The Dramatic Dungeon - A Dungeon Core Story

The bard has fulfilled her role flawlessly so far. Clarifying questions about how questions should be worder and other limitations are forthcoming, mainly by the party wizard, Kallion, and the painting bard, Nathan, but she answers them succinctly and confidently while staying within the boundaries laid out in her script.

“A question in this context refers to any sentence or statement worded and phrased so as to garner an informative response. A question cannot consist of multiple sentences for the purposes of this challenge. Every member of the party is entitled to ask all three of their questions, but they must be asked in the same “activation” of the mirror. A mirror image may be incapable of lying intentionally, but other than the “twisted” statements, a mirror image can lie unknowingly if the information it has is inaccurate. A mirror image has access to only the information it gained “in character”, so these questions are limited in scope. A mirror image will be around for a limited time, more or less 15 minutes, that will be displayed visually on the mirror.”

I am quite proud of this challenge. I would have been happy to simply show off the play when I first came up with it, but something about my dungeon instincts would have been unhappy with that. There needs to be a challenge involved, and this one works grand with my current idea. I actually plan to have a rotating set of plays with unique challenges, but there is more setup required for that, and I am focusing most of my efforts on the second floor right now.

That thought can wait for later however. I am sure they will be able to have a peek, assuming that is that they manage to defeat Siegfried. For now, my focus goes back to the delvers and their discussion, just in time to see them collectively nod at Nathan who steps forward and loudly declares his intent.

“We are ready, please activate the mirror.”

“Very well.” Ellie responds. “Please step up to the artifact. It will activate shortly.”

Nathan climbs up onto the stage and, under the watchful eyes of the Investigator and the Magister approaches the large frame.

As soon as he gets within touching distance, there is a swirl of essence and then a swirl of mist to follow it that fills out the frame of the mirror and completely conceals the stage behind the empty frame. Out of sight of the adventurers, the doppelganger that wears Nathan’s face slips onto the stage via a small opening in the rear wall that glides closed behind him seamlessly, and makes his way to the other side of the frame. The mists obscure the others view of him, but his view is blessedly unobstructed by the sprite’s special effects, and he adopts a posture mirroring his counterpart as the mists recede from the “mirror’s” center, lingering on the outskirts.

Simultaneously, the two Nathan’s that are now looking at each other recoil slightly, before the original coughs into his hand and straightens out his tabard, while the mirror goes to fix his uniform buttons before both of them pause.

Ellie chooses this moment to interrupt the byplay by raising her voice.

“Now, Assistant Investigator. What is your first question?”