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Rushboots
Now that the brush was cleared away (thanks to Meilla’s controlled inferno), what they saw was arresting and ominous. A long hallway cut right into the side of the hill, tiled with clever small colored stones depicting a winding red path that extended farther than any of them could see. The little crimson stones almost pleaded “walk on me, for I am the safe way through this hell”. Mosaics and frescos on the walls ahead, too dark to make out perfectly, said this was the horrorful tomb they’d sought.
Simon stared down the hall, into the dark. The others were restless and more than once Broadways seemed to want to stride right in, but he knew better. They all did. This hall was death and one that might go on for a thousand feet or more. And if reputation was to be believed, none of them–not even Simon, who’d kept them safe through the lost temples and hidden gardens of adventure, would be able to spot or disable all the security built into this place.
Giving the old paladin a knowing look and a stern nod, and giving the rest of his comrades a slow and patient glance that said “if I don’t make it back…” Simon kicked the mud from his boots, took a deep and lasting breath (could be poisonous clouds down there) and held it and took off like a rocket, ignoring the entreaties of the red path.
He sprinted, jumped, flipped, pits opened beneath him, spikes, strange grumblings of unseen dangers… he landed a one-handed hand spring and tumbled over a wide stretch of floor giving way behind him and never missed a beat. Skipping, rolling, giving the hallway no discernible expectation of his movements or method. And as he skidded (almost slipping) to a halt at the far end—the light of the opening distant with a tiny Broadways-shaped shadow in the middle—he saw it.
The face was demonic. Green stone, carved as a scream of anger and rage taller than even Tellter was (and she was near seven feet high). Its mouth a deep and lasting black. Simon wondered if it hid something…
System: In the underguilds of the middle-empire, there are two major schools of thought regarding dungeon delving. One, that it should be done only by the most skilled engineers of deadly traps and architecture, requiring years of learning and a phenomenal amount of practical tinkering before one can safely assume themselves ready for some of the dangerous and devious crypts and tombs of the old civilizations.
The other, a younger movement, has a more practical view of it all. The best way to disable a mousetrap is to trip the damn thing—so long as one can avoid the hammer.
For four hundred years, these two factions have fought a silent war of one-upsmanship between each other, cracking open the dark places of the world and bringing back the treasures and idols as a sign of philosophical (and skillful) superiority. Its a friendly rivalry that’s only caused a few deaths and skirmishes.
Rushboots were created by the latter faction. A difficult enchantment to bind to footwear, nevertheless some of their Arcane Tricksters and sympathetic Abjurers made them as a fad for nearly two generations.
Attunement requires escaping (not disabling, but surviving) a trap laid unbidden and unknowingly (on the part of the wearer of the boots) that has the potential to outright kill them. From a DM perspective, it must be a trap they aren’t actively trying to trip that they simply come across that through speed, guile, luck, or might manage to survive—the damage potential, however, being enough to have possibly outright killed them.
Once attuned, so long as the wearer has moved 10ft in one direction prior to tripping a trap, they may spend an Inspiration point to pre-empt the trap’s effect by moving an additional 5ft. in any direction (potentially putting the wearer outside the range, path, area, etc. of the triggered effect). This expenditure of an Inspiration must come with a suitably relavent description of how the wearer jumps, jukes, twists, flips, or otherwise squeeks out an extra bit of momentum, as related by the player. In the case of traps that cause attack rolls (firing darts, as an example) the attacks are at disadvantage should the wearer take their 5ft adjustment.
The wearer may increase the 5ft to 10ft by electing to take an Exhaustion along with the Inspiiration expenditure–representative of the physical exertion and possibly minor injuries associated with such death defying athletics.
Many-Sided Dice 