Code Of The Rats
"From Spuds To Studs"

17. Room of Power

By Dave Dollar
Art by Chris Myers

This 30' by 30' room is dominated by four bronze statues. The statues are realistic renderings of heavily armored knights, standing in salute. They are larger than life sized: about seven feet tall each. Their four swords are drawn and held aloft to touch their needle-sharp points in the center of the room. Beneath the raised points of the swords is a simple but elegant marble pedestal with a purple velvet cushion. Upon the cushion rests a brilliantly sparkling crystal crown. The floor in this area is not congruous with the rest of the complex. Instead of plain stone, it is tiled in thousands of inch-wide blue hexagons. It looks to be a very expensive job. The plaque set into the door of this room reads, "Power."

Another door is set into the opposite wall. It is of heavy wooden construction is banded in iron. It looks very sturdy.

GameMaster

Since the plaques are reversed, the theme to this room is Powerlessness. The door in the south wall is securely locked and will open only after the room test has been passed or failed. Should a character approach the pedestal, the room's dweomer will be activated.

When a character first approaches the crown, two things will happen. First, a ring of tiles surrounding the pedestal will rise up out of the floor. The tiles are actually caps, used to conceal a ring of iron bars. The bars extend 9m the floor to ceiling, forming a fine circular cage around the pedestal-- trapping the character closest to the crown. At that point, the four bronze statues will animate, dropping from their salute stances into fighting stances. There, the statues will freeze, aiting for the characters to act.

Two courses of action will affect the statues. One is smashing the crown. This will drop the cage bars, the statues will resume their normal positions. At that point, the door in the south wall will open in to allow the characters to proceed. If, however, the character places the crown upon his head, the statues will animate again. In turn, each statue will attack the trapped character through the bars of the cage. There is no place to run and little room to dodge, so it is only a short matter of time before the statue impales the victim on it's blade. The teleport magics common to the gauntlet will not remove the character from the cage! After all four statues have killed the character once, the cage will drop and the and the statues will return to their normal formation. The south door will then open and allow the group to proceed.

In the hysterical fracas, the crystal crown is about 100% likely to be smashed to bits. When it breaks, its sparkling fragments will be bathed in blood. It's a nice special effect -- it does not have to be the character's blood: it just appears there.

Being stuck in that cage will be a hellish experience for the victim and his comrades both. Four times will he be slain, only to awake again to the nightmare pain and terror of another deadly thrust; outside the cage, his friends can only watch helplessly as the screams of their dying friend wrack them to the very marrow of their frozen bones. (Ooo. Waxing poetic, are we?)

Four lives lost to the dream of Power.

Score Chart

+10 For smashing the crystal crown.

-10 For dying in this room (not cumulative).

More Code of the Rats Introductory Fantasy Adventure

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