The Neckbeard Wars: Chapter 1
A Horn, a Mystery, and a Coming Crisis
-The Sunken Palace, Subterranean Aqueduct-
-Planet Eberron, Post Great War Era-
"My plan is working out splendidly. Now all I have to do is get past any booby traps that are blocking the path to my treasure."
John Henry Irons, an artificer from House Cannith, was on the verge of changing the world for good with a new kind of magic. He had braved the partially submerged catacombs of the Sunken Palace, slain several aboleths and chuuls in its depths, and was just one step away from his ultimate prize, the fabled Horn of Osius.
He had to get past a few obstacles, first, ones that could end his life if he wasn't careful. It was a good thing, he supposed, that he was an artificer of all jobs, otherwise he wouldn't have any clue of how these traps worked.
The first segment of the gauntlet was a floor of hexagonal stone tiles, with runic symbols on them. Henry guessed that a foot on the red skull symbol would be an instant death.
So he picked a path on the green and blue colored tiles, and although he triggered a few dart traps by remaining on a blue space for longer than 3 seconds, the darts never hit him. Once he was on the other side, he threw a rock onto one of the red spaces, and the tile collapsed, revealing a pitfall into a meat grinder.
"Red means death. Everyone knows that. Who made this booby trap? Not very creative."
Next up was what was presumably a flamethrower trap in a long hall. He had to wait until the dragon-head shaped turret stopped firing its long-ranged blowtorch, and then run through the corridor before the stream of flames started up again.
Henry barely got through the segment, sparks hitting his clothing as he reached the end, but he made it through alive nonetheless, and rolled on the ground to extinguish the small flame on his pants.
"Not too shabby, eh? Of course, I could've been incinerated if I wasn't quick enough on my feet."
The final trap challenge wasn't as simple as the last two. It would be impossible to solve without the right skills.
There was a sign on the wall that said the following:
"Minefield present. Only those with wits can avoid being blown to bits. The key to the safe path across lies in Thri-Kreen literary characters, the Mantis language."
Any one of the cobblestone slabs could have a landmine underneath, and making one wrong movement would be game over. Fortunately, Henry had studied the psychic language of the mantis folk, during his academic lessons in House Cannith, though he was a bit rusty with it.
"Three... four... right... left... footsteps? I can't understand anything else. Maybe take three forward footsteps on the far right side of the stone grid, make one step left, and make an additional three steps forward after that? I really don't want to be blown up... but all adventures have their risks."
The cobblestone grid had ten columns, each composed of six slabs vertically, for a total of sixty spaces to walk on. Against his better judgment, Henry walked three slabs forward on the rightmost column, and the stones all emitted blue light. He then took one step leftwards, and he got another blue light.
Finally, he stepped forwards three more times, and miraculously, got to the finish line without activating a red light and detonating the minefield.
"I knew that bilingual class would pay off! Three plus four equals seven, and you have to go three movements straight forward on the very right side, one movement left, and make three more forward movements, that's seven all together!"
The time had come for Henry's prize. He took the Horn of Osius from the pedestal it was standing on, past the minefield section, and was delighted to find that he was teleported back to the surface world, within close proximity of his spelljamming damselfly ship, the Righteous Indignation.
"I worked alone this time... since other people would've gotten killed in that death gauntlet."
People in Khorvaire and beyond talked about this relic all the time, a magical musical instrument with immense psychic powers, though he didn't know exactly what it could do, and neither did anyone else on Eberron. It was almost as if all important information on it had deliberately been expunged, like whoever last had the Horn in their possession didn't want anyone to know what it was capable of. Despite these potential premonitions, Henry remained optimistic.
And luckily, he knew just the person who could unveil the mysteries of the Horn. He wouldn't blow on it until he knew what its purpose was, and the person he was acquainted with was guaranteed to uncover that purpose.
Henry walked back to his damselfly ship, got in the cockpit, activated the remote spelljamming helm, (which didn't need a living magic user to steer it,) and made his way to the Rock of Bral, the spaceport and frontier city where he would meet with Al Funcoot, the famous archaeologist who could tell how practically any magic item worked.
However, when he took off, he didn't notice the invisible figures clad in power armor, who had been watching him from the moment he entered the Sunken Palace, since the very beginning...