Captain Crooks
Member
THE CHASE TO THE CRYSTAL CITY, CHAPTER 3: THE DOMAIN OF THE UNDER-DOG
Welcome friends, to the next chapter of an adventure beyond time, space and reason! Discover new worlds and meet strange people (and that's just the players).
Having leapt from a goods-train like all good hoboes do, the party traveled through a magic portal to the once-grand temple of Pieter Onne-Dray, where they rapidly discovered a snake infestation of the very worse kind...
After doing their best to eradicate the evil in the heart of the temple, the heroes soon found they were outnumbered, and forced to surrender themselves to the mercy of the evil Misstress - and were rapidly consigned to the pit! Scattered, weaponless, and plunging to certain doom, how will our favourite adventurers get out of this one? All and more will be revealed in the next chapter of the epic tale of the Abbott's Cheese...
DRAMATIS PERSONAE:
Sir Seu Antheus, lvl 6 Paladin of the Holy Order of the Lady of the Lake
Bufo the Black Hood, lvl 4 Neutral Evil Halfling Rogue
Robin, Lawful Good Human, lvl 5 Ranger
Rambulge, Neutral Good Human, lvl 4/4 Fighter/Sorcerer
Bari the White, Chaotic Good Human, lvl 6 Cleric of Jordann
Eggbert Einstein, Neutral Good Gnome, lvl 6 Illusionist
Air whistled past Eggbert's ears as he plummeted down into the pit. With little else to occupy his magnificent brain, he found himself calculating the force of the impact he would have on the ground below, based on his estimate of depth relative to the width of the pit and the structural limitations of the building materials and available construction methods (Magic? No,they fear it too much. Kobolds? Probably. Gigantic rock-tunneling worms? Not to be ruled out). Arriving at a satisfying conclusion, he happily determined that at the present time, having reached terminal velocity, there was no chance of surviving this fall. Then he realised he had forgot to include in his equations the variation in the gravitic pull of this planet, which, by his reckoning, was between 0.005-0.007% less than what he was accustomed to. 'Drat,' he thought to himself, 'now i'll have to start agai-'
________________________________
Bari felt the wind tickling him under his potato sack as he plunged through darkness, his only light coming from the pinprick above them, and the stave he held in his hand. With a strange feeling of detachment from his current circumstances, he examined the stave's triangular head, it's clean, straight edges, the odd inscription - 'ARIA'. He felt his mind reaching out and connecting with something (someone?) once again, only this time, there were no arrows to interrupt. The golden pyramid filled his vision, he felt himself being drawn inside, he felt-
He was inside.
The room was lush, and golden, and bright - it made him blink with the suddeness of it all. He was standing in a beautiful anteroom, and the rushing wind of his fall had been replaced with a light breeze that caressed his worn and weary body. He heard wind chimes in the background. All was serene.
"Oh, hi!"
A voice! It was high and a little nasal, with a slight accent that Bari couldn't quite pick. When Bari turned, he saw a man of slight build with close-cropped brown hair, a thin goatee, wearing a loose v-necked white singlet and white pants. They were really nice pants. Bari admired the pants.
"Welcome to my home. My name is Pieter Onne-Dray, perhaps you've heard of me?"
______________________
Robin could see Rambulge beneath him, his robes flapping as he fell deeper into this accursed pit. He willed himself to fall faster, to catch up to the spellsword so they could... so they could what? Die together? Maybe he could shield the man with his body so that one of them might live? But then what? Starve at the bottom of the pit, or worse, eat the bodies of the fallen and become something worse than men...? It seemed hopeless, no matter what they did.
Also, what was that awful smell?
_______________________
Rambulge farted continuously from the moment he was hurled into the pit. If any of the party had possessed infravision they would have seen him sprout a grotesque tail that fanned out behind him as he dropped through empty space.
_______________________
Eggbert was stuck. Very stuck. Something sticky (sticky, sticky, sticky) had stopped his fall, much to his relief (his equations were lost to time now) but in the process of saving him, he found himself unable to do much more than wriggle thanks to the tangles strands he was caught in. He lay on his back, suspended in mid-air, and stared at the distant pinprick of light that was all he could see. 'Well,' thought the gnome, 'I guess this is better than spikes at least.'
After a few minutes he heard the unmistakable sound of a baby's screaming coming closer at a rapid rate. The web (he was pretty sure by now that he was caught in a web) shuddered as something small hit it, followed by a massive tremor as something even larger landed. Straining his eyes in the gloom, Eggbert made out the figure of Duke struggling in his own section of web as he tried to reach the little girl, who was just about inside-out with fear. The hobo managed to pull her from the entanglement and gave her a grimy thumb to suck. Seconds later Rambulge landed too, followed by Robin, and the web zinged up and down like an overloaded trampoline ("What's a trampoline?").
"Oh..." Rambulge was heard to utter weakly, along with a wet farty sound. Robin grunted as the reality of the situation hit him - they had been spared the sudden death of the pit bottom, but at what cost? Were they now to be prey to whatever made this web?!
"If this web belongs to a spider," the ranger's quiet voice came from the darkness, "then it is the largest spider I have ever encountered. We need to get out of this mess now! Right now!"
With a pinging sound, one of the anchoring strands came loose from the wall, and the web started to sag and swing ever so slightly...
______________________
Seu was bound up and gagged in a dark room. Very dark. Pitch black in fact. His armour had been taken off him, the Yuan-Ti crudely hacking through the straps and buckles where they proved tricky to unfasten, and throwing the pieces in a corner. Since he had been placed in this room, noone had come to see him, and though he supposed it had only been a matter of minutes, time seemed to have abandoned him. Bari's aid prayer had worn off, leaving him tired and broken. What had happened to his friends? Were they alive, or had they died at the bottom of that dreaded pit? What of Yngwie?
Almost as if in answer to his question, he heard a hideous scream, muffled by walls, but still close. Was that Yngwie? Were they already torturing him for the answers they sought? Would he tell them the secret of the portal, and let this evil loose upon the universe...?
Seu willed the elf to stay strong. The screaming continued.
Welcome friends, to the next chapter of an adventure beyond time, space and reason! Discover new worlds and meet strange people (and that's just the players).
Having leapt from a goods-train like all good hoboes do, the party traveled through a magic portal to the once-grand temple of Pieter Onne-Dray, where they rapidly discovered a snake infestation of the very worse kind...
After doing their best to eradicate the evil in the heart of the temple, the heroes soon found they were outnumbered, and forced to surrender themselves to the mercy of the evil Misstress - and were rapidly consigned to the pit! Scattered, weaponless, and plunging to certain doom, how will our favourite adventurers get out of this one? All and more will be revealed in the next chapter of the epic tale of the Abbott's Cheese...
DRAMATIS PERSONAE:
Sir Seu Antheus, lvl 6 Paladin of the Holy Order of the Lady of the Lake
Bufo the Black Hood, lvl 4 Neutral Evil Halfling Rogue
Robin, Lawful Good Human, lvl 5 Ranger
Rambulge, Neutral Good Human, lvl 4/4 Fighter/Sorcerer
Bari the White, Chaotic Good Human, lvl 6 Cleric of Jordann
Eggbert Einstein, Neutral Good Gnome, lvl 6 Illusionist
Air whistled past Eggbert's ears as he plummeted down into the pit. With little else to occupy his magnificent brain, he found himself calculating the force of the impact he would have on the ground below, based on his estimate of depth relative to the width of the pit and the structural limitations of the building materials and available construction methods (Magic? No,they fear it too much. Kobolds? Probably. Gigantic rock-tunneling worms? Not to be ruled out). Arriving at a satisfying conclusion, he happily determined that at the present time, having reached terminal velocity, there was no chance of surviving this fall. Then he realised he had forgot to include in his equations the variation in the gravitic pull of this planet, which, by his reckoning, was between 0.005-0.007% less than what he was accustomed to. 'Drat,' he thought to himself, 'now i'll have to start agai-'
________________________________
Bari felt the wind tickling him under his potato sack as he plunged through darkness, his only light coming from the pinprick above them, and the stave he held in his hand. With a strange feeling of detachment from his current circumstances, he examined the stave's triangular head, it's clean, straight edges, the odd inscription - 'ARIA'. He felt his mind reaching out and connecting with something (someone?) once again, only this time, there were no arrows to interrupt. The golden pyramid filled his vision, he felt himself being drawn inside, he felt-
He was inside.
The room was lush, and golden, and bright - it made him blink with the suddeness of it all. He was standing in a beautiful anteroom, and the rushing wind of his fall had been replaced with a light breeze that caressed his worn and weary body. He heard wind chimes in the background. All was serene.
"Oh, hi!"
A voice! It was high and a little nasal, with a slight accent that Bari couldn't quite pick. When Bari turned, he saw a man of slight build with close-cropped brown hair, a thin goatee, wearing a loose v-necked white singlet and white pants. They were really nice pants. Bari admired the pants.
"Welcome to my home. My name is Pieter Onne-Dray, perhaps you've heard of me?"
______________________
Robin could see Rambulge beneath him, his robes flapping as he fell deeper into this accursed pit. He willed himself to fall faster, to catch up to the spellsword so they could... so they could what? Die together? Maybe he could shield the man with his body so that one of them might live? But then what? Starve at the bottom of the pit, or worse, eat the bodies of the fallen and become something worse than men...? It seemed hopeless, no matter what they did.
Also, what was that awful smell?
_______________________
Rambulge farted continuously from the moment he was hurled into the pit. If any of the party had possessed infravision they would have seen him sprout a grotesque tail that fanned out behind him as he dropped through empty space.
_______________________
Eggbert was stuck. Very stuck. Something sticky (sticky, sticky, sticky) had stopped his fall, much to his relief (his equations were lost to time now) but in the process of saving him, he found himself unable to do much more than wriggle thanks to the tangles strands he was caught in. He lay on his back, suspended in mid-air, and stared at the distant pinprick of light that was all he could see. 'Well,' thought the gnome, 'I guess this is better than spikes at least.'
After a few minutes he heard the unmistakable sound of a baby's screaming coming closer at a rapid rate. The web (he was pretty sure by now that he was caught in a web) shuddered as something small hit it, followed by a massive tremor as something even larger landed. Straining his eyes in the gloom, Eggbert made out the figure of Duke struggling in his own section of web as he tried to reach the little girl, who was just about inside-out with fear. The hobo managed to pull her from the entanglement and gave her a grimy thumb to suck. Seconds later Rambulge landed too, followed by Robin, and the web zinged up and down like an overloaded trampoline ("What's a trampoline?").
"Oh..." Rambulge was heard to utter weakly, along with a wet farty sound. Robin grunted as the reality of the situation hit him - they had been spared the sudden death of the pit bottom, but at what cost? Were they now to be prey to whatever made this web?!
"If this web belongs to a spider," the ranger's quiet voice came from the darkness, "then it is the largest spider I have ever encountered. We need to get out of this mess now! Right now!"
With a pinging sound, one of the anchoring strands came loose from the wall, and the web started to sag and swing ever so slightly...
______________________
Seu was bound up and gagged in a dark room. Very dark. Pitch black in fact. His armour had been taken off him, the Yuan-Ti crudely hacking through the straps and buckles where they proved tricky to unfasten, and throwing the pieces in a corner. Since he had been placed in this room, noone had come to see him, and though he supposed it had only been a matter of minutes, time seemed to have abandoned him. Bari's aid prayer had worn off, leaving him tired and broken. What had happened to his friends? Were they alive, or had they died at the bottom of that dreaded pit? What of Yngwie?
Almost as if in answer to his question, he heard a hideous scream, muffled by walls, but still close. Was that Yngwie? Were they already torturing him for the answers they sought? Would he tell them the secret of the portal, and let this evil loose upon the universe...?
Seu willed the elf to stay strong. The screaming continued.