The Deep Dark

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Contents

Continued from The Mine

The DM: As before, the temperature of the air drops and the stairs are steep going down. They come to a landing about 25 feet down, revealing another flight of stairs below that, descending on the left. The air is thicker, somehow; your torches seem to have trouble permeating it. Detectably, there is the slight odour of raspberries mixed with the smell of rotting meat. Do you wish to continue descending?

Door at the Bottom.jpg

The DM: It occurs that I should ask for your marching order.

Pandred: Me, Vaf, Lex, Arduin? Is that acceptable guys?

Vafrandir: Let's do it.

Lexent: Fine by me. We continue down in that order.

Pandred: Onwards then. "Hroagh!"

Marcule: I will take the back.

The DM: 50 feet down now, you find yourself addressing a heavy reinforced door, like you’ve seen before. There are two dead flies carcasses on floor in front of the door, like those you saw above. The light from the torches seems strangely orange in colour, rather than yellow.

Lexent: I set my godentag down to the side of the door.

Pandred: I'll test to see if it's unlocked. If it is, I'll check that everyone gets ready, that Marcule and Lex have a chance to call for a spell before I open it.

Lexent: I cast Protection from Malevolence and discharge it on myself.

The DM: It's stuck.

Pandred: Stuck ain't locked. I'll HROAGH it open.

The DM: You're not as strong as you used to be.

Pandred: But stronger in spirit! HROAGH! Vaf, you'd probably have better odds.

Vafrandir: I'll try it!

The DM: Roll a d100. Corrected.

Vafrandir: 96.

The DM: No, that door is stuck.

Vafrandir: A question of DM mechanics, if you'll allow: I know you normally don't "roll for success"; either we're strong enough or not. Why the d100 here? Just curious.

Vafrandir: The sappers can handle this, no doubt. So it'll have to wait.

The DM: Been thinking about this. It’s a game, right? So the strongest person should be able to attempt the game. So while yes, you’re either strong enough or you’re not, from a metagame point of view, you don’t know that you are or are not strong enough, yes? And so there’s a “chance” you are ... and a chance is calculated by dice.

Is the die a bafflegab? Perhaps. I’d like to invent a structured determination for stuck doors that supersedes my decision, but I’m still working on it in my mind.
Vafrandir: Makes sense. Thanks!

Vafrandir: Shall we investigate the small tunnels? I think only the gnomes can do that.

The DM: Can you think of another way to get through this door? Or the other stuck door on the first level (d.)?

Lexent: Would Pandred and Vafrandir be able to employ a crowbar and attempt it together?

Lexent: Scratch that. I don't see a crowbar anywhere in our supplies.

Lexent: Also, where are the hinges?

Pandred: I mean, we can hack the door down. That is an option. It just seems like a waste since "stuck" implies to me at least that the door just swelled up with the humidity or something. But hell, we don't plan to live here. Are we against hacking the door open now that we've already alerted what's on the other side?

Marcule: Can i cast chill on the door to see if i can shrink it?

Vafrandir: Ice expands.

Lexent: But chilling an object (Metal specifically) causes it to contract.

Pandred: Sure, but enough to make a difference? We're not even 100% sure I'm right about what "stuck" means. There could be something like a bar on the other side of the door, or more furniture.

Pandred: Alexis hasn't said what side the hinges are on, and I presume he's had time to see the question, so I'll take that to mean either there aren't any for whatever reason or that we can't see them. With that said, I'm hacking. Battleaxe. Hroagh. Etc. This door is coming down.

The DM: Page 66 of the DMG suggests: "Evil Areas: You may wish to establish areas where evil has made speciol power bases, i.e., an evil shrine, temple, or whatever. Such areas must be limited, of course - the shrine to perhaps a 10" by 10" area, the temple to twice that area. Such areas will automatically reduce the chonce of any cleric affecting undead or other creotures within their precincts by a previously stipulated factor - perhaps 1 or 2 in the shrine area, 3 or 4 in the temple area." I've long considered this to mean that the "rules" change when encountering certain kinds of creatures in the setting.

The DM: As it happens, Pandred, the door was designed by the goblins, so the hinges are on this side.

Lexent: I attempt to remove the hinges.

The DM: Using what?

Lexent: An Iron spike and a hammer.

The DM: An iron spike isn’t thin enough or hard enough to work out the hinge.

Lexent: Dang. Any other thoughts, guys?

Pandred: Take my handaxe. Dig it into the hinge plate somewhere and hammer it in. Or just hack to bits. Should be single-headed so that leaves a flat-ish (or at least unbladed) metal bit opposite the head to hammer on.

The DM: if you use the hand-axe, you could fracture the blade and I’d increase the chance of it breaking if you dropped it. Your axeblade isn’t made of carbide steel.

Pandred: I get that. A question for the future: would a woodsman's axe avoid such a danger? Is there such a tool for these situations? Either way, I'm willing to risk it. I want in this door, and at this point the axe is just a potential gp cost to do so.

The DM: the proper tool would be a chisel. If you used a wood axe, you’d be free from the break problem because of its not used as a weapon, but if you notched the blade, it would take longer to cut wood and would be an unpleasant experience. As a cook, I can tell you that working with a dull knife, even one that is very slightly dull, is annoying as all hell.

The Sigh

The DM: make a d20 roll for saving the axe against a “normal blow”. The hinge comes out.

you hear a deep, resonant sigh echo through the door from the other side, like a great beast suddenly taking notice of something.

The DM: A good cliffhanger for Tuesday. Out.

Pandred: 5.

The DM: It fails Pandred. The axe breaks on a 1 or 2 when a roll is required.

The DM: In.

Vafrandir: In.

The DM: Push on through the door?

Marcule: In.

Pandred: In but on phone.