This is a series of vignettes centred around a fictional Tavern in the Magic Multiverse.
“GENIE!” shouted the man. “Are the ropes secured?”
“I’ve checked them twice!” Jéne E. yelled back.
The party was in a cavern, scaling the sheer face of slippery wet rock as torrents of water poured against them. Jéne E. pulled at the anchors of the ropes, testing their strength, then shouted above the sounds of raging rivers that it was safe to climb.
One of the men slipped and almost fell, to be caught by the woman that had wooed Jéne E.’s heart. She held on to him as the man checked the clamps of his harness with all the haste in the world.
“This isn’t what I expected when I volunteered, Genie!” the man cried out.
“Just get the heck up here!” shouted the expedition leader, Jéne E. Ilk.
When the party of five were safely on top of the rock formation, Jéne E. spread out the cloth map taken from his backpack. The route was a complicated one, but such was to be expected on an adventure such as this.
Jéne E. said, “We’re nearing the vault! Check all torches! No slip ups from here on!”
This expedition was strangely influenced by the previous expedition to the city of gold, the one that Jéne E. rescued from the heart of the steaming jungle. Now hungry for adventure, Jéne E. had taken one or two members of that lost expedition into his own party, and procured a map from some travelling adventurer who had given up on finding this mysterious ‘vault’.
They walked into a twisting cave that expanded and contracted, that inclined itself upwards and sloped down, silently hoping that they were getting nearer to the prize at the end of the journey. Unlike the city of gold, this ‘vault’ they headed towards wasn’t famous for traps that instantly killed anyone who got close. Instead it was well-known for being nigh unfindable.
Unfindable, until perhaps today.
“It better be there,” said one of the disgruntled members of the party. “I didn’t come all this way through all that hardship for nothing.”
Jéne E. continued walking but spoke back at the man, “Stem your yammering. The closer we get, the more danger we may encounter.”
It didn’t take long for them to find the first signs of payoff. Around a certain bend, they stopped and stared in wonder at a large cavern containing a marvellous building within, its architecture vibrant in the dim light and its decorations gleamed with water, décor made up of plants and vines and exotic flowers. The moss on the walls seemed to illuminate the area as did the shafts of light that filtered through the misty air towards the cavern floor.
“Where are we, exactly?” someone said.
Jéne E. put down his pack and unfurled the map. He himself was curious as to what lands stood above them. They could have just rappelled down from the holes in the ceiling to find this building if they knew this was where it lay situated.
“I don’t think that light is natural,” the woman said, closely observing the holes from which the brightness pierced into the cavern. “We’re too far underground.”
“Stay out of the light,” said one of the expedition men. “Traps could have been rigged.”
They held a discussion to decide in what manner they were going to proceed when one of the men realised that one of the holes in the ceiling had gotten dark. He drew the party’s attention to this irregularity, just in time for them to realise that another hole became dark, then another, the pillars of descending light slowly disappearing one by one.
“Torches and swords!” Jéne E. commanded.
The party took cover behind some of the rocks and stalagmites in the area, not sure where the attack would be coming from or if they were in any danger at all. And that’s when the robed figure appeared, striding forth from the dark passage from which the party had arrived.
“The Magus?” whispered one of the party men.
“Impossible!” Jéne E. cried softly.
>Continued in part 2
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