The tale of the teleporting treasure

We adventurers know the dungeons to be full of traps of any sort, but sometimes they take so queer a form that even the most experienced traveller could never imagine; I passed alive through many of them, but this one I'm going to talk about, though it was mostly harmless, still amazed me. I was exploring the laboratory of an evil wizard (in shape, it was very similar to the well-known Privateer's Hold), and I entered a room with two diagonal dividing walls. Knowing that behind them usually lurked monsters, I approached cautiously the central opening; strangely enough, I couldn't hear any noise, and my pointed-ears did not betray me, for the room was, in fact, empty, except for a treasure that lay, seemingly forgotten, on the floor. At first I had noticed it, but thinking it was guarded by some unknown sentinel, I had preferred to explore fully the chamber; now that I was sure there was nobody around, I could collect my reward. It looked like a bag, with bottles and phials in it.

"Well" I thought, "some ingredients for my potions...they will come in handy. Maybe I'll find the "ichor" I was looking for too". I grasped it with my hand and... there was an orc standing in front of me. He stared at me in wonder for a long moment (and so did I), then he tried to hit me with a quick slash of his scimitar. I reacted instinctively and rose my Dai-Katana to parry his blow; then it was my turn to attack, and my sword can be as lethal as a dragon's breath. With but a couple of strikes the orc fell dead to the ground.

Now I had time to think. I turned around and examined the place I was in, it was a small room, with a low ceiling and stone walls, and only an exit. I opened the door and found myself on a slope; I followed it downwards and soon I realised I was in the caverns beneath the great hall of the dungeon. After many a fight, I succeeded in reaching once again the chamber with the potion bag. "Now you will be mine" I said, coveting the item that a strange fate had prevented me to take. I reached for it with my hand... and I found myself in the same room as before, with the only difference that now there was an orc corpse instead of a live one (and the stench was worse).

"It has been that accursed thing, then!" I yelled. "It was nothing but a trap! And it caught me like a blundering novice... twice!" And it was so that I learned another lesson: you'd better be careful with treasure, moreover if they are unguarded...

* Writer's Note: I read a similar story, regarding a barbarian who was not only teleported away as soon as he touched the treasure, but found himself completely naked too, with all his clothes and armour in his inventory!!! *