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  “Hey, look what I found!” Zeeto said, holding his glowing dagger aloft and beckoning with it. Once they’d learned that Sira could keep multiple light spells going at once on a rotating basis, they’d all let her illuminate their weapons.

  The party gathered at a short, well-carved tunnel—more an entryway than anything—ending in a thick iron door that stood slightly ajar. Whereas much of the ironwork in the mines had gone to rust, the hinges as least had been so well oiled that the door swung at a touch.

  “Congratulations,” Sira said flatly. “You’ve found a dwarven broom closet.”

  While the comparison was apt, the contents of this particular closet were less for cleaning than for mining. A wooden rack along one wall had gone to moldering and rot. Six pickaxes rested precariously on the remains, handles holding better up to wear thanks to a thick coating of varnish. The heads of the tools were oiled as well and looked functional if not entirely pristine.

  “Well, it’ll make our next road block easier to clear,” Gary said with a shrug. He stepped inside to examine the scattered odds and ends lying about the rest of the supply room.

  “Come on, Gary,” Braeleigh said with a jerk of her head toward the main passage. “We’re looking for a way out of here, and unless you’re planning on digging your own set of stairs—which would be super ambitious, especially for you—then there’s nothing here.”

  A portable tool chest creaked as Gary lifted its lid. A glint of metal shone among the grime-coated and rusted implements within. He pulled out a simple bit-and-brace—the kind carpenters of yore used before the invention of the electric drill—and held it up for all to see.

  “Firmium,” he pronounced. “Also known as gods’ bone. Hardest metal of them all and damn near impossible to work. Dwarves used it to make a cutting bit that could bore through stone or metal.”

  “Cute,” Zeeto said. “Not that it wouldn’t be great for drilling out a lock, but by the time you’re that desperate, you’re better off just using a pry bar or a hammer and chisel.”

  “Indeed,” Beldrak said. “Let us hie and make the surface all the sooner. Whether sun or moon doth offer us their chaste kiss, I shall welcome it equally.”

  Braeleigh giggled. “I can’t picture you kissing.”

  “Mine ladywife wouldst find thy jest of equal humor,” Beldrak replied.

  Sira dangled her mace from a hook on her belt and held up both hands. “Wait a minute. You’re married. I thought that paladins weren’t supposed to…” She poked the finger of one hand into the loose fist of the other.

  “Indeed not,” Beldrak replied. “But fairest Chantara and I hath bonded so that our families might cease an age-long quarrel. Ours is a love of companionable chastity made all the easier on the passions by great distance.”

  Gary had used the distraction to tuck the bit-and-brace into his pack, brooking for further argument over its merits. “OK, lover-boy. You’ve got one over all of us in the romance department. Now let’s find our way up to that sun you’re mooning over.”

  Acquired Firmium Bit-and-Brace: 1d2 improvised weapon

  The section of mine shafts ended a short while after. A cross-shaft ran past with a pair of iron rails set into the floor. Just before their tunnel ended, Gary ran up beside Braeleigh and barred her path with an arm. “Wait!”

  d20: 6 + (Perception +1) + (You Just Remembered Something Important +20) = 26

  Reaching forward, he tapped his foot on a deviously concealed trigger plate in the floor. Out of reach of the blade’s path, Gary didn’t even sense the chance for a roll to his Armor Rating as the circular disk spun out of the wall before retreating back.

  Zeeto whistled. “Nice eye, twinkle fingers. Maybe you’ve missed your calling. You could hustle three-cup-find-the-pea on the streets of Sillimar for better scratch than we’re making down here.”

  Braeleigh threw her arms around Gary’s neck. “Thank you! I so like having my head. I use it for… well… everything. I totally owe you one.”

  Gary froze. This was roughly how he imagined Caspian coming to be. There was little else except a favor gone wrong to explain Katie’s brief, tumultuous relationship with Derek. He cleared his throat as he extracted himself. “All part of the job, being adventurers. You’d have done the same for me.”

  Braeleigh tousled his hair. “You bet I would. Your head’s easily the best part of you.”

  2 Points Self-Esteem Damage.

  Gary scowled up at the unseen gods in their celestial realms. That wasn’t funny.

  “Left or right?” he asked to divert attention from Braeleigh’s playful condescension.

  The question doubled as a test. The “Left-Hand Rule” was legendary among gamers when navigating. Follow a left-hand wall in a maze with dead ends and eventually you’ll find the exit. Conversely, it worked going to the right as well, but that wasn’t the rule of thumb passed down since before the age of home computers, when the forefathers of pen and paper enshrined the medium’s canon.

  “Left,” Zeeto said instantly. “Always left.”

  “I favor the hand of mine sword arm,” Beldrak said, brandishing the cleric-lit weapon in his right.

  Sira nodded. “Right is the more blessed direction.”

  Braeleigh pointed down the tracks to the left. “But the windy sound is coming from that way.”

  “Tie breaker, chief,” Zeeto said with a wink and a pointed finger at Gary.

  “Noooo,” Braeleigh cut in. “Caspian wants to go left too.”

  “The wolf doesn’t vote,” Sira replied sternly.

  “I’m on board with left,” Gary said. “The right just ends in a tear-drop loop-around to reverse the mine carts on the track.”

  They all stared at him.

  “OK,” Zeeto said. “Now I know we’re going right.”

  “How came thee by this knowledge?” Beldrak asked with a furrowed brow.

  “What?” Gary said, backing up a step. “Haven’t any of you studied dwarven mining norms? This is fairly common knowledge in Palo Alto.”

  d20: 15 + (Persuade +5) + (But How Can They Refute It? +2) = 22

  After a moment of uneasy scrutiny, they gave up questioning the source of his knowledge. Gary could just envision the players sitting around a table knowing they were getting bullshitted and unable to roll anything better than an 8 or 9 on their twenty-sided dice, trying to use Intuition against him.

  Nevertheless, they went right.

  Just as predicted, after a few hundred feet, the tunnel ended in a loop of track then came back around and reversed the direction of the carts. A depot for storing empty carts was the only feature of interest at the termination of the line.

  Zeeto sized up one of the mine carts appraisingly. “Think you guys could get one of these rolling?”

  “What thinkest thou?” Beldrak asked. “A rolling bulwark? Dost thy optimistic mind foresee treasure beyond carrying?”

  “I wouldn’t mind a ride,” Zeeto replied. “I take two steps for every one of yours. Getting a little footsore.”

  Sira cuffed the halfling upside the head with a carefully measured blow. After all, if she damaged him, it would fall to her to heal him back up before they got into a fight.

  “Well, see?” Gary asked, leaning into his lie. “I knew what I was talking about. Now let’s head the way Braeleigh smelled the wind so we can get out of here.”

  “Heard the wind,” the elf replied. “Caspie smelled it.”

  Sira grunted a sigh and took the lead.

  Dysfunctional as they were, Gary found it a familiar dysfunction. It had all the bickering between life and death encounters but none of the jokes about Marty’s car or the time Alvin had to go to the emergency room after swallowing an eight-sided die on a dare—and Alvin hadn’t played with them in over five years. This was the epitome of immersive gaming.

  Gary couldn’t have wished for it to be any better than this.

  Ambling along at the back of the pack, Gary whistled a tune as they followed th
e tracks.

  “What’s that song?” Zeeto asked.

  “Old railroad song,” Gary replied. “Um. From back home.”

  “Must be a helluva lotta dwarfs back in Palo Alto,” Zeeto said.

  The tracks terminated in a processing yard. All manner of mining equipment from picks and shovel to temporary support timbers and sifters for separating crushed rock from precious metals and gems. Where there had presumably been a smelter and ore refinery off to the left side of the tracks, there was a massive cave-in. The right side of the tracks opened into an area of built-in carved benches and tables with the look of a cafeteria or break room for the miners. A large tarpaulin covered a hidden structure twice the height of a human—or roughly three and a half Zeetos.

  Up head, the gloom of the priestly light faded to the gloom of another tunnel leading out. Gary only knew the tunnel headed east because he could still picture the map when he closed his eyes. In game terms, he had no business knowing his way by compass points down here.

  Zeeto shot Beldrak a smile. “Up for a little digging?” he asked, gesturing toward a loose wall of spilled rock that might have taken a week to clear with a Bobcat and a jackhammer.

  “The humor of thy jest fails to outstrip thy stature,” Beldrak replied.

  “What’s under the big blanket?” Braeleigh wondered aloud, the sort of unabashed sharing that Katie often displayed.

  “Unless it’s a door out of this place, who cares?” Sira asked.

  Braeleigh cocked her head to one side as she sleepwalked toward it. “It looks kind of door shaped. I mean, it would be a big door, but it’s not like big doors are a problem.” Slicing through a pair of tattered ropes holding the cloth in place, she dragged the tarpaulin away.

  What lay beneath wasn’t a door but an arch. Trapezoidal and slightly rounded, it was carved from dark stone that neither matched the stone it rested on nor seemed distinctly separate from it. All along the sides and across the top, it was covered in carved runes.

  By now, everyone had gathered around the arch. No one touched it despite coming so close to stare that they could have shaken hands through the empty void it surrounded.

  “Anyone here read dwarfish?” Zeeto asked.

  Gary didn’t stop to think. “Yeah, but this isn’t dwarven. Dwarf-made, perhaps, but not in their own language. Magic made this. Not chisel or pick. Old. Powerful. Inert. Not to be trifled with.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Sira asked.

  Gary blinked. This arch wasn’t mean to be unraveled now. Later. Much later. So late he expected them all to forget it by the time its purpose became clear. “Storytelling,” he muttered. “Never mind. One day I’ll find myself in front of a tavern hearth, recounting tales of our adventures. We know nothing about this thing. It needs a story worth telling, even if we don’t know what it really means.”

  When he reached out and touched the cold stone surface, everyone else’s breath caught in their throats.

  d20: 10 + (Lore +6) + (You’re Not Going to Tell Them Anyway -20) = -4

  “See?” Gary said, looking them each in the eye in turn. “Harmless.”

  Of course, nothing could have been further from the truth. But it wasn’t the time for that now.

  “C’mon,” Zeeto said. “I looked up ahead and there’s a little bridge with a door on the far side. I’m thinking once we get through there, maybe we see something with stairs heading up.”

  15

  The bridge that Zeeto mentioned spanned a natural chasm just long enough that no one made any ludicrous suggestions like long-jumping it or throwing the halfling across. It was deep enough that the magical radiance from their weapons didn’t illuminate the bottom.

  “Not it,” Zeeto said, holding a finger to the side of his nose.

  They all looked at him funny. All except Gary, who placed a finger aside his nose as well.

  “Wherefore hath thou placed a finger aside thy snoot?” Beldrak asked.

  “When I say, ‘not it’ and do this,” Zeeto explained. “That means I’m not going across the bridge first and the last one with their finger on their nose has to instead.”

  Braeleigh caught on instantly. She even had Caspian’s paw touching his canine muzzle before Sira realized her plight and touched her own nose before being left as last remaining.

  All of them stared down Beldrak.

  “What say thee?” Zeeto asked mockingly. “Iseth thee man enough to walk yonder plank?”

  “You mock me, sir,” Beldrak said with stern menace. “Retract thy slanderous tone else we shall quarrel.” He put a hand to the hilt of his broadsword.

  Zeeto’s eyes shot wide. “Whoa! Hold your horses, cowboy! I was just having a little fun.” He ducked behind Sira for protection.

  “To each the role he playeth best,” Beldrak said, carefully easing his hand away from the hilt. “No game or merry jest when unfriendly claw or venomous tooth seek to spill the wine of thy vein. No silence held when implication of the blessed gods soothe our wounds. No laggard lookout leave us bereft of keen ear, keen eye, the keen scent of beast. Nor does Gary deny us the meager service of his voice. Nay. Ye shall cross the first, light-body light foot. If thy protestations of an honest life ring true, ’tis the true service thee provideth. Thy dagger work balance not the weight of thy tongue, and I could trade that weight for the service of two stout lads and a mule to bear the spoils we might win. Instead, I cast my lot with thee, little burglar.”

  As Zeeto moped across the bridge, he muttered loud enough that all could hear. “Sore loser.” But he wore the rope harness for safety, and there was little chance that, even falling, his weight would strain Beldrak’s mighty arms.

  Nor was there any chance the paladin would let him fall on purpose.

  Darryl wasn’t the sort either.

  Leaning over the edge halfway across, Zeeto used the light from his glowing dagger as a lamp. “Wonder how deep it is? Anyone got a coin?”

  “Don’t you?” Sira asked.

  “Well, yeah,” Zeeto called back. “But I was hoping to use one of yours.”

  A muffled whisper came from Gary’s pack.

  “Is your backpack talking?” Braeleigh asked, coming over and regarding the leather pack with suspicion.

  “He’s carrying a talking skull,” Sira reminded her.

  The elf cocked her head. One long ear flopped slightly. “What’s it got to say?”

  Gary opened the backpack and shot the dead wizard a warning glare as he took out the skull.

  “There was a great battle at Norchek Chasm,” Randal Vintner said, his ghostly form coiling from the eye sockets of the skull like steam from a teapot. “I sense no other trapped souls down below but have a care for your tone. There are heroes entombed beneath your feet. That you are human, halfling, and elf without an orc among you speaks that those heroes did not sacrifice in vain.”

  “So, you’re saying there’s probably loot down there?” Zeeto translated.

  “How dare—? No, nothing of the sort!” the irate ghost replied. “Do not toss coins upon the remains of the fallen like their resting place were some tawdry wishing well.”

  “Hold tight,” Zeeto warned, and before anyone could object, he took two running steps and leaped into the darkness.

  Beldrak yelped in surprised and redoubled his grip, setting his footed feet against the smooth stone floor. Soon enough the line pulled taut and soft feet scuffed against the chasm wall.

  “Oof!” Zeeto grunted.

  They all rushed to the edge and looked down. “You all right?” Braeleigh asked.

  Zeeto stood sideways, feet planted on the wall, with his hands gripping the rope. He was crouched, bent over at the waist. “Oooh. I’ll be OK, but let’s just say I won’t be in the mood for lovin’ tonight. Damn! I’ve gotta work on where those ropes cross under.”

  “What do you see?” Sira called down to him.

  “Give a guy a minute!” Zeeto snapped. Then, once that minute had passed, he s
houted up. “Lower me slowly.”

  Beldrak spooled out rope. Gary squinted into the darkness, trying to make out the chasm floor by the scant light of Zeeto’s dagger. Then the dagger went dark.

  “Oh, of all the… Sira, send me a new light!”

  Sira pulled out a coin from the purse at her belt and invoked Sevius. “Goddess, light our path, that we might hold back the darkness in our souls.” Then she flipped the coin down the chasm. After a scary length of time, the plink echoed back to the bridge.

  “What’ve you got down there?” Sira asked once Zeeto made it to the bottom and retrieved the coin.

  They could all see down, but the details were too far for human eyes. By Braeleigh’s squint, that went for elven eyes as well.

  “Nothing but a fancy gauntlet,” Zeeto said, clearly disappointed. “Haul me back up.”

  d20: 17 + (Intuition +1) = 18

  Gary hadn’t consciously thought to question whether the little scoundrel was lying, but he had been suspicious. That was even without thinking back to what he’d written for that Easter egg treasure down at the chasm floor.

  Zeeto came up brandishing a silvery gauntlet set with gemstones at the knuckles. He turned it over in his hands appraisingly once Beldrak reclaimed the rope from the harness. “I’m thinking we might be better off prying out the rubies and piecing it off for resale.”

  Gary snatched the magic item away before the halfling did something stupid and destructive.

  Acquired Gauntlet of the Destroyer: +1 STR

  “It’s magic, you idiot,” Gary pronounced. He handed it to Beldrak. “You’d make best use of this.”

  “What is this, Club Beldrak?” Zeeto demanded. “First you don’t honor the ‘not it’ you clearly lost. Now you take the first real loot we find?”

  Gary was about to make a car analogy before catching himself. He tried to think up an in-character response. “This party is like an orchestra. You don’t give a violin bow to a percussionist. You don’t give a cellist a reed for an oboe.”