Dungeon Adventure

"Ow!" says Cassie, who just slammed into Knightblade and is now rubbing her nose. "Say you're Knightblade aren't you? You know, I'm arranging a new museum display on armor throughout history. I'd love to put up some pictures of you as a modern example. Would you be willing to..."

"Cassie I can't believe your manners!" interrupts Tony standing behind her.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't introduce myself," says Cassie, dressed in an impeccable (and well tailored) white dress. "My name is Cassandra, Cassie for short. And this is my very, very proper husband Tony. I'm very pleased to meet you, Mr. Knightblade isn't it?"

"I am not 'Proper'," interjects Tony.

"That's true. He can be very improper. It can be quite fun, if you know what I mean," Cassie says with a smile.

The silver armored figure extends his right hand, "It's just Knightblade. No need to stand on ceremony while standing in sewage."

As he shakes her hand, Cassie notices the armor doesn't have the cold feel she associates with metal, despite its silvery gleam.

"I've just tracked the 'Phantom' to this solid wall." Knightblade turns to face the wall behind him, "I was afraid of this. When he dove through the stage, I thought that perhaps he hadn't used a trapdoor but had instead used some kind of paranormal ability. Perhaps matter phasing or teleportation. Hmmm."

Knightblade stares at the wall for a second then turns to Cassie and Tony.

"Look, unless you have a better idea, I'm going to cut my way through with my sword. First, though, I don't want to have to worry about you two *and* the actress. Can you give me any assurance that you can take care of yourselves? Oh, and later, I'm sure we can work out something on those pictures. As long as they're not improper."

"Great, about the pictures I mean. And they won't be anything but the most proper. Through this wall, you don't say," Cassie says, slinging her purse bandolier style over her shoulder and chest. "hmsgmm.. don't worry about us...symas...we're able to take care of ourselves..." she adds, speaking around the flashlight that she is currently holding in her mouth as she fishes through her pockets.

"Here, why don't I hold that," Tony says, taking the flashlight out of her mouth.

"Ah ha!" Cassie cries triumphantly, bringing out a rubberband and proceeds to unceremoniously pull her hair out of the way into a somewhat neat pony tail. "So much for the hour spent working on this coiffure."

"Before you burn through this wall, can I take a look at it?" she asks. "Maybe there's a secret panel or something? If this 'phantom' teleported through there's got to be some sort of passage on the otherside. We might be able to feel air coming through the cracks in the wall to confirm that. If that's the case, I might be able to do something."

Turning to Tony, she asks, "Tony could you give me a boost up so I can check this wall." As he helps her up, Cassie continues talking to Knightblade.

"If he somehow "phased" through it, were out of luck. You could burn through six feet of solid bedrock and this 'phantom could be anywhere."

"Not," she says stumbling over her words, "that I don't think you couldn't burn through that bedrock. I mean, I didn't mean to imply that you couldn't." She sighs. "Sorry, I'm not making too good of a first impression here am I. Must be the fumes from the sewer. "

"By the way, do you know what those ghosts were when we came in?"

After a few seconds of checking, she hops down.

"Damn, things are never easy. Looks like it's just a solid wall." Hopping down, she adds. "Burn away, I've got no better ideas."

"Well, first, let's see if we do have six feet of bedrock." As Knightblade walks up besides Cassie at the wall, she sees a panel open on his left gauntlet, and with his right hand he takes out about a nine inch long silver cylinder. Standing beside the wall, he studies the mortar between the bricks carefully. He takes a step back, and suddenly the cylinder projects a 'blade' of crackling blue energy. Slowly, he attempts to force the point of the blade through the mortar.

"As far as those ghosts go, I not certain they are directly related to our 'Phantom'," Knightblade says. "Although, I'm not discounting the possibility."

When he begins to slice through the wall, mortar dust flies everywhere. This area of the sewer is pretty dry, and the wall is old. He goes through 12" of wall before hitting something jarring which slows the cut -- what appears to be very solid rock, possibly bedrock.

While Knightblade did recieve heat signatures from both the Phantom and Christine, he realizes that the Phantom's was highly localized in one part of his body, and his limbs themselves were much cooler than normal. As he pulls the blade out from the wall, however, he turns and looks back towards Tony and Cassie, who appear to be debating something quite heatedly. Behind them, though, another figure is descending from the trap door and ladder which produced the couple. When he reaches the bottom, Knightblade can see that he's a tall man, slightly over 6 feet, well built. He's wearing a tan shirt and breeches, brown boots, a wide leather belt with holster, and a dark brown jacket. He's also wearing a brown domino mask. Knightblade has never seen him before, either on the news or in a PRIMUS file.

"You can't consider all that current garbage to be postmodern, just because it was done after the modern stuff, Tony."

"It comes after, doesn't it?" Tony asks. "That's 'post' to me."

"Did you find anything?" Cassie calls out to Knightblade.

Knightblade looks right past Cassie and says, "If I had known we were going to have guests, I would have picked up a bit." He waits for Cassie and Tony to notice the new arrival before continuing, "All right, status report, the 'Phantom' and 'Christine' passed through this SOLID wall." Knightblade points to the dust ladden wall behind him, "About twelve inches past the bricks, I've hit bedrock. Unless, we now have another option, I can try to slice through the wall. That will at least let us know if it's more than two and a half feet deep. If it is, the only thing I can think of is to try to find another way in through the theater."

Knightblade looks as if he just realized something, "Oh, sorry, I'm Knightblade. The beautiful and witty lady beside me is Cassie and this is her husband, Tony, who apparently has some connection to naked construction workers. Don't ask. And you, sir, would be?"

Protector takes one step around the corner and sees the source of the two voices. He recognizes the woman from the theater, and is fairly sure that the man's voice - the voice of the silver armored figure - belongs to her companion at the show. A split second worth of reasoning tells him why. They were in the company of a man who owns a business that caters to paranormals. Not a surprise that the very same people could be found with him socially. His feet planted firmly on the concrete, shoulderwidth apart, he calls out in a steady voice, "Hello there." At the sound of his voice, they both spin quickly to look at him. He holds both hands in front of him, palms facing them, in a gesture of nonagression. He grips the maglight betwen the fingers of his left hand. "My name is Protector. I'm here to help."

"Nice to meet you Protector," says Cassie. "Actually, Tony was a naked construction worker, that's how we met."

"Now wait a minute Cassie," says Tony. "Let's get this straight. I was not naked. I was still wearing underwear. And if I remember correctly, which I always do, it was you who told those museum directors that I was a statue for a Calvin Klein underwear commercial. Plus, I distinctly remember someone slapping my leg saying, 'Isn't it amazing what they can do with plastics these days.'"

The woman smiles up at her husband, adding, "Well, I guess that's true. But, you're still lucky I thought that fast or you would have been out of a job."

Furrowing his brow a bit, Shawn thinks, What is this; a ninth grade field trip? Who are these whackos?

Returning more to the mainstream conversation, Cassie turns to Knightblade, saying, "Go ahead and give it one more good slash. I don't remember any old tunnels in this area from my eccentric architecture class in college, but you never know."

"I did kind of sleep through most of that class," she adds with a smile. With that, she and Tony back up a bit to give Knightblade some more room to move.

Dear Lord, thinks Shawn, stepping forward a bit to see the damage caused by Knightblade, bringing him up to where Cassie and Tony stand. Don't these people realize there was just a *kidnapping*? Shawn sighs quietly as he surveys the situation. He has to admit, he prefered it when he stepped into a room and was met by astonished gasps of "Holey Moley! Its Protector!", rather than questioning stares from well-dressed people in sewers.

"You know, this kind of reminds me of Ghostbusters II," Cassie adds. "Ghosts, phantoms - all we need is a little pink ooze."

"Well," she says, looking down at the sewer garbage that has stained her shoes and nylons, "Maybe we don't need that pink ooze after all. I'm dirty enough as it is. Anyone got an idea why our 'phantom' kidnapped 'Christine?' Think it could be a publicity stunt?"

"It had better not be," Protector says seriously. "They can collect their recognition from the inside of a cell if that's the case. Someone could have been killed in the panic up there." He thinks of Carol and hopes she's alright.

Knightblade transfers the phase sword to his left hand and extends his right to Protector, "Despite the circumstances, it's actually a pleasure. Let's hope we can all live up to your name."

Protector reaches out and takes the armored man's hand. This is more like it, he thinks.

After shaking his hand, Knightblade turns back to the wall and says, "Cassie, to answer your question, I think we're dealing with an obsessive personality disorder. Perhaps due to trauma or mental possession. Our kidnapper is obsessed with reenacting 'Phantom of the Opera'. Which means his victim may be in serious danger."

Knightblade turns to the three people behind him, "You see, the 'Phantom' would never hurt 'Christine', but, right now , that poor girl is probably denying that she is the 'real Christine' to the best of her ability. If she convinces him... Well, let's see if we can't prevent that." Saying that, Knightblade grabs the phase sword in both hands, turns back to the wall, and with a grunt, swings with all of his might.

"Aren't we making a big assumption here," Cassie replies. "True, this 'Phantom' appears to be loony as the pope after drinking Australian beer, but perhaps that's what he wants to believe. If a person wanted to kidnap the actress playing Christine, it would be quite natural for them to dress like the Phantom. It provides the perfect cover to slip back stage. Essentially, this mystery guest is hiding out in the open. And at this particular scene, there are actually two phantoms on stage. One pair of Phantom and Christine are needed to run across the suspended catwalk while a second pair wait on the stage to then run across the stage and down the trap door."

Cassie pauses and adds as if for explanation, "I've seen this play three times. "

Then she continues, "One more Phantom in the wings probably wouldn't be noticed. And in the ensuing confusion, no one would remember much about what the man looked like, just that he was the 'Phantom.' Also, why did this Phantom wait so long? This musical has been playing for more than a year in San Francisco. If the man was obsessed with Christine, why didn't he kidnap her earlier? He obviously had the powers to do it."

"Most stalkers don't immediately attack the object of their obsession," Tony pipes in to add. "They spend a large amount of time building up elaborate fantasies before dragging their subject into it. Perhaps the show is scheduled to close soon and that's why this Phantom made his move?"

Cassie quirks an eyebrow at Tony as if asking, Where the hell did you learn all this?

"The Examiner just did a whole series of stories on stalkers," Tony adds, as if in explanation.

Cassie smiles at Tony and then continues, "Well, whomever this Phantom is, he is either devilishy smart and has something else planned or like Knightblade said - but in more clinical terms - he's wacko."

"I think you both have valid points," Protector adds in a moderating voice. "Tony's assessment is correct, *if* this is a case of a delusional fan, but we don't have enough evidence to make that assumption yet. For all we know, the kidnapper is a professional mercenary and the woman is the daughter of an influential congressman. Lets keep speculation to a minimum and just be ready for anything."

As the dust clears from the tremendous impact (which, thankfully, does not send fifty zillion gallons of water pouring in from the Bay), Protector turns to Cassie, and says, "He said you saw the Phantom go through this wall. Did anything *else* happen?" He explains his question quickly, "You see, a minute after the 'Phanton' made his move, a collection of apparitions appeared in the theater and caused a heck of a panic; actually more like a stampede. What was going on down here?" Again, Shawn thinks involuntarily of Carol and hopes she was alright.

"Actually, I didn't see the Phantom go through the wall. Knightblade did. We arrived down here right after that," Cassie replies. "We did see those apparitions as well. They seemed to eminate from down here. Though I'm inclined to agree with Knightblade that they may or may not be directly caused by the Phantom."

Looking very concerned, Cassie continues, "You say it caused a panic upstairs. Was anyone hurt?" Turning to her husband, she adds, "I hope Uncle Alex is OK. He's so short he sometimes gets caught in the shuffle. Perhaps I should go up and check on him?"

"The Silver Avenger was on the scene, trying to calm things down. I had hoped to find the source of the disturbance down here and give her a hand. If you can get back up there quickly, it might be worth it to see if our help is needed there more than here. The way I came was fairly lengthy."

And, he adds to himself, since Carol was with their friend, it'll let me know if she's alright as well.

PBEM Turns