After the battle with the 36 bugbears Alexis fixes his hat, dusts off his sleeve and turns to Ethelred.
“Red.”
“A creature passed over the enchanted threshold 8 times. But there were 36 bugbears. How do you figure they did the math?”
Alexis ponders for a moment, working out some possible numbers on his fingers.
“If we hadn’t pushed the hyena-beast through 3 times, would there have been 15 bugbears in here?” Alexis gestures around “If we had pushed the gnoll-monstrosity through one more time would there have been 45 bugbears?”
“And if we walk through the threshold again, what will the number be? One? Nine? 37?”
“You are assuming the trap was to summon more of these creatures. I guess given the other room that makes sense.
It would seem each time we crossed the threshold that at least 4 were summoned. If it was 4 then that mean we summoned 32. But we found 36?
Could be we didn’t count correctly? Could be some killed themselves and we actually summoned 40? Could be long ago someone else crossed the threshold and perished and was eaten?
There is much mystery to the magic of these traps. It must be easier than I imagined to pull creatures, at least evil ones. from other warens.
Would like to find out how to pull food creatures, like tamed horses, from another waren.
what is done is done. if you really want to know let’s cross the threshold some more and see what happens. we could study the magic to learn more of this mystery?!!”
Rask looks at Ethelred quizzically for a movement, and then smiles briefly,.
“Thank you for relieving me of my sword ,” he says quietly to the group.
“Can we talk to the these two first?” He looks to Alexis, abd the glances to the others.
“I’m glad my old sword is… not here, and I’d still rather not kill more bugbears than we have to, and we need to remember our animals.”