By David C. Daoust
Page 5 of 10
The thing screeched again and again – the most irritating noise- Efreet finally had the thing lined up with the trigger device he had located behind the altar. It was easy enough to avoid, though he knew the darting tendrils, that hauled the creatures mass through the room, would not have a way to navigate around it, or even a notion to try.
What Efreet had failed to foresee, was that the creature would suddenly stop and blast its heavy spore blast into the air around him, upon detecting the altar in its way. The shiny onyx stone sizzled and its shiny polished surface was ruined. Any notion of returning for the massive thing, once he’d cleaned out the little stuff, went out of his mind. Who was going to pay for an acid pitted slab of onyx altar? He could only hope the acidic gas cloud did not reach him, or as an afterthought, melt the triggering device that his whole plan hinged on…
There was a faint click. Efreet rolled away, half covering his face, unsure what to expect after triggering such a device. He’d seen massive boulders fall, fire balls blast from walls, one time a lightning bolt jolted through the room, (no one ever believed him about that last one). As it were, the stone behind the creature just shifted with another click, opening another secret passage.
“Huh” Efreet said aloud at the turn of events.
Who puts a secret passage within a secret passage?? he thought. He found himself near the entrance, whilst the mushroom monster was still screeching before the newly opened passage. To rub it in, the thing suddenly let out another blast of acidic spores, melting down more of the onyx altar, it looked like a massive brick of some foreign cheese, the kind with the holes in it, that the creature was now ‘squirming’ over. He sighed.
Efreet was effectively surrounded by acid! The door behind him wasn’t much more than a puddle at this point. While the spore filled gas was heavy and fell quickly to the ground, it sizzled around the altar and around the sections of the room Efreet had kited the thing… His plan at the moment, was to leap over the mess of the door, and head back out into the original passage… maybe even back out into the ruins, and regroup with a new plan… a plan involving fire… fire was effective against plant monsters. All these thoughts suddenly flushed from his mind as the mushroom monsters screech was answered by the second creature. The second creature that appeared down the hall. The thing had finally caught up apparently. He wondered again why he never had a ranged weapon.
Efreet let out a groan, he had to keep at least ten feet away from the things, which the corridor in no way provided, and with two of them that left him very little room to work with in the room. His only avenue of escape at this point, was down the second passage. The one he had confused for a trap. The creature had not stopped squirming towards him, and had cleared a wider path between it and the altar. He had no choice but to run out wide, around the opposite side of the room, the side that wasn’t sizzling goo, and leap over the sizzling goo formally known as the expensive looking altar, and through the new passage.
Still weary of there not being a found trap thus far, he did just that. Not without clashing his sickles at the ground before him, forcing the thing into violent shakes as he jetted around the room, much quieter than one may suspect of a person in such a getaway. He jumped over the goo into a diving roll and through the new passage.
Efreet momentarily felt the trigger he landed on in his escape through the passage. He felt it plunge into the earth, heard a click. He clenched, frightened momentarily of a fire ball, stone, or lightning bolt… the door suddenly slid back into place. Efreet was half relieved, and half disappointed. What kind of hidden dungeon doesn’t have a trap??
