Click spells trouble
The dull ache in Finn’s ribs had steadied into a slow, simmering hum. He heard Arvin Quill’s boots fade down the corridor — same rhythm, three steps, pause, continue — still clacking his baton against the bars. The bastard was heading to Silas Cray’s cell, probably to gloat, compare notes, and make sure the two of them were aligned on just how much a halfling could take before cracking. That meant one thing: they might soon discover that Silas’ master key was missing. And if they did, they would come back to check Finn’s cell.
Rosslyn twitched in her nest, whiskers flicking. “Time to see how far clever can get,” he muttered, voice rasping. The master key was warm in his hand. Shiny, simple, and lethal in the right fingers. A tool to undo the locks, the chains, the cage Calder had built around him. Finn had extras, too — a stolen hinge pin, two lengths of wire, a spoon ground to a point. Time to go all-in on getting out.
The cell door yielded with a soft click. He eased it open, letting the stale air of the corridor brush past. Arvin’s baton was still clacking in the distance, moving away, muffled by the bend in the hall. Good. Too far to hear a quiet lock turn, too busy with Silas to notice one disappearing prisoner.
The corridor was empty. Stone walls hummed with the silence of late night. His boots made little sound on the uneven floor. He kept Rosslyn tucked against his chest, careful not to jostle her, careful not to breathe too loudly.
At the end of the corridor stood Arvin’s booth. The cell block itself was locked by a gate.
Time to check how much of a master key they had entrusted Silas with. It slid in, and the lock opened like a drunkard’s mouth at the promise of free ale. A thin smile tugged at his lips. He slipped through and locked it behind him. That would at least slow Arvin down if it came to it.
The stairwell waited ahead; he paused. Two flights down, stone steps worn smooth by years of boots, each one ready to betray him with a whisper of sound. Finn descended slowly, steady, counting every breath.
At the bottom, the main hall opened up. The smell hit first: stale beer and whatever supper the guards had been fed. Smelled a whole lot better than the slop prisoners got. His stomach growled loud as an owlbear. One breath, two breaths, but no one came looking.
The guard’s hall was on the left. He heard laughter, the clatter of cards, and someone slurping soup loudly enough to drown out his gut. Risking a glance, he saw two guards bent over their game, eyes dull with boredom. The slurper had his back to the door. Finn slipped past like a shadow through fog.
* After their ordeal — first tumbling into a chamber, then nearly losing one of their number to a treacherous hidden door, followed by a stagnant pool of acid that claimed not one but two lives before Inez’ precious moonstone pulled off its miracle — the three of them lay scattered in opposite corners of the room, each coping with the aftermath in their own way.
Jonathan having had a bite to eat, was leaning against a wall — meditating and praying to Chislev. He was dressed in some spare clothes, only his leather armor had survived being doused with acid. His wrist now sported a leaf-shaped scar, similar to the symbol of Chislev he carried around his neck.
“What was annoying, Rosslyn. Was that Jonno got it in his head, that the goddess must’ve worked through me, dragged his soggy arse out of the acid. Like I was her chosen bloody saint. A saint, Ross. Can you picture it? Me, Saint Finn of the Alleys. Patron saint of cheese, cheap wine and alleys. Truth is, it was all Red’s rock. But try telling him that. Lad gazed at me like I fart divine blessings. Really didn’t need his big, wide eyes —all trust and awe — on me at that moment.”
Inez hadn’t eaten but she still had plenty to chew on. The strange tether between her mind and Finn’s had spooked them both, yet for sure she’d tucked it away sharp as a ledger note, neatly kept for later. Fin was sure she’d pick the matter apart piece by piece until she had every last answer out of him, until he wished the acid had finished him instead. For the moment, covered in a spare cloak, Inez scurried off to the far wall, precious book in her lap like it was the only company she wanted.
“From a distance she looked calm enough — serene, even, like she’d carved out a little pocket of peace away from us halflings. But the mind-link told a different story. Fuzzy impressions bled through, half-formed words, as sense of whispering that wasn’t meant for me.
“She wasn’t just reading that damn book — she was talking to it. A man doesn’t need that kind of intimacy with a woman, Rosslyn. Let her go crazy in her own bloody head!”
They were locked in an accursed dungeon and two party members were losing their minds — what mind they had to begin with (looking at the cleric).
But Finn shouldn’t speak, he probably wasn’t far behind the others on the scales of sanity. He tried to look composed — a halfling calmly eating, keeping watch. But his right hand subconsciously kept drifting his left lilac-stained hand. The horror they had battled at the campsite with the fingered tentacles kept popping up into his mind. What if that thing had started out as someone like him. What if he was halfway down the same road? Cheery thought.
Eventually, Inez got up, declared it was morning and that they should continue. Finn refrained from mentioning that they had only sat there for about an hour. He just chalked it up to trauma — not her impending insanity.
They turned their eyes to the door they’d ignored earlier, before diving into the acid. Big seams and joints glowed with faint green light, not the friendly kind of green either. Jonathan thought it was divine light.
“Me, Ross? I thought it was trouble’s calling card.”
Finn asked Inez to sniff for magic and see what was afoot. Big mistake. As Inez pulled out her book, spell focus, waved her hands and mumbled her magic words — a jolt of feedback ripped down the mind link. It made his teeth rattle, and he quickly needed to assert control of his bladder before he’d piss himself. Even his iron medallion didn’t offer much comfort.
Lovely intimacy, that. Still, Finn caught flashes of her sensing magic at the top of the slide, and magic in the room beyond the small porthole at the other end of the chamber. Despite its ominous green glow, the door itself appeared to be clean.
So, he did what he did best: he checked the door. No traps. No poison needles, no crushing plates, no hissing serpents. Just an old lock; a long other side tingle mechanism. Used in heavy doors, simple enough. Pride welled up in Finn, and apparently in Inez too — Red smiled like she’d done it herself. Apparently, his ego leaked now too.
Well, pride before the fall. The heavy door didn’t move an inch. Scowling, Finn asked the strongman-of-the-party for help. Jonathan’s pushing against the door amounted to nothing. Which was frustrating and oddly satisfying at the same time.
Inez started turning pages in her book — Finn’s teeth didn’t need that experience a second time, so he pushed with all his might and forced the door open with a hiss and a sigh of green fog. Lovely. “How about that? Strongest man!”, he thought. A snort from Inez behind meant he was broadcasting his thoughts again. “Damn.”
Beyond the door lay stairs dropping away into imperceptibility. A warm, moist, sickly atmosphere wafted up at them — green fog beckoning them in. Inez waved her hand in the distance, said a glowing rectangle was out there. Jonathan and Finn had learned to trust her sight.
Having learned from the two previous disastrous entries into new rooms. Finn led the party down the steps. Inez safely in the middle, with Jonathan bringing up the rear. A tossed pebble landed just fine.
“So of course we took it as a good omen.” Finn winked at Rosslyn.
Finn steps onto a massive floor tile, no issue. Inez steps onto the tile, nothing. Jonathan joins them — click! The universal sound of bad luck.
“That cleric must be the center point of the whole damn plane of misfortune.”
They all tried to scramble back, this set off another click.
“Light flared, bright enough to sear your eyes out of your skull. Next thing I know, we’re sprawled across another floor in another chamber. My head ringing, Red’s nose miraculously intact for once. Same stonework, same green glow. Just… different.”
The walls were covered in murals. Jonathan got misty-eyed, babbling about Chislev’s blessing. Inez copied them down; certain they’d mean something important. Finn just thought they looked like alleyway scribbles — the kind of thing you only notice when you’re deep into your smokes or mushrooms. Red started casting something again, Finn braced himself. This time, his teeth and bladder were fine — small wins. Even with her Ju-Ju up, the pictures didn’t make sense to Inez. Jonathan came up with a divine explanation that only managed to annoy Finn and Inez with its stupidity. So, Finn had a look — his moment to shine. Not that he and the cleric where in a contest for Inez approval. Absolutely not.
The walls told a story, if you were generous enough to call stick figures and moons a story. Finn paced along them, squinting like the shapes might make more sense if he stared hard enough.
The first panel looked like a riddle scratched out by a drunk. One moon, three stones. Then two moons. Then three stones again. Counting game, maybe? Or just someone who really liked circles.
Next panel was easier: a skull dropping into wavy lines. Acid, water, soup — take your pick. Considering the smell in this place, Finn would wager acid. Clear warning: “Step wrong, and you’ll end up floating face-down.”
The third one? Some stick-figure under a glowing moon, arms flailing like it just won a tavern brawl. Looked angry, though.
The fourth panel had the same little monster, but now it was holding up a staff tipped with a crescent moon like it was king of the world. That one he didn’t like. Angry beast with a magic stick usually means trouble, and trouble had a habit of dropping on their heads.
And the last mural… three stones slotted into some kind of wall, and in front of it a treasure chest glowing bright. Classic bait. The kind of promise that drags idiots down into holes just like this one.
Jonno kept to his own interpretations, a tried to look through the windows. He couldn’t see anything but claimed to hear water. Great. Probably more acid.
Inez decided to pause her musings and focus on the rest of the room. It was becoming a habit that the three of them were ignoring obvious features of their surroundings. The wooden floor had a metal panel with a (very present) lever sticking out. Great. They had seen that before. Every underground cellar in these parts apparently doubles as a carrousel. The thing was made from brass, a few ratchets and rotary knobs visible. And strangely also animal figures – something a madman might have invented.
Red puffed up immediately, claimed it was gnomish engineering at its finest.You ever notice how the more dangerous something looks — the prouder gnomes are of it? She even started to dust it off and shine the brass, like it was some long-lost family heirloom. Anyway, she asked permission before yanking it, which was a first. Jonathan beamed like a schoolboy about to embark on a trip. I just muttered “this is going to hurt” and braced for impact.
Sure enough: click, grind, screech — and the whole midsection of the bloody outer wall moved out. This revealed a shaft to gods-knows-where in the floor. The whole chamber shuddered like an old drunk trying to stand, and Jonathan had the sense to leap back.
Then he grinned, and — saints save us — he asked her to do it again but now also push the button on the top of the lever.
“Ross. I swear, traveling with these two is like juggling knives in a high wind: eventually something’s going to stick, and it’ll probably be in me.”
The gnome girl apparently got tickled playing with gnomish technology. She pulled back the lever, retracting the wall, pressed the button and cranked it back down again. This time the corner section of the chamber moved out — creating a chasm in the floor and sidewall. Jonathan moved to peer outside, but the floorboards greeted him with loud creaking sounds. The halfling stopped in his tracks. Looking back at Finn and Inez, he stated he was too heavy for the floor.
I will say this on that matter Rosslyn: “There is no such thing as an overweight halfling — every halfling is just right.”
In the darkness outside the wall, small dancing lights rose in the distance. Strange voices started and shouts quickly closed the distance. Jonathan grabbed his axe and moved back to join the others. Finn reached for the lever, but Inez stopped him with a gesture and a frown. Fine! But he wasn’t going to stand like a sacrificial lamb in the center of the room with a large target painted on his gut. Grabbing his knives he positioned himself next to the opening, hidden from view by the wall.
The shouts rose to a crescendo and a (even by halfling standards) short figure wielding two scimitars jumped up out the chasm in the floor, quickly followed by another wielding a moon-tipped staff.
The two grimy creatures wasted no time as the scimitar wielding one tore into Jonathan. In return the halfling cleric started to glow a little, which didn’t impress anyone in the room. The other attacker gave Inez a mighty whack with her staff just as Finn rushed to her aid. The pain reverberated in his mind, and he missed a wild swing with his cleaver. His vision went red for a moment; with his offhand dagger he caught the figure in the side and quickly corrected his initial miss by stabbing down hard with his cleaver. The attacker dropped to the floor like a bag of flour. Spinning around his axis Finn closed the distance with Jonathan’s assailant, stabbing it in the neck. This one tumbled down into the chasm, nearly taking Finn with it. A heavy thud in the dark below was followed by screams and the sounds of feet running away.
Finn stood there panting for a moment, hands on his knees. Inez retrieved her knife from Jonathan. In the commotion she had managed to stab, not the attacking figures, but their halfling healer. Who need enemies with friends like this.
Inez magically scanned the crumpled body on the floor and indicated there were items of magic hidden in its pockets, then joined Jonathan for some healing. The wizard and the cleric had taken some bad hits.
Finn decided to busy himself with the magic items without their prying eyes on him. Rolling over the body, the creature had a yellow-greenish, wrinkled skin. Warts, large fleshy ears, sharp, pointy teeth and small, beady eyes – a real beauty. He was no expert, but this looked like what people had said goblins looked like. It appeared to be a lady goblin as well and judging by the items she carried likely a leader or religious figure of sorts.
She had the moon-tipped staff that they had seen in the murals. A shortbow with two arrows — not much use. Two moon shaped amulets, one grinning with a mouth full of sharp teeth, the other with a nightcap on — might be worth something. To keep up with the moon theme, she had a booklet in her possession with moon symbols drawn — Inez would like that for sure. In a pocket, Finn found three copper pieces, five silver pieces and a single gold coin that quickly found a way into his pockets. Inez came from money and Jonathan was a man of God, what need of coin did they have? In the back of his mind, he felt Inez’ knowing indifference. “Crap.”
Lastly, the goblin had a pouch with three grey stones. Finn was about to chuck them away, when Inez stopped him and reminded him of the murals and the treasure.
The goblin was wearing something that resembled a dress and a chainshirt. Inez claimed the dress and under garments. From prude to wearing a goblins shitty underwear — the rich solicitor’s daughter was on a journey of self-discovery.
Finn moved to Jonathan. If even his own party was landing hits on him, he needed all the help he could get. They removed some stitches from the chainshirt to create a bit of space to pull it over his head. The piece of armor was little more than a crop top on the chubby priest, but divine intervention was clearly not enough to steer him clear of trouble.
They divvied up the rest of the loot — short bow, arrows and a dropped scimitar to Jonathan, a scimitar to Finn and like a tax collector with a grudge, Inez claimed the rest.
In the distance screams and high-pitched voices picked up again. Inez took charge and worked the lever once again. “We should leave via the other opening.” The midsection of the wall shudderingly moved out to give the party its exit. Finn leaped the widened opening in the floor and helped Inez across as well. But they were too late. A screaming goblin warrior was launched into the room landing right in front of Finn — spittle spraying into his face. Finn tried to shove his attacker off the platform, but the crazed goblin managed to block his push and grab onto him. Inez book in hand started to gesture and shout arcane incantations. Whatever she did, the mind-tether drove a spike into his mind. His vision blurred and Inez was all. He heard her incantations, was aware of her movements, but those were merely tools to focus her mind. She reached out to a place — somewhere beyond this plane — and from there she pulled forth a globe of acid and hurled at the goblins below in the dark.
The creature hanging from Finn’s arm, hurled spittle and abuse and clawed at his eyes. With precariously little space to stand on the platform, it tried to drag him down into the chasm. In a panic, Finn reached out with his mind towards the place Inez had just touched with hers. It filled his hand with heat and untapped power, the goblin hanging from his arm started to convulse and went limb — falling away into the darkness below. Finn’s hand held a blade of shimmering purple light, flashing once and blinking back out of existence. With it disappeared the mind-link, the pressure behind his ears suddenly gone, replaced with a feeling of emptiness. Or loneliness.
Next to him a scowling Inez started bombing the goblins below with acid globe after acid globe like a Furie seeking retribution. The mob decided enough was enough and fled back into the darkness. Looking at her in awe, Finn decided it was better stay on Inez’ good side. Maybe less teasing was in order.
They brought Jonathan over to their side and quickly climbed out of the room, down to the grounds below.
“And nothing else happened there.” Old Finn winked at Rosslyn
Old Finn kept to the walls, every footfall measured, every stone beneath his boots accounted for. The yard stretched wide, moonlight pooling in patches. Torches flickered along the walls where guards leaned on the parapets, bored, half-asleep. Finn hugged the shadows by the far wall, Rosslyn tucked into his sleeve. She was quiet, claws pricking through fabric as she steadied herself against his arm, as if she knew this was no small leap.
He crouched. Every muscle tense, every sense sharpened. Clever gets you out, he thought, but patience makes you dangerous. Tonight, he would need both. A guard shifted above, called out to another, laughing. Finn froze, pressed flat against the stone, heart hammering. When the voices drifted on, he slid step by step toward the far corner. He counted torches, timed the intervals between the guards’ glances, studied the slack in the ropes on the gate. One misstep and the whole yard would wake. But luck and patience had their rhythm, and Finn matched it, silent as breath.
Then came the shout from the keep. His chest went cold. Arvin. That bastard had realized Finn was gone. Boots thundered against stone, echoing off the walls. “Where the hell is he?!” The roar carried across the yard.
The game was on.
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