The Turn of the Screw

A high-pitched metallic squeak sent a shiver up Fred's spine. A sharp cracking sound near his head alerted him to trouble. A cloud of dust from the roof of the cavern enveloped him, and he instinctively fled toward Astra. Now he understood where the little piles of rock in this room came from; the roof was prone to caving in! Fred relexively cursed from a sharp pain, as if someone had suddenly slapped him hard. He had been hit in the cheek with a cobble from the ceiling. On reaching Astra, he looked back, and his state of mind swung from unthinking anger to unqualified relief. He thanked God that he had moved as quickly as he did. The pile of boulders had grown as a section of the roof above where he had stood had crumbled.

When the rockfall started, Astra had let go of the iron rod. Fred, stunned, stung by the rock, panting for air, and shaking a little from the rush of adrenaline, had grasped it, and without thinking, started to fiddle with it. He rotated the rod counter-clockwise around its long axis, instead of pivoting it from left to right as Astra did. Because Astra had loosened the rod from the wall, it was now able to turn easily, although it appeared to be still attached to something. It appeared to be part of an mechanism of some sort.

1. A trap door was sprung. Two members of the party slid down a ramp into a dark passage.
2. While the boulders were still blocking the entrance to the old Arsenal, a duct had opened up high on the wall. While it appeared to be large enough for anyone to crawl through, it was at the top of the long wall and difficult to reach.

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