HOUSE OF PAYNE INTERNATIONAL: Archive: GMP
The Gold Monkey Project: Episode 11
After fewer than a dozen email exchanges in a year and a half or so, Tim and I decided to get together for some old-fashioned role-playing, using the newfangled 3rd Edition rules. This is a short story summary of part of those game sessions.
Shaft held up his candle stub and watched patiently as Chisaibu used several thin metal probes to inspect the mechanism revealed by the secret panel.
"Hm. This is where you open secret door, but..." Chisaibu trailed off and stepped back from the wall.
"But...?" Shaft said, inviting his small partner to continue his thought.
"Trapped. Found the trigger, but don't know how to turn it off."
"Keep looking, Cheese," Shaft said reassuringly. "You'll find it."
"Of course I find it," said Chisaibu. He stepped back to the wall. "I always find it."
He gently pushed his instruments back into the dark recess in the wall. The opening was roughly at the height of the halfling's chin, or at the height of a doorknob for humans. It seemed to be about the size of a large man's hand, but Shaft couldn't tell how deep it went into the wall. He moved closer, trying to see.
"Stop! You crowd me!"
"What you talking about, baby? I'm just trying to get a little closer to you." Shaft began to croon a love ballad in his deep bass voice. "Don't run away, my merry lass... I only want to hold you fast..."
"You girl-crazy! We only down here five minutes, and you think I am a girl."
"You got nothing to worry about. You're not even my type!"
"Yeah. Boy-type. Not girl-type. Just remember!"
Shaft chuckled. "Even if you were a girl, you still wouldn't be my type. Like a starved rat with a pumpkin head."
"If I was a girl, you still sound like a huge fat cow with bellyache! Moo!" Chisaibu dropped his voice down an octave or two and lowed convincingly. "Moo!"
Shaft smiled. "If you were as good at finding traps as I am at singing songs, we would already know what's behind this panel."
"What?" Chisaibu fingers stopped their careful manipulation of the tools. He narrowed his eyes and turned his head to regard Shaft testily. "Problem is too much light! You too close, bring too much light!"
Shaft backed away but glanced at the tiny candle stub he held in his hand. "Well, if too much light is a problem, you won't have to worry about it for long. Another few minutes and this will be useless."
"Useless? Already useless!" Chisaibu screeched angrily. Shaft put a warning finger to his lips and gestured upstairs with his free hand. Chisaibu lowered his voice and continued. "I must close my eyes to see! See with hands! See with feet! See in the dark!" With this he jumped toward Shaft and snuffed the candle.
Shaft said nothing. When one of these moods hit Chisaibu, there was usually nothing a person could say that would help the situation. Instead, he listened carefully. In the darkness he heard Chisaibu mumbling to himself about the eyes in his fingers and toes. From this, Shaft guessed that Chisaibu was feeling his way across the wall; but he could hear nothing else.
After a few minutes, Chisaibu giggled excitedly and then began to coo to himself with satisfaction. "Oh! Clever toes! Such clever toes you are! Ho! Such clever halfling you are! Ho, ho! See with feet in the dark!"
At that point, it sounded to Shaft like Chisaibu had was fiddling with something near the floor. "You find something, Cheesy?" Shaft asked quietly.
"Oh, yes! Little blind toes opened their eyes and found hole with no key. Little hole for five little mice. Oh, but poor mice can't live there, because no key, but this mouse has a key... Here!" There was an abrupt click and then the quiet scrape of wood on stone.
He knew that a door had opened; the sound could be nothing else. Anything in the world could be behind that door, and in this darkness Shaft felt helpless as a baby. He held his breath and tried through sheer force of will to extend his senses out through the hairs on his body, like the whiskers of a cat. He imagined that he could feel a the air stirring in the still cellar, and remembered the deep wounds gauged out of the back of the City Underegent by an unknown beast. He slowly drew a breath, and moved his free hand toward his belt dagger, wishing he had a more formidable weapon, wishing there were some way of knowing whether or not he was alone in this room.
As his hand tightened around the hilt of his dagger, there came the unmistakable sound of a wooden club striking a head and the anguished cry of a halfling in pain.
"Chisaibu!" Shaft pulled out his dagger and tossed the candle stub to the ground.
There was no response to his cry but a moan of pain and a long string of curses in Cipangi. It sounded as if it was coming from another room, one behind the secret door.
"Chisaibu!" he cried again, "Where are you? Are you all right?"
"I am... under desk! I rolled into room and hit my head on desk." He moaned in agony. "Head is broken!"
Shaft laughed until he cried as Chisaibu began to curse him as vehemently as he had been cursing the desk only seconds earlier. With difficulty, Shaft put his dagger back in his sheath and felt his way forward through the secret passageway into the next room.
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 11 of the Gold Monkey Project was posted on Monday, April 23, 2001.