Oops! I did not intend to have 3 month hiatus there – although, if I was going to, I suppose a cliff-hanger is the traditional point at which to do so! (Yes, that is hint to read the previous post before continuing, if you would like the full story!)
When last I left you, my wayward band of adventurers had scaled the cliff, solved the puzzle door and fought their way through the lair of ravenous, vicious dragon wyrmlings, to find themselves in a large, twelve sided chamber, with a voice emanating from a buzzing blue crystal:
“Hello Daisy.”
“You don’t mind if I call you Daisy, do you?”
“Welcome, once again, to the Draconic Soul Enrichment Centre.”
“I am pleased to inform you that gold and a lair of your own will be provided at the conclusion of testing.”
I had mentioned in May’s post that I was particularly proud of myself for creating and running this particular adventure. Now we are getting to a major reason why I am so pleased with myself; you see, I don’t, as a rule ‘do’ voices, accents, or imitations. It’s just not my thing; I tend to be far too self-conscious. However, in the interest of setting the atmosphere I did my best impression of GlaDOS from Portal to deliver these lines…
For those who don’t know, GlaDOS is a (pretty creepy) self aware computer that spends her time instructing – and taunting – the player in the game; the music was an addition of my own to… add to the ambience! For reference, here is a YouTube compilation of her lien from Portal. This is what I was aiming for…
Throughout the rest of the game these interruptions would continue, sometimes from pre-recorded (MAGIC!!) lines associated with blue crystals in the locations, at other times booming through the complex in progressively more frustrated tones.
It was by no means meant to be clear just WHO the voice was talking too. But every time the strains of Daisy Bell would precede the words… I knew that this was having the desired effect when I set off the music for the 5th or 6th time to a chorus of curses and groans! The intent of the voices owner was to drive her listener increasingly into insanity and make them desperate to escape from this place…
And said escape was not an easy process; at least it wasn’t for the previous occupant. Our heroes were able to just walk through all but the last door. The rooms they passed through, however, told quite a story. This level of the complex was series of four puzzle rooms. Puzzles are notoriously awkward in D&D; it is very difficult to present a real challenge with complex outcomes through description alone. I circumvented this by having the majority of the puzzles solved already, allowing me to indulge my 1990’s adventure game nostalgia without frustrating the players beyond belief.
Room one had a tiled wall that responded to touch; a slight pressure caused the pressed tile to illuminate (along with some other tiles throughout the wall), and beside it were the words “A Worthy Mind Can Remember”. This would be an impossible puzzle to run the players through; the aim is to illuminate the whole wall, which involves finding the right order to press the tiles in, avoiding the ‘reset’ tiles. I have never solved one of these puzzles in a computer game by anything other than brute force (trial and error until it works… eventually) The appropriate frustration with this set up was conveyed in the graffiti scratched on the other walls; “F***ing Reset Tiles”. Whoever preceded the party had simply(?) had to take the time to memorise the patterns and work out the correct order…
The second room’s puzzle instructions were simply “Food Is Key”. Within this chamber was a series of pillars, each with the rotted remains of some prey animal upon it. The puzzle itself had been simple enough; the challenge had come from leaving food to rot on these pedestals in this desolate place, while starving. This room also contained an important Easter Egg – a dragon skeleton curled around a carved stone block that looked a little like this:
If you don’t know the game Portal, try Googling ‘Portal Companion Cube’. (It’s a ‘thing’.)
Puzzle number three was maze, carved out of crystal and booby trapped with hypnotising magic. The lever to open the far door was at the centre of the maze, but was wedged in the ‘open’ position. By the open exit were carved the words “IT IS A LIE!” Come room number four – with ongoing interruptions of ‘Daisy Bell’ and cryptic taunts aimed at the mysterious ‘Daisy’ – they party were getting… a little twitchy! In this cavern pools of magic occupied each corner and the centre of the room. The door on the far side of the chamber was , in this case, closed. Next to the door was a pedestal and five tiles, each with a letter carved into it. A. Y. I. S. D. Properly arranged on the pedestal, they spelled out the name … DAISY. And on the floor, in angry, jagged letters were scratched the words, “DON’T CALL ME DAISY!”
I’m pretty sure the whole team breathed a sigh of relief when they passed through this doorway into … an empty passage, with no strange accoutrements of puzzling provenance. They cautiously, oh so cautiously, inched there way along the corridor. For some reason they were a little paranoid, expecting it to be littered with trap or something 😉 Finally, another door loomed up before them:
“After a quarter of an hour or so your progress up the passage reveals another archway fitted with wooden doors, this time elaborately carved and sporting large handles. A pedestal bearing a light blue gem sits a few feet in front of the door. A carving upon the portal shows the figure of a dragon launching itself from a mountaintop towards a golden horizon. Incorporated into the design are runes declaring “Welcome to the Final Test.”
They were used to the blue gems by now; each room had contained one, and each had conveyed a ‘message’ of some kind (many paraphrased from GlaDOS’ lines in Portal!) When this one activated however, the message was not what caught their attention, in spite of its ominous content:
“Welcome to the Final Test.”
“The Enrichment Centre reminds you that the test components provided cannot speak”
“In the event that the test components do speak, the Enrichment Centre urges you to ignore their entreaties.”
Why would such a strange message have so little impact? Because upon its activation, they heard the last thing they expected; the sound of two voices, squabbling on the other side of the door!
TO BE CONTINUED…
A Trifle Bazaar 