“Ooh,” said George. “That is very pretty.” Once they had left the library the walked down the corridor to the west. There was a door at the end of the hall. After checking for traps they opened another door and found themselves in a shorter hallway.
“There is a room to the right,” Johanna had said. The corridor branched to the left.
When they opened the door, it was dark at first. Then a light coming from the furthest corner of the room caught their eye. After making sure there were no monsters, the room was bare of any furniture or other things they could lurk behind, they entered the room to investigate further.
“Did you feel something?” Bard asked Johanna.
“Like what?” she asked.
“It was a weird feeling,” he answered. “It felt like I had blacked out.”
The source of the light was a set of crystals embedded in the wall. There was no distinct pattern to it, just a display of a variety of reflecting colors.
“Though it is pretty,” Balon said, “there is nothing magical to it.”
“There is no value, either,” said Britt. “This is common ordinary crystal, something I can mine in any cave. Come on, George. You have the map, lead the way.”
They left the room and followed the hallway that led away from it.
After the had travel a hundred yards, George stopped and looked at his map. Something did not look right. Maybe Joban and Stephan’s map of the stronghold was not accurate. He checked his compass.
“Sorry guys, I must have went the wrong way.”
“What do you mean?” Britt asked.
“We should be going south and we are going north.”
“Do not play games with us!” Britt thundered. “You know that the only direction the hallway went after we left that room was south. We started walking down the hallway as soon as we got out of the room!”
“Come see the compass for yourself,” said George, miffed. It was one thing to get yelled at when he joked around. It was another when he was totally serious.
Britt brushed passed the others and grabbed the compass out of George’s hand. “We are going north. Maybe we just turned a corner and did not notice.” He put his hand on George’s shoulder. “I am sorry, George. Let’s head back the way we came.” They turned around and headed back down the hallway.
“There is a room to the right,” Bard said.
“That is funny that we did not see this before.”
“I believe we have been here before,” George said, looking at the crystal decoration on the wall.
Once again Bard felt that strange sensation again. This time he did not say anything.
“Maybe we needed to go north in the first place,” Britt said. “George, turn left when we leave the room.”
“There is a room to the left” Massacharamar said.
“I cannot believe it,” Britt said hitting his head with the hand. They were once again standing in the room with the crystal decoration on the wall. “It is not funny!” he said as Balon started laughing.
“I think I know what is going on. Come on everybody. Step outside of the room.”
Once they were outside, he said, “Britt go back in the room, wait a minute and come back out.
The group waited and in a minute they heard Britt yell in the northern part of the corridor. “What is this some type of joke! Where are you guys hiding.”
“Follow me,” said Balon. “They walked north up the corridor and soon saw Britt standing outside a room looking miffed.
“Sorry if you thought we were pulling a joke,” the magic user said. “There are two rooms that are identical. I thought it was me, but I felt something as we teleported from one room to the other.”
“I had felt something too,” said Bard. “What is the purpose of these rooms.”
“They most likely were used to confuse the unwanted intruders. They would get confused by entering one room and teleporting to the other and get lost. George see the door of the northern room has a B on it. This is the room on the map.”
“I think that I saw an A on the other door.”
“At least we know where we are now.”
They went back to the first teleporting room. George scratched his head. “Now which way are we heading, north or south?”
Britt playfully threw a punch at the thief.

“Well, that was a bit boring,” George said as they stood once again in front of the first teleporting room.
“I agree,” Britt said.
There was nothing interesting down the southern corridor. They first came to a room that was full of soot and black dust.
“This was probably used for the room across the hall,” Bard said. “I think this was used as a blacksmith shop.” It reminded him of Joe Smith’s shop in Antares. It contained an anvil, bellows, black smith tools and irons. “The only thing there are no chimneys.How were the fumes vented from this room?”
Johanna pointed to the ceiling. There were holes in the walls and a wind whistled through them. “That is how the fumes were vented,” she said.
The one interesting room was one that had a corridor in it.
“Maybe it is a maze,” Geroge said as they followed its winding path, “or maybe a dead end,” when they got to the center of the room.
“Or maybe it is a trap!” Britt exclaimed.
The walls of the center of the room were covered in spider webs. The skeletal remains still hung there. “I guess these are not your ordinary daddy long legs spiders,” Bard said, as he looked at the remains of a deer.
“It is best to get out of here,” Britt said. “Giant spiders usually hunt in packs.”
“Before we go,” said George, “you might want this.” He handed Britt a bag containing some silver pieces.
“I guess this is the reason why we have not run into any orcs or goblins yet,” Bard said, picking up a goblin ax and an orc knife.
Massacharamar picked up a longsword and looked at it. “This looks like it is elven made,” she said quietly. She could not help but wonder if an elf had fallen victim to a spider attack.

“Which way do we go now?” Massacharamar asked, standing in front of the first teleporting room.
George looked at the map. “There are a couple of rooms to the north of the second teleporting room. Then it seems that is the most northern part of the fortress.”
“We still have not even checked the west side yet,” Bard said.
“At least we have plenty of food, thanks to Massacharamar.”
The elf had cooked a delicious dinner of snake. Knowing which parts were edible, she removed all of the poison sacs.
However, George being the jokester that he was, pretended to keel over after the first bite. He did not fool anybody. He even went back for seconds.
They found themselves in some sort of tool room. Britt went to look at a box of mining picks. He picked up one and but it back down. “Totally useless,” he grunted as the one he put down crumbled into runst. “Still there may be something that we can use.”
“These are in perfect shape,” Massacharamar said inspecting a box of arrows. She picked up several and put them in her quiver. “Mine are almost gone.”
Bard saw a length of rope lying near the far wall of the room. Even thought it was about fifty feet long, he recognized the weave. It was light enough to carry, maybe about ten or fifteen pounds put strong enough to hold two hundred pounds. This would come in handy if they had to scale a wall. He walked toward it. Britt spied more mining tools lying towards the rope and followed Bard.
George, who was examing some hacksaws glacnced up. To his right and to the front he saw, hiden by cob webs a lever. He glaced at the ceiling and saw the bottom of what looked like a cage.
“Look out!” he yelled. “It is a…”
Too late, a grate with vertical bars dropped down to the floor.
“Trap!” George finished.
Bard and Britt were trapped on the other side of the grate. Balon had also recognized the trap and pulled Johanna to safety before the grate fell on top of her.
“George, thanks for the warning,” Britt growled.
George looked pale. “This trap has no wires that I can see. This one is set underground. When you stepped on one of those rocks, it set off a spring. The spring tripped a wire and the lever released the trap.” He shuddered thinking of what could have happened to Johanna.
“That is okay, son,” the dwarf answered.
“No, it is not,” the thief answered. “I should have seen the lever.”
Johanna went over to the lever and looked at it. “There is no way you could have seen this, George. It is totally covered with webs. It is also possible that the wire just got rusty and broke.”
Still George looked pale. “But you almost got killed. It would have been my fault.”
Johanna smiled, secretly. “I actually was practicing a spell that was putting a force field around me. I had succeded in having one over my head, thought not the rest of my bpdy. That is why Balon was able to pull me out of the way.
“You mean to say…”
“If Balon had not pulled me out of the way, the grate would have stopped five feet over my head.”
“I thought I was saving your life,” Balon said.
“You did and I am very greatful for it. Now we must see what we can do for these two. Now remember, George, do not feed the monkeys.”
“Hey,” he said, back in a joking mood. “That was what I was going to say.”
Bard had his hands on the the bars, examining them. “We might be able to pull on these and break them.” However, when he pulled on them, even though they moved slightly, they did not give.
“Tie the rope around one,” Britt said. “It might give them more leverage.”
Geroge ran back to the hacksaws he was looking at. Two were still in very good condition.
With each person taking turns sawing and using the rope to pull on the bars, they were able to create an openin big enough for Bard and Britt to crawl through.

“I think this takes care of the western part of Joban’s and Stephan’s humble abode,” Britt said. After sawing their way out of the cage trap, they needed to rest. Eating his iron preserved rations, George was looking over Stephan and Joban’s map. “I think we missed two rooms,” he said.
“What do you mean,” Britt asked.
George pointed to the map. “There is a hallway from the kitchen. I do not think we went down that one.”
“Isn’t that the hallway that led to that maze room.”
“No, actually this is the hallway, said pointing. “Remember how we followed this one from the library and came to the one with the teleporting rooms,” George pointed to another hallway. “This is the hallway that led us to the maze room and we are here,” he said, pointing again at the map.
“George,” Britt said, clapping him on his back, “I do not know what I would do without you. I think I could get hopelessly lost,” he added in a hearty laugh.

“This would be great if the elders ever set this place up as a tourist attraction,” Balon said as they stood in a large room filled with benches. George had walked over to what looked like a stage and climbed upon it.
“Does anybody want to hear a joke?” he yelled.
“Boo! Get off the stage!” Britt said, pretending to throw fruit at him.
George got off the stage and walked to the group. “Were Stephan and Joban entertainers.”
“It was rumored that Joban did demonstrate his magical abilities for an audience,” Balon said.
“Do you mean to say that he entertained here?” Massacharamar asked. “It is had to imagine with them not liking people.”
“According to lengend, he did most of his demonstrations in taverns,” Balon said. “Maybe he just entertained here for his laborers. Then again, maybe they entertained for him and Stephan.”
“The door to the other room is over here,” said Johanna.
“It seems that this is the only entrance,” George said looking at the map. “I ws thinking that there was a secret door somewhere.”

“Where are we?” George asked. “Is this some sort of tropical rainforest.”
“No this is where they, well most likely where Joban, kept his garden.”
Expecting to find the ground under their feet stone, like the rest of the upper level, Massacharamar was surprised to find out that the surface was soft, like grass. She reached down and tounched the carpet-like growth.
“This is mold,” she said.
“I think it covers the entire floor of this room,” Johanna said. Sure enough everywhere they stepped, the mold made a soft carpeting.