: Re: Plot devices for the climax of an adventure story Setting aside the specifics of my particular plot for a moment, I have need of plot inspiration: how do I set up an escape from a death

@Turnbaugh521

Vote Up Vote Down

Several possibilities come to mind:

One of the trapped characters unknowingly has a mechanism to provide escape. E.g., this might be an amulet containing magic Rusting Water (which when applied to the shackles frees the prisoners). If the trapped character did not know about this, the villain probably would also be unaware. Under stress the character puts various clues together and recognizes the means of escape.
A colleague of the villain betrays the villain. This betrayal might be motivated by secret affection for one of the prisoners, by a desire for revenge, by a loss of trust that the villain will treat colleagues well after gaining the benefit from the prisoners' deaths. This betrayal might only give the prisoners a chance but not a guaranteed escape (perhaps the colleague felt ambivalent or wanted the potential means of escape to be undetectable and/or untraceable to avoid risk of the villain discovering the betrayal). E.g., the traitor might spit on a character and give some cryptic hint about how to use it (e.g., the spittle — which might be slightly oddly colored — combined with two ingredients that the characters happen to have might enable the casting of an unlocking spell).
The spell requires unbound victims and automatically unbinds them as part of its operation. (The villain might have considered the sedation of victims an unimportant detail — or not known about such being part of the traditional ritual — and wished the victims to be conscious for their final defeat.) To add an element of cunning, perhaps one of the prisoners suspects the spell undoes certain types of bindings — e.g., manacles being unknown to that culture — and convinces the jailers to change the bindings (e.g., intentionally being caught trying to pick a lock so the bindings are changed from manacles to ropes).
Luck intervenes. E.g., if the spell of sacrifice generates bolts of electricity, perhaps one heats up a link in a chain and causes the bound character to simultaneously convulse with extraordinary strength that breaks the chain. Perhaps an element of perception/cunning (and daring) might be added by requiring the character to recognize the possibility that such might occur if the chain is placed in a particular location at a particular time. Perhaps the character must convince one of the others to act, possibly before the bolts of electricity appear (requiring the character to recognize the ritual and to know the sequence of events).
A supernatural power intervenes. E.g., a spirit being might appear with a seemingly useless gift — perhaps coming from limitations of interference or a sense of humor. (A cup of Rusting Water could be ironic if the character given the gift had earlier made a statement like "By the Spirit of Zah, I would give my right eye for a cup of water." The character might then think "Now that I am about to die you give me a drink?!") The cunning/perception would be involved in recognizing the use of the gift.
A character realizes that all inanimate matter within the sacrificial area will be destroyed and no one killed (leaving them unshackled and alive but naked) if one of the group is killed within the area before the ritual is completed. If the victims of the ritual were traditionally volunteers or sedated, this aspect might not be revealed in descriptions but only recognized by an understanding of the rules of the magic.
A friend of the characters or an enemy of intruders (or the villain) intervenes. This intervention might only indirectly provide a means of escape (e.g., if the person with the keys to the shackles is killed and falls close enough to the prisoners that the keys can be retrieved with some effort while the fighting continues). An element of cunning/perception might be added in the effort to retrieve the keys. E.g., if bursts of flame periodically come from holes in the Circle of Death and the key-holder happened to land on such a hole but to generate a burst strong enough to lift the body so that it can be pulled closer [perhaps a belt is caught in the Circle] other holes need to be plugged. Even the arrival of the others might be a result of a character's cleverness (e.g., leaving a clue about the villain's intention and location, knowing that they would not be in the area when the angry natives arrived if things went as planned).

If you were willing to forgo the immediate confrontation of the villain, two other possibilities come to mind:

The trap has a secret escape mechanism provided by the designer for the designer's own safety (or the safety of a political leader). This would not be documented in any priestly literature and might not be obvious to anyone. E.g., if a trapdoor could be opened by pressing a sequence of stones, one character might be so interested in interpreting the markings at the location — "Professor, we are about to die and you are still trying to read glyphs!" — as to notice a symbol out of place, improperly oriented, or otherwise not quite right. (After sliding down the escape shoot the characters would then have more opportunity to unshackle themselves.)
The spell of sacrifice actually teleports the victims to the actual death chamber (perhaps separated because its operation is so dangerous that the spell caster would be injured otherwise) but the death chamber is not in working order. (The remains of a previous sacrifice might facilitate loosing the bonds and a means of leaving the death chamber might be found.) Perhaps an element of cunning/perception might be added by having a character recognize that the actual death chamber is elsewhere and probably no longer functional (perhaps a previous attempt at the ritual had failed or the failure of the actual death chamber contributed to the collapse of the previous users' culture) and prepares the others for the transfer (e.g., telling them to take a deep breath and hold it since the death chamber is under water, perhaps translating some glyphs as "send you to Yugarei [the goddess of water and death]").

As Tom's answer states, the mechanism of escape should reflect the nature of the characters (both heroes and villains), but perhaps the above examples might stir some helpful creativity.

(0)

Login to post a comment!