The Jumbo Compendium 5-In-1 Bumper Dungeon Fun Pack!

Jason Mills June '99

5. The Dungeon's Dungeon

A rite de passage: the dungeon is one long corridor(-deal). The warning sign at the entrance (see left) is correct: unauthorised teleportation will be D30% of intended distance travelled off-target, in D8 compass rose direction (NB. doesn't seem to affect Inigo). A standing-wave of Anti-Magic, tuned only to dispel flight, rushes up and down the corridor, passing each point every 10 seconds; so, for instance, if a delver takes 2 seconds to fly over a pit there is a 1 in 5 chance of his flight being dispelled on the way. The corridor is 10' x 10' x a long way and pretty well lit. A faint green glimmer (the sign for the Exit, qv) can be glimpsed through the apparatus now and again, but there is also a more persistent vulcanic glow from up ahead, interrupted by some kind of slabs falling and rising. It's quite warm. Helpful signs (shown here as insets) accompany each obstacle. There are ten, uh, challenges, each roughly ten feet 'through', with ten to twenty feet between them (use the text rather than the map as gospel!).

Standing (falling) rule: all pits in this level are bottomless. They actually bore through the planet and emerge in a volcanic crater in the antipodes. However, air resistance being what it is, delvers may fall for a few days at a steadily decreasing rate until they reach Grand Central - the earth's core. They will come to rest not far from some elevator doors, which, being weightless, they will easily be able to reach. The elevator will return the delvers to The Company offices, where they are free to leave (within the terms of The Agreement). The experience of falling for so long, fearing certain death, with nothing to contemplate but blackness, will leave them wiser and stronger in mind and spirit. They rise one level and get a D6 to IQ and CHR.

Trap The First

A 15' long pit is crossed by a narrow plank that is seated in a recess at either side. Beneath its ends are the triggers for the trap, so weight on the plank sets it off. The plank may be lifted out and placed away from the triggers for safe crossing, but this is very difficult to do from one end, requiring a ST of 100 (no more than two persons) and a DEX SR (per person) at L5. Failure means the trap was triggered and they will be at the very least severely amputated. It's easier if one person has crossed - leverage and position better if the plank's lifted from both ends at once: combined ST 50, DEX SRs @ L3 (hair-trigger).

The left wall over the pit is covered in little spikes in holes, ~1000 x 1000. Though not easily discernible as such, they are crossbow quarrels, and all fire together when the plank is trodden on. Even a delver in super-magic no-hits armour will be smashed against the far wall by the momentum of a million close-range darts and (assuming the 3000 x 5D6 aren't enough) dropped into the pit - in a shower of quarrels that, having less air resistance, will soon overtake him and await him in a nuisance cloud at the earth's core. Meanwhile, the trap resets. This takes four seconds as a new set of one million quarrels move into place. In the fourth second, the plank is tilted sideways by pistons in the end recesses to spill off the rebounded quarrels littering it. During this 3-second interval, up to 3 delvers may 'safely' run across the narrow plank littered with metal darts above a bottomless abyss... The speed factor is not so important as the footing: DEX SR @ L3 - or L5 if in the 4th second. Otherwise, plummety-bobs.

Trap The Second

True enough. This is another 15' pit. A flyer coming at it fast and high would probably have enough momentum to get across even after the magic stopped (L1SR on LK), but would hit the ground for D6D6 - and might (L0SR on LK) roll beneath the next trap. Actually, this one's easy: 40' down the pit (out of Detect Magic range), extending 5' out from the nearside wall (so leapers will miss it) is a teleport field that plonks the delver safely on the far lip.

Trap The Third

Three enormous solid iron pistons, one behind another, each as wide and tall as the corridor and 4' thick, with nary an inch betwixt, slam up and down at high speed. Their periods are eleven ninths, twenty sevenths and fourteen twenty-thirds of a second - so they are never in phase for more than an instant. Delvers daft enough to try rolling under will need to weigh up the timings, rush, duck and be lucky: L3 on IQ, L1 on SP, L2 on DEX and L4 on LK. One failure = squelch. Delvers searching the corridor, however, need make only an L1 on LK to find the secret door on the right concealing a passage round the side of the pistons.

Trap The Fourth

Quite right: anything passing that point (even a coin) causes the wall slab to slam across the corridor, projected by a piston attached to the back. Once it has done so (squashing any unfortunates), it remains in position for 10 seconds, during which it is a simple matter to walk behind it, ducking beneath the piston, and out the other side. However, the piston then pulls back, dragging any delvers still behind the wall like roulette chips into the 10' wide bottomless pit in the space behind the wall's 'rest' position... L4 on LK to leap out of its path in time.

Trap The Fifth

A 6' long firepit. The flames - from deep below - curl comfortably at ground level - until the area 5' in front of the pit is trodden on, whereupon they roar upwards and fill the corridor. A coiled hosepipe is visible beyond the pit, on the left wall, but does not in fact relate to this trap - the water would be lost in and through the flames, the base of the fire being far below. Delvers may be put off for a while, since the very attempt to jump increases the flames; but it should soon become apparent that as soon as all weight leaves the pressure plate area - as when the delver leaps - the flames instantly fall back and the delver will proceed through the air in perfect safety (L0 on DEX or fumble-fall into pit - flame damage as below, then fall past gas nozzles and into bottomless pit...). Delvers caught (somehow!) by the roaring fire (or falling) take 10D6, no armour protection (except specifically fireproof stuff).

Trap The Sixth

Just beyond the firepit is a very long coiled hose, whose winch is marked with the words "FIRE HOSE". Anyone examining the hose carefully will find the word "TEFLON" marked on it at regular intervals, and a control tap on the nozzle. 10' beyond, just past the sign, is a curtain of lava falling from a thin slot in the ceiling through another in the floor. It is Very Hot. Any (non-TEFLON) objects entering the flow will be burnt/melted/vapourised instantly; those holding conductive objects in the flow will take 2D6 damage on their hands before the object disintegrates, and half that off DEX for a turn. Glimpsable through the curtain is a Large Red Button on the corridor floor, three feet behind.

The hose may be brought into play. Directing the high-pressure frosty water at the inflow slot will seal it temporarily: L3 on DEX to get this right (stand well back), then just keep spraying. If the delver spraying stops or hands over to someone else, a new SR is needed as this is a very 'dicey' task. Once the water flow is stopped, the lava flow will melt through and resume in D6 seconds - to dash under in the interim would require a 6's complement SR on LK (ie. L1 if 5 seconds, L4 if 2 seconds, etc), but somebody should have hit the button by then. Alternatively, the waterjet may be used to blast blobs of lava toward the button, solidifying as they go, to try to push the button without going under the slot at all - this is more difficult, but much safer: L6 on DEX: three failures mean the button is now locked in place by the lava and basically useless - back to Plan A.

Trap The Seventh

Sign on right: "One at a time, please." Yet another pit, only 8' across, but with a wall of bars at each side. The only way through the bars is via the slow-moving turnstile in the centre of each 'wall' that admits only one person at a time and is poised at the pit's very lip. There is thus no way to get a run-up for a jump. (Just this side of the bars, by the way, is a TEFLON bucket with a lid, by the left wall.)

Delvers wishing to broad-jump 8' from a poor-footed bar-clutching start to a worse-footed bar-clenching finish may make a L8 on DEX and L4 on ST (this is no easy thing), or alternatively fall. It is far simpler, however, to examine the bars, find the two that lift out, lay them down and walk carefully across. (Still not very secure, though: L2 on DEX or need L2 on LK to regain hold one way or another.)

Trap The Eighth

A 6' bottomless pit. Spraying continually from hundreds of tiny holes in each wall (like an Air Soccer table) is a bountiful shower of acid. The pit may be easily leaped (L0 on DEX or fumble-fall), but the landing delver will be in some discomfort prior to his imminent horrible death. Spraying water round here will only result in loads of steam, hiss, burning mist and bad gases. The hose is too focused to cover a leaping delver, should anybody think of that. The lateral solution is to take back the TEFLON bucket and gather some lava (the TEFLON hose, if still in play - and it needs to be - will be undamaged by being stretched through the lava flow), then throw this liberally about the acid walls. There will be a mess of smoke 'n' stuff, but the acid will cool the lava, sealing the holes. This will need to be repeated a few times to seal off enough for a safe jump, but is a basically safe operation (neglecting the carrying of molten lava on slippy steel bars over a bottomless pit, the poison gases, the splashing acid, etc.).

Trap The Ninth

There's a clue in the question, if you're familiar with the Milton Bradley children's game. Two unbreakable glass walls, 10' apart, hem in a monstrous contraption. 3' off the ground, between the walls, is a horizontal plate of the same material; the upper space is not accessible. Beneath this plate are three enormous horizontal millstones, each almost 5' across and 3' high, each with a one-sixth segment missing, like a piece of cheese. Two span the corridor beyond the first, which is on the right. To its left, and of similar dimensions, is a paddle wheel. An opening in the front wall, 2' wide and 3' high, gives awkward access to the first millstone, which is rotating anticlockwise with a period of about ten seconds - as is the one diagonally opposite, which also gives onto an opening, in the far wall. The third is inert: it is linked to the paddle-wheel, and rotates clockwise at the same rate as that. Another opening - a 1' wide, 3' high slot - allows access to the paddle-wheel. It may be powered crudely by someone sticking hands or feet in and making an L5 on ST to turn it at all, and an L5 on DEX if they want to get the timing the same as the millstones' (which isn't strictly necessary). Bright delvers will suss that it may also be powered by the hose - this requires no SRs (the flow being readily adjustable at the nozzle), no hands and no risk.

All four wheels sit atop pillars that descend into ye bottomless pit (patent applied for), so ix-nay on the sitting-in-the-middle - there is no middle: travellers must clamber into the 'passenger area' of the first stone, creep around with it to the far side, transfer to the paddle-powered stone, creep on to the third, travel round with that and spill out through the opening. All this with good timing, in cramped quarters, without tumbling off the side. Did I mention that the pillars of the powered millstones also had one-sixth cheese cut-outs? The "9 o'clock to 11 o'clock" segment on each? This means you only get one go round...

In upshot, you will need a L2 on DEX or L4 on LK for each wheel (may try both). Any failure on both is a fumble: L1 on LK to fall, else ground between stones first (D6D6D6).

Trap The Tenth - The Leveller

Sign on left: "The Leveller..." A 12' long section of corridor is painted black (or it may be dried blood). Extreme scrutiny of the walls may reveal (L3 on LK) a very narrow slot in each, 3'2" above the ground, running the length of the painted area. No amount of investigation will reveal the workings thereof: two rows of 'electric eye' devices on each wall detect anything exactly 3'2" high and trigger two plate-blades (one from each wall) to shoot out at that height. They would scalp a hobbit and halve anything else. They instantly pull back. More 'eyes' detect anything less than this height and wallop it from either side with boxing gloves, calculated to deliver exactly enough hits to render the delver unconscious. (Standing delvers would be ill-advised to bend down to retrieve their colleague as this might trigger the 'exact' option.) In truth, Quikpiss' warning was literally accurate - if you're not (exactly) as high as him, you'll survive: taller persons, in fact, may simply walk through unharmed.

The Exit

The green glimmer has turned out to be the Exit sign above the trusty elevator (ie. 8' off floor). Wizs will detect vibes from the sign and examination of it will readily determine the reason. In point of fact, the glow comes from giant emeralds, one behind each of the letters. Each is worth 5,000 GP, but who would sell it? It may be used at all times as a L20 Anti-Magic spell (and is the source of the dodgy magic effects down here) and may cast any spell in the rulebook (user need not be a wiz) - but use of each of these powers comes at a cost of D3 permanent points from a random attribute. The bearer is also able to breathe in any medium and is immune to non-magical heat/fire/acid, etc. (Though not simple combat damage.)

The elevator deposits delvers in The Company offices. They are free to leave...

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Updated 26/06/00 by Jason.