The Dwarven Keys

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

   The hallway leading to Castle Jarged was different from the previous tunnels we had been in. Those had been dark, and completely made of stone, whereas this one had been built, not just cut away. The walls here were built out of dark stone bricks, which looked like they once might have been regular stone bricks, but had been charred with fire. Though the stone was dark, the tunnel was bright, lit with glowing stones inset into the wall at regular intervals. When all of this was put together, the hallway had the feel of a sad person laughing.

   Finally, we reached the end and entered a huge room, which was filled by a giant castle. The front of the castle was raised off the ground and held up with thick pillars, everything built out of the same dark stone. The castle wrapped around in a ‘u’ to close us in, and the sides lowered to the ground. The front gate was huge, and stood wide open. Leading up to the castle was a pathway made of dark red stone, with occasional lamps made of the same glowing stone. The castle looked desolate and lonely.

   We looked at each other, then silently continued up to the castle. This was it, this was our first challenge. Together, we walked into the castle and entered into what seemed to be a greeting room, but there was nothing to greet us; the room was empty. Leading off of the room were four corridors, two opposite us, one to our left, and one to our right. Again, all we had to do was look at each other and we all knew that we were going right.

   The right hallway took us to a choice of seven rooms. A kitchen, a pantry, a dining room, three empty rooms, and a room with a stairwell leading down, labeled The Maze. As any group of adventurers would, we descended into a room with two things in it. One was a door, presumably to the maze, and the other was a piece of parchment with writing on it. I reached for the letter, but David stopped my hand. He took out a dagger and threw it just over the note. Along the way, it seemed to hit something, and whatever it was triggered an axe to swing over the note, exactly where my wrist would have been. David now reached out and pulled at something invisible, then showed it to Travis and me. It was a piece of super-thin clear wire. David then took the letter from the ground and gave it to me.

   “Thanks for that,” I told David as I took the note, which I could see was written in Dwarvakian.

   He shrugged, “I saw the danger, you didn’t. I know you would have done the same for me.” he said in his growl-like voice as he picked up his dagger.

   “Well? What does is say?” Travis asked, always the impatient one.

   I read the note out loud, translating as I went, “Beware of that which is not yours, go back now and you will not be cursed.”

   “Well, we’re not listening to that piece of rubbish!” Travis exclaimed.

   “I think that we should explore the rest of the castle before we continue, see if we can find clues as to what is in the maze.” David pointed out, but Travis walked to the door, opened it and stepped inside.

   “There’s nothing here.” He said, “Any monsters would already be dead from the hundreds of years they spent alone in here, and we can probably figure out all the traps before they get us. What’s there to worry about?”

   I sighed, “Fine, we’ll go.” He did have a point.

   David and I followed Travis into the maze. It was made out of the same dark rock, but lacked the glowing stones, so our torches were the only sources of light. The corridor we were in was thin, only big enough for one person to walk through at a time, and long. I guessed it would fork off at the end, because there were no offshoots along the way as far as I could see. We crept forward, but when nothing happened, Travis sped up, and soon we were just walking down the hallway.

   The silence was complete, with the exception of our footsteps and the crackle of the torches. There was no sign of any monsters; in fact, there was no sign of any other moving entities besides us. The silence was different from the silence of Osrog. That was a dead and abandoned silence, whereas this was a waiting silence, a silence that could be broken at any second with a roar, or the swish of an arrow.

   Finally, we reached the end of the hallway, and my prediction proved correct – there was a fork to the left and right. We silently chose to go left, and that’s where we went. This corridor was almost identical apart from the fact that it sloped up a bit, as if this labyrinth had several floors. That thought unnerved me – we would be here a lot longer if we had to search more.

   We continued walking and went left at every turn. This way, if we wanted to go back, we would just have to follow the right wall. The corridors we passed through varied in size and length, but they all remained dark and dead. We went down two floors, up one, down one, then up two and nothing changed. We continued to walk and found absolutely nothing, not even any traps.

   I don’t know when the feeling began, but as we walked, I felt like I was being watched, but I couldn’t discern how or from where, so I pushed the feeling away, thinking that I was just unnerving myself.

   We passed though corridor upon corridor, and I started to think that there might actually not be anything in here. I was about to voice my thoughts when there was a rumbling sound. It dragged on for a while, then stopped, and everything returned to silence. We continued on again, not sure if that was a natural occurrence here, or if we had just awakened a monster. Whatever it was, I took it for a sign that we were getting closer to the key.

   The feeling that we were being watched grew, and I reached to tap David on the shoulder to tell him about it, but here stopped my hand and nodded, then he continued as if nothing had happened, though he did seem to nod upwards. Without turning my head up, I looked to the ceiling and could see shadows moving along it. They seemed to be – no, they were – watching us.

   Now as we walked, I occasionally peeked up, and from what I gathered, the things following us were a bit of a cross between a deformed baby human child and a frog. They were very small, with backwards bending knees and a head that could turn 180 degrees, which was how they watched us. I could get no details, not that I wanted any, because they stayed in the shadows, just out of the lit up ceiling.

   There was another rumbling sound, and I started to get worried. Were these sounds pre-earthquake shocks? Was the roof going to collapse in on us? With some difficulty, I pushed those thoughts back and kept walking. Not soon after though, there was another rumble and the ground trembled. Something was definitely off.

   We continued walking, but slower and quieter then before – as if that would make a difference if it was an earthquake. And I forced myself to think that way. There was nothing alive in these tunnels. A quick look up reminded me that I was wrong before I had even thought of that. After about another minute, there was another rumble, much louder this time, and the ground shook violently, causing me to lean against the wall to avoid falling down. It eventually stopped, after a few showers of stones from the roof, and the quiet that followed was very tense. Then, there was a great boom and the roof cracked. I hoped it was only a rock that had fallen from the ceiling, but then the sound repeated. Twice, like giant footsteps. Something had woken up.

   We looked at each other. Every second that passed as we just stood there I saw as wasted – the footsteps seemed to be coming closer, but I couldn’t tell from where.

   “Keep going. Hopefully we can evade it,” David shouted over the noise, and we kept going, now running – probably for our lives. As we ran, I could hear excited chattering from above us, and I knew the things on the ceiling were doing it.

   The noise sounded as if something huge was making it, and I would bet that it wouldn’t fit in the tunnels, but I guessed that the corridors might become larger. Or it could just be a heavy but small monster.

   Just as that thought passed through my mind, we burst into a giant room with huge corridors branching off to the left and right. The beast would be here somewhere.

   “Go back!” Travis shouted, but I shook my head, “No, we would have to go through the danger zone to get to the treasure. It’s always that way.”

   Our moment of indecision proved fatal. As we turned to go left, a monster blocked our way.