Code Of The Rats
"From Spuds To Studs"

26. Room of Day

By Dave Dollar
Art by Chris Myers

A large, stone plaque next to the door to this room reads:

    "Coiled are the snakes that lie
    Follow them and you shall die.
    Yet as they lie, They also lead.
    You need but plead, and then pay heed
    They show the ever-changing way
    Through the deadly room of Day."

Just beyond, the heavy iron door to the room of Day stands open. It is a circular room with a sixty-foot tall ceiling. A total of twelve iron doors are spaced evenly around the room. Above each door, a small crystal is set into the frame. The crystals all glow with a pattern of changing colors: red, yellow, blue, green. The speed of the color change is different for each crystal, ranging form very slow to blurring quickness, but the pattern is always the same: red, yellow, blue, green.

Set into the ceiling, far above, is a large triangular crystal, one foot tall and shaped as the centerpiece to a giant sundial. Carved on the iron faces of each door are a roman numeral, ranging from one to twelve. You are entering at nine o'clock The smell of burnt flesh assails your nos trils and the room breathes uncomfortably hot. The room is knee-deep in charred bones. On each door, impressed from a light frosting of soot, is a flashburned silhouette of a human, or humanoid, dying in anguish. Illumination and heat radiate from the crystal in the ceiling.

GameMaster

Scattered haphazardly about the room, beneath the bones, are 110 small pewter statuettes of coiled rattlesnakes. Each of these snakes' eyes are set with glass beads that glow with a rapidly changing color partern: red, yellow, blue, green.

Eleven of the doors are false doors. One is the real exit. For each door, there are ten snake statuettes attuned to it. That is, the eyes of ten snakes flash in sync with the crystal above each false door. Coiled snake statues never flash in synch with the actual exit door. If a character asks the snakes (out loud) to please uncoil, every statuette in the room will animate and comply. The statuettes will then resume their rigidity and their eyes will now flash in synch with the exit door.

An alternate way of locating the exit door is to dig up all the statuettes and discover which door does not have snakes attuned to it. This last one is a bit of an endeavor, but will work.

If a character so much as touches a wrong door, the room's dweomer will flash to life (literally). The crystal in the ceiling will focus a blinding beam of concentrated sunlight on the offending character, frying him to ash. If the character is lucky, there might be a pair of very surprised- looking eyeballs resting atop the ash pile. This is a mental test to try the characters' dynamic thinking abilities. Roshia does not want stupid people working for her. In playtesting it has proven itself to be one of the tougher mental challenges.

Score Chart

+2 For first character to begin looking through the bones.

+3 For first character to realize the correlation between the snakes and the fact that they must be pointing to false exits.

+8 For character asking the snakes to uncoil.

+10 For the brave soul opening the real exit door.

-10 For dying in this room.

+5 For best role player.

More Code of the Rats Introductory Fantasy Adventure

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