Real-Life Dungeon

There was a path that started across the street from my old house and cut into woods, opening into a marshy area before coming out onto Gilbey Drive, which, itself, led out to Merivale Road. It was a dark, creepy path that was unlit and made you want to stay away after dark.

Over the years, trees were thinned and the path received a top coating of crushed gravel, making the path a bit more inviting. The marsh was cleaned up and made into a bit of a water reservoir. At about the midway point of this path, a concrete and metal water access point was added, providing a sewer drain from Merivale Road to the reservoir.

As the reservoir tunnel stands today.

It was hard, as a teen, to resist checking it out.

My friends and I were into playing the game Dungeons & Dragons, or D&D, as most gamers called it. We started playing it in our early to mid teens and continued into college and university, with some of my friends continuing the game even today.

I stopped playing, for the most part, when DW and I started dating. Not because I had lost interest in the game but because I started doing other things and seemed to never find the time, though I did join in on one or two games in the early 2000s.

But in my teens, when I lived on Leaver Avenue, in the Skyline area, my friends and I were thick into D&D.

With the sewer at the reservoir, we told ourselves it looked like the entrance to a dungeon, something that we needed to explore. All we needed was a light source and some weapons, just in case.

We borrowed a large flashlight from my house. I also had an old hockey stick that I had fashioned into a long sword, complete with a hilt. Because I was the only one equipped, I was told that I'd be leading our group, with my torch in my left hand and my sword in my right.

There was a concrete platform above the mouth of the sewer tunnel. While the mouth was covered with an iron grate, a metal hatch on the platform was unlocked. We opened the hatch and descended.

The flashlight wasn't needed for the first 10 or 20 metres, but once firmly down the tunnel, I switched it on, only to find that the batteries were weak and the torch didn't throw much light. It had been a dry period, weatherwise, and so there was only a trickle of water on the floor of the tunnel and we could easily step on either side of it.

"Would we get to Merivale Road?" one of my friends asked.

"What should we do if we get to a junction with other tunnels?" asked another.

I was just hoping we wouldn't encounter rats or larger rodents. My "sword" had a pointy end but it wasn't sharp, not that there was much room to swing it.

We got about 50 metres down the tunnel when two things happened at once: the flashlight went out and we heard a very loud noise, like rhythmic clanging of metal. The sound was all around us so we had no idea where it was coming from.

There was only one thing to do: run away.

Because it was pitch black in front of me, I turned and headed toward the light from whence we came. I moved at high speed, pushing my two friends out of my way and leading the way out.

So much for experience in playing D&D, when the most heavily armed person would protect the ranks of the weaker—or in our case, the unarmed.

The hatch was opened, when we reached it, which was also surprising, as we had closed it behind us, so that passers-by wouldn't know anyone had gone inside. But apparently, our voices carried out the mouth, alerting some neighbourhood kids to our presence.

They stood at the top, laughing as my friends and I reached the hatch. Apparently, in my haste, I had either stepped on a friend's foot or stabbed at him with my wooden sword, as he had a nick on his ankle that was bleeding, and he said it happened as I bolted past him.

We never went in the tunnel again.

Typically, I was brave and took danger head-on when we played D&D. But when it came to real-life dungeons, I was chickenshit.

I'll share more memories of my old neighbourhood on Thursday. Stay tuned.