“Where am I?” demanded Alex boldly in the second room of level three, unaware of what stood menacingly before him. Only a spell of Charity was in his possession as the team quested after the Sword.
“You’re at the bottom of… in front of…” Rachel struggled to describe the enormously imposing gothic edifice that dwarfed the dungeoneer.
“It’s like a huge old castle with gargoyles and tall slender towers, and there’s a drawbridge in front of you,” Kevin did his best to describe the indescribably massive and fearsome construction. The advisors, without saying so, could not envisage such a place having been manually built; there must be very great magic at work here.
“Caution team,” urged Treguard, with an increasingly worried demeanour, “great power lies in this place. Use extreme caution. I would guide you onto a different path, but it appears you have no choice but to try to cross this drawbridge.”
“Do you remember ze calling, team?” asked Majida, fidgeting nervously.
“Okay,” the third advisor, Karen, took a deep breath. “True and false, false and true, open up and let us through.”
Immediately, the team could hear howls of vicious derision, ringing out and echoing to every corner of the dark and imposing landscape. The air was heavily laden with menace. As the scornful laughter grew even louder, a face began to appear on the drawbridge. It was Malice. Eventually, the laughing subsided and her face returned to its usual terrifying sneer as she prepared to speak:
“I’m disappointed, Treguard - surely you didn’t think your puny calling could open the gate to my domain?”
Treguard could not contain his concern, and asked nervously, “What will it take for this quest to continue?”
“Oh, nothing much,” Malice muttered, as a wicked little smile began to appear at the corner of her ruby-red lips. “All I require is for this dungeoneer to pledge his allegiance to me. And looking at this… this… pitiful creature, I wouldn’t have thought he could possibly defy me!”
“She’s right, team,” Treguard said in a quiet aside to the advisors, “you must pledge yourselves to proceed. You have nothing with which to defend yourselves; you must kneel down and state your allegiance or else be destroyed!”
With that, the dungeoneer slowly got onto his knees and mumbled, “I pledge allegiance to you.”
A broad but mocking smile spread across Malice’s face as he did so: “I can’t quite hear you, little dungeoneer, you will have to speak up.”
Sure enough, Alex loudly repeated his sentence. When he had he done so, the now familiar laughter again chilled his bones and the drawbridge slowly creaked down into place.
Alex slowly crossed the drawbridge, trembling. His advisors described the room he now found himself in – a dingy antechamber, in the centre of which a hunched over and clearly panicky Motley stood despondent, trapped in a set of stocks.
“Oi!” shouted Motley, urgently. “Oi, you wiv the silly ‘at, come and get me out of ‘ere. That nutcase woman as ‘ad me trapped in ‘ere for two days – all I said was ”Can I entertain you?” an’ she says ”Yes, I think you can” you know, all ‘igh an’ mighty like, an’ the next fing I know I’m ‘ere in these stocks. Please ‘elp me, you gotta let me out, please…”
Alex was guided over and attempted to undo the catch. Almost inevitably, it wouldn’t budge.
“Spellcasting:” Rachel said confidently. “C-H-A-R-I-T-Y.”
With that, the familiar magical flourish sounded and the catch on the stocks sprung open. Alex lifted the upper part of the ancient device and released the erstwhile prisoner.
“Oh, fanks mate” said Motley, stretching himself back into an upright position, “I fought I was done for. She’s really got it in for me, that Malice ‘as. C’mon, let’s go, I’m not stickin’ around ‘ere – she might come back…”
Motley put his arm on Alex’s shoulder and guided him through the narrow doorway on the far side of the chamber.
“Do you really think them big ‘elmets are back in fashion this season then?” quipped Motley as, eventually, they appeared in a small room with a table and two doors in the right-hand wall. Motley spotted something on the table: “Blimey, if it ain’t me old jestin’ stick… look at this! I wondered where it ‘ad got to. Good old Treggy the jestin’ stick! Got into some right scrapes with this one I can tell ya…”
Motley started to dance around, waving ‘Treggy’: “I’m so pleased to have ‘im back, thanks ever so much for ‘elpin’ me. In fact, I’m so ‘appy, you can ‘ave this old spell I’ve ‘ad for a while – it’s called Rib-Tickle ‘an it might just ‘elp you out if you get into a pickle, so to speak.”
Back at the table, the dungeoneer put the available banana into his knapsack and described the four objects, which he could just about make out from beneath the Helmet of Justice: “There’s a bar of gold, a little bottle with SPECK written on it, a bigger bottle with SUPER-SIZE on it, and a scroll… the scroll says Faced with the direst peril of all, should you be tall, or should you be small? I think it’s a clue.”
“Take the gold and…. I think the super-size potion, we can make him bigger, what do you think?” asked Karen.
“No, let’s take Speck. Remember what Malice said; she called him little before.” After a pause, Kevin prevailed and the smaller bottle was taken: “Yes, take those two and turn to your right.”
Motley, still dancing a silly jig, came over to Alex and guided him to the nearest door. “This way, matey… this is such a good jape… we must do this again sometime,” he twittered inanely.
The next room had a doorway at the far end on the right, but part of the left and rear walls were crumbling, and a giant gold and black serpent was emerging menacingly through the collapsed portion of the walls.
Motley squealed like a girl: “Argh, I ‘ate snakes! I’m off - good luck,” he shouted, as he sprinted in the opposite direction.
“Quickly, side-step right five paces… now run forward!” urged Kevin.
Alex avoided the snake’s darting tongue by inches and continued on through the doorway.