"Y'know," Madrigal says after a pause, "I don't actually think that's a rule."
"It's definitely a rule!" you protest. "I have never heard of any dungeon without a secret passage. Usually more than one. One is a lowball."
"Dungeon."
"Well... yes. You know what a dungeon is?" It's very hot in here, isn't it? "It's a subterranean— well, I suppose it doesn't have to be— interconnected, often subterranean, um, passageways, and rooms, with monsters in, and treasure, and…"
"Monsters and treasure, huh."
"And traps," you add, with more enthusiasm. "Deadly traps. Scythes that swing from the ceiling, usually, and they almost get the heroine, but she ducks just in time, and she feels the wind on her scalp—"
"Her scalp."
"And—" You plow towards your coup de grace. "And secret passages. Always."
"Okay," Madrigal says, "let me sum this up. Rooms, monsters, treasure, scythes—"
"Traps," you say.
"—traps, secret passageways. Is that right?"
You nod vigorously.
"Charlotte, this is a storm sewer, not a fucking— what'd you call it?"
"Dungeon?"
"It's not that. This is— you feel these walls? They're not stone, they're concrete. And round. This is a sewer. You found an old-ass sewer."
You fold your arms. "I don't see how that precludes any of the dungeon things."
"Scythes."
"Even that! Who knows what people from 300 years ago were like. Maybe they had to defend their sewers with— with scythes. Because their sewers had treasure." You're in mild awe at your own brilliance. "Yes!"
"For fuck's sake," says Madrigal. "I decided. We're going left."
As you both trudge left, Madrigal's hunch about the light proves correct— you're soon left with none at all. You take a finger to your eye socket ("eugh!") and neck ("ow!") before Madrigal finds your shoulder to roughly poke. "We need light!" she hisses.
"I thought you had the lights," you respond reasonably. "You're the one who places so much value on material possessions, Madrigal."
"I hate you," she counters, entirely unreasonably (and feebly).
"That's not very polite."
"I hate you. How long have you been down here?"
"Three years."
"And you've never been in pitch darkness?"
An inky pit — the smell of blood — a knife, and a spiral —
"Of course not," you say. "Why would I be? I'm not a moron."
>[+1 ID: 4/11]
Madrigal's sigh is in three acts and an encore. It's impressive the melodrama she packs in— disappointment, despair, rage, exasperation, resignation— it's just that you don't care. "Charlotte..."
"And," you add, "I wouldn't have any issues with it, anyway. I believe in positive thinking."
"Can you positive thinking up a light? Not that it matters at this point— I mean, there's probably already—"
What is that low echoing tone? A grumble? A growl? A vwoop?
"I'll look," you say out of fear and pity, and do so. You are disappointed to find that, despite your ambidexterity, you cannot see with your fingers.
?You were doing so well, Charlie. So well.?
Instead, you go purely by shape— there's only one sphere in there, big or small. "Got a glorb."
"A what?"
"A glow-orb. I coined it." You shake the sphere experimentally. "You shake it, right?"
"Uh…" Madrigal sounds like she's giving this some thought. "Depends on the make and model. The common one's shaking, yeah— the one with the floatation bladder as the case— but if it's heavy-duty you may need to— what does it feel like?"
"Not squishy."
"Heavy-duty, probably. Uh… you may have to throw it. It oughtta bounce."
You don't have to be told twice. You wind up blindly and pitch the glorb in the direction of your feet.
The crash of broken ceramic. The sploosh of glorb innards. And— a blinding green flash.
"Ah!" you say, at the same time Madrigal says "Ah shit!".
The scene: you, paralyzed post-throw. (Richard, around the crook of your knee.) Madrigal, hands cupping mouth. Your only apparent glorb in beige shards at your feet. Algal goop, glowing like hell, splattered across the concrete floor and ceiling and wall. Visible for the first time: a tile-mosaic, bright as the day it was made hundreds of years ago, lining the wall to your right. It is defaced with thick gel-based graffiti— fresh. Seconds-old fresh, maybe: there, rattling against the slope of the floor, is a bottle of the paint.
Someone was here— how long ago? Did they flee when you and Madrigal came, or did they lurk in the dark until you inadvertently used a flashbang? And did they flee because of you, or for… some other reason?
As if in reply comes a noise from the darkness ahead. You can't glamorize it: it's unmistakably a vwoop.
"Shit," Madrigal says, staring at the ground. "That was your only one?"
"Think so," you say.
"Shit." She breathes deeply. "And we don't have an exit, do we."
"Right."
"We can try to scrape this back up, but it doesn't— the light reacts badly to being handled, it's gonna be unreliable. This all should stay glowing for a while. Uh—"
"There was light back there." Obviously.
"That's worse. Darkness is shit, mysterious light sources are— double shit, usually."
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
"Could be sunlight."
?It's not sunlight this far down.?
"Uh, nevermind."
Madrigal nods morosely. "It's double or nothing."
?I've got matches, you know. Should it come to that.?
?Hm.?
?You could go blind. You've got a good attitude, Charlie. For going blind. And you've got me. And you might— I don't know. Not sure if it stuck. You'll have to check it out first.?
Going blind where? Ahead, presumably towards the vwooping— the only thing you can make out is the silhouette of stalactites. Before that, a juncture forking abruptly off to the right. Another segment of sewer, or a secret passage? There's got to be one eventually.
You have decisions.
How to deal with the light situation? [All may or may not require rolls. Combine as logical.]
>[A1] Scrape up what glow-orb remnants you can and forge ahead.
>[A2] Backtrack towards the light to the right of where you dropped in.
>[A3] Use Richard-provided matches. [Madrigal will be weirded out.]
>[A4] Go blind— alone, leaving Madrigal here. You'll come back when you find the snake.
>[A5] Go blind— alone, leaving Madrigal here. Report back when you come to something important.
>[A6] Go blind— together, with Madrigal. If she can be convinced.
>[A7] Write-in.
Where to go (if not specified above)?
>[B1] Stalactites.
>[B2] Abrupt tunnel to the right.
>[B3] Hunt for secret passages. [Roll.]
>[B4] Backtrack. (Where?)
Optional activities.
>[C1] Investigate something closer. (What?)
>[C2] Spend time to go through your bag to see what Madrigal hastily packed for you.
>[C3] Demand a full explanation of what's wrong with pitch darkness.
>[C4] Write-in.
Why make this complicated? After a moment of thought, you run your hand along the ground and lift up a palmful of algae goop. "There."
"Sure, okay," Madrigal says. "Sure. Watch it flicker out at the worst time. And give you fucking blisters, too."
"That's not very positive of you."
"Watch. It fucking will."
It takes a couple minutes of argument before Madrigal consents to hand you a sheet of paper. You scrape as much algae onto it as you can and fold it into a shoddy lantern. "I'm a genius!" you announce.
"Give me that." Madrigal snatches the lantern out of your hands. "You can't be trusted to lead, Charlotte. Come on."
?Someone's having a bad day.?
Madrigal stalks off, lantern bobbing. "Hey, Miss Grumpypants," you call after her. "Shouldn't we figure out where we're going?"
"Who cares!"
"I—” You weren’t anticipating this response. “I— I kind of care?"
She recedes into the darkness. You jog to catch up, the click-clack of your heels echoing against the tunnel walls. "Madrigal! Hey, c'mon—"
You find her at the juncture. "As I was saying," you say breathlessly, "I think we should head right—"
Madrigal shines the lantern down the juncture. There's a short, officious segment of tunnel. There's a warped iron grate. Past the grate, you can't see with all the stuff washed up against it.
"There's a door," Madrigal says. "A big fucking door. No handle on it. And look.”
She raises the lantern. Above the grate is more graffiti, garish red: a skull with jagged teeth, and a word you can't read— not that you need to.
"Cool!" you say.
"What the fuck? No." Madrigal's eyes are heavy with bags. "No. I'm vetoing. We are not breaking into the death door."
"Maybe it's a death door," you say, "because a snake is behind it?"
"If that's the case, we will cross that bridge when we come to it. This is why you don't have the lantern, Charlotte."
"You stole it."
"Exactly."
You draw yourself up. "I'll put a snake on the map, then."
(Upon discovering that, A), your hands were smeared with glowing algae residue, and, B), Madrigal was in possession of infinite paper, you insisted on making a map.)
"And a skull," Madrigal insists.
You concede.
Another low placeless rumble, of the kind you heard before, rattles you and scares the living daylights out of Madrigal— she grabs your wrist and drags you out of the juncture. You stumble behind her, glancing behind your shoulder (is something on the walls glowing, or is it reflected light?), as you're further dragged forward.
?Do you know the difference between stalactites and stalagmites,? Richard asks rhetorically, as you hasten past calcite-white examples of both. The tunnel slopes downwards, and the concrete grows ever more rugged.
Of course you know the difference. You'd practically memorized the diorama plaque— StalaCtites Cut. StalaGmites Grind.
?That's true enough.?
God, what else do you know? You're trying to remember. "They run on saltwater, and excrete it at the tip, but too much sends them into a state of torpor—"
"What?" says Madrigal.
"The pulp's an honest delicacy," you say. "Aubrey Terwilliger's parents got it for her birthday. Had it poached. God, I was jealous—"
"Charlotte, are you going insane?"
You cross your arms. "No. Uh, Aubrey did, though. In the end. Had to be sectioned."
"Okay. Then what in the goddamn hell are you talking about?"
You pray someday Madrigal will learn of context clues. "Stalactites."
"The rock."
"They're not rocks," you say. "They're rocks’ teeth."
?Rocks’ memory of teeth.?
"Ah." The lantern rattles about in her hand. "Maybe I'm going insane. Can we please keep walking?"
"What's the issue? Don't want to be educated?" That's the issue with lowlifes, you've discovered. They're naturally adverse to learning.
"No, I just—" Madrigal doesn't look too good. "I don't like standing here. And I don't see how it matters, if stalactites are rocks or teeth or—"
"Really," you say helpfully, "they're more like bitey vegetables."
"—or fucking vegetables. Who gives a shit? Can we keep—"
"They grow from teeth," you say. "Teeth on stone in dark places."
"So??"
"So—" You gesture around you. "—what died here that had hundreds of teeth? And why is this a natural tunnel, not a sewer tunnel?"
You can feel it. The uniform concrete wall and floor is gone. This is pure stone.
Madrigal pauses. "Are you saying the snake burrowed—"
"I thought snakes couldn't dig," you say, and (against your worse judgement) don't allow that to settle: "No. Well, probably not. But something did. Maybe it came up from below to die, or— something."
"Wait, so where'd the sewer go?" Madrigal glances behind her. "Did we miss another juncture? We should go back and—"
"Or," you say meaningfully, "we could go down further into the borehole. Or go back to the door—"
Vwoop?
It's a weird sound— a sort of high-pitched cry or call. It comes from behind you… or does it? Sound bounces strangely.
Vwoop?
A response, from— ahead of you? But how far?
Madrigal looks vaguely ill.
>[1] Hide in the stalagmites! But… the lantern… (What do you do with it?) [Roll.]
>[2] Just keep moving forward, down the presumable borehole. Nothing's wrong.
>[3] Just head backwards to find the continuance of the sewer tunnel. Nothing's wrong.
>[4] Respond to the vwooping. (How?) [Potential roll.]
>[5] Write-in.
Best mandatory dungeon feature:
