This is absolutely excellent news  ;D I can't believe I've been going about the last week without knowing!!!

Nice one challenge? and nice one to every one who gave them a little push

Steve

Treguard stood frozen to the spot, unable to quite comprehend what he was doing, he was ending this phase of the dungeon with himself and his assistants inside it.A cold breeze rattled through the chamber followed by a bolt of lightning.

"Very courageous of you Treguard, but very fool hardy" said a voice Treguard recognised immediately.

"Sometimes we have to make the ultimate sacrifice for the greater good Merlin" he replied

"You are the Dungeon master, the Dungeon needs you. If you sacrifice yourself now, it will be unprotected, the opposition will run rampant. I cannot allow you to do this" Merlin argued

Treguard moved to argue his point but Merlin was having none of it.

"Spellcasting F R E E Z E".  The horn, in the box had been moving to sound again but suddenly stopped.

"What are you doing?" exclaimed Treguard

"I'm giving you a chance to get everyone out of the dungeon before it disintegrates", replied Merlin, "unfortunately my magic is not as powerful as it once was, I cannot stop the horn for long. Go, get out of here, I will take care of Mogdred"

"But Merlin...." started Treguard

"No buts Dungeon Master, Mogdred is my problem and I will take care of him, survival and the preservation of the Dungeons' inhabitants is yours. Go now, if all is successful I hope that we shall one day fight side by side once again" Merlin argued

Treguard looked at Merlin fondly and smiled, "Very well, thank you. Good luck to you Merlin"

"And to you too Treguard" Merlin replied

And with WRYMSLAYER in his hand Treguard bolted out of the chamber to find everyone.

Meanwhile back in Level One, Pickle, Majida and Kully had found their way to the wellway room.

"Eees looks dark eeen there" moaned Majida looking down the well, "are you sure thees will take us to Leveel two?. Normally ees always been lift" she said looking at Pickle.

"Yes, these wellways were the original routes in the old realm".

"Well I'm not climbing down there" said Kully. Suddenly a deafening roar was heard followed by a coarse shout

"SHAAT UP FESTUS!!" the voice commanded. The voice belonged to an old woman who the trio could now see. The old woman saw them, "oh hello dearies, have you come to see old Mrs Grimwold?"

"No we ees trying to get to Leveel two" Majida replied

"ooooh, level two eh? Well just climb down that well there and that'll take you.....oooh I don't think you can do that" she looked at the wellway with a strange look.

The three looked at the wellway to see that a strange multicoloured glow was eminating from the once dark hole accompanied by an increasing rumble.

"oooh that doesn't look good at all, looks like you can't get to Level two at all...I'd say its not even there anymore from that glow" she continued

"She's right," said Pickle, "I've seen this glow before, its a 180 degree phase shift, the end of the dungeon...but usually it affects everything all at once, not just one level." He turned to face Mrs Grimwold. "Do you know any other way we can get away from here? Maybe straight to Level three?"

"Yeees there eeees a short cut, we need to find zee corridor of blades" Majida spurted in enthusiam.

"No dearies, theres no corridor here, but I tell you what, tell me how to get out of here so me and me Festus came be safe and I'll show you another way to Level Three" Mrs Grimwold offered.

The three thought it over together and agreed, telling her where to go. In return Mrs Grimwold gave the trio some mints and told them to go through the other door in the room.

The trio went through the door and  walked out onto a dragons' back.

"Smirkenoff!" exclaimed Pickle and Majida

Yeah that sound effect in the corridor was a stroke of genius, I remember it now from the 1st time round and thinking "that doesn't sound right". Intentional or not it was good

Also the ending looks so much better on TV than on my PC

Steve

Skarkill and Lissard almost fell out of the boat.

"Whatsssss that doing here?" shouted Lissard

"It's stupid remember", whispered Skarkill "We can tell im anythin an be fine"

"Please answer my question" said the Brollochan.

"ne how", continued Skarkill, "ee may be useful for us, I rekon we can tell im whats goin on"

Lissard looked doubtful but grudgingly agreed, it was better than being eaten. Skarkill and Lissard told the Brollochan about Mogdred and what was going on in the dungeon, but they didn't expect the reaction they got from it.

"So this Mogdred is powerful....perhaps he will give me my knowledge back" it said.

"Don' count on it" said Skarkill, "His lordship got rid of that a long time ago".

A booming laugh made the pair jump again, it was Mogdred.

"Amateur magicks! Brollochan, I can indeed return your knowledge....if you serve me. I've been looking for you for some time now and thanks to these bumbling idiots I have found you.."

If the Brollochan was human it would have been smiling by now.

"My knowledge? I was told you were evil. No evil entity would do something so....nice" the Brollachan said.

"Did they tell you I was evil?" said Mogdred shocked, "I am one of the most respected denizens of the dungeon. I will give you your knowledge back...and much more, but as I said, I would wish you to serve me as repayment"

The Brollochan thought about it and then agreed.

"The first task I require of you is to feed, feed on these wretched creatures that led me to you" commanded Mogdred.

Knowledge seeping back into it, the Brollochan lifted itself out of the water and prepared to eat. What seemed to be an look of anticipation with maybe the hint of a smile appeared on the Brollochan's "face". Lissard and Skarkill froze in fear of both the scenario of being eaten alive....and the realisation that Mogdred had been true to his word about the giving more, he'd given the Brollochan emotions.

The Brollochan began to edge towards the boat....

Back in the corridor of blades things were not going at all well. Although Treguard and Lord Fear had dodged several sets of blades they now looked in awe at what was ahead, well in the distance.

"A complete blade blocking....the...entire...corridor" stammered Lord Fear, "how in Marblehead do we get past that?"

Treguard took stock of the situation. They'd not yet come across any items or spells in Level Two and looking at the blade, there was really no hope for them. Suddenly he saw a brief flash in front of him. He strained to see what was going on and saw a lump of charcoal that seemed to shimmer as if it contained magic. A look of revelation and joy appeared on his face. He ran to the coal and picked it up and started to draw with it on the wall.

"Treguard what in blazes are you doing? We're about to get sliced for lunch and you take to doing doodles? Have you finally lost your mind?" mocked (and exclaimed) Fear.

"This coal is magic," started Treguard, "We are in Level Two which was Merlin's domain in the old phase."

"Your Merlin has a very odd way of helping out" scoffed Fear obviously understanding his meaning, "so what are you doing with it?"

"Once a quest involved a dungeoneer having to draw a wellway to continue, I'm betting this is the same thing..so I am drawing a portal"

"Well you'd better hurry up, the blade is getting a bit close for comfort" said Fear noticing the corridor conveyer was accelerating.

Treguard continued to make the portal, not even noticing the approaching blade.

"COME ON!!!" shouted Fear as the blade got within 10 metres of them. If they didn't get out of there then, they never would.

"Done" exclaimed Treguard. He grabbed hold of Fear and the pair of them fell through the portal just as blade skidded past where they had been standing seconds before

Treguard had paired up with Lord Fear figuring that together they had the best shot at defeating Mogdred. They entered what appeared to be a dwarf tunnel that at least seemed like it should be part of Level Two.

"So, are you going to tell me what your amazingly stupid assistants have done then?" demanded Fear.

Treguard sighed and looked at him.

"In the time before I had any assistants, before you came to the dungeon there was a power that was deadly to us all, Mogdred"

"Yes I gathered that, tell me something I don't know!" snorted Fear

Treguard glowered at Fear and continued

"For every force of evil there is a good of equal measure such as ourselves. Back in the old days Mogdred had such a balance, Merlin. They battled for many seasons until eventually Merlin caught Mogdred in an ingenius trap. Mogdred was lured into a special room in the dungeon, one that was never affected by phase shift, it remained constant."

"hmmm", pondered Fear, "how on earth would such a powerful force of evil be tricked so easily?"

"By the ultimate sacrifice" said Treguard, "Merlin challenged Mogdred to a "final duel". Mogdred agreed and appeared for the challenge. However he did not realise that Merlin had cast a spell that changed the appearance of the room, indeed he even managed to change the aura of the room to fool Mogdred. Mogdred appeared and Merlin's plan was to seal the room off the dungeon forever by influencing the phase shift to cut all access to the room. It worked, more than worked as most recognisable traces of the old phase disappeared with them, leaving us with what we have, or had now"

Lord Fear raised a quizzical eyebrow as if to say "oh yes, tell me more"

"It seems that this has stopped working though because my "intrepid" assistants found it when exploring the first rooms of Level One. It appears that curiosity got the better of them because now Mogdred is free, the dungeon is in chaos and very unstable as it cannot cope with the two realms at once, everything is getting mixed up if you will, breaking down at worst."

"so how do we fix in Dungeon 'Master'?" asked Fear, mocking Treguard slightly.

"We can only hope that Merlin escaped the room and we can find him before its too late" replied Treguard.

"And where do you think we can find......what's going on?" exclaming Fear

Indeed something was going on, the corridor was losing its usual red hue and becoming more grey and dank.

"I don't know" replied a perplexed Treguard. Suddenly a strange buzzing sound could be heard ahead of them

"what the devil is that?" Treguard said as a vertical blade came careering down the corridor at them. Suddenly Mogdred could be heard laughing

"Welcome to Mogdred's very own corridor of blades. Deadlier than the original, its certainly a cut above the rest....or should I say through......bwahahahahahahaha" Mogdred's voice boomed throughout the corridor.

Behind the centre blade, two additional blades appeared...

Easily the Skull lifeforce was the best, for me that was a huge part of Knightmare and I was gutted when they changed it to the armour.

Can't say it scared me much tho, I'd say the Cobra from Series 3 did that job well enough (I had, and still have got, a severe snake phobia - tho not as bad now as back then)

Steve

I'm of the opposite view. Pickle really annoyed the hell out of me and my friend and we made up quite nasty nicknames for him and Treguard (I won't be repeating them, I'm a lot older and wiser now) but I myself had no problem with Majida, I quite liked her actually and thought she was a lot better than Pickle was.

I hope Challenge do show the rest of the series simply to look at the series with Pickle in and to sorta try and work out what annoyed me about him, and if he still does!

Steve

[excellent Malefact, I was planning on doing this myself ]

Both jesters stopped in their tracks and looked towards Treguard.

"That stupid little "jester" over there" Motley said gesturing in Folly's direction, "says that I...am...an...amateur compared to him. He says that he is much better, and the original jester of the dungeon"

"Thats because I am!" exclaimed Folly, "I was the original comedy act in the dungeon"

"Ahh but the dungeon got rid of you and replaced you with me...what does that say....has been! It's obvious, the dungeon wanted a top class all round entertainer with finesse, such as my good self" Motley boasted

Treguard stood shaking his....helmet. Lord Fear started to intervene. Treguard heard his movement and said quietly

"no Fear, let these two sort this out for themselves" Fear glowered at Treguard briefly then lowered his arm.

"Fine!", said Folly, "You want insults? I challenge you to a duel of insults"

"Agreed!" said Motley, "and you, I mean the loser, will leave the dungeon"

"Easy peasy" retorted Folly. He looked towards Treguard and Lord Fear, "Looks like we have some judges here as well."

"Oh, and whats in it for us?" demanded Lord Fear

"The winner will help you through this level" said Motley, "although how the dungeon is moving between old and new realm at the moment, we'll probably all get lost anyway"

Treguard and Lord Fear grouchingly accepted to be the judges. Motley and Folly squared up to each other for the battle.

"TREEGUAARRD!!" was the sound to greet the Dungeon Master and Lord Fear to Level Two. "How dare you just drop into my domain compltely unannounced!" the commanding female voice shouted.

"Oh no" groaned Treguard, "I thought the dungeon had freed me from her years ago" Treguard stood up and "looked" in the direction of the voice.

"I assume we should stay standing exactly where we are Lilleth?"

The Advisers looked at each other and mouthed "Lilleth?" in puzzlement.

"She turned on you?" said Treguard in suprise

"Yes...her eyes started to glow a crimson red and then I was suddenly captured in that infernal device you just released me from" Fear replied, "once I was inside there Sidress appeared different, evil you might say"

"Eveel?", remarked Majida, "Seeeidres ees Eveel?"

"Shut up and let me finish" scowled Lord Fear. Majida visibly looked suprised.

Fear continued, "She didn't LOOK like Sidress, her demeanour and her clothing were different"

This caught Treguard's curiosity. "Oh? How so?" he inquired.

"She was dressed all in black, with what looked like a hat on her head, the hat was very distinctive, it had what appeared to be two large horns on top but entwined with gold.", Fear replied, "She stood full of confidence, almost regally bordering on arrogance, evilness shone through her face"

The assistants didn't know how to take this but Treguard knew exactly who Fear was describing. His shoulders sagged and with a sigh of despair he muttered one word:

"Morghana"