Zix's Run (IC - Zix. Slgarrett only)

[Grognardsw]

Zix experiments with an arrow and finds the water is 10' deep.

[slgarrett]

Zix replaces her arrow, curses the water and realizes she'll have to try to swim for it. She cautiously lowers herself into the underground waterway.

[Grognardsw]

Zix douses the torch and brings it along. She jumps in and swims. It is dark. After 15' she bumps into the wall/ceiling. The channel has become more like a tunnel, with no space between the water surface and ceiling. Zix realizes he'll have to swim under water for the undetermined length of the tunnel!

A reading of the swimming and breath holding rules from the Wilderness Survival Guide, p. 41-43, shows Zix with a swimming endurance of 16 rounds, with a 40'/round swim ability, able to hold breath 4 rounds with the initial deep breath (less so for lesser breaths.)

[slgarrett]

Swimming blind underwater! Sure! Why not?

Zix takes the plunge and tries to feel her way along the ceiling, looking for the next air space.

[Grognardsw]

Zix takes a deep breath, dives down and swims for her life. It is dark, quiet, disorientating, like another world. The elf tries to stay focused and calm. She swims 20'-40'-60', at some point turning right, a quick left, then at 80' comes upon a metal grate in the wall. Beyond it from above is a dim light!

You are in beginning of the third round when you come to the grate. You have 2 rounds of air left - this third round and the fourth round. After which rolls on drowning begin.

[slgarrett]

So the grate is blocking her from getting to air?

[Grognardsw]

Zix sees that beyond the grate is a water-filled shaft upwards to the light. Perhaps it is 10'-15' up. Zix will need to get beyond the grate to the shaft going up. The elf examines the grate. There is a lock, however you are under water (-10% to pick lock.) The grate itself seems rickety.

[slgarrett]

She'll try to pick the lock..

Zix Makes a Thief Skill Check: [1d100] = 32

..successfully!

[Grognardsw]

Zix negotiates the lock, swims through the open grate and up the shaft. At 10' the surface appears.

[slgarrett]

She'll quietly take a look around.

[Grognardsw]

Zix rises from the water, inhaling the air in great gulps. She sees a 20'x20' chamber with a door in the west wall. The door has a pull-ring in the center of it.

[slgarrett]

Is there dry space to walk around on?

[Grognardsw]

Yes, the room is dry. The water-filled shaft rose into this room. You climbed out of the shaft onto the dry floor.

[slgarrett]

Where is the light coming from?

[Grognardsw]

Zix sees the room is well lit with two torches in wall sconces. The 20'x20' chamber has a door in the west wall with a circular pull ring in the center of it.

[slgarrett]

Zix will check the ring for traps...

Zix Makes a Thief Skill Check: [1d100] = 79

.. unsuccessfully.

Then she'll take a torch from the sconce and try pulling the ring.

[Grognardsw]

Zix discovers the pull-ring turns right. The elf experiments with slow turns and on the second complete turn feels the lock click, unlock, and she door opens a half-inch to be pulled the rest of the way.

Beyond is a 30'x20' chamber, with no floor but a 20' deep pit over which are two 4 inch-wide wooden beams running across. The beams are 5' apart from each other. At the bottom of the pit is a web of stringy ropes and lines.

At the other side is a ledge 3' deep which runs the length of the wall. At the north end of the ledge is an open portal into another room, the details of which cannot be seen.

At the other end of one of the beams is a man in tight clothes, a 10' pole in his hands. He smiles, steps forward onto one of the beams, twirls his pole above his head, and cartwheels skillfully on the beam. Quite an acrobat this one, thinks Zix.

[slgarrett]

"What be your game?" asks Zix, suspiciously.

[Grognardsw]

"Your test is to cross the pit by the beam," says the man who Zix suspects to be one of those thief-acrobats. "Mine is to stop you."

He twirls his pole.

[slgarrett]

Zix looses 2 arrows at him from where she stands.

Initiative Roll: [1d6] = 6
Zix Rolls to Attempt to Hit with Her Bow. Base THAC0 19: [1d20+3] = 12+3 = 15
Zix Rolls for Arrow Damage: [1d6] = 1
Zix Rolls to Attempt to Hit with Her Bow. Base THAC0 19: [1d20+3] = 11+3 = 14
Zix Rolls for Arrow Damage: [1d6] = 2