FH: First Obstacle

[Jim Roberts]

[Feb 5 AM – The Waterworks]

> And after that, there was nothing left to discuss. Several folks had a
> water bottle or two to share with the group, which would not be enough
> for the whole day, but could certainly last until the Abbot needed to
> cast his justly famous Heroes’ Feast. And tomorrow, a few Purify or
> Create Food and Drink prayers would not be amiss. Or, just perhaps,
> bring along some kegs of water and mundane rations. The grizzled
> veterans might not be thinking along those lines, but Lomi and Tramma
> were already resolving to themselves to never leave camp without at
> least a day’s supplies in hand ever again. Lomi in fact had enough of
> both food and water for herself, but it was intended for emergencies,
> and she didn’t consider their present circumstances anything of the
> sort.

With nothing further to be decided, the crew organized themselves into
the “march order” that they’d determined earlier, with Finfin slightly
ahead, but near Galdis Laurelin, Great Medicine Woman Jeyshann, and Bard
Tramma. Finfin would be the first to face anything that beset them from
the front, but he and the other three could, at need, wall off the
corridor to prevent a “mob” from overrunning them. Behind the front rank
would be both Lomi and Laquendi, the scout ready to feather anything
with her stout bow, and the dusky elf quite ready and willing to
Fireball Everything in Sight. And holding the rearmost position where he
could defend the others from any rearward surprises was the armored
figure of Abbot Kenobi, easily one of the toughest warriors present.
Nothing would be able to overcome HIM quickly and threaten the others
from behind.

For some time, nothing untoward happened as the crew advanced down the
passageway heading due east from the Upwinders’ HQ. But perhaps that was
to be expected; this close to one of the Upwinders’ strongholds, this
area properly ought to be relatively safe. But everywhere, there were
more pools of stagnant water, sometimes overflowing to fill the entire
corridor in ankle deep runoff from above. And every so often, there were
little side corridors or passages, some only extending a few feet,
others as much as several yards, often holding more pools, waterfalls,
or even the occasional fountain of water.

But none held any particular peril, besides perhaps inflicting rust on
the Abbot’s fine armor, and eventually the passageway bent northwards.
Exactly as their map indicated that it would. Not far ahead would be the
first of the larger rooms or chambers where they would be faced with
their proverbial fork in the road. A fork that they’d already decided
they would take towards the east, clearing the northeast section of the
Waterworks on this initial day.

And not long after that, they came to the end of their wide corridor,
the northern wall ending in a closed metal door. Like the door back at
the Upwinder’s HQ, this door was plain and featureless… but also had a
wheeled valve on the floor next to it.

“I guess that is my cue,” Laquendi stated as she moved forward to the
valve to begin an inspection for anything designed to injure someone
opening it unawares, and stopped mid-movement when Laurelin’s glowing
globe – that had ALWAYS been there – began urgently flashing blue. “I am
going to assume that is a bad thing?” she asked with the slightest
head-nod to the light.

“It does that,” Finfin replied laconically.

Laquendi dutifully stepped forward, extending her poka stick, and gave
the valve wheel a careful tap. Unperturbed by this less than
enthusiastic greeting, the valve stolidly did nothing besides make a
perfunctory “tink”. A careful wave of the stick above, beside, and as
much as possible, below the wheel revealed no transparently thin
tripwires leading off to a more deadly mechanism elsewhere.

“So much for the easy stuff,” the silver haired elf sighed, collapsing
her stick again. “May I borrow that Mikey for a closer look?”

Laurelin, however, stepped forward with a counteroffer. “You might
prefer this instead.” As best as the humans among the Heroes could tell,
the priestess was offering an ordinary gold piece. To the elves among
the crew, however, they could see that the Valyan was offering a new
source of light every bit as illuminating as Finfin’s “Mikey”... though
in a “colour” more pleasing to elven eyesight.

“Thank you,” Laquendi gravely thanked the priestess. Coin in hand, the
silver haired elf carefully approached the valve, though some now well
illuminated but questionable green goo lingering above the door caught
her attention. It was positioned just where some green slime would like
to linger to be able to drop down and infect the unwary. Her eyes
narrowed as she studied the goo, and finally shook her head. In her
opinion, it really WAS just green goo, and not slime. And if she was
wrong, well, she would be the first to know.

At the valve itself, Laquendi knelt and examined the device. There were
no less than obvious trip wires or other mechanisms visible to her
discerning gaze. Of course, there could be a nefarious device built
deeply into the valve, or even into the very fabric of this tunnel
complex, that the wheel would operate. That was simply unknowable from
an outside examination. But in Laquendi’s professional estimation, this
valve looked to be a functional equivalent of the one the Foreman had
used to open a similar “perfectly ordinary door”.

Laquendi heaved against the wheel of the floor mounted valve, ready to
spring aside if she felt an unexpected jolt of an unwanted mechanism
triggering. Just as with the version demonstrated earlier by the
Foreman, the wheel hesitated for a moment, and then began to turn with a
metallic whine, turning easier and easier as it spun through several
rotations. And with a grinding screech of metal sliding against metal,
the door slid open.

Beyond, the light from both the Con Light coin and Laurelin’s Glowing
Globe – which of course, had ALWAYS been there – spilled into the room
beyond. The LARGE room beyond was physically larger than what either
source of light could illuminate from their position at the midpoint of
the room’s southern edge. A small, stone flagged vestibule was just
beyond the door, occupying about some 10 to 20 feet on a side. Beyond
that, the room opened up into something considerably larger, no walls
currently to be seen from the safety of the doorway.

And beyond the vestibule, alarmingly, was no floor. Instead, a stout
wooden bridge anchored by massive iron ties descending from above led
the way forward. The bridge, only about 5 foot wide and with no guard
railing to speak of, continued onwards into the gloom. The keenest eyed
observer could just make out that the bridge ended just where the light
finally petered out, its far end anchored on a stone lip that could only
barely be seen. An odd reflection from below suggested that water – or
some sort of liquid, filled the room some 20 feet below the level of the
bridge.

The glowing globe changed urgently to the flashing blue light indicating
danger for a moment, bright enough to highlight the drop off the edge of
the bridge and making the unhealthy looking fluid below look positively
ghastly and downright dangerous. Laurelin was already beginning to half
wish she could forget she had brought the thing along.

"I wish I had thought to put a Con Light on a washer,” Laurelin mused
out loud. “We could dangle it into the water like a fishing line." She
paused, and added perkily, "Speaking of fishing line, I have a hook and
a lure. I'll just put a bit of this red ribbon I use to keep my hair up
sometimes."

“I can help with that,” Laquendi offered. “I am not at all bad at tying
knots.”

The dusky elf glanced back at Lomi, aware that the Yelti scout, too, was
somewhat handy with knots. However, Lomi merely shook her head. “Go for
it, skipper,” she replied, by habit mirroring the term of respect most
of the ladies from the Ice Station Omega expedition had for Team
Keeryte’s leader. “You can even play ‘pitch and toss’, and toss a
secured light device onto the far side of that bridge so we can get a
better look at what’s beyond.”

Finfin, however, looked a bit uneasy as the priestess’ Glowing Globe
began a new warning pulse of blue light. “Can we use something other
than my Mikey?” he asked a bit plaintively. “I would hate to lose it
overboard if the line or the ribbon failed.”

Laurelin was easily able to offer an alternative, pulling out a glowing
platinum piece of her own. Unlike Finfin’s, this one had a stamping
indicating that it had been issued by a country actually on the
continent of Mikos. And the Glowing Globe’s warning pulses subsided
somewhat… until it found some new danger to signal.

After some deft knotwork and coin tossing, the observers from the
hallway knew a bit more about the large room’s interior. The stone lip
at the far side of their bridge was actually the near edge of a very
broad stone pillar that extended both upwards and downwards to the edge
of the available light. And a broad walkway marched all the way around
the pillar, though what was behind the pillar was, of course, blocked
from view.

But this new view was enough to reveal that there were two more bridges
connecting to the central pillar. If one were to imagine that the
central pillar was the face of a clock, their own bridge was at the “six
o’clock” position. Two other bridges extended into the gloom at “3” and
“9”, though where they ended was beyond even the now expanded illumination.

Getting any more illumination was clearly going to require more exposure
than the relative safety of the doorway. Laquendi was studying the
bridge supports intently. They looked solid to her eyes, with two spaced
roughly ten feet apart in the center third of the bridge. How they were
attached up at the ceiling could not be seen, but the metalwork
supporting the bridge appeared sound enough, with no massive signs of
corrosion or decay. Whether they were internally fatigued or not – or
designed to fail – could not really be determined at distance.

“I could,” the silver haired elf mused out loud, “likely hook my grapple
and silk rope to the farther of those bridge supports, and then use that
as one end of a safety line if the bridge should choose to dump me into
whatever is below.”

“I would rather,” Finfin objected, “that whoever volunteers has a ready
way to escape. A fast Dimension door, or some such.”

“Or I could simply fly over and carry one end of the rope,” Laurelin
replied.

“Well, yes, that too is possible,” Laquendi agreed.