"Good. I'll take a swipe at the appendage as it attacks."
"You miss."
"Okay, I'll make for the right head."
"The lizard has succeeded in clawing the fire arrow out of its hide. Now it makes a right tongue strike, sticking you, and begins drawing you into its mouth. Will you attack the tongue, or parry the poison claw attacks?"
Klystron considered it. This was a hell of a situation. As a last resort he could use a wish from his wishing sword, but that could be risky, especially with Consuela.
"I will defend myself from the claws, and deal with the mouth when I get to it. I've been swallowed before."
"You parry three swipes. But now you are just inside the mouth and it is exhaling poison gas, and you have lost half your strength." "Oh, all right," said Klystron in disgust. "I'll make a wish on my wishing sword. I'll say "
"Wait a minute!" came the feminine squeal of Zippy the Dwarf. I just spotted him!"
Snapping to attention, Klystron scanned the surrounding mist with the beam of his headlamp and picked out Zippy's red chest waders. "Confirm contact with Zippy the Dwarf. Estimated range ten meters."
"In that case," observed Consuela, "she is right behind the lizard. Your action, Zippy?"
"Three double fireballs from my fireball-shooting tiara." "I duck," said Klystron hastily. Shekondar was just clever enough to generate an accidental hit on him. He sighed in relief and his pulse became leaden. It was going to be fine.
"All fireballs strike in abdominal area. Lizard is now in bad shape and moving slowly."
"I cut myself loose from the tongue."
"Done."
"Two more fireballs in the right head."
"As soon as I'm out of the way, that is."
"Okay. The lizard dies, Congratulations, people. That's ten thousand experience points apiece."
Klystron and Zippy joined up, edging together against the tunnel wall to avoid the imaginary lizard corpse sprawled between them. They shook hands robustly, though Klystron had some reservations about being saved by a female dwarf, "Good going, guys!" shouted Lord Flail, overloading his mike. "Yeah. Way to go," the White Priest added glumly.
"Flail and Priest, give estimated distance from us." Klystron was concerned; those two were the weakest members, even when they were together, and now that one monster had been noisily eliminated others were sure to converge on the area to clean up. "To be frank, I'm not sure," answered the White Priest. "I kind of thought we'd be getting to an intersection near you by now, but apparently not. The layout of these tunnels isn't what I saw on the Plex blueprints."
Klystron winced at this gross violation of game ethics and exchanged exasperated glances with Zippy. "You mean that the secret map you found was incorrect," he said. "Well, don't continue if you're lost. We will proceed in the direction of the Sepulchre of Keldor and hope to meet you there." He and Zippy plugged off down the tunnel.
They wandered for ten minutes looking for one another, and every sixty seconds Liaison had them stop while Shekondar checked for prowling monsters. Shortly, Klystron overheard an exchange between the Priest and the Lord, who apparently had removed their masks to talk.
"Take it easy! It doesn't take very long, you know," said the White Priest. "I'll be right back. Stay here."
"I don't think we should separate, Your Holiness," pleaded Lord Flail. "Not after a melee that'll attract other monsters." Klystron turned up the gain on his mike and shouted, "He's right! Don't split up," in hopes that they would hear it without earphones.
The Priest and Lord Flail conversed inaudibly for a few seconds. Then Flail came back on, having apparently replaced his mask. "Uh, this is to notify Shekondar that the White Priest has gone aside," he said, using the code phrase for taking a leak. Klystron chuckled. A few seconds later came another prowling monster check. Everyone tensed and waited for Shekondar's decree.
"Okay," said Liaison triumphantly, "we've got a monster, Lord Flail, now solo, is attacked by giant sewer rats! There are twelve of them, and they take him by surprise."
"Well listen for his battle cry and try to locate him that way," announced Klystron immediately, and pulled his headphones down to listen. Oddly, Flail had not responded.
"Statement of intent! Move it!" snapped Consuela.
But no statement of intent was forthcoming from Flail. Instead, a ghastly series of sound effects was transmitted through his mike. First came a whoosh of surprise, followed by a short pause, and some confused interjections. Then nothing was heard for a few seconds save ragged panting; and then came a long, loud scream which obliged them to turn down the volume. The screaming continued, swamping the others' efforts to make themselves heard on the line.
Finally Consuela's voice came through, angry and hurt. "You're jumping the gun. The melee hasn't started yet." But Lord Flail was no longer screaming, and the only sounds coming over his mike were an occasional scraping and shuffling mixed with odd squeals that might have been radio trouble.
Klystron and Zippy, headphones down, could hear the screams echoing down the tunnel a second after they came in on the radio. Flail's plan was clear; he was making a god-awful lot of noise to assist the better fighters in tracking him down. A good plan for a character with a fighting level of three and a courage/psychostability index of only eight, but it was a little overdone.
The odd noises continued for several minutes as they tramped toward the scene of the melee, which was in a higher tunnel with a much drier floor.
Ahead of them, Flail's headlamp cast an unmoving yellow blotch on the ceiling. On the fringes of that cone of light moved great swift shadows. Klystron slowed down and drew his sword. Zippy had dropped back several feet. "Making final approach to Flail's location," Klystron mumbled, edging forward, falling unconsciously into the squatting stance of the sabre fighter. At the end of his lamp's beam he could see quickly moving gray and brown fur, and blood.
"At your approach the rats get scared and flee," said Consuela, franticly typing, "though not without persuasion."
He could see them clearly now. They were dogs, like German shepherds, though rather fat, and they had long, long bare tails. And round ears. And pointy quivering snouts. Oh, my God. Several scurried away, some stood their ground staring at his headlamp with beady black and red eyes, and one rushed him. Reacting frantically he split the top of its skull with a blow of the dull sword. The rest of the giant sewer rats turned and ran squealing down the tunnel. Lord Flail was not going anywhere, and what remained of him, as battle-hardened as Klystron was, was too disgusting to look at.
"You are too late," said Consuela. "Lord Flail has been gnawed to death by the giant sewer rats."
"I know," said Klystron. Hearing nothing from Zippy, he turned around to see her sitting there staring dumbly at the corpse. "Uh, request permission to temporarily leave character."
"Granted. What's going on down there?"
"Consuela, this is Fred. It's Steve. Steven has been, uh, I supposed you could say, uh, eaten, by a bunch of"
Fred Fine stepped forward and swept his beam over the brained animal at his feet. "By giant sewer rats."
"Oh, golly!" said Zippy. "What about Virgil? He went off to go tinkle!"
"Jeez," said Fred Fine, and started looking around for footprints. "Liaison, White Priest is solo in unknown location." The twelve giant sewer rats had run right past the White Priest and ignored him. He was standing with his chest waders around his thighs, relieving himself onto a decaying toilet paper core, when the mass of squealing rodent fervor had hurtled out of the fog, parted down the middle to pass around him, rejoined behind, their long tails lashing inquisitively around his knees, and shot onward toward their rendezvous with Lord Flail.