Dread lord who has all of their dungeon corridors built to goblin scale. Have fun delving THAT, adventurers!
"The layout of each of the levels of Umbralach's Folly is identical," Malia says, rapidly sketching on a loose leaf of paper. "Circular, like this. The topmost has an entrance, in the side of the burial mound; the path through is a unicursal labyrinth; and on the opposite side of the circle, a corridor that circles halfway around the mound and slopes downward, to the next level."
"And you say there are treasures in it," the paladin says dubiously.
"Aye."
"Despite it being there for generations, entrance unhidden."
"Aye."
The paladin, archer and berserker exchange glances around her.
"Why?" the archer says bluntly, and Malia smiles, toothy and dangerous.
"He was a wizard," she says. "Styled himself a Dread Lord; why do you think?"
"And why do we want to venture into this deathtrap?" the paladin says warily.
"Treasures." Malia's smile widens.
"Are you planning to be any more forthcoming?"
"No," Malia says.
The entrance level of Umbralach's Folly is picked bare, all doors long since lock-picked or broken open, nothing left within the clean stone lines of its monumental architecture.
"You're certain it's not all like this?" the paladin says.
"I am," Malia says, sounding almost distracted, eyes roaming the structure and the bands of inscriptions carved along the top and foot of all the walls.
The berserker heaves a huge sigh.
The winding layout is just as the wizard promised; the corridor at the end of it curves and slopes further into the earth.
"Is this getting narrower?" the archer says, halfway down.
"Have you never seen a grandiose cheapskate's building project before?" Malia says lightly. "A palace's audience chamber leading to a slumlord's warren of rooms? There's nothing amiss."
"You promise?" the archer says, with a particular tight-lipped glance at the ceiling, which has inched proportionately lower above them, and Malia softens.
"I promise," she says, and leads them into the second level. The architecture is much the same — as is its looted desolation — but everything is squeezed to half the monumental stature of the upper chambers: every room and corridor is laid out identically, but at half the length, width and height.
The berserker pointedly lifts his hand to easily trail it along the ceiling. "We will fit down the next?" he asks.
"Didn't I promise?" Malia says.
At the third level, although there are distinct signs of adventuring past, they also start to see doors locked and unforced; traps and barriers intact.
"Why's this not all ransacked, Malia?" the paladin says suspiciously.
"Because our predecessors brought inferior wizards," Malia says.
"Is she doing things?" the berserker says, alarmed. "Is she doing things right now?"
"Aye," the paladin sighs, "I suppose so."
"I thought we were safe from that when we can't see anything horrible happening!"
Malia loops her arm through his. "You're never safe from wizards," she purrs.
Six levels down, the corridor onwards is replaced by an imposing-looking door covered with bas-relief faces, with obviously complex mechanical locks.
"I'm really no expert," the archer mutters, the finger-sized keyhole stuffed with long metal picks and shims, delicately probing with another. "I said we should find a trapsmith—" and lets out the rest of her breath as the lock turns. "There," she says, and looks up at the door as every carven face's eyelids grind open at once, and a noise like the faint shriek of wind begins somewhere in the wall. "Fuck—"
A fusillade of blowpipe darts hurtles out of the door with a plosive huff, and she drops and rolls, shrieking, arms thrown over her face.
"Aaaah! Am I stuck, get them out, check for poison!—"
Her frantic brushing-down of as much of herself as she can manage slows, pauses.
"I'm not stuck?" she hazards, as the paladin catches her hands and hauls her to her feet, and casts a wide-eyed gaze around; at the floor, sprinkled with feathered needles which seem to have curled themselves in the air, like a butterfly proboscis, into a point-hiding spiral.
Malia makes a noise of muffled indignation, and they turn to see her, lunged forward with her arm flung out, interposed as best she could between the archer and the door. "Ow," she says, and flaps her other hand uncoordinately at a single, still correctly-shaped, needle, tip lodged in the seat of her breeches, managing to snag it out before they grab for her.
The archer clutching at one of her shoulders, the paladin the other, Malia brings the dart near her face in a wavering hand and squints at it, sniffs it, and sticks her tongue to make several attempts to lick the blood-smeared tip.
"You'll stick yourself again—" the archer says, trying to wrestle her hand away, and Malia finally, triumphantly manages to dip her head, lick up the needle's length and catch a taste of the tip on her tongue before dropping it. She smacks her lips, appears to roll the smear around in her mouth, then makes a noise that's half-satisfied, half-annoyed, and wholly unintelligible before she slumps over sideways into the archer's chest.
"Fuck—" the archer says.
"There she is," a voice says gently, as Malia's eyelids flutter, and the wizard licks her dry lips and prises her eyes open, finding herself with her head in the archer's lap and a hand stroking her hair.
The wizard makes a noise of general displeasure and rolls onto her side so she can bury her face in warm tunic.
"You've been out for a hour," the archer says. "The berserker says you should drink some water."
Malia makes another displeased noise.
"We swung that door open, and it's just mounted straight onto a wall," the archer tells her. "A decoy, entirely," and Malia jackknifes upright.
"I got stabbed in the buttock for a decoy?"
"Aye; drink some water." The archer pats her on the back. "Arlo has words for you," she adds.
"Stabbed in the buttock!" Malia repeats darkly.
"Aye, well. We thought to carry you upstairs, in case of more traps," the archer says, and Malia slowly tips her head back to regard the height of the ceiling above them. "Strange thing; every one of those downward corridors halves in its dimensions on its way from top to bottom, and we somehow didn't notice it on the way down, fit just the same size within them all the way instead of ever getting to be too big to fit. As if someone made us smaller as we went, at just the pace to keep us from noticing. Turns out we're right tiny, right now."
Malia rubs a hand over her face, and mutters something not quite audible.
