"There is something very, very wrong about this place," Lynn murmured, as she and her companions cautiously advanced deeper into the dungeon. They'd passed through three of the eerily beautiful, seemingly identical frozen-over galleries so far, and were about halfway across the fourth.
"We're in a Keeper's domain, Lynn," Aron returned, keeping an arrow nocked and ready to fire at a moment's notice. "Everything about it is wrong."
"That's just my point. It's not wrong; that's what's wrong about it!"
Even Kol gave the thief an odd look at this remark. Lynn growled and tried to express her concern more clearly.
"Look, we've raided Keepers before; we know firsthand just how badly an active Dungeon Heart screws Nature over. So why isn't that happening here? Yes, there's a ton of ice and water where there shouldn't be, but if that lake upstairs hadn't formed on top of a marsh, I'd say it was safe to drink without even boiling - and some of the ice in here looks just as pure. Where's the slime and corruption? Where's the stench of rotting corpses and brimstone? Where are the monsters and deathtraps that should have attacked us two chambers ago?"
Her allies shifted uneasily. They'd been wondering some of these things themselves, especially the bit about the lack of opposition. Was this Keeper so new to the job that he, she, or it hadn't known to take sensible defensive precautions, or were they being allowed to get as far as they had, while monsters moved into striking position and traps activated behind them to prevent an escape?
There came the sound of a throat clearing itself.
Spinning around - and silently cursing that they'd let themselves get so distracted by Lynn's outburst as to take their attention off their hostile surroundings - the heroes saw a small figure standing near the gallery's exit. It was clad in a blue garment of unfamiliar cut that covered the entire body from the neck down, and also wore heavy boots, thick gloves, and some manner of open-faced yellow helmet. It took the heroes a moment to realize that the features beneath the distractingly bright headgear were those of an Imp, and even as that realization was starting to sink in, the little monster did something utterly unlike an Imp.
It bowed.
The sheer novelty of this behavior forestalled any thoughts of attack; construct of unholy magic or not, even Aron could not quite bring himself to loose an arrow at a being that hadn't done anything except display good manners. As the Imp straightened up, it took in the dumbfounded faces arrayed before it, nodded to itself, and then raised both hands, making the universal gesture for "follow me" as it slowly backed out of the room.
"You all saw that, right?" Lynn asked a moment later.
"Yep," Kol replied.
"And that was some sort of Imp, right?"
"It certainly appeared so to me," Gabriel agreed.
There was a long pause.
"Trap?" the thief finally ventured.
"Has to be," Aron grumbled.
"So what do we do?"
"Well, it would be dreadfully rude of us to refuse such an obvious invitation, wouldn't it?" Gabriel said, as he strode forward. "Just... stay on your guard."
After a moment's hesitation - and with some dirty looks at the blond priest - the others grudgingly followed.
The next gallery was much the same as the others they'd been through so far, being roughly cube-shaped, with exits at both ends and two rows of four ice columns each supporting the vaulted roof. The Imp stood at the center of the room, waiting patiently, and when it saw the heroes enter, it nodded as if in satisfaction and walked towards the right-hand wall, still making its come-hither gesture. There was another empty archway there, the heroes realized, and they could hear movement on the other side, as well as the steady bubbling flow of water. When they followed, they saw that this chamber had been converted from a largely-featureless gallery into some manner of reception hall. The support columns formed a circle around the chamber instead of two rows, and at the heart of the open space between them was a knee-high rectangular platform of ice, one broad side facing the entrance - and the heroes - while two fountains of blue-tinted ice and crystal-clear water stood a short distance off from either narrow end. Deep blue carpet lined with white fur covered the frozen floor around the low dais, which was itself partly-covered by a pure white cloth, and a large banner bearing an unfamiliar coat-of-arms - a blue, alien sigil upon an inverted triangular shield, each corner emblazoned by a unique but equally unknown glyph of lesser size - hung from the far wall.
On the near side of the table-like block of ice were set four cushioned pillows, evidently meant as seating. On the other side sat - or rather, knelt - a shockingly young-looking female figure clad in blue, white, and silver regalia. Like the Imp moments earlier, her blue eyes moved from hero to hero, silently counting heads and assessing appearances, and then she briefly lowered her head in a graceful, dignified manner that approached the respectful formality of a bow.
"Welcome, strangers. My name is Mercury, and I am the Keeper of this Dungeon. Will you join me for tea?"
Sure enough, there was a teapot in front of her, as well as cups and saucers for five placed on the table. All the china appeared to be made from more white ice, with little blue traceries about the rims, and yet despite the steam visibly rising from the spout of the pot, nothing appeared to be melting.
The heroes' reactions to this offer varied. Kol quirked one eyebrow in puzzlement, but gave no other hint of his thoughts. Lynn and Gabriel, who both had extensive experience at reading people - if for entirely different reasons - realized that while the self-avowed Keeper was maintaining a mask of cool dignity, she was actually quite nervous underneath it. Gabriel believed it was the natural unease any servant of the Dark Gods would feel in the presence of a servant of the Light, though the fact that the young woman's eyes lacked the well-known hellish red hue of a Keeper did throw him a bit. Lynn, on the other hand, was reminded of various village girls she'd met in her childhood and her travels - skittish things who went out of their way to avoid attention in public, and clung to propriety like a shield in situations where they couldn't escape notice.
That wrong feeling the thief had been fighting earlier was coming on in spades now.
Aron's reaction was to raise his bow to firing position and draw back the arrow. Before he could loose the shot, Lynn and Gabriel both reached out and forced their associate's aim back down to the floor.
"What the hell, you two?!" he snarled. "You heard it yourself - she's a Keeper! We can take her out right now!"
"Keeper or not," Gabriel said sharply, "she has neither done nor threatened harm to us or anyone else that we know of, and has moreover extended an invitation to share drink and, presumably, food. There are sacred obligations between host and guest, Aron, and the Light will not smile on us for breaking them without provocation."
"More to the point," Lynn put in, "she's a kid. You gonna shoot a kid just for asking you to tea?" The thief was angrier than she'd expected to be, but the way the girl's eyes - blue eyes, not the hellish red a Keeper's gaze was supposed to be - had gone wide with shock just made her already-youthful features appear that much younger and more innocent. If it's an act, it's a hell of a good one.
"Tea with a Keeper? Are you insane, woman? It's probably poisoned!"
"It's... not that bad," came the girl's soft, uncertain voice. "Is it?"
The three arguing heroes turned and blinked in astonishment at Kol, who'd strode past them, pulled up one of the cushions, and accepted a steaming - yet unmelting - cup of the proffered drink.
"Green thistle?" he inquired a moment later.
The Keeper nodded. "It's fairly abundant in the marsh, it wasn't toxic, and it looked like something I was familiar with from home, so..." She shrugged helplessly.
"Watery," Kol pronounced, setting down his cup. "Needs more leaf, less ground. Not bad otherwise."
"Thank you, mister-"
"Just Kol."
"Kol," the Keeper repeated. She glanced inquiringly at the others, and the dwarf obliged.
"Lynn. Gabriel. Aron." Without missing a beat, he added, "Any snacks?"
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(Posted Tue, 14 Sep 2010 14:08)
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