Do you wish to enter the Dungeon, The Sandstone Temple Death?

YES NO

James arrived in the Dungeon first. He looked around the room quickly, making sure there were immediate threats. The room was large, about ten meters square. The dark sandstone walls were off-white, and a band of markings or carvings ran around three walls. On those three walls was a wooden door with torches on either side. On the last wall were a much larger door in the center of the wall and a small door off to the left side with a familiar glowing red symbol.

There were torches on either side of the doors, except on the one wall with the larger door. It just had a single torch on the left side of the door.

"This was not what I was expecting," Doris said with a sense of wonder in her voice.

"You can say that again," Barbara replied.

"Do you see anything?" Roland asked, looking around, but no one did.

James wanted everyone to stick together, but there wasn't any reason for them to do so. James looked it over at the oversized door next to the safe room. It had an arched double door with iron pull rings. On the left-hand side of the door was a lit torch. Between the torch and the door were three indentations in the wall.

James examined the indentations and saw that they were all different shapes. At the top was a circle about 5 centimetres in diameter, then a narrow rectangle and the last was a triangle. They were all roughly the same size.

"Anyone know what this means?" Barbara asked on James' left. James looked over and saw she was in front of the Safe Room.

"That is the Safe Room. Please don't open the door otherwise. It will activate. A Safe Room will work only once for each person." James explained while Rocko nodded in agreement.

"I've heard of them," Barbara said, "Just never seen one before."

"They can be convenient if chased by a hungry horde of Orcs," Roland said wistfully.

"I found something here as well," James called out, pointing at the indentations beside the door.

Connie and Barbara looked at the indentations while Doris looked at the walls. James had noticed that the walls were covered with sunk relief but didn't get close enough to examine them. James waited until Doris had finished her examination before interrupting her.

"Doris, did you find anything?" James called to her.

"This looks like a temple to Apep. The God of Entropy, Death, Chaos, Destruction, Disease and Decay. He is a Major God and believes that all things should have a beginning and an end." Doris explained while continuing to examine the wall. "Around the doors, you can see the various aspects of His being."

"So, not a nice god?" James asked.

Doris looked at James with concern, "They are not an evil god, but the opposite of Order, Life, Health and Creation. Everything that has a beginning has an end."

"Unlike these Challenges," Rocko muttered.

James wandered back to the other two sisters, who were finishing up with the indentations on the wall. "Any luck?"

Connie looked up at him and smiled, "We think that since there are three indentations and three doors, each door will provide us with a key that will be used to unlock this door."

"We don't know which doors are related to which indentation. And we don't know if it will matter if we do them out of order," Barbara added.

"Doing them in order may provide you with tools to defeat the next challenge," Roland remarked. When everyone looked at him, he shrugged, "or not."

"Any way to tell which indentation is linked with which door?" James asked, but Connie shrugged.

"What is unique about them?" James asked Barbara.

Barbara looked at them for a moment, "Their shape."

"Okay, then let's check out the doors and see if we can see any shapes around the doors. If we noticed circles around one door in particular, then that one is most likely the first door," James suggested.

'Suggestions?' James asked Rocko.

"You are doing everything I can think of. I would ensure you don't put blinders on and only look for shapes. It may be any number of things." Rocko offered.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

'Like what?' James asked him.

Rocko pointed over at Doris, "Maybe it is related to the theme around the doors. The first door may be the one that Apep has the strongest affinity towards, such as Entropy. Then we may find the next clue to the second door behind that door."

James nodded. It made sense, but he still wanted to examine the doors.

The next hour was uneventful as each team member examined the doors and the sunk relief around the room. Rocko proved very knowledgeable about what some of the symbols meant and interpreted what the images were trying to convey. Onyx contributed by falling asleep in the middle of the room and ignoring everyone else.

After everyone had searched the room, they met in front of the oversized door and had a meal.

"So, no one saw any shapes in the designs around the doors that resembled the indentations?" James asked for the third time.

Connie sighed, "Nothing. I believe it depends on the number of sides the shapes have. It would be the only reason to have different shapes for each door."

Doris nodded, "I don't disagree, but other than counting the number of symbols around the door and then dividing by some magic number, I don't have a clue."

"What about adding the number?" James suggested.

"How do you mean?" Connie asked.

"Well, if you have 287 symbols, you add the two, the eight and the seven, you get seventeen. Then you add the one and seven. You get eight. So the number for that door would be eight." James explained.

"That would lend itself to higher single numbers, and it would be impossible to get a one," Connie explained.

Rocko chuckled, "I thought you had the higher Intelligence?"

'Bite me,' James responded.

"Is there a pattern?" Barbara asked.

"There wouldn't be a pattern," Doris replied, "A pattern means Order, and that would be the opposite of Chaos."

Connie stood up and brushed off her pants, "I disagree. I thought I saw a pattern when looking at that couple of the doors."

Connie showed Doris the pattern she saw in the first door on the right. James watched, and he had to agree. There was a repeating pattern. Wandering over to one of the other doors, James looked for a design. This door just had the same wavy line crested the entire doorway arch. The line moved in random directions and had no symmetry at all.

The next-door he examined had a completely different design. It had what looked like three trees in various stages of growth. The first was small, with few branches, the second was a fully grown tree with leaves and fruit, and the fourth image was the same tree devoid of leaves, barren and lifeless.

"I think I got it!" James shouted.

"Yes, it has to do with the number of different images. It is subtle as I see variations of the same image, but they represent the same thing." Connie announced, clapping her hands. Onyx looked up from her nap and barked, adding her support.

Roland stood up, "So, you figured out the order."

"You knew!" Connie accused him.

"No, I did not. I hoped you would figure it out. Which you did," Roland responded with a disarming smile.

"Ya, right," Barbara muttered.

James looked at Doris, "What can you tell us about this door. If it symbolizes what we will experience on the other side, it may help us be prepared."

Doris looked at the door for a few minutes, refreshing herself on the different images and symbols.

"Death," was her final answer.

'What can you tell me about common knowledge?' James asked Rocko.

Rocko pondered the question for a moment, "The sisters are doing a good job of keeping you informed. You only need to be aware that if this Dungeon is openly dedicated to Apep, you can expect some unpleasantness."

'How do you mean?' James asked.

Rocko took a deep breath, "Think about it. Death, Pestilence, Disease, Entropy, Decay. Do those sound like a pleasant experience?"

James had to agree, but it was hard to get worse considering he swam in a sewer.

The door they had decided that should be their first door was the one with the single wavy line crested the arched doorway. James took the lead and grabbed the iron ring door handle. He opened the door and looked in, giving it a twist and a pull.

The passage was a meter across and two meters high. It descended with a steep set of steps that sent down about five meters before levelling off. James went down first with Onyx right behind him. Doris, Connie and Barbara followed, with Roland coming behind the group. The walls were further apart at the bottom than at the top. James ignored the optical illusion and moved carefully down the narrow corridor. He couldn't sense any traps or tracks on the sandy stone floor.

"It's a little tight down here," Connie muttered.

Rocko looked at James pleadingly, but James shook his head. However, he couldn't hide the grin.

The hallway was long, and after thirty or forty meters, it opened to two small alcoves, one on each side of the hallway. The alcoves were the same, with a face embossed on the stone wall. It had an enlarged open mouth which disappeared into the stone wall.

"I got a bad feeling about this," James muttered.

'What's that symbol," Doris asked, pointing at a mark on one of the face's foreheads.

James checked, and the mark was on both faces. "Not sure. They look like beetles or something."

"Those aren't beetles," Connie said quietly as the sound of a hundred tiny insect feet scurrying across stone could be heard in the walls. "Those are scarabs!"

"Fall back!" James shouted as black scarabs began to pour out of the mouth of the stone faces. At first, a few scarabs came out, but soon, they flowed out of the mouth like water and piled on the floor.

James looked behind him as the pile of black scarabs grew.

James looked behind him as the pile of black scarabs grew. Taking a moment, he activated the Inspect Skill.

Name: ? Race: Death Scarab (Swarm) Level: 6 Damage Range: 1d2 +4 (Ignores AR) Damage Type: Piercing Armour Rating: 12 Special: Melee - Bite, Damage dealt to target requires 3x more healing to heal or 3x as long. Low Health

"Death Scarabs," James shouted to the team.

"That doesn't sound so bad," Doris joked.

"We need to get out of here," Roland shouted back.

"No shit," James looked back and could still see the mass of scarabs piling up. Already they filled more than halfway to the ceiling.

When James arrived at the bottom of the stairs, Roland slammed his shoulder into the door.

Roland looked back at them, "It's sealed."