| [adrr.com > Stories for Heather > The Maze, Part One] -- [Heroes, Swords, Other Tales] |
Details (this will be updated with links to a beastiary at some point).
Well, guess I ought to backtrack.
The caravan from the dark lands was really something. The guards rode very large spider geckos. Everyone else walked or was pulled in carts that were drawn by giant beetles. They tended to wear either black or a lightish red color, fuchsia is what my Mom calls it.
In the group was a full ambassador. Now that the city had a real ruler, the fuchsia people were ready to get serious about relations again. The ambassador had a brightly and frilly dressed little child -- about five or six years old -- and we thought the child was a girl.
Anyway, there we were, in a mess, with a child who had run off in what appeared to be (and was) a spoiled snit.
| The Maze (technical notes)
The Maze is a four level environment created when the Ktthjj in the city attempted to merge with the City's hidden heart to avoid destruction. The action pulled all the secret places in the city into a magical spider's web of hidden shadows.
Those are the four levels, with each level having a variety of locations as one spirals into the central nexus and transition to the next level of the maze's web. The Spider level's master is a web creating demon. The Fire level's master is a fire demon. The Poison level's master is a poison demon. And the final stage, well, we'll get to that in a later box <g>. Encounters include: Wraiths
Snakes/Naga
Undead Animations
Ghouls
Undead
Golems (semi-elementals)
Automatons (magical robots)
Others
Traps
Bosses
|
Anyway, there we were with this frilly kid, when Ariel went to grab it and it slipped right out of her hands. That is when we learned a few things.
First, the kid was a boy, not a girl.
Second, he had a bad attitude.
Third, he had been enchanted so that no one could grabe or take him. Guess it makes sense as an anti-kidnapping spell, but sheesh, have you ever tried to get an unruly and misbehaved child safely through danger if you can't hold on to them to make them stay put or behave? It was going to be a long and dangerous trip, if we survived.
We were in a dark warrenlike alleyway.
Level One, in four acts, the secret places of the city
Level One consists of the hidden alleyways, gardens and outside places in
the city.
Level Two, in four acts, the secret places of the city
Level Two consists of the hidden passages, rooms, and interior places in
the city
Level Three, in four acts, the secret places of the city
Level Three consists of the hidden cellars, crypts and catacombs beneath
the city
Level Four, in three and a half acts, the secret places of the city
Level Four consists of hidden places of power in the hidden channels/maze/web
that now makes up the city, leading to the remains of the city's hidden heart.
It consists of tunnels and almost living tunnels and metareal (magic
crossed with dream) places of glass, blood and heartstone (quartz types)
in a web of six layers/rings. Progressing counter-clockwise takes you
into the heart of the city, clockwise takes you away, the radial strands
are filled with noxious twisted power and transform things into part of the
web.
| Copyright 2001-2003 Stephen R. Marsh and
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