Code Of The Rats
"From Spuds To Studs"

18. Room of Disunity

By Dave Dollar
Art by Chris Myers

Upon the plaque mounted to the door of this room is the word "Disunity." The floor of the room itself appears to be a per, fect equilateral triangle, 60' on a side. The ceiling is at least 80' up.

In the room's center is a triangular stone pedestal, about 5' on a side. It too, is an equilateral triangle, but is oriented exactly opposite the lay of the room. The top of the pedestal is set with a pattern of shallow indentations, each holding a featureless brass coin.

GameMaster

The coins and indentations are a common logic puzzle. In fact, you may have seen one like it yourself. Initially, players may remove any coin from its recess. To remove coins after the initial one, however, players must use an adjacent coin to "jump" the coin they wish to remove. Jumps must be in a straight line and only one coin may be jumped at a time. The purpose of the exercise is to have only one coin left on the board at the end.

For the characters, the end may not be very far off. When the first coin is touched, the door will slam shut, sealing the characters in the room. Then, three large holes will open in the corners of the ceiling and torrents of white sand will begin pouring into the room.

Hand the players a copy of the Disunity puzzle diagram provided, and allow them ten minutes to solve the puzzle. After that, assume that the sand has covered the pedestal, leaving all in the room to be buried alive.

After a coin has been legally removed from its recess it may not be replaced. It will leap forcibly from its indentation if this is attempted. If a coin is removed illegally. it will forcibly leap back into place:

This is a difficult puzzle to solve. It is also an elaborate red herring. Solving the puzzle will avail the characters nothing. Hopefully, they have figured out that the plaques are lying to them and will know the true theme of the room to be Unity.

As it happens, the pedestal is mounted upon a swivel. If the pedestal is rotated 180 degrees, the sand will cease to fall. When the pedestal is aligned with the lay of the room (i.e. when their positions are unified), it will begin to extend toward the ceiling, becoming a tall, triangular shaft. It will rise all he way up to touch the ceiling. Woe to anyone standing on top of it. (Squish!)

As the shaft rises into the room, exposing more of its length, the characters will see that it has a narrow door in its side. When the top of the shaft touches the ceiling, the doorway will be aligned perfectly at floor level.

Inside the shaft is a ladder descending 100, into the darkened hallway below.

Score Chart

+3 For first player to figure out how the puzzle works.

+5 For first player noting that removing the coins from the board demonstrates disunity.

+5 For player proposing to ignore the puzzle on the basis of the reversed plaques.

+7 For player rotating the table to unify the triangles.

-10 For dying in this room.

+5 For best role player.

Note: If the entire party is killed in this room, they will appear once more, outside its door. However, when they look in, the floor will be free of sand and the pedestal will be fully extended to show the exit ladder. This helps keep entire parties from killing themselves repeatedly in this area.

More Code of the Rats Introductory Fantasy Adventure

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