"You were going to tell me how you wound up with that coal bucket on your head," the dwarf reminded him.

"A blind wizard smith put it on me at the direction of a cruel but handsome looking man who resembled myself."

"Tell me a little more about this good looking fellow, the bad guy. You can fill me in about yourself a little later."

"He was dressed in silken robes with fur trim, and around his neck was a pendant of a blood-encrusted dagger. The blood was made up of red gemstones. Rubies, maybe," Rassendyll tried to recall.

"That pendant represents the office of the High Blade of Mulmaster. I believe that the tormentor who looks just like you is the tyrant Selfaril himself. Rumors pass occasionally through these dungeon walls, and I recall that he ascended to the throne after killing his own father," the dwarf explained. "Are you sure that you resemble him?"

"Indeed," Rassendyll replied. "If I could remove this mask, I would show you."

"Don't even try," Hoffman advised with a cough. "It is clearly ensorcelled. I'm afraid that not even during my younger years would I have been able to defeat a spell as strong as this one."

"It also seems to have removed all of my own spellcasting abilities."

"You were a spellcaster?" the enfeebled dwarf inquired.

"A mage-in-training," Rassendyll explained. "I had been in training for my entire life. Now, all those years have been wasted."

"Maybe not," Hoffman asserted. "Though the ability to do is desirable, the ability to wield and recognize is also of great benefit."

"I don't understand."

"The enchanted metal of the mask acts as both an insulator and a leeching conductor of your magical abilities and spells. It prevents any spells formed within from being cast out, while conducting the knowledge and innate powers from within, onto its metallic surface, and eventually causing them to dissipate in the air around you. What it doesn't do is prevent you from using the general knowledge you obtained in your studies, such things as recognizing spells that are cast by others or using magically powered artifacts and objects."

Rassendyll chuckled at the dwarf's optimistic observations. "Little good those vestiges of my training will do me here," he said, trying not to sound too despairing in the presence of the obviously dying dwarf.

"Don't be too sure," Hoffman replied, his voice weakening rapidly. "My years of tunneling around here are coming to an end. Originally I had an agreement with the former resident of your cell, that when my time had come I would aid him in his escape from this hateful place."

"What happened to the former resident?" Rassendyll asked.

"He died at the hands of an overly playful guard, whose solution to the boredom of his regular duties was torturing the prisoners. In Kupfer's case, he went a little too far."

"Oh."

"When a person dies in the keep, their body is placed in a sack with a weight and dropped down the same drain that the garbage goes. It leads to an underground canal that eventually empties out into the Moonsea. The dead are bagged and weighted before the dinner service, and then collected on the same trip they retrieve the plates. I've seen it happen many times over, and it runs like clockwork. You can tell when it happens. The guards ring a bell to signal that someone has to bring down a sack and a weight."

"Kupfer and I," Hoffman continued, "hatched a plan that when one of us died, the other would sneak into the cell, and trade places with him in the sack, on the off chance that there was a chance of surviving the underground trip out to sea."

"Was Kupfer a dwarf too?" Rassendyll asked, intrigued by the plan.

"No," Hoffman answered, his voice hardly a whisper, "he was a firbolg."

"Don't you think they would have noticed the difference in the size and weight?"

"Not with this, they wouldn't," the dwarf explained holding out a charm. "Don't touch it. I'm not too sure how long it will last in close contact with that mask of yours. It transmits an aura of disguise so that, for a limited amount of time, the guards will believe that the burden they are carrying is actually the mass of the previous bearer of the charm."

The dwarf carefully placed it back in the pouch beneath his beard, making sure that the young used-to-be mage-in-training saw exactly where he kept it.

"Now quickly return from whence you came," Hoffman instructed, "and just let old abbe Hoffman die in peace. I am old and it is about time. When you hear the bell, wait for the dinner service to begin, and then hightail it on over here. Drag my body back to your cell, being sure to place it in the darkest corner possible. We only have to be able to trick the watch once. Then take my place in the sack, and go with Dumathoin, my son. Perhaps you will be able to find someone who can remove that coal bucket from your head."

Rassendyll was saddened by the weakening condition of his newfound friend.

"Maybe you're being a bit premature about this whole thing," he offered.

The dwarf shook his head slightly.

"Nope," Hoffman replied, starting another frightful coughing fit. "Afraid not. I'll be gone by dinner, and with any luck you'll be gone not too much later."

"Why should I benefit from your death?" a tearful Rassendyll asked.

"Because it would be a darn no good waste of a near perfect escape plan, that's why," Hoffman replied. "Now back to your cell, and let me die in peace."

Rassendyll returned to his cell to meditate on the opportunity that had been presented to him. His thoughts were soon interrupted by the clear tolling of a bell.

It tolls for he, Rassendyll thought to himself, and he steeled himself for the hours ahead.

As Hoffman had indicated, the evening meal came like clockwork, and as soon as he heard the guards move on, he set his plate to the side, and shimmied back down the tunnel.

Hoffman's body had already been placed in the sack, a weight carefully attached to its end.

Carefully, the masked prisoner removed the body of the dwarf from its low-budget shroud, being sure to remove the charm from around its neck. He then pushed the corpse of his recently acquired friend back through the tunnel and up into his cell where he placed it, as instructed, in the shadow-most corner. He then placed his plate back outside of the door, and raced back down the tunnel, pulling the blocking rock back into place behind him, and rushed at breakneck speed back to Hoffman's cell hoping that he would be able to beat the guards there, be disguised by the powers of the old dwarf's charm, deceive the guards, and survive the trip downstream and out to sea.

He realized that all of the odds were long, but knew that the gamble would be worth it because it was the only game in town and he was no longer content to just wait for death.

No sooner did he cinch the sack shut from the inside, than Rassendyll heard the lock to the door of the cell being opened, and two guards coming inside. Rassendyll clutched Hoffman's charm to his bosom, desperately trying to keep it from making contact with the magic-leeching iron mask. Please work long enough to get me out of here, he prayed.

With a heave-ho one of the guards hoisted the burial sack over his shoulder, magically unaware of its newly added bulk.

"Good riddance," said the guard who opened the doors for his corpse-laden associate. "That's one less prisoner to keep an eye on."

"And one less dwarf to blight Mulmaster," the other added, as they ventured further into the keep's bowels, toward the entrance to the sewer.

Rassendyll could smell the stench of sewage getting closer when he heard the guard who was carrying him complain: "Gee, I must be out of shape. This dwarf is getting awfully heavy."

Rassendyll prayed that the spell would last just a little while longer.