We left our heroes preparing to investigate the secret entrance behind the citadel. Cantrel picked the lock and the door opened. We then noticed that it was dark inside.

Now, most fantasy adventure parties are equipped to cope with little things like darkness, but there wasn't a lot of darkness back in the Jack, between the sun-lamps, the luminous ceiling-mold, and the sunlight coming through the glass lakes. So our party was unprepared. Eventually, we improvised a torch with a bit of burning rope. Cantrel and Noon entered and found another door. Just then, the rest of the party noticed a figure skulking our way, probably attracted by the light of that damned torch. He vanished into the shadows near the wall.

Everybody held very still. Shortly after that, we heard strange noises that resolved themselves into a drunk, singing and accompanying himself on a concertina. He appeared roughly where we lost track of the skulker.

Pfusand, in elephant disguise as always, ambled over there, idly running her trunk/(hand) along the wall in case the drunk wasn't the skulker and the skulker was still hiding near the wall. She swayed from side to side, to the music, in a performing-elephant kind of way. The "drunk" let out a realistic screech and started running. Heads began to appear over the ramparts of the citadel and out of the windows of the bunkhouse.

David tried to climb a rock to cover the Naza with his bow, but slipped and fell, attracting attention to himself. He therefore threw himself into the act and pretended he was anxiously trying to retrieve his runaway pet elephant. At one point we had "drunk" followed by "elephant" followed by "keeper," all running around the bunk house after each other, at 4 AM, all for the benefit of assorted pirates who are, perhaps, the most honest people on the scene.

Eventually, the drunk lit off down the beach, pursued by the Naza, David, and the cat-calls of his friends. There, he stood his ground, acting less and less drunk, and eventually fled into the night. God (and the GM) knows if we really faked him out with our stray-elephant act. With any luck, everybody faked out the pirates.

Meanwhile, back in the secret passage, Cantrel and Noon had come upon another door and were trying to open it. We heard a scraping noise inside and burst through, surprising a short, wiry fellow in the act of reaching for a pair of flintlocks. Cantrel covered him with the laserifle and told him to stay still. He replied, "Shut the outer door."

We did, after taking Alexa and Wu inside with us. The guy promptly tried to club Cantrel with his own rifle and beat him over the head with the top of the table. He missed. When he removed the top of the table, he revealed a hole. He tried to jump down it, but was caught by Wu, who engaged him in karate and beat him senseless.

We got the rest of the party into the tunnel and the chamber, except for the Naza, who doesn't fit. She will stand guard outside, disguised as an elephant. The chamber contains a great deal of junk, much of it hi-tech -- a house- cleaning robot, bits of circuitry, an uncharged man-amp suit.

Cantrel and Noon started down the hole via a rope ladder, then handholds, then more ladders. They descended through fairly natural caverns, only lightly touched by human hands, until they saw artificial light below.

Cantrel dropped the remaining ten feet, vastly surprising the guard, who was dressed as a pirate. While Cantrel and the guard fought it out, Noon dropped down and disabled the TV monitor watching everything. There were three exit ramps to the room, but two were boarded up. Noon went down the third, a descending spiral.

He came out in a huge, domed cavern, 200 meters across, with a realistic sky painted on the dome (presently shining by electric starlight). There were a couple of large buildings, and athletic training grounds. No one was in sight. Cantrel joined him and the rest of the party started down the tunnel.

Before the others could join Cantrel and Noon, twenty people came pouring out of a building. We thought they were after us, but instead they took up positions in trenches and started shooting at each other with paint- pellet guns, all under the eye of an instructor.

The others eventually joined us. It seemed our penetration was unnoticed, and we were watching war games. The diadem-indicator said the segment was still below us, and the spiral ramp wen further down, so we tried to sneak past the war-gamers. No such luck. They all took after us, some of them on bicycles.

We ran down through two more levels. The next was dominated by an amphitheater and the third was mostly swimming-pool or water reservoir. The buildings suggested a nursery. And the guards were more pirates, who spotted us and came after us.

Down some more, and stop in front of an armored door guarded by two more pirates. More or less simultaneously, the party took out the two guards, the four pursuing pirates, and the door. The door took longest. We leave our heroes just about to dash through the door, into the unknown, to escape the twenty-plus additional pursuers. How we get out again is a good question. Created: 24-May-98
Copyright © 1998, Jim Burrows. All Rights Reserved.

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