Brian Pratt - The unsuspecting mage

He does a thorough inspection of the wall and fails to find anything that looks like it could be a trigger to open the secret door. He then moves to the adjoining walls, searching for some trigger or other mechanism that could possibly open a secret door.

Miko looks around as well and notices a design on the floor, partially hidden by the accumulated dust. “James, look at this,” he says as he points it out to him.

James comes over and kneels down, taking a closer look. Brushing away the dust he discovers that it is a square shaped stone engraved with a design of a circle within a circle within a circle. He presses on it but nothing happens. Getting to his feet, he has Miko step on it while he goes over and pushes on the wall but nothing happens. “Maybe there are others we need to release first,” he theorizes. “Look around for any more similar designs.”

They look around and Miko discovers another one on the wall about midway up the stairs. This one is just a single circle. Excited, James says, “If there is one with three circles and another with just the one, then there may be another with two circles. And hopefully by pressing them in the correct order, it’ll enable us to open the secret door.”

“Makes sense,” agrees Miko.

They continue to look but fail to find two circles, one in the other. “I don’t think there is one here, James,” Miko says after they’ve searched for a while.

“There has to be,” he insists. “It wouldn’t make any sense otherwise.” He continues to look around, getting on his hands and knees to closely examine the floor inch by inch.

“But we’ve examined all the walls and floor over and over,” Miko goes on. “There is no such design here.”

Stopping and standing up suddenly, James looks at Miko, “You’re right. We have searched all the walls and the floor, but we haven’t looked at the ceiling.” He turns his gaze up toward the ceiling and sure enough, there is the design with two circles, one inside the other. “I knew it!” he exclaims excitedly.

“Miko, go and press firmly on the single circle,” James tells him.

Miko cautiously makes his way up the stairs and presses the circle, “Now what?”

“Toss the piece of the door jamb that I broke off down to me,” he replies.

Miko looks around and finds the broken door jamb, he tosses it down to James.

Catching it, James raises it up toward the double circle in the ceiling. Holding it steady, he puts the end against the design and presses firmly. Miko by this time has made it back down the stairs.

James lowers the broken door jamb and lets it drop to the floor. He walks over to the triple circle on the floor and presses firmly on it with his foot. Suddenly, a section of the wall begins to swing inward, creating a three foot wide by five foot tall opening.

He brings the orb close and discovers the opened door has revealed a narrow passage which looks to have been carved out of the mountain.

As James stands there looking down the passage, the door slowly begins to swing closed. Finding no way to keep it open, he backs out of the way and lets the door close. Turning back to Miko, he says, “Let’s go back up and get our things from the horses.”

“You mean we’re leaving them up there?” Miko asks incredulously.

“Our way lies through there,” James says, pointing toward the secret door. “And I seriously doubt if the horses will be able to make it. Besides, can you think of a way to get them safely down that broken flight of steps?”

“No, I can’t,” Miko admits as he glances over to the steps in question.

“Okay then, so let’s go and get what we are really going to need and hide the rest, just in case we manage to come back this way again.” He walks over and carefully climbs back up the stairs, trying to place his weight evenly so as not to cause another step to break. Miko waits until he has made it to the top before following.

They walk back through the hallway, past the corpse and through the front door. Around back they find their horses and mule just where they had left them. James grabs the jackets, throwing Miko’s over to him who grabs it and puts it on. They take everything off the horses and mules, tying them loosely so that if they don’t return, they will be able to break free.

In several trips, they manage to haul all their equipment and the tack down into the little room at the bottom of the stairs, secreting it under the steps. As they are bringing in the last load, James sees the supply caravan they had passed the day before trundling past along the road on its way to the refugee camp.

He stashes the last of the equipment under the steps and says, “Unless someone comes down here, our stuff should be safe.”

Miko nods agreement, “It’s too bad we have to lose the horses.”

“I know, but we have money to buy new ones and we’re pressed for time,” he says. Taking out his traveling scribe case, he places it on the stairs and opens it.

“You’re not taking that with us are you?” Miko asks.

“No,” James responds, “I just want to take the notes I have written.” He removes the note filled parchment and rolls them into a tight roll, placing them in his backpack. Closing the case, he places it with the rest of the equipment under the steps. He turns to Miko and asks, “Did you get the money?”

Miko pats one of the bags he has over his shoulder and says, “Right here.”

“Okay, looks like we’re ready,” he says. “Go push the circle by the stairs and we’ll get going.”

Miko climbs up the stairs and pushes the circle on the wall, James again uses his makeshift stick and pushes the double circle on the ceiling, then goes over and steps on the triple circle on the floor. The secret door swings open and James takes the lead, holding the glowing orb in his hand as he passes through the doorway and into the tunnel.

The tunnel they find themselves in is quite narrow, wide enough to accommodate them side by side and barely tall enough to allow them to pass without ducking. Once through the door, it begins to swing closed again until finally shutting tight. The orb gives them sufficient light to see, illuminating the tunnel as it continues deeper into the mountain.

James hands his things to Miko and then begins searching the area near the door in an attempt to find the hidden mechanism that will allow them to reopen the door from this side. After several minutes of fruitless searching, he gives up, unable to locate the trigger mechanism. “Let’s hope that we don’t need to come back this way in a hurry,” he says to Miko while he takes his things back.

“Yeah,” agrees Miko nervously, “let’s hope that.”

When his packs are situated properly about his person, James again takes the lead and heads off down the tunnel. Ten feet or so from the door, they come across a bundle of torches. Miko removes his knife and cuts the ties holding the bundle together. Taking several of the torches, he places them in one of his bags.

James looks at him questioningly and Miko just shrugs and says, “You never know.”

Nodding his approval, James turns and leads them further into the mountain. The tunnel continues for some time before opening onto a subterranean cavern. The orb’s light reveals many stalactites and stalagmites, the play of shadows as they pass through gives the cavern an eerie feeling. From all around comes the steady drip, drip, drip of water coming off the stalactites.

“Wow,” Miko says, in awe of the extraordinary rock formations revealed by the orb’s light. After a brief pause to marvel at the rock formations, they continue on. The orb’s light reveals further marvelous, breath taking sights as they wend their way through the cavern, some being quite brilliant with many contrasting colors. Miko stops briefly to touch one.