Hero Quest, episode eight
Picking the Lock
Character Sheet
Race: elf
Class: bard
Background: scholar/street urchin
You retrieve your lock picks from your satchel and push them into the lock, feeling for the tumblers, trying to work the ancient mechanism. It’s old and stiff, the tumblers heavy. It is utterly unlike any lock you picked during your time on the streets in Trais. Nothing budges.
You glance over your shoulder. The rattling skeletons are half-way across the chamber, advancing like a slowly rising tide.
“Can you fight?” You ask your brother’s body.
He cuts off his humming but doesn’t answer. You draw your sword anyway and pass it to him. He takes it and holds it awkwardly, as if he’s unsure what it’s for.
The skeletons clamber past the well, step by shambling step, closer and closer. At the far end, more are emerging from the stairwell in an endless procession of rattling, yellowed bones.
You turn back to the lock and struggle with it, straining against the picks. The mechanism within is so sturdy, one of your picks starts to bend. Behind you, the rattling draws closer.
Then, within the lock, something clicks. The lock rotates a few degrees, then jams.
You grunt and reposition your lock picks, feeling for a shift in the mechanism… Something… Anything!
You glance back and the skeletons are upon you.
“Hold them off!” You call.
Your brother’s body moves sluggishly to face them. He swings slowly, but the skeletons are even slower. He catches the one at the front in the rib cage and it shatters, collapsing to the ground. The rest don’t hesitate as they advance. He cuts down another, but there are so many. He withdraws clumsily before their grasping claws.
You turn your attention back to the lock. In a few moments, the skeletons will be all around you.
You manipulate the mechanism, twisting, pushing, pulling, straining with your lock picks and…
Click!
A shower of dust rains down from above as the gate grinds inwards.
“Come o—“
Claws cut into the back of your neck as a bony hand grabs the back of your shirt.
You twist, pulling yourself free and ripping the skeletal arm from its body. It reaches for you. You kick it just below the ribcage and it shatters into dust.
A wall of skeletons bears down on you with chattering teeth. Are they laughing?
Only a few feet away, completely surrounded, your brother’s body fights desperately, slashing at them. The skeletons grab and claw at him from all sides.
Your brother’s spectre floats off to the side listlessly.
Thank you for joining me on this adventure.