The place was barely a hole in the wall, there was a small empty fireplace, and a few dozen chairs around battered old tables. A dwarf barman was lazily serving up cooked meat and ale to patrons. It felt cosy and safe because there was no room to fight.
Yuri and Dee squeezed past patrons to sit down at the table. Yuri pulled her notebook out and started scribing in it.
“Well done on reaching level 2,” Arjelica said to him as he sat down at their table. She had one leg up on her chair and was leaning on her knee.
“Thanks.” He stared at her, trying to bring up the image he had seen before, when Yuri had interrupted it with a kiss. There was no worry of that coming from Arjelica. She stared back. His stomach turned with fear and he looked away. He felt an awkward silence.
“So, we just wait for the ‘place’ to open?” he whispered.
Arjelica nodded and said nothing. Her blond hair fell around her face like a gold waterfall, but her eyes were steely and sharp, probably thinking about the foes they would face.
“What do you think we should do? I bet you have all sort of- human thoughts huh?” Tianna glared at him.
“I don’t know. Usually PCs buy supplies, talk about tactics, prepare for foes they might face. In my games.”
Tianna leaned forward, her eyes went wide. “Tactics, that’s what I say! We need more tactics. No more random Witch Bolts and solo Claw Stalker antics. We should be working as an organised unit.”
“Mmm hmm,” Yuri said, her face still buried in her notebooks.
“I think you fight together pretty well, but you could tighten up your tactics a bit. This is a level 2 dungeon, right? It will be more of a challenge. I’ve seen a lot of parties fall apart in dungeons and it’s always because they don’t know how to work together.”
“He agrees!” Tianna patted his hand. Her hand was warm and soft, reassuring. She looked at him, yelped and pulled her hand away. “Just because you agree with me, doesn’t mean you can try it on.”
“I trust your battle skill, Tianna. But Yuri is Yuri,” Arjelica said.
Tianna blushed with pride, and Yuri smiled smugly as she overheard.
The door of the tavern creaked open. Emizra was there, outlined against the light, curves like a goddess of bounty, dark hair cascading hair like a sensuous dancer. Everyone was staring at her, open mouthed. The whole tavern went silent.
“It’s open, let’s go,” she said. She disappeared from the doorway like a pleasant dream evaporating in the morning light. A sigh of disappointment filled the room.
“Now! It was supposed to be tomorrow!” Tianna wailed, but she leapt up, grabbing her helmet.
There was no time to lose, Arjelica leapt over the table right for the doorway and Tianna scampered after her. Yuri stowed her notebooks and flounced after them. They took a moment to gather their gear and then made for the dungeon. It was only a few streets away, and word was spreading, already groups of NPCs in the streets were talking about it.
The actual entrance was a wide flat tunnel, like the mouth of a catfish, looming and dark. Rail tracks still spilled out into the entrance yard, like a faded silver tongue. The city had fed on the riches of the mines below; now mostly empty of ore it was like a desperate beached whale.
The gates barring the entrance had been pulled open, and guards stood around, watching the tunnel as if something might charge forth from it.
“We’re the first!” Yuri said, skipping along into the entrance. The guards watched her pass by with looks of relief on their face. Any monster trying to leave the dungeon would have to face PCs making their way in.
“Let’s stick together!” Tianna cried after her.
“Are you ready to go down again? Into the dark, Games Master?” Emizra whispered into Dee’s ear.
Not really but I’m not staying up here alone.
Yuri’s staff lit up, as did Tianna’s mace. Tianna scampered after Yuri, trying to keep up. Arjelica stalked beside Dee, sniffing the air and Emizra flanked his other side.
This part of the mine had been a prison. They were walking down a narrow tunnel, easy to block. It opened into a room flanked by cells, with long walkways for guards to patrol. Maybe hundreds of prisoners had crowded together in this part alone. Dee did not like the idea of being trapped in a place like this.
But the bars were broken and rotten, many of them torn apart long ago in the revolution. No citizen of Copperjack Climb had been imprisoned here for who knows how long. It was home only to rodents, scuttling insects, and other things that scampered away from their lights.
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Yuri stopped to look around, raising her staff with its purple light to see better.
“This area is safe, once we get into the deeper cells, we need to be careful,” Tianna said. She huffed and bent over to catch her breath. “Let’s stick together.”
“They made prisoners work in the mines, bringing up the richness below,” Emizra said. “Their spirits linger; I smell it down in the deep.” Her amber eyes were wide, Yuri and Tianna’s lights cast shadow across her face as if she were telling a campfire tale.
“She means ghosts. Well, whatever we face, I’m sure a little magic will deal with it. Or, a lot of magic.” Yuri squeezed Dee’s arm.
Emizra frowned but then thought about it. “Actually, that one works, you might be getting the hand of quipping.”
“A Mist Witch needs not quips. My magic is my power,” Yuri sniffed haughtily.
There were two tunnels leading further into the dungeon. This bothered Dee. As a GM he always had a map, now he knew what it felt like for PCs to go into a dungeon, not knowing which way was dangerous or where to find the loot. It was very disorientating.
He took his gamebook and opened it to see if there was anything.
Copperjack Cellars
Lvl 2 Metal Dungeon
Recently awoken dungeon, upper levels are old prisons and ore processing. Deeper levels are abandoned mines which lead to the Main Chamber.
That was it. Nothing helpful so far.
Something moved in the dark. A metallic slither echoed from a cell.
Arjelica hissed and crouched, ready to leap into battle.
“Come out and face your doom!” Yuri cried.
“Yuri! Element of surprise?” Tianna scolded.
The sound came from a long rusted arm flopping against bars like a fish out of water. It was orange and brown, rusted and corroded.
“It’s a golem. Ooh.” Yuri reached out and poked it with her staff. It flexed a little and then rolled over. It was thin, banded metal like a flat snake. She dragged it out of the cell with her staff. There was no sign of any other body part. Just this lonely limb, twitching and barely alive.
“Very old. I’ve seen better crafted though.”
“There is something dangerous here.” Tianna shifted uneasily. The light from her mace shifted as she raised it, grasping it in both hands.
“Where?” Arjelica said. She was sniffing the air.
“I can’t tell. Somewhere near.”
“This level is waking up. It’s down there, dreaming in the deep,” Emizra’s voice came like a song, melodious and filled with emotion. It made Dee shiver as he thought of going deeper into this dungeon. “That’s why they need us, the hungry and foolhardy to venture down and pluck out its heart.”
Yuri quivered with excitement. “Just imagine, a Metal Crest. Ethereal power, in our grasp.” She spun round on the spot, clutching her staff. Her robe billowed around her.
“We need to get there first, Yuri,” Arjelica said.
“Incoming!” Tianna shrieked suddenly. They all tensed.
Metal boomed, stone shrieked as it awoke in the dark. They heard it coming from a tunnel; the raking of rusted chain over stone, the clumsy clank of corroded boots dragging forward. The mutter of a thinking machine, broken and mad.
A red light winked on in the darkness, taller than them all. A golem. One broken eye, dull and glassy. One working eye, red and vibrant. One purpose.
“Return- return- return to your cells. Lockdown in effect.” It screamed, the way a prisoner would scream. Its arms twitched and flexed, rising up.
A prison guardian, long-forgotten in the depths. Scarred by time and wounds of the revolution, the crest deep below had awoken it again. Fat bodied, armour plated with three whiplike arms trailing on the floor behind it. Like an armoured jellyfish waking from a hangover, it stumbled towards them on a tripod of legs.
“Witch Bolt!” Yuri’s first bolt struck its chest. Purple energy spattered around it.
“That’s the most armoured point, Yuri! Go for the joints,” Tianna shouted.
The golem slammed its arm down, no hands just a tentacle, with rusted jagged tines. With a double-handed grip and immense effort Tianna knocked the strike aside with her mace. The whip-arm shattered stone; dust and slivers of rock plumed into the tunnel. Tianna gave a high-pitched roar and trapped its arm against the floor with her whole weight pushed against her mace.
A second arm reached out for the War Priest. Arjelica raced forwards and her axes flew ahead. They ricocheted off the golem’s other arm, careened off the wall and back into her hand. Not damaging but enough to distract its strike. The arm quivered and lashed out towards Arjelica. She continued forward, running up onto the wall so she could leap over its shoulder and behind. She disappeared in the dark, but sparks flew from behind it as she struck.
Yuri posed and another witch bolt slammed into its face. It reeled back a little.
“The arm joints, Yuri,” Tianna called out. She was sweating, still holding down the arm with her weight as it whipped and tried to escape.
Dee felt muscles tighten in his arms and chest. The training with Arjelica must have done something to him, he wanted to run into battle. He drew his sword.
Emizra’s voice draped over them like a nightclub singer’s feather boa.
“My lover was jealous…” It was Emizra.
Tianna was holding down the golem’s arm with a strength that was impossible. Yuri seemed to be a foot taller and held her staff out like it was a stick. Sparks and Arjelica’s yowling scream came from the tunnel. Emizra’s voice and song wrapped around them like a fanfare in an action move. The Virtuoso was buffing her team.
“And so, we fought,
“To prove which was stronger,”
“Anger or love?”
He gave in to the song. It was flowing through his blood like fire, he had no time for doubt, they were going to win this.
The golem reached out for Yuri. Its arm uncoiled and extended, probing, desperate to break her concentration, to break her. Dee swung his sword like a club, hard against the jagged tip of the arm. His shoulder jolted with pain, but the golem’s whiplike arm snapped in the air away from Yuri. He was helping. His arm had gone numb from the effort, but he was helping!
“It seems this golem likes to play. How about you play with a little… Witch Coil!”
Magical energy spurted from her staff. A coil of energy gripped the golem, rings of energy like a snake crackled around its torso.
But the arms were still free. Tianna stamped her foot against her trapped arm, trying to break it with her armoured boot. One arm reached behind the golem, trying to lash at Arjelica, and the last raised again, reaching for Yuri.
Dee tried to lift his sword up, he could barely raise it above his waist, his arm was still so numb. Emizra’s song was pushing him past his limit. He wasn’t going to stop. The golem’s wicked arm rose like a cobra seeking prey. It was going to lash across his face.
“Oh shit,” he said. Time for some more pain.