From: jhm@sni.ca (John H. McMullen)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp
Subject: STORY: Into The Dungeon [Champions] 1/2
Summary: First half -- they are introduced and go into the dungeon
Date: 4 Sep 91 14:27:11 GMT
Into the Dungeon
by
Black Widow
[_People_ magazine, October 1, 1989]
[The author wishes it to be known that she has no connection with
the character trademarked by Marvel Comics and her use of the
pseudonym is in no way meant to infringe upon the legal rights of
Marvel Comics nor to deprive them of those legal rights.]
I don't know how long the dungeon has been there, outside of
Kitchener-Waterloo--I do know that the first time anyone reported
it was in July. Maybe it was created anew that day. Maybe it has
been there forever. No matter the truth, I won't be surprised:
this is the year of the Change.
A year ago today, I was a high school student, nothing
special. Eight months ago, I Changed: I fly. I have a force field
and a--let's call it a "sting", shall we? I wear a costume so my
family doesn't get bothered by people who don't like Changelings.
Not anymore your typical high school girl.
About the same time fate was destroying my mother's plans
for my normal adolescence, a town appeared from nowhere, a town
called Black Horse Corners. There once was a town there by that
name, and for a hundred years the name was all that remained.
Then, February 6th, 1989, the town came back. What does that
have to do with the dungeon? That's where the dungeon _is._
Sorry if it all sounds a bit cryptic, but that's what we're
here for: some answers.
September 8, 1989, 7:30 pm
It's a warm Friday night, and we're all standing on the side
of the road, waiting to go in. You can't get directly to the
dungeon, it's on private property--we needed a warrant to gain
entry, and then we had to wait until we could marshall our
forces. There's quite a crowd of us going in, not to mention the
biological decontamination squad waiting for when we return.
Let's give you the Dramatis Personae, in alphabetical order:
_Officer Fred Chu._ A heavy-set man in his middle twenties,
Officer Chu (we won't be calling each other by first names for a
day or two yet) got on this detail because he has spelunking
experience, although (as he says), "Most caves don't have doors."
_Rod Currie, the Crimson Ace._ Rod has been in the dungeon
twice before. He's probably most famous as one of the two men who
took down Killjoy. I know him, slightly. He's wearing the crimson
costume today, though he seems uneasy with the decision. I have
to say I agree to an extent: unless you have a good reason, then
wearing a mask is, well, silly.
_Kirk Dobson, the Sphinx_. He looks like a sphinx, leonine
and winged. He reminds me of Vincent on _Beauty and the Beast_,
but more aloof. He's strong, he's a biologist, and he can fly.
We've flown together, he and I, while we were trying to find my
maximum flight speed. He jokes that he's the only Changeling who
has to obey the laws of aerodynamics. I like him.
_Brian Dorion._ He's notorious right now for being part of
the Changeling sperm bank story. He hasn't talked about it to me,
though I'll bet he's talked it over with James. Electrical powers
and teleportation. I've gone out with him a couple of times--we
went to the _Batman_ premiere. Murphy tried to question his
authority to be in this venture, but Dorion claimed, like I did,
that he had prior experience in the dungeon. He did say that he
thinks a friend of his, a Changeling named Taboo, is in the
dungeon. He seems nervous, though it's hard to read his
expressions with those silver lines all over his body.
_Frank Fosworth, also called Bengal._ He's not really Bengal
any more; by the time this sees print, he'll have hung up the
costume. He's a scrapper; strong (but not that strong) and fast
(but not that fast) and tough (but not that tough). All he's got
going for him is experience. Any man who has the stones to
challenge Killjoy mano a mano gets some respect.
_The Glove._ No one knows much about the Glove, except that
he can open portals to other places. We think he'll be essential
in getting past obstacles. He talks in a hoarse whisper. I don't
pry. I don't want anyone to know who I am, either.
_Godspeed._ The fastest man alive. I don't think he'd mind
me calling him that. I've talked to him about why he's here.
After all, how useful can it be to run Mach 1 in an underground
cave? He said he thinks he's the fastest ambulance around.
_Anita Kilgour._ Someone tried to hang the name "Overdrive"
on her. I wonder why it didn't stick--she seems hyper enough.
She's here because she and Murphy make up the practical
enforcement section of the Changeling-public-police liaison.
Sure, Walter McLean is technically in charge, but you don't see
him on the street. She's fast, maybe as fast as Godspeed, and
she's strong, maybe as strong as the Crimson Ace.
_Detective Constable "Bull" Murphy._ Murphy's a big man with
thinning red hair. Anita calls him Murph; he says he prefers his
other nickname, but he won't tell me how he got it. It's probably
sexual; that's usually what paralyzes adults socially.
_James Nicoll._ The telepath. Back when I was with the band,
someone once asked me if I was scared to be around him. I said
no, I didn't mind. She looked at me and said, "That's just what
he wants you to think." If you look for reasons to be scared of
life, you'll find them. If you're specifically nervous about
telepaths, well, there's a psionic jammer manufactured by a
criminal organization--someone ought to snap up the legitimate
production rights. (And I doubt there's a patent involved now.)
We have jammers with us.
_Officer (Doctor) Ted la Scala._ Officer la Scala also has
spelunking experience, and (maybe more importantly) he's a
qualified doctor. I'm glad to have him. He says he volunteered
for this because he and his wife are about to have a child, their
first. I asked him if he wanted his son to be a Changeling. He
laughed and said it was already tough enough to raise a kid
today.
The Glove, Godspeed, and I make up the trinity of masked
types, or the "Spandex fever" crowd, as James refers to us. (None
of us wear Spandex.) For obvious reasons, both Glove and Godspeed
were excused from the group picture I took. Rod wears a
skin-tight costume, but his name is known. Oddly, the three
"costumed adventurers" are the three most likely to hold only
supporting roles in this drama.
And equipment: we're travelling light for an exploring
party, depending (for the most part) on our powers to get us
through danger. The police officers are wearing Kevlar safari
outfits (baggy, unattractive clothes). They have their guns and
sturdy knives. Murphy looks odd with a machete hanging at his
side. We all have air filters in case we need them. Fred Chu, the
Glove, Godspeed, James and I are all carrying cameras; the
Glove's is a nice 35 mm SLR Nikon, like mine. Brian doesn't
carry film because he occasionally gives off X-rays. He promised
us not to do so; I may want children someday.
There's not only a crowd of people here, there's a crowd of
birds. I've never seen so many crows gathered together. What's
the collective noun for crows--isn't it a parliament? The eyes of
parliament are upon us.
* * *
With the people we have here, we expect to make it to the
fourth level of the dungeon fairly quickly. That's as far as
anyone has gone.
_Level One: The Hall of Mirrors_
The floor plan of the dungeon is almost exactly the same as
that of a dungeon in a computer game; we don't know why. We have
maps from the game, and Rod has played it, but there are already
differences.
I've already been in this long hall lined with mirrors
before. Don't touch the mirrors; they'll generate a synthetic
image of you. It seems to be telepathy of some kind; the
simulacrum knows everything you know. One personality to a
mirror. I spent a moment chatting with a simulacrum: an
unfinished copy of Rod, the first one to touch a mirror on our
last visit. (Rod just snorted and said it was a poor copy; James
muttered, "Bet he thinks that of you, too.")
"Who built this? Who has this kind of technology?" I asked.
"The Grandmasters," said the Glove, but he wouldn't say
anything more.
"The Grandmasters," Anita repeated. "Sure. Why not?"
"Who are the Grandmasters?"
James stopped staring at a blank mirror and said, "I think
they're conspiracy freaks who caught the Change. We know there's
an unconscious wish-element to what you Change _to_; what would
conspiracy fanatics become?"
Foz laughed harshly. "Get real. The Grandmasters aren't a
serious conspiracy; what kind of serious conspiracy has a _logo?_
Get with the program, dude."
Godspeed, as usual, kept his own counsel.
The Sphinx interrupted us. "I found skeletons."
This hall smells. It's far more rancid than the first time I
was here. We stepped over eight human skeletons, mossy and green.
La Scala stopped and looked at them. He says that although they
were full-grown, they showed none of the minor stress fractures
and abrasions of normal day-to-day living. In other words, they
hadn't lived very long. Rod and I are adamant that we didn't kill
them when we were here, just knocked them unconscious.
Foz took one of their weapons, a halberd-type thing, and we
left them behind with no more ceremony than that.
What killed them and stripped their bones clean?
_Level Two: Through Caverns Measureless to Man_
This level stinks like a garbage dump. We explored a little
more thoroughly this time. Based on the trash we find, we figure
that this level was basically a food preparation and storage
area. We've found a room that was converted to kitchen use. It
would have fed forty or fifty people: how did they get them in
and out? It was hard enough trying to get twelve people in here
without trouble.
We've fought monsters. Six of the things we call Birds of
Death--la Scala assures me that they aren't human, though they
look it; I still insist that they not be killed. Fortunately,
enough people agree with me. (I don't want to mention which
people were willing to kill them.) Giant versions of the hydra
polyp. I remember enough from grade ten biology to know that
hydras (hydrae?) have a jellyfish stage and a polyp stage, and
that they also reproduce by budding. These have all sorts of
internal modifications to keep them alive in the face of the
square-cube law. The most interesting (to me) is what I call the
"blood slug", a small chlorophyll-laden slug-like organism that
(the Sphinx thinks) functions like a red blood cell, oozing
through the hydra and giving it oxygen and removing waste.
The hydras are the worst nuisance because they're too soft
to be destroyed by bullets, and if you tear them apart they
rebuild themselves. A flamethrower would work, but we don't have
one. My sting
affects them, and so does Brian's electric shock, but our usual
technique is to let Rod and Foz slice them up. If you destroy the
endoskeleton, it reforms as several smaller hydras.
We stayed away from the pool with the killer lungfish. I
have a fondness for word games--I hereby dub them _lungefish_.
The moss is everywhere. James and Brian and the Glove call
it "shardagris", but they won't tell me why; a reference to
something in their past, no doubt. It's colourless and looks more
like long strands of spaghetti to me. We burn it when we've got
the time.
The stairs are right where they're supposed to be.
_Level Three: "By Indirections Find Directions Out"_
Our first argument as a group. According to the map, the
next stairwell lies in a very straight-forward path, but there is
a great deal of this level which is unexplored. One half of the
group argues that this area is periphe ral to our search; the
other side claims that we must explore the entire area if we're
going to clean it out. It was resolved when the Glove pointed out
that if the monsters came _up_ the stairwell, they could very
well come _down_ it and attack us from behind. We search the
entire level.
We've found the cafeteria. It's located in a series of
chambers labelled "Time Is Of The Essence". The rooms had a
number of utilitarian tables and chairs. Some cutlery was left
out.
It reminds me of the Marie Celeste.
An interesting note: all of the secret doors have been
blocked open.
We faced actual computer game monsters here. We were
exploring the chambers labelled "Vault of the Gem" and suddenly
found ourselves facing poisonous woodsquids and blue-green mould
men. (Not my names; Murphy keeps referring to them that way, and
everyone else has picked it up.) The woodsquids are fairly well
protected, though two or three punches from Rod will break open
their shells. He has to be careful, though, because their
stingers leave nasty welts on his skin. We figure it would kill
anyone else.
James says that the mould men have no brains. None of the
monsters do. (When Rod wasn't around, James said, "Bet they were
programmed with Rod's simulacrum." Those two never fight; they
just snipe at each other. Like Foz and Anita.)
The secret door in this section was _not_ barred open. We
found what Brian calls "game loot" in there--the mail shirts,
helmets, and falchions that are supposed to be there in the game.
The food was gone, though; I guess the mould men needed something
to eat. God knows they didn't care where they went to the
bathroom.
The bathroom thing came up again, later. The men insisted
that Anita and I go off together to perform our evening toilet.
(I love those old-fashioned phrases.) We used one of the pits
(first checking it for Things That Leap Up--this place could give
a child nightmares during toilet training). Oh, well--at least
I'll earn my keep as Anita's bodyguard when she's, ah,
indisposed.
A section called "The Matrix" had a bunch of control
consoles beside glass grids on the floor. They weren't powered
up, so we couldn't figure out what they are supposed to do.
The "Chambers Of The Guardian" section contained desks and
computers. The desk lamps aren't desk lamps; they're some kind of
giant praying mantises. One gored Fred Chu's left arm; la Scala
thinks he'll be okay, but his arm's in a sling.
After we finished exploring this level, we went to sleep.
Everyone had to keep a watch. September 9, 1989, 4:00 am
I served my watch with Godspeed. We talked about the
symbolism of the mask. He figures by keeping his identity secret,
he's serving as a symbol, a rallying point (I'm paraphrasing) for
people. So long as he wears the mask, he can be anybody. He's not
doing it for personal gain. He's not doing it for attention. He's
doing it because he feels it needs doing.
I agree with him, but I have to admit that I wear the mask
to protect my family. Not everyone likes Changelings. I can't
bear the thought of my family suffering because I want to help
people, but I can't stand idly by and _not_ use my powers to
help.
I have to admit, too, that using my powers is a kick, it's
totally inflected. It's all mixed up in a jumble for me; it seems
so simple for Godspeed.
Breakfast was tedious. We did an equipment check--all of us
are carrying electric lights. Most of us are carrying psionic
jammers, and Murphy has a Mindfinder, a little gadget that's
supposed to tell you if someone's trying to read your mind. As
near as James could tell, the Mindfinder detects him 90% of the
time. Then we descended to the next level.
_Level Four: Frogs and Wreck Rooms_
As far as we know, this level is as far as anyone has gone.
Yet, this level is (apparently) only a series of bunkrooms and
card tables. There was one large chamber that had been a rather
nice simulation of a forest glade, complete with small pool. We
went cautiously through there: camouflaged frogs clustered on the
walls, eating small diamond-like flies. The flies can blind you
if you're not careful; Fred got an eyeful of them, but la Scala
irrigated his eyes soon enough. We got Kirk to flap his wings and
that blew them away for a few moments.
Godspeed warned us about the frogs. They glisten with some
kind of powerful acid, which can eat through almost anything,
though not the walls. Further up the corridor, where there was a
burst pipe, we found another pool and another cluster of frogs,
feeding. They also eat the carcasses of animals which they've
killed and softened with their secretions. Very gross. It was a
groundhog. I don't know how it got down here--the walls are of
limestone, but with some kind of (to quote Kirk, here)
"tetrahedral carbon binding structure". I remember from chemistry
that diamonds are made of tetrahedral carbon structures, but Kirk
says it's not the same. The carbonate makes it weaker than
diamond, but it resists the acid. We do know that the Sphinx,
who can lift twice as much as either Rod or Anita, can't punch
his way through it. Makes you wonder how the people who modified
the dungeon put in the electrical cabling.
Speaking of diamond, we found one animal that eats the
frogs and apparently has a gut lined with diamond. I called them
glittersnakes (the names diamondhead and glass snake were already
taken). They were semi-transparent. They have cloudy pockets just
behind the fangs which we figure is poison. We took a sample;
whatever it is, it eats through glass. It didn't affect the
quartz sample bottle we had. Glittersnakes have small spines that
slice open your hand if you try to grab them.
We didn't try to clear out this level, just explored it. We
didn't find any of the "indigenous" monsters of this level, giant
purple worms with arms.
Murphy says this place was set up so it could handle up to
fifty people. The bedding is filled with the spaghetti
moss/shardagris. We go down, into new territory.
_Level Five: Bugs In The System_
This level was easy; we did it in only four hours. We met
some hydras (there's a water spill in one room) and there's that
_moss_ everywhere.
This level is made up almost entirely of computer equipment.
We thought at first that some of it was still active, because of
the flashes we could sometimes see on the screens. We were wrong;
all of it was destroyed, and we quickly found out why.
There are lots of the diamond insects, and now we know what
they do: they generate an electromagnetic pulse. They are
attracted to any kind of electromagnetic radiation--all of our
radios and psi-jammers are now useless. Worse (from our point of
view), they cluster around James' head, giving him a constant
head-ache. He says they make it impossible for him to use his
powers. The odd thing about them is that you can't crush them,
they've all got little force fields. Fortunately, they die
shortly after giving off their little EMP. We call them
"zapflies".
They thrive on force fields. This is bad news for those of
us who have force fields: myself, James (who is already being
harassed), Godspeed, and Anita. I'm the only one with true
voluntary control over my force field, so I'm not particularly
bothered--except, of course, if something attacks. Then I'm
vulnerable.
I feel like a fifth wheel. I mentioned this to Fred Chu,
who said, "At least you can fly!"
This level is getting to us. Rod is complaining, James is
snappish, and Anita and Foz are constantly sniping at each other.
Murphy and Sphinx spend their time being uncommunicatively
silent.
Murphy was going to send Godspeed back for more equipment,
but anything that came through this level would just get
destroyed, too. Godspeed figures he could get through the level
fast enough to protect most of the equipment; Murphy might send
him for more electronics equipment once we're on the next level
and know whether the zapflies are there, too. Without electronic
equipment (and now that James' force field is gone), they
shouldn't follow us. We hope.
At least I got to help carry people over a room full of
pits.
There were two rooms which contained (now destroyed)
computer equipment which (we guess) had once been isolated behind
force fields. Whoever made this place, they knew how to create
force fields.
Brian says there's probably a nuclear power plant down at
the bottom.
There are two sets of stairs down; no one can remember
which one is best to take, in the game. I don't trust that game
anymore, anyway. We're going to send down Rod and myself as a
scout team, since we're the only two who can fly. (The corridors
and stairwells are too narrow for the Sphinx to fly.) We're under
strict orders not to engage in combat: scout and leave at the
first sign of trouble. (And how does Murphy think he's going to
enforce that on Rod if Rod wants to disobey...? I guess that's
what leadership is all about.)
_Level Six: Target Gallery_
Rod took the lead. It's funny, watching people who fly: some
people (like the Sphinx, and James) maintain a nearly upright
posture (James often flies sitting tailor-fashion, as if his
flying carpet had been yanked from under him), while others
behave more like they're swimming. A study in styles: Rod leapt
down the hole so he was standing (a foot above the floor)
upright, while I dove down and let only my head peek into the
next room.
A difference in vulnerability, I guess. When we went down
the corridor, I stayed horizontal and near the ceiling (watching
for those deadly frogs), while Rod stayed at a 45-degree angle to
the floor.
There were some of the zapflies here, but not many. I kept
an eye out for the frogs, but didn't see any. The secret door
shown on the map was broken so it couldn't be opened, and we
found a statue of a knight in armour, clutching some kind of
pistol. It looked like a Buck Rogers raygun. Rod took it and
tried to fire it, but it didn't do anything. (Comment by the
Glove: "It may have been a real electronic device disabled by the
zapflies.") The knight fell over when Rod pried the gun free. We
went back up and rejoined the rest of the party.
The other staircase was next to the "Riddle Room". The items
corresponding to the riddle answers were sitting in their niches
(Rod explained this to us). We moved on.
There was a corridor with sealed rooms. We checked them one
at a time. Each had obviously been converted into some kind of
electronics laboratory (a resistor found here, a scrap there) but
they were all empty.
We found a number of the knight statues. The zapflies don't
pay attention to them. it was the Sphinx who discovered what they
were. Robots. Sophisticated robots, and all disabled by the
zapflies. (Kirk was trying to remove a pistol and the arm snapped
off. We're not going to let him give first aid to anyone.)
James suggested that the organization here had been doing
genetic engineering and something, maybe the "shardagris", got
out of hand so they had to abandon the site. Certainly zapflies
would disable their computer system.
Everyone is complaining of intermittent headaches, and after
lunch (we ate at the end of a long corridor we called the
Shooting Gallery), Chu, Murphy, and Rod went off to the washroom.
They came back reporting that they had seen a woman, but she
disappeared before they could get to her. We're all
speculating--according to the maps, she couldn't have gotten past
us without being seen. Anita wants to search for her. James wants
to use the Glove's portal to move down several levels right away,
but the Glove is reluctant.
Murphy's disturbed. I guess the idea that there are _other_
secret passages is scary. What if the zapflies got loose? A world
without computers or telecommunications, or hospital equipment,
or planes....
* * *
We've seen two more people. Two men. To be accurate, la
Scala, Murphy, Rod, and Chu have seen them; the rest of us
haven't. We weren't able to catch up to them; they just
disappeared. Anita suggested that the three people were the
founders of the Grandmasters, but then Murphy confessed that the
woman was his wife, who's been dead for a year.
Then la Scala admitted that the man _he_ saw was his
father-in-law, also dead (a major bastard if ever there was one),
and Chu said the other man was a high school friend of his who
had been killed in a gunfight.
Ghosts?
Maybe the answers lie further down.
--
John McMullen Siemens Nixdorf Information Systems
jhm@snitor.UUCP 2235 Sheppard Ave., Willowdale, Ontario M2J 5B5
"When you asked me to live in sin with you, I didn't know you meant `sloth'."
-- David Oster