HOUSE OF PAYNE INTERNATIONAL: Archive: GMP
The Gold Monkey Project: Episode 10
Our game was proceeding with such tortoise-like slowness that Tim and I sat down a few weeks ago (February 23-25, 2001) and played face to face. That went so well that we did it again a month later (March 25-27, 2001). It was great fun, and a good chance to try out the new D&D 3rd Edition.
Anywhow, after twenty hours of gameplay, there's a lot that I need to post up here to catch the site up to speed. So for the next several weeks, I will be writing up an account of the game proceedings and posting them here. And by the time that gets done, we should have another couple of email exchanges to post up here as well. Stay tuned!
Judging by its size, the secret passageway did not appear to have been designed for more than one person to occupy its space at a time. In fact, it was unlikely the passage was designed to fit even one person comfortably, considering the difficulty Shaft had in accomodating his stocky frame, not to mention his numerous weapons of war. There were times when Chisaibu was truly grateful for the muscle his friend provided, but at the moment he was being crushed between the wall and Shaft's massive gluteus maximus. Of course he could have perched on the ladder that led down into an opening in the floor, but Chisaibu was pretty sure that whatever had killed the Underregent was down there, and he naturally wanted to keep Shaft's bulk between himself and the thing with the nine-inch claws.
And so he crouched there in the dark, listening to the soft sounds of a man shuffling around in the library, guarding the dead body of his lord. So far, Chisaibu hadn't been impressed by the Underregent's guards-- keeping an eye on a corpse seemed to be about right for this lot-- but a bookshelf was the only thing hiding the secret passage where Chisaibu and Shaft lurked. Chisaibu felt naked.
One of the guards had mentioned seeing the Underregent in the Dining Hall just a few moments before. So unless the Dining Hall was underground, it stood to reason that the ladder down wasn't the only exit from this cramped closet. He began to run his nimble fingers over the wall, searching for another way out. After searching those portions of the passageway nearest to him, he began climbing over Shaft, trying to stay as far away as possible from the hole in the floor that led down. He had no intention of facing down anything that made such big holes in people's bodies.
"Hey," hissed Shaft quietly. "What do you think you're doing?" Chisaibu froze where he was (climbing up Shaft's back, using his sword harness for hand- and footholds), and threw his hand over his friend's mouth. He listened intently. There was no sound from guard in the library. That could be good or bad. Chisaibu decided to think of it as bad. He slowly pulled himself up to whisper in Shaft's ear. "Quiet!" After a moment more, he heard a voice from the library mutter, "Damned rats." The guard then resumed his regular shuffle and Chisaibu resumed his search for another exit, using Shaft as a human ladder.
After several minutes' fruitless poking and prodding, though, it became apparent that the hole in the floor was the only other way out of the passage. Chisaibu climbed back up to confer with his hulking companion. "We go down, I think," he whispered. "You first."
"You crazy?!" Shaft murmured under his breath.
"Quiet!"
"Sorry."
Chisaibu paused to listen, but heard no sign that they had been discovered. "Okay," he whispered, "time to go. Ready?"
"No!"
"Quiet! Down now! Talk later!"
"You first! I can't see!"
Angered by this obstinacy, Chisaibu pulled a throwing dagger from his sleeve and poked Shaft with the hilt, but the fighting man refused to budge. With a quiet sigh of exasperation, Chisaibu pushed his way past Shaft until he stood over the hole. Shoninzoku see like cats in the dark, but the only light in the cramped passage was torchlight leaking in from the library through a very narrow crack where the bookcase met the wall. It was enough for him to see his way around the passageway, but after the first few rungs of the ladder going down, he could see nothing at all in the darkness below him.
Chisaibu took a deep breath and lowered himself to the floor. Gripping the ladder with his hands and feet, he slowly lowered himself upside down through the hole, trying to force his eyes to penetrate the blackness. "I'm right behind you," Shaft whispered. This was no comfort, because Chisaibu realized that if the thing with the claws was lurking down here, Shaft now stood between him and the exit. He gathered his will and pushed himself farther down the ladder.
After passing through what seemed to be a tunnel, with walls close all around him, he came into a large open space. He paused for a minute, desperately searching for any evidence of another presence in the room. But he saw nothing, heard nothing, smelled nothing. He pushed onward, slowly making his way down the ladder. Eventually, his hands encountered a dirt floor. He guessed it was about twelve feet from this surface to the floor of the secret passageway, where Shaft stood waiting. Chisaibu slowly and quietly turned himself around and stood up next to the ladder, listening for a sound in the darkness. After hearing nothing for several minutes but his own heartbeat and the steady breathing of his companion in the room above him, he whispered, "Shaft! Come down! It's safe, I think."
Shaft said nothing, but began climbing down. Chisaibu could see him only as a vague bulk, a darker shadow against a shadowy background, making its way downward. When he set his foot on the ground, he sighed in relief and said, "Okay, I think we can talk down here as long as we do it quietly."
"First," said Chisaibu, "light a candle so we can see where we are." As Shaft fumbled around in his belt pouch, Chisaibu maneuvered so he was standing next to the ladder, with Shaft in front of him. He still was not convinced they were alone in this room, and he wanted to be able to leave in a hurry if it came to that.
Shaft hunted around in his pouch until he found an oily rag, the stump of a candle, a piece of flint, and a bit of an old steel file. While Chisaibu listened carefully for any change in the sounds from the library, Shaft struck sparks at the old rag from the flintrock with the piece of steel. With the practiced skill of a man who has done this many times in the dark, he managed to get a flame on the third attempt. Quickly he lit the candle and extinguished the burning rag. Grunting with satisfaction, he carefully lifted the candle up and held it high. "See anything?" he asked.
Chisaibu narrowed his eyes. With the addition of this little bit of light, he could see almost as well as in daylight. The room was roughly square, about fourteen feet on a side, and perhaps seven feet from floor to ceiling. The wall against which the ladder rested was composed of large, rough-cut rocks. He said as much. "Foundation, maybe," said Shaft. "Maybe," agreed Chisaibu. The other three walls looked to be earth, lined with crude wood paneling.
"What do you think? An old root cellar?" Shaft asked.
"Dungeon. For disobedient wives," said Chisaibu. He turned around and began to run his hands all over the walls, searching for anything unusual.
Shaft snorted. "Little small for a dungeon, don't you think?"
"For children, then."
"No, this is just somebody's old cellar," said Shaft. "The entrance got walled off and forgotten, and then our boy upstairs found it one day and thought it would be a nice cool place to take naps in the hot summer. I'm surprised we didn't find a little cot down here and a candlestand for reading."
Chisaibu grunted noncommittally.
"Listen," continued Shaft. "Let's go back upstairs. The guards are bound to leave that room some time, and I want to slip out of here just as soon as I can. The longer we stay, the greater the chances of someone finding us."
"Finding you," Chisaibu said. "Nobody find me." He continued to inspect the walls of the room, probing with his fingers and occasionally rapping the stones with the hilt of his dagger.
"Well, they find me, they find you. There's not much space down here, if you haven't noticed. And although you and I both know we didn't kill that man, I don't fancy our chances if his men find us here. We'd have to cut our way out."
"That's your job," said Chisaibu over his shoulder.
"Well, I didn't bring John Henry with me," Shaft said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder, where he usually strapped on his immense sword. "All I've got is my old fighting dagger. That'll do in a pinch, but I can't take on a whole army by myself with just a knife. We don't even know how many there are."
"Your problem," Chisaibu reiterated.
"Well, that's mighty sweet of you. I always know I can count on you, can't I?"
"You can count on me to find secret door!" Chisaibu said gleefully, and pressed in hard on a panel he had been inspecting for some time. A six inch section of the panel quietly slid down to reveal a hollow space in the wall, where rested a complicated mechanism.
"Well, I'll be . . . " murmured Shaft in disbelief.
Next Episode!
The Gold Monkey Project: Episode 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9
GMP: Episode 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14 / 15 / 16 / 17 / 18 / 19
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All text and images copyright � 2001 John Payne. All rights reserved.
Episode 10 of the Gold Monkey Project was posted on Saturday, April 14, 2001.