Saturday, June 20, 2020

Master of Strings Ch 129: Check for Traps

With the door shut Maldrek began to look it over for any kind of weaknesses. After a few moments he turns round to his fellows, who had finished looting the defeated samurai and he spoke, "Anyone else have any ideas? Cause I don't have a spell for this."

Cruxis makes his way over to the door and gives it an experimental push and speaks, "This isn't something I could break, too sturdy." May is the last to approach the door, taking a pair of thin metal tools from her bag, she kneels down in front of the door, then freezes in place. She stands back up and points to the sides of the door and says,

"They made this door one way only and the mechanism is on the other side I think." Now that the three of them had tried their ideas they looked at Zilo and the bard hesitated before saying, "You want ME to think of something?"

Cruxis, May, and Maldrek all stare at each other for a moment to question their own sanity then they look back and Cruxis says, "What's the harm?"

Zilo looks around the room for a moment, then points off to the archway to the right of the room that led to darkness. The bard says, "Well since May still has Darkvision we can check in there, maybe there's another path."

They all look to the archway and after exchanging a few glances they shrug and proceed into the dark. After a few steps there is snapping sound from below their feet and the rock floor collapses out underneath them.

They fall and the tunnel shaft narrows into a choke point that they all clog and pile into with Cruxis at the bottom of them all held from falling by a misplaced leg. He pushes them up a bit and says, "Get off! I fell on my leg and I think I broke it or something!" Maldrek looks down to see Cruxis fell into a small hole with only one leg through it from the fall.

May looks up and says, "Cruxis! In the hole NOW!" Cruxis looks up to see what she saw, a mass of suspended boulders beginning to come loose. Cruxis pushed with all his might to lift the three of them off. Luckily the three of them aren't that heavy and he manages to slip his stuck leg.

The paladin then quickly flies between the edges of the hole with Zilo's slim frame falling through butt first and knocking his head on the edge. Maldrek and May have a bit more trouble, halting each other from making it through the hole.

"GO!" Shouts May slamming Maldrek downward as she tilts back on the hole's rim. Maldrek flies through the hole and the above entryway is covered in the dirt and dust of the boulder's impact. Maldrek lands and with a limping Cruxis and a head rubbing Zilo, they all look up to the dust cloud and shout in unison,

"May!"

"Gkk!" Came a grunting noise from the dust cloud. Maldrek raised an eyebrow and after a flap of his robe the dust cleared above their heads and there was May, being choked by her own cloak. Maldrek acts quickly and hurls his sword telekineticly up to cut her Cloak of Resistance. Since he himself had made the magic cloth, he knew just how to cut it to save her.

She fell and landed on her butt, and just as she did, another noise began to fill the room, along with her complaining. The sound of stone rubbing stone as May shouts, "Damnit Maldrek! That was my 3rd favorite Cloak!"

A loud clunk radiates the room and suddenly the left and right walls form into spikes. May stands up and Zilo gets down to fix Cruxis's broken leg with a spell. Maldrek looks at the walls and says, "Exit! Guys we gotta find an exit now, the walls are closing in."

The others all snap to attention to see that the spikes on the walls indeed were closing in. Maldrek shakes his head and shouts, "Zilo, Cruxis, hold the walls!" Cruxis dashes off the ground and grips the sides of two of the spikes before digging his feet into the ground. Zilo needs a bit more of a moment, but he gets up and does the same on the opposite wall.

May and Maldrek begin to scan the room to see if there are any loose areas on the walls, or if there are any in the cut stone floor. They soon come to realize that the only weird section of the room besides the spiked walls is the pressure plate that activated the walls.

Zilo and Cruxis wince as the spikes begin to weave in-between each other to poke them and give less ground. May finally spots something off, the pressure plate wasn't solid stone. Housed in it's surface was a hollowed out section with a grip in it, not caring what might happen she grabs it and yanks it up, pulling the pressure plate out and back into it's resting position.

And just like that, the wall stopped moving, but it seemed that they were all stuck in awkward positions. May looked down to her grip and said, "Hey guys, I think I can pull this a bit more."

"Better that then being stuck here." Remarked Zilo.

May lifted the small plate and it suddenly came out from it's spot and in it's place was yet another hole into the dark depths. The four heroes stare at the hole and Zilo speaks. "Well May. You found it, you should do the honors."

May flinches and says, "I think our illustrious leader should be the one to take the plunge, besides I feel like I've been the scout too many times at this point."

Maldrek glances to one of the spikes and responds, "Not a bad idea, but If another of these traps go off then the one who goes will need to be able to takes some punishment. I think Cruxis is the right idea."

Cruxis tries to cross his arms, but the spikes get in the way and he snaps his head over saying, "I can't get anywhere near the hole Maldrek, I'm not as lithe as the rest of you, plus I'm built for fights, not traps. Maybe someone skilled for anything like Zilo would be a better call."

Zilo grits his teeth and says, "I'm honored, but as the saying goes, 'Ladies first.' So I think that May should-"

Maldrek stares daggers at Zilo, cutting off his speech and says, "Zilo your going, now."

The bard shrugs and says, "Fine, I'll see if there's a way to turn off the spikes, be back in a jiff." Zilo carefully flexes and weaves his way around the spikes with his thin frame and manages to fit his way down the hole and into the dark room below.

<Previous                     First Part                          Next>

No comments:

Post a Comment