Dungeon Foolishness

When last we saw the players, they had been wrestling with their doubts about going back to the dungeon; and here we'll assume that yes, they go back.  As players almost always will.  This once again allows us to insert a little macro-narrative into the player's experience as they travel through the wilderness ... though I don't want to focus on that here, as we've discussed the matter already.  But as we'll come back round to the subject again, in the future, I'll keep this short.

Simply, as the party are heading back for the dungeon, we push the narrative of a future insurrection in the area just a little bit.  As the party travels, they see ahead of them a patrol of thirteen soldiers violently searching an enclosed wagon, or vardo, throwing things out on the road, where the litter of broken pots and furniture can be seen.  A family stands to the side, mother, father, two boys, with one of the boys holding an infant girl; three soldiers with spears pointed at their breasts stand ready.  The soldiers are laughing.  The soldiers are plainly wearing heraldry that give them official status, a point that has to be made clear to the players: get involved and risk crossing the law.  Whether the players intervene and are told to "push off" by the soldiers, or just continue, it should stick in their minds.  As DM, we want to stress the scene as uncommon.  If the players are so foolish as to actually fight the soldiers, be sure that the soldiers scatter if the players kill just three or four of them.  The concern of what might be waiting for the party if they get back should loom large in the players' heads.

Remember: the players have just established a good connection with the town.  They have the ear of a noble; someone they can turn to, someone they have a chance to impress by returning knowledge of the noble's father.  It would be damn stupid for the party to ruin all that for the sake of a few pots and bits of furniture, and the humiliation of one family.  Still, parties DO overreact in such situations.  It makes the game interesting.

With that on their minds, however the scene shapes up, the party gets back to the dungeon.  They return to the place where they suspended their investigations.  Because we need an example for this, let's suppose the players are standing before a large reinforced door that's been barred on this side, and furthermore spiked all around, to ensure the portal is effectively shut against whatever's below.

I've DMed for many years.  It's good to remember that players dwell in a modern technological environment, one in which most of them have never experienced any extensive time underground.  Moreover, they've not experienced a world where electric light is unavailable, or where silence might permeate so intensely as to thicken the air.  Living in a city, like me, there's always some kind of light; there's always some kind of noise.  A rural setting is both darker and quieter, but I've dwelt in such places from time to time and I can reassure the reader that even in a farmyard, there's nearly always some kind of light, as it's needed to locate the outdoor latrine.  It can be very, very quiet, but even in the woods it's possible to lay in one's tent and hear a stream babbling a quarter mile away.

Underground is absolutely devoid of both.  And this has repercussions beyond remembering to employ a torch.  Imagine the acoustic bell that a stone dungeon forms, when cavern walls are replaced with hand-made tunnels and shafts.  As the party deliberates how to get through the door before them, I promise, one thing they won't consider is how much noise it makes for whatever's on the other side.

In such a place, any abrupt noise sounds like a gunshot, even from a great distance.  It's possible that when deliberating on this side of the door, the party could be mistaken for the kobalds that formerly lived here, before the party slaughtered them.  But once that door is touched; once it's adjusted; anything with the slightest intelligence on the other side will know that something's changed; that someone up above is coming.

Yet, to this, the party is certain to be oblivious.  Without hesitation, they'll decide to bash through the door, pulling out sledges they've bought for the purpose ... and for two or three minutes they'll pound on the drum the door makes with abandon.  Imagine the effect.  A mile below, where the snaking tunnels from above meet, some evil entity feels the first blow as though it landed upon it's skin.  It lifts itself, listening, and there comes another blow, and another.  No, the pattern is clearly intelligent in origin.  It can't be mistaken.  Whatever creatures intrude above, they're clearly unafraid.  And foolish.  And so the entity beckons its army of minions — not to investigate, no, as the nature of the invader is made obvious by the sound it makes.  The minions are gathered in a goodly large number.  "Follow the sound," the order is given.  "Kill all you find."  And so tromp a mass of monsters up through the labyrinth, nearly mindless and bloodthirsty, more fearful of the evil entity than of death itself.

None of which the party knows a thing about, of course.  All they've done is knock in a door.  And once they can see past it into a wide, empty, silent cave, the party relaxes.  "Nothing here," they say to themselves, making a joke or two before trudging forward.  Not for a moment do they think anyone knows they're here.