli followed immediately behind.

“I’m going with them,” Sifer said. “Everyone else take up positions on the corridor corners so we can communicate.”

Marko made a thorough check of the throne. Very thorough. When satisfied it was safe, he nodded to Sifer and sat carefully on the plain seat.

“He’s in, Eli,” Sifer called.

Eli mimed a seating motion to Idris.

Idris sighed. “He’s siting,” he called to Uthar who was standing at the door.

Uthar turned to the door, which hadn’t changed at all, and shoved. It didn’t budge. “Nothing!”

The message was passed back to Marko who jumped down.

Eli walked into the chapel. “This is not the columned hall. It says ‘And there the throne that’s key and keyed’.”

“It does, you’re right,” Sifer agreed.

Marko, out of ideas, stood before the altar. He looked back at the chair, seeing it was too far to sit in and reach the altar at the same time. He sighed and lifted a coin from his pocket, tossing it toward the bowl of the altar.

“He’s throwing a coin on the altar!” Eli cried.

“Oh god,” Sifer groaned, slapping his head.

Nothing happened. The coin pinged off the surface and rolled to a stop in the cavity.

Eli passed this back to the rest of the company.

“See if the altar will move,” Idris called and Eli repeated.

“Marko? What are we doing?” Sifer said with a frown.

Marko shrugged and put his hand on the altar. He was flung away as a lightning bolt exploded from the altar, streaking down the centre aisle and tracing the path of golden tiles before crackling to a stop at the secret door.

“Ow!” Marko groaned, shaking, but surprised to find himself unharmed. He thanked his lucky stars. Behind him the alter glowed angrily, now a fiery blue-red like it contained a furnace.

“Shades of red was the signal for the magical loop, so there you are,” Sifer sighed.

“Why do I smell ozone?” Idris called, alarmed.

“It’s not ozone, it’s Marko on fire!” Eli cried. “But he’s ok!”

Idris glanced up toward Uthar. “Let’s go back,” he said with resignation.

The company regathered in the chapel. “The door didn’t move an inch,” Uthar reported.

“I don’t think that’s even a door,” Idris said firmly. “I think it’s just a wall with a hole lot of locks to make it look like a door.”

Three reappraised the altar after Marko’s heroics. The throbbing red glow was obviously a concern, and he was now even more convinced that the altar was simply what it appeared. “Just a trap, not connected to any god,” he muttered.

“It’s fireball next time, so let’s not tarry,” Eli joked nervously.

“Unless we just have to keep touching this thing until it turns the right colour,” Idris suggested. “Because it did say that the black is for people of ‘great valour’. Two paths, one false, one true,” he said pointing to the now scorched path. He was a betting man, but the best odds he could lay on this theory being right was 50-50.

“I say this is the false path,” Sifer shrugged.

“As a brave man of faith,” Eli said, “We need to try another approach before we try anything as baroque as killing ourselves a second time. We can come back and set off this explosion any time we choose. There’s another path in the sphere corridor we haven’t been down. Someone once said something about never leaving a door behind?”

Idris nodded. Strangely he almost thought it was he that had said that, but he shook that off as a false memory. But whoever had said it was wise indeed.

“Eli, I agree. We know what’s here,” Sifer said leading the company back to the crawlway.

---

“Who’s going first into this nightmare?” Uthar grunted standing afront the waist-high red sphere.

Marko hauled himself into the new crawlway. It was fifty feet to a bend left.

“Who’s going in with him?” Sifer hissed.

“No-one,” Uthar said bluntly. He was increasingly disliking this entire experience.

“This is where the trap was!” Eli suddenly remembered, diving into the passage.

“Since no-one is protecting these people I’m going in,” Sifer announced glaring at Uthar, Idris, and Three.

“What do you mean no-one?” Eli’s muffled call came from within. “What are you going to protect me from, Sifer—harsh language?”

“The one thing you can’t save Marko from is himself,” Idris snorted to Uthar.

Eli’s warning gave Marko pause and he double checked his surrounds. Instead of a trap he found a secret door. “It detects secret doors too,” he explained to Eli as if he hadn’t forgotten that fact. He turned back and pressed the door open. “Ow!” he grunted as the floor suddenly tilted below his feet and dumped him ten-feet lower in a thirty-foot square room.

After determining Marko was ok, Eli laughed when he saw what lay within. Three large chests were affixed firmly to the floor; the western one gold (plate covering iron), the centre one silver (plate over iron), and the eastern one made of oak bound with thick bronze bands. Each is about four feet long, two feet wide, and three feet high.

---

“Oh god,” Uthar groaned arriving and dutifully taking up position beside Marko. “Why must we be punished like this?”

“Or what would a mimic do?” Marko said suspiciously eying the chests. “I’m checking for traps—this looks too obvious. A gift horse that no-one gives you.” Noting the chests were unmovable, he checked every floor tile for possible traps. “All clear. Chests next,” he nodded.

“In the name of Kelemvor,” Three intoned, healing Marko before he killed himself.

The first check Marko studied was the gold one, checking it for everything he could think of. “It’s not trapped. Or breathing. Or even locked.” He prodded it with his rapier just in case. “Do you want to reef it open, Uthar?”

Uthar, who was looking unhappy already, glared at Marko. Of course he didn’t want to, but he did.

A tangle of writhing snakes swarmed out of the open chest, wrapping themselves around Uthar and sinking their fangs into his exposed flesh. “Ahhh!”

---

“Why did it have to be snakes!” Eli groaned.

Marko made up for putting Uthar in the line of fire with a brilliant flourish of his rapier, the tip tracing a line that sliced off every single serpent head with one precision swoop. They dropped to the ground with a plop as Marko grinned. “Sorry about that.”

Uthar found his spirits lifted by the beauty of Marko’s strike. And instant later they were fallen once more when he saw the chest was empty. “Oh my god.”

Marko repeated his checks on the silver chest. “Ready?” he said to a nod from Uthar, this time lifting the lid himself. Nothing sprung forth. Instead he found a clear crystal box with a silver ring housed inside. The box was set neatly into a cavity in the chest bottom.

“Oh come on,” Idris groaned on hearing this.

“We were supposed to get this ring first, not sacrifice one of ours,” Three laughed. What was this place?

“If that ring has magical powers you get it Uthar,” Idris called from the safety of the corridor.

The box didn’t have a lid, and he could see no way of opening it without lifting it out. He looked for a pressure plate that might activate when the box was taken but could see nothing. Marko found this very suspicious. “So when we remove the box it triggers a trap?”

“That’s for you to tell us!” Eli scoffed.

“Maybe don’t touch this yet,” Marko said moving to the oak chest. “Uthar? Do you want to hop out of the room?” he said, still feeling guilty over his earlier suggestion.

“Mister Marko, I appreciate the offer but I really can’t do that—I have to stay with you.”

Marko stabbed the box—“not a mimic”—but was surprised to find it trapped. He turned to report this to Uthar but caught his sleeve on the lid of the chest and it sprung open.

A giant skeleton bampfed into the room in a puff of smoke, emerging impossibly from the chest.

---

“Gods!” Uthar swore as the skeleton swung three times at Marko, striking him twice. Marko poked his rapier in retaliation, shaving chunks of bone. Sifer loosed four arrows in the blink of an eye, then Uthar shattered every last bone in a holy fury until the skeleton exploded in a shower of bone.

“He wants to get that ring,” Sifer smirked.

---

Secret Doors

Uthar peered into the chest at the crystal box. “This feels like some kind of mage hand moment?”

Sifer motioned to Three, who crawled back out into the corridor of spheres to find Idris smoking a cigarello. “I think they need you? I’ll stay here.”

“Finally,”, Sifer called approvingly, “We have our martial form back. About time.”

Idris ground out his smoke with a wry grin at Three. “I think he thinks you’re keeping watch.” He crawled into the chest room and examined the open chest. He summoned his hand and positioned it above the crystal, lowered it carefully to wrap around the box, then backed out of the room, maintaining his mental image. He looked to Marko. “Are you planning on dropping in a counterweight or something when I lift it?”

“The crystal looks very heavy,” Marko said to some scepticism. He pulled a grappling hook from his tools and stood ready.

Uthar raised his shield with a sigh. “It’s going to be a fireball isn’t it.”

“One…two…three!” Idris called. Marko dropped the grappling hook as the hand lifted the crystal box free. As the box rose a flurry of arrows sprung from the bottom of the chest.

---

Marko froze and Uthar ducked, but every single arrow managed to miss them as they cracked into the ceiling. Nothing else bad happened.

“We overestimated this dungeon,” Eli grunted.

“That’s the lesson I’m taking,” Three called.

“That’s the right lesson,” Uthar nodded. “What’s the ring, Marko? Someone just lost one, I’m just saying.”

Marko cracked the crystal lid, after confirming it wasn’t trapped, and lifted a fine but simple ring free. It had no markings. He flipped it over to Uthar who caught it and held it in the palm of his hand. Not trusting anything, he detected what magic aura it had: Abjuration. “A ring of invisibility, maybe?”

“More likely to be protection,” Idris said. “But Red, if you want my advice, wait for the Three Wizards to identify it for us before you put it on. And whilst you’ve got that detection running, why don’t you check those portals?”

Uthar both pieces of advice, dropping the ring into his pocket and returning to the portal at the south end of the great hall of spheres, cautious as the three stones glowed when he approached. “I don’t know much about this stuff but this one is Conjuration.”

“Conjuration would cover portals,” Idris nodded thoughtfully.

He next led the company back to the chapel to stand in front of the orange-smoked portal, the stones inert. “My sense is fading but this one is different—Transmutation, and the altar is Evocation.” He looked to Idris and Three hoping they could explain.

“So this portal is very different to the other,” Three mused.

“If this one isn’t a portal at all,” Eli said pointing to the archway, “And it’s just a room full of gas, which is what I’m suspecting because stuff lands in it and I can hit the walls with my pole, could it be conjuring gas continuously or something like that?”

“It is 1000% that one of these portals we are supposed to go through,” Three observed, “And the others kill you instantly.”

“Are you suggesting that Uthar should go in?” Sifer smirked.

“Yes. Just hold your breath,” Eli said, quite serious.

Uthar didn’t move a muscle.

Idris pointed to the altar. “Evocation is obvious because this emanates hostile, elemental based spells. But do not—do not—step into that portal.”

Eli still felt suspicious. “Mister Marko, sir please—I observe you have a grappling hook with a rope?”

“Yes?”

“Would you throw that into this portal, maintaining a hand on one end of the rope, and see if you can drag the candelabra I threw in back out?”

Marko shrugged, tossed his hook into the orange vapours and felt it latch onto something. He jerked it back and Eli’s only slightly dented candelabra clattered out.

“It may only work on living things,” Idris said, unimpressed. “Things like polymorph spells, also transmutation, generally work like that.”

“And the only thing down here that’s got flesh is us,” Sifer mused. “Transmutation could also create a portal through a wall,” he added, “I’ve witnessed a mage melt a stone wall so troops could step through.”

“Well we’re at a dead end. What else haven’t we tried?” Uthar said.

“You haven’t put the ring on and gone through that portal,” Sifer said.

“The ring was for the sliding door on the opposite wall,” Idris reminded him, saving Uthar a negative grunt.

“I agree with Brother Cooper—at some point we have to go through one of these gas doorways,” Eli said.

“Do we? Do we?” Uthar groaned. “I don’t know that we do. There must be another way!”

“There’s no way I’m going through that one,” Three motioned, “But I feel certain we’ll have to teleport somewhere somehow.”

“There’s the very first portal that we haven’t checked,” Uthar shrugged, “And we never really solved the glowing stones on the other two.”

“Three—can Kelemvor give you an indication as to the outcome of walking through a particular portal?” Idris said, searching for a definitive answer.

“Yes? Though the answer isn’t always as clear as you might wish. All I ask is we craft the question very carefully.”

As the discussion continued about how to phrase the plea, Sifer found himself rolling the Acererak’s poem through his head. He was sure something had been missed, it had been nagging him for sometime. “Go back…shun green if you can…shades of red. We’ve done all that,” he muttered. Then he suddenly sat bolt upright. Check the wall! He jumped to his feet and headed through the ring-doorway, hurrying down the steps beyond to arrive at the corridor with three pits.

He glanced back to find Uthar watching him. “Two pits along the way will be found to lead to a fortuitous fall, so check the wall!” he called, almost joyfully. “There’s three here, but still…”. He climbed to stand on the wall with his boots. He walked along the wall to the second pit and carefully descended, then checked each of the four walls. He was disappointed to find nothing.

Sifer emerged again, shook his head at Uthar, and moved onto the third pit. Almost immediately he saw what he was looking for: on the southern wall was a wooden door painted to look like stone! “Here!” he cried. It was so obvious! He popped his head up to find Uthar grinning widely.

---

The company was soon gathered on the edge of the third pit—Idris had checked the first pit but found no further doors. Marko cleared the door for traps, then gently pushed it open. Another narrow crawl space emerged at the top of a short flight of stairs leading down.

“Before we continue—we’ve learnt that Sifer is on the money studying the poem,” Uthar said approvingly. “Let me read the next line: These keys and those are most important of all, and beware of trembling hands and what will maul. I don’t know what that means but that’s going to be the next thing?”

“Well obviously one will always be careful of what will maul,” Eli nodded, “That’s why we don’t like tigers, right?”

“‘Trembling hands’ could be a reference to disarming a trap,” Idris said.

“Or a mouth of truth where you put your hand in and hope for the best?” Sifer added to concerned stares.

Marko floated forward, tapping the ground with his pole to clear the way as Eli carried Brother Cooper into the pit and Sifer helped the others. Another set of stairs descend to the west, and the corridor that extended past the bottom of the steps was slightly cloudy.

As the company gathered, Marko pulled out his poisoner’s kit and stepped down the first step. He gently wafted some of the white smoke toward him, doing his best to smell but not breath. Alas his best was not enough. A moment later he was overcome with terror, convinced that what lay below was the worst of the worst. He sprinted away, past his stunned companions—“Kelemvor!” Three cried as Marko passed, healing him briefly—and out of the pit.

Somewhat surprisingly no-one followed their great leader, his face etched with fear. “He’ll come back,” Idris said, unconcerned. Eli stepped down the steps and dropped to his belly. He breathed in deeply, confident his poison immunity would save him. He felt a shudder of fear wash over him, but put it out of his mind with studied focus. “It’s fear gas, everybody,” he announced, “Not poison.”

Behind him, Uthar gathered everyone. “Stand close to me—you will be immune to fear.” He led the company into the gas—Idris taking a deep breath and holding it, just in case—which became thicker as the corridor led on. After thirty feet a door emerged from the lightly obscured fog.

Marko meanwhile was still running for his life. He entered the chapel, looking around wildly for a safe exit. His eyes focused on the portal and he raced toward it. Just as he reached the threshold he felt the horror that had gripped him suddenly fade as quickly as it had rose. He skidded to a halt just afront of the portal, gasping in lungfuls of air. He spun and flew back to the shelter of Uthar’s bubble, arriving to find Uthar pointing at the door expectantly.

The door was clear, so Marko pulled it open. Beyond another stairway led down, the way blocked by thick webbing that filled the area from steps to ceiling. The gas, oddly, didn’t seep down the stairway.

“Webbing is good,” Eli said, “Because that’s something we can kill.”

“Webbing implies a webber,” Three groaned.

“Giant spiders,” Uthar predicted.

“And beware of trembling hands,” Sifer intoned.

“We touch the web with trembling hands?” Three suggested.

“We’ve already had the trembling hands!” Eli declared. “That was young Master Marko running for his life.”

“And what will maul,” Sifer said, completing the phrase.

“That would be the spiders,” Eli nodded.

“The webbing’s not a problem, I can burn that out,” Idris advised.

“Wait—could that go wrong?” Uthar worried.

“In what way?”

“Fire in this enclosed space? The gas?”

“The only thing that could go wrong is angering whatever is in the web. So if everyone gets ready…”

“I’d enjoy a stand up fight at this point,” Eli said prophetically.

“We can make friends later,” Three grimaced.

Idris shot a bolt of fire into the webs, which shrivelled quickly into nothingness. Nothing emerged, and nor did the gas behind explode.

Before anyone could move, Eli grabbed Marko by the collar. “Brother Cooper? Young Mister Marko is quite injured, I fear for his life as we step further into the tomb.”

“I just healed him,” Three said.

Eli looked down at his clearly wounded leader. “Perhaps your god is weak here?”

Three frowned. “My healing is more effective for multiple people than it is one.”

“I get it. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one. Off you go Marko!”

---

Lying on the floor at the bottom of the stairs was an iron mace inlaid with silver. A modest-sized room opened beyond, and from the stairway the company could see glimpses of rotting and decayed furnishings.

“That’s going to come alive and take over Sifer,” Three predicted, seeing the warrior’s eyes trained on the weapon.

Marko descended, checking the stairs as he moved. He lifted his eyes from the mace to look into the small room. A solid gold couch along the back wall and the room was covered in detritus.

As Marko led the company forward and stepped inside, a skeletal figure wearing a crown on its head slowly rose from the couch.

---

“Holy shit a lich!” Three gasped seeing the mummified creature and knowing just how bad things were about to get.

“Looks like a mummy to me,” Idris countered.

Never fear—we’re the A-team! We were chosen by God!” Eli cried.

The lich-or-mummy was waving it’s hands preparing a spell, so Marko, ever tanking, charged forward and jammed his weapons into the undead being.

Uthar moved to join Marko before recalling his protective aura would be dropped from the company. “Come with me if you want to live!” he cried.

Taking the hesitation as an invitation, the bandage-wrapped foe swung a sceptre at Marko. Marko easily stepped out of the first swing, bracing for the return blow. But the sceptre caught on the headpiece of the chaise-lounge and clattered to the floor. “Curses!” the beast cried as it continued to prepare its spell.

Sifer jumped into the room and fired a brace of walloping arrows, hoping to disrupt the spell. Most hit and Sifer was rewarded by the lich toppling back onto the lounge as it reached for the sceptre. “This shall not be borne!” it howled.

Seeing the lich prone, Three changed his tactic. Instead of silencing the spell, he covered it in a necrotic blight. The bandages shrivelled and tightened around the creature. “Kelemvor!” Three cried as if it were a swear word, such was his hatred of the undead.

Eli raced into the room, seeing the evil creature so close to Marko. There was no grace in the killing blow he landed, pounding the flat of the blade into the fallen lich-or-mummy with furious passion. The figure within disintegrated, leaving a pile of rotting bandaged atop the chaise-lounge.

As the blow reverberated around the chamber, the room started to shake and stones started to come down from the ceiling, as if the overwhelming power of Eli’s attack had made the tomb begin to collapse. Eli hauled Marko up and tucked him under his left arm, running back up the stairs.

The floor tremored and the tomb filled with the grinding noise of stone on stone, hunks of ceiling fell all around, and ominous rumblings filled the air. “Follow me out, stay close!” Uthar called watching the gas in the corridor swirl angrily.

“That room needs to be checked!” Idris choked through the billowing dust, “What we need might be in there!”

Sifer jumped into the room, dodging the stones falling from the ceiling. One landed close-by and he lashed out a foot at it. It disintegrated below his foot—and he felt nothing. He looked up. “If you find the false you find the true,” he muttered. He put a hand out under the next chunk that fell and it vanished with his touch: no weight, no rock. “It’s safe!” he yelled.

Idris who was running with Uthar and the company, skidded to a halt. He focused his attention on the collapsing tomb and saw through it almost immediately: an illusion. He turned back to see Sifer standing calmly amongst the ‘falling’ rubble with both arms out, grinning. “Excellent work, my friend,” Idris smiled.

The chaos continued—tactile noise, visible dust, crunching stone—but once ignored it was perfectly safe. After a few more minutes the entire show subsided and everything returned to normal.

Eli arrived back with Marko after their short escape. “I didn’t leave because I was afraid, I just wanted to save Master Marko,” he said challengingly. No-one reacted. “And I don’t lie!”

Sifer scanned the room. The chaise-lounge was the main feature, made of solid gold and weighing just as much. A jade coffer lay nearby, and the creature’s gold crown lay fallen on the floor. A fine leather bag was the only other non-ruined object of note.

“That bag could hold a Rod piece,” Idris said hopefully. He could see something of that shape bulging from the inside. Marko checked it was safe, then peeled it open. “No Rod unfortunately,” Marko said, “But there is some platinum…a handful of cheap gems, some spell scrolls…and this!” Marko said triumphantly, pulling out a rolled up map which he passed to Idris.

Idris floated the map before everyone and unrolled it. It showed the tomb and an island marked The Isle of Serpents, some hundreds of miles distant. An X was marked over the centre of isle, and scrawled beneath in a scratchy hand a phrase : Wherein the true treasure is found. It was initialled with a familiar A.

“If you find the false you find the true!” Eli recited excitedly.

“The false is the cross, and that’s where the truth is—the true treasure,” Sifer predicted.

“Maybe,” Uthar sighed. “I was hoping it was going to be a map of this tomb.”

“Me too,” Three grunted.

“Acererak had this map, and has his name on the map,” Sifer stressed. “Let’s go there!”

“It’s miles away!” Eli frowned.

Idris too raised a very sceptical eyebrow. “The only question is does one of the portals here lead directly there?”

Uthar shook his head. “They are all horrible.”

Idris nodded. “It’s too risky and we haven’t finished here. Marko, if you would?” he said, floating the jade coffer forward.

Marko checked the coffer—very fine and worth at least 500gp—and opened it, and found six potions inside. He held one up then used his kit to test it. “Healing potions,” he said sculling one immediately.

Eli looked around the room, pointing to the forgotten mace. “Sifer that is for you. I don’t know why you haven’t put the crown on and picked that up.”

“It is his destiny,” Three grin-grimaced, “But perhaps Uthar can detect evil first?”

Uthar did as asked. The entire tomb throbbed with deep evil, assaulting his senses. He did his best to focus on the crown and mace. “They don’t seem any better or worse than this entire place—I would expect them to pulse with a sickening evil if they were. I checked for magic too—the crown isn’t, but the mace is.”

Hearing that, Sifer walked over to the mace and picked it up. It immediately began to glow with a bright golden light. He moved it around the room, illuminating the walls, disappointed when nothing was revealed.

“Well we found the false but we haven’t found the true,” Eli groaned, frustrated.

“It’s on the map!” Sifer reminded everyone.

“We can bag the rest and sort it when we get out,” Idris declared as he spread open his portable hole.

“Talking of getting out—Marko? We’re at another dead end. Can you use your rod to check for secrets?” Uthar asked. Sifer and Eli were checking the walls but finding nothing.

Marko used his last charge. “Nothing here,” he said glumly.

Uthar led the company from the room, still sensing magic. The gas wasn’t, but as he approached the turn in the corridor he suddenly sense a strong magic presence in the wall ahead. “There’s something here,” he called with relief just as his spell faded. “Abjuration magic.”

Marko stepped forward and easily found the door in the eastern wall. “Uthar’s spell must have revealed it?” he muttered, checking it. Finding it safe he pushed it open.

---

A corridor led thirty-feet east, then turned sharply south for another forty before being stopped by a door. Marko dutifully cleared the way, then opened the door.

Three recognised the room instantly: a burial preparation room, specifically for mummies. And not only preparation—experimentation. Workbenches, preparations, and three large vats stood within.

---

“Mister Marko I would very much like to take a look in there.”

“You want me to go in first to this creepy room?”

“It’s not creepy. It’s a place of work and worship,” Three scowled. “We’ve all removed someone’s brains and placed them in a canopic jar before.”

Idris caught Three’s eye and nodded quite seriously.

“Not creepy at all,” Marko grimaced, clearing the room slowly

Three set about exploring the treasures within once Marko gave the all clear. “Let me have a quick look first,” he warned everyone.

The walls were lined with shelves, and upon those were old jars filled with dust and impotent ingredients of all sorts. There was a large desk and stool, two workbenches, and two mummy preparation tables with rotted linen wrappings in rolls strewn about. Clay pots and urns littered the tables and floor, once containing unguents, ointments, oils, perfumes, and the like. Dried herbs of unidentifiable nature, bones, skulls and the like litter the workbenches. Nothing within had survived the ravages of time, impotent and lifeless now.

Three moved over to the vats as everyone entered the room. Each stood four-feet high and were a seven-foot diameter. He expected the regular sequence was in place: strip the body of all flesh, replace, and preserve. The first vat was full of a brown-greyish substance that he didn’t recognise—the best he could guess was it was the ancient remains of dissolved flesh. Strangely it did not smell. The second contained a greenish muck. “Some sort of acid or something to destroy flesh,” he announced.

“Brother Cooper,” Eli said glancing to Three’s hood at his ruined face, “You have encountered this before?”

Ignoring Eli, Three stood over the final vat. It looked like dirty water, but he sensed there was something he was missing. He was frustrated at his lack of insight, but put it down to the age of everything in the room, and the ways of a foreign world. “It’s not clear their purpose, they’ve been here too long, but none of them are good,” he sighed.

“We don’t know how old this tomb is, do we?” Eli asked.

“It’s also a different world,” Idris said.

“You think entropy acts faster in different universes?”

“The only thing that palpably changes on the Astral are God bodies. Nothing else changes unless manipulated by an external force. People don’t age—”

“How old are you?” Sifer interrupted.

“Older than I look.”

“So the answer should be I’m getting older all the time?”

“Now, and here? Yes.”

“Why don’t you go back there then?” Eli asked innocently.

“And you could go back to Eberron,” Idris said, taking Eli’s comment the wrong way.

“I will be,” Eli said defensively.

“Oh god,” Three muttered, trauma rapidly rising. The sharp pain it caused cleared the fug from his mind, and he suddenly noticed something unusual in the opaque liquid of the acidic vat. There was a shadow at the bottom of the urn, an object that changed how the acid was reacting under observation. It didn’t make sense but it was definitely there. He motioned Idris over and tilted his head toward the vat. “Something inside,” he said, “A shadow.”

Idris looked into the liquid, not seeing anything. “Stand back,” he said as Eli prepared his extendable pole. He summoned his hand and dropped it into the vat. He could sense the acid going to work but having no effect. He traced the fingers over the bottom of the container, sluicing it around until he felt it catch something. His real hand mimimced what was going on below, closing the fingers carefully and slowly withdrawing.

Everyone stood back as the hand emerged, dripping acid. Clutched in the ethereal fingers was half a golden barrel key. “How did you see that?” he asked Three with bemusement as he magicked the acid off the key.

“All grace to Kelemvor,” Three intoned, concealing how pleased he was.

“And there the throne that’s key and keyed,” Sifer recited.

“It’s probably worth investigating if the other half is in one of the other vats,” Idris suggested. “Maybe with a stick this time.”

Eli jumped forward, pole in hand. He tried the watery vat first, feeling a bit foolish as he could quite clearly see it was empty. “Nothing in here.” He moved to the brownish gloop and jammed in the pole. He stumbled back as an amorphous ochre ooze surged out of the vat.

As per tradition, Marko lunged first, his tiny blades sinking sickeningly into the jelly. As he slashed it felt like he was calving the thing in half, but instead of killing it the ooze split into two half-sized versions of the first.

“Switch to fire!” Marko cried, realising his mistake.

Eli responded in a panic. “Ahhhh!” he cried and flames burst from his hands and shot toward the creatures. They shrunk away and a steam of foul gas rose from them. Eli continued screaming as barely controlled fire streamed from his hands.

“Eli?” Three said with surprise. Then he noticed something: the scar on Eli’s face was burning red, pulsing angrily. The dragonmark!

Tendrils of ochre reached for Three sending shooting pains of acid up his arms. Three reacted by dropping a burning radiance on the ooze causing it to sizzle and pop. Idris joined the fun by shooting more fire into the original ooze, drawing all the moisture from it, leaving only a puddle on the floor.

Uthar pulled his sword and slashed the remaining ooze, empowering it too with radiance. The stench was foul, but worse as the fact that his blade caused the ooze to split again. He cursed under his breath and drew his light hammer, thumping it into the jelly instead. More radiance, and no splitting.

At the back of the room Sifer sheathed his bow. He pulled his new, glowing mace and joined the melee thumping it home thrice. Marko patted his pockets and bags, realising he had nothing not sharp. “Your turn!” he called to Eli instead.

Flames shot out again from Eli’s burning hands and both the remaining oozes were incinerated. “I can’t stop! I can’t stop it!” Eli cried until Three calmed him and the flames dissipated.

Idris leant over the now empty vat and grinned. He sent his hand in and emerged holding the second half of the key aloft. “Ta-da!” He tossed it to Three, who put the two halves together and they latched together with a satisfying click, binding into a perfect gold key.

---

Marko led the company from the room, finding a very long corridor—at least one-hundred feet. A large pit interrupted the corridor, presenting a twenty-foot gap to be crossed. Marko very carefully checked the ceiling and floor of the pit, flying all the way. He looked for holes that might conceal darts, latches, doors, traps, the works. When he reached the far end he found what he was looking for: an obvious (to him) pressure-plate. “There’s a trap here in the bottom of the pit, a plate that will trip it,” he warned.

He dropped into the pit and, with great care, disabled the mechanism by wedging it shut. In his mind he could see exactly what would have happened if it had triggered.

---

The company made their way over the pit, treading carefully despite Marko having made it perfectly safe. The corridor was once again a dead end, so everyone set about checking every wall. After some time Sifer, continuing his streak, found a door in the northern wall.

“Sifer,” Eli said earnestly, “Well done. Some in the party have doubted you, but no longer.” Sifer just shrugged, but he appreciated the compliment.

Marko cleared the way and opened the secret door, finding another plain door which he also checked and pushed open.

---

The room ahead was filled with funerary offerings and furniture, most badly damaged. There were four rotting sofas, a couple of throne-like chairs, and a jumble of stands, small tables, and vases and urns that were dented, chipped, and broken. Only the rather plain tapestries hanging on the east and west walls appeared to have been spared a rough looting. Scattered amid the general havoc were several trunks and a larger number of coffers.

“There’s a door in the back corner,” Eli pointed out as Marko declared the floor safe. “Just don’t stand on the middle square!” he warned.

“I’m worried about that chipmunk figurine,” Three said side-eyeing Marko.

“A cleansing fireball might be required,” Uthar agreed.

Sifer, on point and on poem, went straight to the nearest throne-like chair, searching it for a keyhole. “Clear,” he announced moving to the next, which also appeared unkeyed.

Eli reached for one of the tapestries and pulled it aside.

“Eli! Don’t touch that! Fugus, ochre, it could be anything!” Three cried too late.

“There’s a door,” Eli announced calmly. As he spoke the floor of the room started to heave and buck causing everyone to stagger. “Oops,” Eli gasped as he hauled the door open and stumbled through.

“We need to get out!” Idris cried. Everyone managed to stay on their feet, following Eli through the doorway to a corridor leading thirty-feet north before bending east. “Sorry everyone,” Eli mumbled.

Sifer stayed inside, finding it relatively easy to maintain his balance despite the violent moment. He closed the door, but the room kept moving. He pulled the curtain back and still it rocked and rolled. He joined the company. “That room hasn’t been looted—the damage was caused by the movement,” he announced. “I’m going to grab one of those coffers.” He did so and returned it to Marko.

Marko found it safe, no locks and no traps. He opened the clasp: “Empty.”

“What does the poem say? Anything interesting about here?” Uthar said.

“Into the columned hall you’ll come, and there the throne that’s key and keyed,” Sifer read. “Neither throne in there had any sign of a key or keyhole.”

“We’re not at the columned hall as far as I can see,” Uthar said thoughtfully.

“There’s also the other door,” Eli pointed to the opposite wall.

---

Session played September 15, 29, October 13, 2025