Shadowmaze

The rain started in the night and it was still going in the morning, the kind that doesn't mean to stop. Bancroft heard it on the shutters before he was properly awake. He lay there a while and listened to it and thought, without any heat in the thought, that they were going to go down into the ground anyway, and the ground did not care what the sky was doing.

The last twenty minutes of the dig went like the first three hours had gone, which was to say it went slow and steady and without anyone dying. Bancroft worked the trench with Irulan. Anister kept the watch above. Clarice was not with them today. The note she had left in the morning had only said gone south, back in a week or two, and the part of Bancroft that liked to know things had asked Bolo whether he knew more, and Bolo had shaken his head with the careful look of a man who knew exactly what he was not telling, and Bancroft had let the matter drop. People came and went on the moor. You did not pry.

Bancroft came up the moor road late, a half-hour after the others, because the cobbler in Helix had needed an extra hour to put the new sole on the left boot and Bancroft was not going to dig in a wet boot if he could help it. By the time he came around the long shoulder of the ridge that hid the dig from the road, the others had already finished some short business of their own. He saw it in the trampled grass and in the streak of blood drying on Anister's pickaxe handle and in the way Clarice was wiping her dagger on a strip of moss. He did not ask. The kind of business that left grass trampled and dagger blades wet was the kind of business he was glad to have missed.

They went back in the morning because no one could think of anything else to do.

The first thing Riyou did was throw fire.

Bancroft got to Helix three days behind the others. The disease from the Huecuva had taken longer to shake than the priests of St. Ygg had promised, and by the time he walked through the gates he was light on coin, heavy on fatigue, and already behind on what mattered.

Four new faces at the entrance to the barrow. Bancroft sized them up the way his father had sized up hired hands at harvest -- which ones would last the day, which ones would wander off, which ones would break something expensive. The halfling was interesting. Small, careful hands, a crossbow that looked recently oiled, and a leather case of bottles and powders that marked him as an apothecary. The others were what they were: bodies. Warm ones, for now.

We headed out to the skull door barrow (D10). As soon as I opened the door, a stack of skeleton heads tumbled loudly down the stairs. Somebody's homemade alarm. I saw torch light at the bottom of the stairs, and let the others know. Nobody went through the door, so I closed it. It was raining out, so we just hung out, to see if they came out. After 20 minutes, I opened the door again. The light was gone and it was quiet, so we decided to give it a try. All was quiet until we got to the mongrel den, and there was the usual wolf growls and old lady yelling asking for help. We ignored them and went to listen at the doors to the west.

The necromancer fled north through the barrow, and the cleric followed.

Bancroft and I chased the necromancer up the hallway to the north. Then Bancroft's light spell died and I heard the necromancer cast a spell to the south, then it hit me. I yelled at Bancroft that this was his damned mission from god I was being injured for, and he walked right by the necromancer. I heard the necromancer grunt, so I figured he jumped over the pit trap down the west hallway. Lerwin came up the hallway and I lit a torch off of his. He said Seacrock was dead.

Nine of them at the skull door. Four who had been here before, five who hadn't. The five were men from the Gray Company -- Gallo, Larwyn, Tolm, Tarsil, and Kholix the torchbearer -- and they stood at the entrance with the expression of people who had been told what was down there but hadn't believed it yet.

We went through the no longer secret door, which is now disabled, by levering it open with a crowbar. We checked the statue room to the south, now blessedly rat free. Bancroft insisted in climbing down the pit for some reason, and found a dagger under the bones. We headed north. As we were checking previously looted burial alcoves, we were accosted by two gem skeletons. Sylvanus abandoned Bancroft, and he wasn't able to turn them. Riyou downed one with two mighty bowshots from ten feet up, clinging to the burial alcoves with her feet. I wasn't able to hit the gem to crush it, too small a target on the ground.

The sword was right there. You could see it glowing from across the room -- white, steady, the kind of light that says valuable in a language anyone can read. All we had to do was cross a room full of animated stone lizardmen, climb a ten-foot statue, and swap it for a different sword before anything went wrong.

The next day, I got together with a new group from the Grey Company after getting myself checked out by a St. Ygg priest for piece of mind. An elf mage, Serie, and four newbies: Pippin (halfling), Thrain (dwarf), Caleb (human), and Vrak (half orc). I quizzed them all on their dedication to be adventurers, and warned them that it was not a walk in the park. They insisted they were prepared. I oped for an easy start, and we went to the barrow (D9) with the golems and stairs down to an altar. We can check out the stairs and see if we can find a way to drain the water.

Bancroft was lying on the stone floor.

Seacrock and I rounded the corner, charging after Riyou's kidnappers. Seacrock was unable to put the necromancer or the mongrel to sleep. The mongrel ran off carrying Riyou, who started to struggle. As the mongrel ran out of sight, I saw Riyou heroically stab the mongrel. The necromancer ran off, and I followed him into a small room, where he'd turned into three of himself. I shot, and one of the images disappeared. Seacrock cast magic missile, and the other image disappeared. The necromancer actually walked by me instead of attacking me, and failed to cast a spell at Seacrock. I dropped the bow and swung my sword at him, wounding him. Then the coward ran into the dark. We pursued. I hoped the dropped bow would show Bancroft where we went.

On the way out the barrow, we were confronted by another adventuring group of 9 people with slings, insinuating we were wounded and had treasure to steal. Bancroft gave them the demanded 5 gold and urged us to listen to wisdom. Seacrock and I reluctantly threw 5 gold each down in the dirt, both vowing if we saw them again, we'd murder them. Riyou refused, and got a mess of slingshots aimed at her. She went down unconscious, Bancroft picked her up, and we left, me growling while I memorized their faces.

Four people walked into the Brazen Strumpet the night before. A human, a dwarf, a half-orc, and a halfling -- new to town, down on their luck, the kind of people who end up in Helix when the road runs out somewhere else. They arrived separately and ended up at the same table, which might have been luck or might have been that people with empty pockets recognize each other without having to ask.

Cade and I had been standing outside the barrow for a while. Which, strictly speaking, put us on the right side of things -- fresh air, no immediate monsters, exit readily accessible. Our employers were on the other side of a sealed stone door doing something complicated with mechanisms, which is where the dead things are. We could hear them but not help. Standard arrangement, really.

Roderick gave me a dagger to pop the door open before the acid burned the mechanism out. I yelled at Vorn and Cade to help open the door the rest of the way, after I got it open 6 inches by ratcheting the gears with the dagger. They whined about light, so Roderick lit the end of a piece of rope from the lantern and and stuck the end through the door, so they could light a torch. They tried to shove, but didn't move the door. I pushed and shoved, and got the door open. Apparently, I have to do everything. The door won't stay, though, so I used Roderick's shovel to brace the door open. He's the only one with useful gear.

I drew the 8 of swords this morning: all tangled up, unable to see clearly. Now I have to figure out what we're tangled up in that we're not seeing clearly. Riyou wandered off again, so we inspected the hirelings presenting themselves. We'll need the extra help because Bancroft insisted he had a mission from his god, and he wouldn't heal us unless we helped. I'm amazed the farmer even knew what extortion was. We hired all but one torch bearer that had a wet sack with flies buzzing around it and a dead smell following him. We saw a bunch of giant frogs in a pond on the way, but they didn't look hungry, so we edged around them.

The morning was cold and gray in Helix. Bancroft woke early, already thinking about the barrows.

One scorpion tried to hit a statue, but just scraped it. Bancroft ran to the slab and threw the other bowl of gems on top of the first scorpion. The statue next to me hit me. The other statue went for Bancroft, not the scorpion with the gems on it, but it missed. Then the light went out. I could hear the scorpions scraping against the statues, but it didn't sound like they were doing any damage. Bancroft yelled to grab the gem and run, then threw something towards the entrance. I heard something shatter, presumably the vase. I lit a torch, and moved to put it on the slab. Bancroft and I watched the statues and scorpions go at each other. With all the scorpions in the barrow, the stairs were clear.

Aura and I discussed our brilliant plan to shoot the book with an arrow with a rope attached, and pull the rope with gloves on, so we weren't actually touching the book or anything attached to the book. Pulling the book on the rope worked, but the arrow loosened when I gently pulled it to the stairs. As we started, Knutella and five new adventurers from our group wandered in. Aura kept shooting it, I kept pulling the rope. We couldn't get it up the stairs. We needed a ramp. Roderick suggested shoveling dirt on the stairs to make a ramp. We shot two arrows in, pulled with the rope. At the top of the stairs, we tugged the book onto my cloak, tied an end of the rope to the cloak, and pulled the book back to town on the cloak. It was unstable and took forever, and on the way, three giant toads appeared. We sidled around them, adding to our time.

The first blow that day came with the ordinary violence of the barrowmaze--bloody, sudden, and oddly intimate. Bancroft planted his feet, cursing his missing shield, and brought his sword down across a shambling zombie's shoulder. The thing snarled with a voice like dry leaves and spun, its filthy claws raking the cleric's forearm.

The morning sun cast long shadows across Helix as Bancroft made his way through the town's winding streets, his mind turning over an intriguing conversation from the previous evening. He had encountered a small goblin wizard--scarred and bearing himself with the cold authority of one who had gazed beyond death's veil--who spoke of an animated serpent trapped near the rats' nest in the shadowmaze.

The morning after their devastating encounter with the mimics found the survivors nursing both wounds and wounded pride. Druidly's absence hung over them like a shroud, but the barrowmaze waited for no one's grief. Bancroft had managed to recruit four new souls willing to risk their lives for treasure--though their qualifications remained questionable at best.

The morning found their company diminished but determined. Druidly, the half-orc wizard whose arcane studies had served them well, shouldered his pack with the quiet confidence of one who had mastered the mysteries of sleep and flame. "The swamp barrow," he declared, adjusting his spell components. "Those frogs won't catch us unprepared again."

Bancroft staggered through Helix's gates like a man touched by plague, his once-proud bearing reduced to a shambling gait. Yellow mold clung to his skin in sickly patches, and his head bore fresh dents from their harrowing escape. Most telling of all, his jeweled sword--the blade that had marked him as more than a simple farmer--was gone, lost to the maze's hungry darkness.

The shadowmaze had claimed its victims, and now it hungered for more.

Bancroft and his friends searched the area once the strangers had left. One of the nearby rooms had a table with three polished skulls sitting on top -- very strange decor. Druidly thought they might be magical, so the party kept them. A few minutes after they finished searching, a group of adventurers came from a door to the south. There was a tense moment, with Druidly moving his hand toward his pouch of spell components, but the newcomers left without a fight.

Bancroft stood atop the barrow and looked down upon the tilled earth with satisfaction. Weeks of effort to uncover a fresh barrow had finally paid off: the door had been uncovered, revealing a chamber with four sarcophagi and many giant centipedes. The initial expedition had slain several of the centipedes but not enough, so the entryway had been buried again to keep other parties away. Now it would be dug up, the thin coating of earth removed, the centipedes slain if they were lucky, and whatever treasures the sarcophagi held reclaimed.

Bancroft stood atop the barrow and watched his friends dig. Someone had borrowed his shovel and there were not enough to go around, so he kept watch. It was almost like watching crops grow -- slow and steady. Occasionally a frog, scorpion, or skeleton wandered in the distance, but the dig continued until, at last, the clink of shovel on stone resounded: the diggers had uncovered a door.

Wyz the smart goblin and a dozen of his closest friends lined up for the barrowmaze, enduring the cold rain. In point of fact, only two of them were very close, the rest were near strangers. But he'd been watching them; choosing them carefully, selecting those who seemed the most competent. One in particular, a dwarven cleric of Fortuna, seemed to have actual supernatural powers. The rest would do for cannon fodder.

Wyz the goblin waited by the side of the road, wringing his hands. His friends had left for the barrowmaze that morning as many aspiring adventurers did. That was hours ago. Now the slow trudge of discouraged feet returning to town rang loudly in his ears. There had been no sign of his friends. As each new group returned. Wyz clutched at sleeves, asked for news, collected whatever tales he could of the horrors that lay beneath the earth. From any that would indulge him, he collected details, facts. Specific barrows, specific creatures, partial tales of treasures found.

Our group went out to the barrowmaze. Two of my friends, Sidney and Khezzean, stayed to dig; Xanrion the haberdasher and I went to take a closer look at a tomb where others had found a pair of nice vases. That tomb contained a wicker frame surrounding a decaying body. One of the others, actually with a sword and armor, cut off its head. I expected it to rise up and kill us, but the body remained dead. We found nothing of any value, though.

Bancroft and Darmek queued for the barrowmaze with about eight in their group. The day began poorly: they were ambushed by six giant frogs before reaching the barrows. The party ran; three frogs pursued, then only one. They managed to kill that frog, but the group was exhausted and retreated to Helix with nothing to show.

The trip to the barrowmaze began on a solemn note: the party had lost friends in one of the barrows and needed to retrieve valuables from their bodies. The bodies themselves were not where the friends had fallen; something had dragged them into the barrow and a blood trail led the group onward.