7 - The House of Maze
“Kill it!” “The sticky-pawed fiend.” “Look, there’s another. Don’t let it scurry off.” “You with the metal shoes: stomp that monster!”
A huddle of townsfolk wield an arsenal of peddling signs, rolled rugs, and shovels. With these articles, they pounce and smack the ground in a shaded street under a high cliff, as if engaged in some primitive dance of the earth. Their partners; a small malignancy of white rats.
Many rats are crushed already. You see one escape from the ring of stamping feet. It hurtles toward the base of the cliff, a roll of parchment clasped in its square teeth. You see the rat, just before the smack of a pedestrian shovel flattens it against the street cobbles, disappear through a crack in the foundation of a house.
A very unusual house.
Like other houses on the street it’s exterior is a single façade in the cliff wall. Unlike the others it keeps this face veiled behind a jungle of vine-like workman’s scaffolds. What you can see of it is unpainted, half-finished; splintery wooden beams splayed at weird angles, or with a rubbery sheen and bendiness characterizing their geometry; new stucco mixed with pastel marble.
You see no windows, no main entry, just three or four gaps between the scaffolds and the walls, where man (or rat) might squeeze.
Middlemoss
Named for its apocryphal situation at ‘the middle of The Road’, Middlemoss is the oldest town in memory: living, recorded, even the conversantly-dead. It lies along two walls of a long, narrow canyon, the canyon itself carving a distinct wound in the middle of the yellow-heather heath on which it stretches.
Originally the white marble facades which open onto the wide sandstone terraces were tohmbs. Layer after layer. Tohmb after tohmb. Descending down into the unplumbed trough. Over many Times, the upper tohmbs were repurposed for living space. The town grew, and crept down, though it never plunged beyond at least the echo of refracted sunlight.
Sepulchral is the living space in Middlemoss.
A man wearing shiny leather gloves, a local leech, shuffles toward you from the pedestrians.
“Good Lady of such salubriously-pale ectodermal attire, I spied thy intrigued eye as it followed that kleptomaniacal mouse. “They are the servants of the guild, pulchritudinous duchess. Servants of the guild house, The House of Maze. They take all secret treasures, especially treasure of that splendid cellulose, paper. “The master of the guild perceives more of what transpires in Middlemoss than perhaps any other sapient organism; yet with this data he is cheeseparing and cruel. “Gods’ Geese! That fabricated double-edged wand of your paladin’s is the correct tool for those denizens. If only he can catch them.”
When your Blue Lady hints that, were she to ask a mystery of the guild master, she would ask him about her stepson – then you know your task.
The narrow stucco crack through which you slip keeps going. And going. And twisting. The House of Maze has no wide foyer or entryway, no dining hall, no ballroom with wide windows through which the moon gleams on the tiles. The only spaces are dusty and cobweb-filled cavities between wall skins, or crawlspaces with nails like stalactites; as if the whole house were architected as a hiding space in case of pogrom.
There are many obstacles you will need to traverse.
| Revolving wall. | Floorless corridor with tusk-framework. |
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| Room of bridges. | Arrow signs of impossible directions. |
The key to getting past most of these is to find the secret candle switch.
You will likely decide to turn back at some point. No matter when you decide this, it will be too late. You have become Slaves of the Maze.
Your Lord once dispatched you to a House of Maze. You knew of the guild before you brought your Lady into this den. Did you believe experience would carry you through the twisted passages? Or was your heart pining secretly for a reminder of home? That House was a house of mirrors. A Maze of reflection and refraction, where the light would have dazzled your eyes. But your Lord described to you the secret of walking with eyes shut, and moreover assured your safe return by the wrath he would have settled upon the guild if it had enslaved you. You had no such assurance when you led your Lady into this guild House. This you recall at least: that you must find the Master. There is your only exit. And you know this also: that the Houses of Maze will starve you both of all secrecy and sanity. The other maze had guards. You never had cause to fight the tangible reflections; the guards of that house. But here? The widow of the inn said she found a doppelganger skeleton in this House. If that is the trial, you must never lose sight of your Lady.
Dust Slimes
The dust slimes patrolling the narrow cavities and crawlways of The House are nothing more nor nothing less than piles of animated, non-sentient debris. The debris is held together by ectoplasm suffused with scrap soul fragments.
The slimes come in six varieties: hunchhobble, wriggling mass, green, brownish-green (venomous), dropper, and false puddle. Dropper is the most dangerous kind; keep one eye on the rafters under which you pass.
None of the six dust slime varieties are difficult to destroy. The challenge is finding room to leverage your Steel. The narrow spaces of the House are too cramped for a good swing. If you’re caught by a slime in a narrow space, you must draw it to open ground. Otherwise they slime will envelop you.
There are four ‘safe zones’ where you can cut the slimes with ease.
| The Echo Room This room is thirteen feet long by nine-and-one-half feet wide. The floor is a network of crossbeams densely woven-together, like layered spiderwebs. Every footstep shudders through the walls and floor and ceiling for miles. | Beaker’s Garden The twisted hanging oak that is this circular stone chamber’s only feature thrives despite its sunless domain. The single candle dripping on one of its lower branches shoves its yellow light against the underside of a green canopy. |
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| Doorless Circling Stairway You always seem to enter this room through a broken hole of brick rubble. The stairs run endlessly up and down. To reveal the secret silver-door, travel up twenty-eight steps, down thirty-five, up one, down nine, and up thirty-nine. | The Scriptorum Behind the shelves you hear the scuffling of the rats; and from somewhere far away, a violin’s sorrowful banshee-wail. If you search the shelves, you can also find a set of Scroll-Armor. |
| Scroll-Armor Though rusted like your present suit, the inside of this set of metal plate is lined with vellum, yellow scrolls covered in a dainty mancer’s script. Most ghosts will not trouble you while you wear it. |
“Remember, my Cracked Cup Knight, the secret study door in my Lord’s keep. Bring to your memory’s eye the tall beam carved from the oak trunk, with its little hollows for the blackbirds, and in one of those hollows, the secret toggle that would open the seam in the grey stone wall. “Do you see it? “Do you remember how cramped and small and black was the passage to the study? “I think it was smaller than these halls. “But, at the end of that dark hall, with all its spiders and hot air - the rows and rows of books under the glass skylight. A thousand fields more sunny and golden between the leather bindings. “There will be a sky again too, when we have escaped.”
The Trapped Cankarnis
An un-living thing, like a rotting man’s head atop a living stone statue, salutes you with its too-bright eyes.
“Ohhhhhh. Ohhhhhhhhhh! Oh. “Thou, white oval, settled on thy bed of blue-black hair, thou art sublime as the horned moon where it is reflected off the gloss of an iris. “I should have thy servant too, as thrall, woulds’t he allow it. “But thou shalt be as I am. “Thirsty of thy own blood, searching for it, night after night, in other bodies - it is our fate.”
This creature is a Cankarnis, a ‘vein predator’, a powerful undead. In combat it utilizes its long basalt fingernails to peel iron. It has a wide mouth with strong, clamping teeth, and a tongue like a lamprey that poisons and sucks blood.
This will be a tough fight. The Cankarnis’s limbs and torso are hardened stone, impervious to your Polished Steel Longsword. Fortunately for you the maze-madness that has claimed this monster makes its skull soft. Your only chance is to scalp it.
The Cankarnis cannot be slain permanently with mundane steel. Its body regenerates at moonrise, unless a mancer has intoned the hidden spells over its body from midnight to the crow’s call. But you can ‘kill’ it long enough to escape.
The Stairs of Falling Music Somewhere above you, the rats scurry, the violin moans in a tremolo. On the steps you find some bread crusts and bowls of dirty water.
You feel the maze starving your sanity.
The Skull with the Bullethole Laugh A slingstone the size of an ostrich egg has fractured this strange skull’s cranium, and calcified onto the bone. You swear you hear it laugh.
You feel the maze starving your sanity.
Oldmust
An old man lies on his side in the back of a black stone shelf. His sere hair hangs over his face like a bead curtain, muffling the whimpering, scratchy voice.
“Guests here too, eh? I said, guests here, eh? Eh? “Not ill-mannered, please don’t be ill-mannered. The Master hates ungrateful guests you know. “He’s Master of the Maze, Master of the Puzzle mask, Lord of the Heart-hiding Smile. A shameful ruin of the human shape. Only if you make his throat gush with a sweet crimson river, then the way will open. “No. No! Don’t say I said that. I didn’t. I didn’t! “I said, ‘When in The House, do as the thieves do.’”
Rats in The Time of Dying
When passing on The Road through a deep fen or weald, the wise man never strays from the epitaphs.
Rats live in the wildest parts of The Time of Dying. Rats that grow to the proportions of a bulldog. Highly territorial rats, which hunt and kill whatever they can eat. Including men.
Squeakers - daring men living near the frontier, or crazed men who live beyond it - make their living by catching the rats in deadfalls and guillotine boxes. They sell the pelts of these giants rats.
Although rats in the cities are smaller and less territorial, they are still dangerous. They coalesce into huge packs. Some unscrupulous sorts, with voices that can touch the hearts of beasts, train the rats for crime. Theft is the most common use, but swarms have also been trained for murder, arson, forgery, kidnapping, blackmail, and, puzzlingly, animal cruelty.
The madman said you must think like one of these thieves. What does a thief attend with eye and ear in the House where he lives? Your own eye hasn’t seen the twinkle of gold or sterling. You took that scroll armor. You and your Lady both have eaten of the ubiquitous black bread, and drunk dirty water from the wooden fonts. (Often… How long have you been trapped?) But you know that any slave drinks water and eats bread laid out for guests. Perhaps you must pick some pockets. Could you lower yourself to that? No valorous or noble deed belongs to the burglar. To the pickpocket. It breaks none of your oaths: not to the Necromancer-Gods, not to your Lady, not to That Road, not to Silence. But it isn’t the right thing.
If you settle into the slippers of a thief, several are your modi vivendi.
| Gambling You may stumble onto a cardsharp’s table tucked into a secret dormer of the house. No matter how you try, yours is always a losing hand at this table. You gain neither wealth nor information. | Deception If you took the Sorrowful Father Mask from Birchbark, back in The Cat in the Jar, you can use it here to wear a false identity. Disguising yourself as one of the house thieves is unhelpful, but if you wear the guise of a mad slave, you can sometimes overhear a secret path to a window or skylit hall. Visiting these will help to delay your own madness, though all such windows are grated. | Stalking Oiling your rusted armor will allow you, with careful footsteps, to follow the tracks of house thieves. They inevitably stop by the house kitchens. Here you can grab a bite to eat. |
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Eavesdropping - The Mad and The Crooked
“All things change, nothing perishes.” “D’ou see Jacksmyth’s cot’s empty? Chief sent him off, ‘tcha know, out n’ ‘bout n’ far away. Off t’ the topsiest n’ turviest bit o’ wilds you ne’er set discountin’ eyes on, my lime chum. In the ‘Moss? Not near so near. A hun’erd leagues he’s crept, out past some Holt of Old Souls. ‘Cause Chief wants a true shiner: an Ent-Eye. Special peepers off the-” “Why do so many moths land on me, flit and flutter huge about me, with their too-soft, supple velvet wings like death falling over… Nevermind, it’s just a bit of mustard.” “Ordinary sleep toxin? Easy. Condensed sunflower juice base, a thimble of oxidized copper dust, columbine petals, sulfur, tohmbdust, crushed fireflies. Toss the lot into a pot and let it stew.”
At times the narrow corridors seem to spread, widening to infinity, and you feel as if you stand only on a thin, narrow beam, and the floor screams silently to either side like the final abyss. Sometimes you wonder if your bones are still yours, or a doppelganger’s.
You feel the maze starving your sanity.
The Key to escape is to find the abstraction in Oldmust’s advice. “…do as the thieves do.” And who are the thieves for this House of Maze?
The theft of breadcrusts, the scurrying behind the walls, seems at first random. But carefully observe, and you will be able to spot a numbers pattern; always four, six, or twelve rats. Always at set hours.
Always, when you see them, the fiddler...
The Master of the Puzzle-mask
The fiddle music leads you down three flights of steps, through four doors, behind the twelfth curtain.
The octagonal parlor breathes with an open, thick atmosphere. You feel like a mouse in an oven. The room is carpeted in a thousand rugs, like miniature bearskins. Running long and crooked against two angles of the wall is a ten yard divan, with creamy leather, and two ebony arms carved in the shape of reindeer. Stretched on one end of the sofa, with his arm draped through the reindeer’s antlers, a skinny dwarf basks with his smoking pipe. Through a long leather face-mask he ejects fumigating puffs. His toe taps to the discord of the fiddler.
Said fiddler is an eight-hundred pound, eight-foot tall, eight-foot wide sea cow of a human. His fiddle is even bigger. Its strings run like organ pipes, disappearing into the floor and the dusty ceiling bones.
As you step into the room ahead of your Lady, the Master of the Puzzle-mask’s foot taps an off-beat. The fiddler waves his sapling bow over the strings.
The rugs across the floor shudder.
As battle begins you should direct your focus first to the floor rats. The grey scurriers won’t chase you directly, but each fiddle note alters their patterns. They will shift between triangles, squares, or pentagons. Don’t get caught in the middle of these shapes, or the rats will crawl up your armor and gnaw you. Bites inflict either dizziness, cold sweats, or aging, depending on the current pattern shapes.
While you’re busy stepping between the rats, The Master will air his ‘charming musks’. He wafts curtains of vapor at you from his pipe. These clouds will damage your mazed senses in one of four ways: confusion, despair, hysteria, or terror.
Don’t bother trying to attack The Master right now. Any time you get close he’ll deploy his special musk of amour. Your Steel will refuse to swing. Focus instead on reaching and slaying the fiddler. He’s no slaughterable turkey either. Any time you get close he’ll sweep his fiddle-bow like a scythe. One blow of this club will knock you senseless. By carefully watching the sweeps and the patterns of the rats, you can step close with just enough time for a stab or two with your Steel. And it will take many stabs to discourage this musician.
Once you spill the fiddler’s blood (and there is much to spill) you’ll be freed from the rats. They’ll flee to tunnels behind the long couch.
Meanwhile The Master lays aside his pipe. Up to now the dwarf has tried taking you alive. Now he wags his leatherclad face, draws his deadly sling, and springs upon his clogs.
A lord of dance and the slingshot, The Master will unleash upon you a barrage of acid bullets. Any time you get close he will leap a dozen yards away.
The key is to stand with your back to the great fiddle. Goad The Master into slinging an acid pellet at the giant strings. If one of his acid bullets hits a string, the bassy twang of the string and the scent of burning catgut will temporarily stun his delicate palate. This is your moment.
You can choose to slay or spare The Master of the Puzzle-mask. If you spare his life he will tear off his mask, revealing a face of babyish proportions and skin, and a whimpering mouth.
“Don’t hurt me, I detest pain! “I’ll show you the way out of the house, of course, of course. It’s just through this hallway. You only want to leave, of course. “You came to beg a mystery? Your Stepson? “I’ll tell you. I saw his face once, here, in Middlemoss. Through that very window.”