Difference between revisions of "Road to Kebnegard, Chapter Twenty-Nine"

Revision as of 09:39, 1 April 2007

Scorpions in the Night
Sunday, May 13th, 988 AD

During first watch, seven more scorpions start crawling towards our room. Edward's Glyph kills the first one, Jean-Claude Lightning Bolts another four and Ivan and Dorn kill the last two. Another twelve show up near the end of the same watch and Jean-Claude just Lightning Bolts them all dead. The rest of the night passes uneventfully.

Red-Green Girls, Giant Ambush, and Another Crazy Elf
Monday, May 14th, 988 AD

We heal up in the morning and attempt another rest cycle, but two hours into it, a Fireball explodes in our room. Jean-Claude goes out to check it out and sees two 12-foot skeletons with a ball of fire where their hearts should be. He Cone of Colds them and kills one, but the other one sends another Fireball screaming down the corridor. Jean-Claude, assuming his Fire Cloak will protect him, jumps in the way of the blast and saves everyone in the room. Unfortunately, his cloak malfunctions or something because he's fricassied. Ivan and Wong rush out and finish the last skeleton off. Back in the room, we take stock and find that Shara and Moishe both have also been toasted. Everyone is mostly well off. We rest again.

Near the end of our third watch, which is near the end of our rest cycle, two more 12-foot tall skeletons show up and attempt to Fireball the room. Ivan, sans a protective Fire Cloak because Jean-Claude just does not know how to share, jumps in front of that Fireball and takes full damage. Edward, quickly remembering what his chosen profession is, gets up and turns the two skeletons with the power of his God. We heal up and head out.

At the section where the steps lead down and the dungeon becomes slightly water-logged, a green-haired girl wearing a red dress was sticking out of the steps. Ivan, who was at the head of the party, seemed slightly unnerved by the girl, who introduced herself as Zaraka Kadnika.

Zaraka: Who are you guys, and why are you here?
Nicolae: We're a band of adventurers, exploring the mountain.
Zaraka: Oooh, you're cute. <giggle> Do you want to play with us?
Ogre-Rey: Uhh... "us"?
Zaraka: Yeah, me and my sisters. Do you want to meet them?

Before anyone could answer, she disappeared through the steps and four other girls with the same color hair and dresses showed up along with Zaraka. They were introduced as Uksaka, Yuksaka, Valderanaka, and Nedaka Kadnika, and they all hovered over Nicolae. Anna reflexivley grabbed one of his arms, just in case. [Author's Note: All of the following attributions of speech to the red-green sisters is pure speculation as they looked exactly alike.]

Nedaka: Oooh, he is cute!
Zaraka: Told you.
Uksaka: You should totally come play with us.
Nicolae: Play with you where?
Yuksaka: Oh, we live in Cywoh.
Jean-Claude: Cywoh, where's that?
Ogre-Rey: Is it in the Rus?
Valderanaka: The what? No, it's down below, silly.
Nedaka: You should totally come play with us!
Nicolae: Unfortunately, I can't play. I have to help my friends find a guy in this dungeon.
Yuksaka: Oh, poo. That's no fun at all!
Nicolae: I could finish faster if you guys helped us. We think he's on the other side of the mountain.
Uksaka: Oh no, we can't go over there.
Valderanaka: There's hot rocks that we can't pass.
Zaraka: Hey, do you guys know Orm?
Thalia: How do you know Orm? He said he never came in the mountain.
Nedaka: Oh no, we met him outside.
Yuksaka: Along with those swarthy fellows.
Uksaka: He wouldn't play with us, either.
Yuksaka: No, he wouldn't. But he wasn't as cute as this guy.

All the girls giggle. The party all gives sidelong glances at Nicolae, who sighs.

Nicolae: Okay, seriously. I can't play with you guys right now. I have to help my friends in their mission. You know, if you guys helped us, we could be done faster, and then I could play.
Zaraka: But you could be playing with us right now!
Uksaka: Even those big, ugly guys outside are playing some strange game where they pile a lot of wood in the doorway.
Ogre-Rey: Shit, are they trying to smoke us out?
Anna: We really have to go.

Nicolae sighs again and he begins tugging at the ring that King Erik the Victorious gave him.

Nicolae: I didn't want to do this to you guys because you've been so nice to me and all, but I feel I have to tell you the truth.

He takes the ring off and becomes a big, ole fatty.

Kadnika Sisters: Gasp!
Nicolae: Yeah, I'm not really that pretty. I'd still like to play with you after we find this guy, though, so take my ring. Until I put it back on, I'm going to be like this.

Nicolae hands his ring to one of the sisters.

Zaraka: Well, when you guys are done, come back this way and we'll play.

All the sisters disappear into the walls and floor and we continue on our way.

Ogre-Rey: You know, you're going to have to stay this way until we get to the other side of the dungeon.
Nicolae: This did cross my mind, yes.

We trudged through three rooms that looked exactly the same, they were fifty-by-fifty with the corners cut out, and they each had four 12-foot tall columns or cylinders in them that didn't reach the 20-foot tall ceiling (we fought the fungus creatures in the first of these rooms). In the third room, to our west, an ogre and a Winter Wolf stood; to our north, two ogres and a giant stood, and to our east, another giant. We quickly turned around to in an attempt to fight in a more defensible position and saw that there were trolls and ogres coming out of the eight columns-that-did-not-reach-the-ceiling.

And then we panicked.

Ogre-Rey looked at Thorbjorn's map and said there were secret doors on either side of the small corridor in between the first and second rooms so we all tried to get back there in order to get to these secret doors. Ogre-Rey threw up a Wall of Fire to block the creatures from the first room, but an ogre managed to get through anyway. On the other side, Edward read a Wall of Thorns scroll and put one of those in the first room to block those creatures. Now, we were trapped with an ogre from the first room, and the three ogres and one troll from this room. Edward, Ivan, Anna, Wong, and Thalia all started battling the assorted creatures while Ogre-Rey worked the secret doors. Sickeningly, he realized he'd read the map wrong. There are no secret doors here. There is a corridor on either side of this small ten-by-ten corridor, but it went under where he was currently standing. What he thought were markings for secret doors were actually markings for staircases. He didn't have long for self-abnegation, thought, as suddenly a giant and a flying ogre crashed through the Wall of Thorns. Ogre-Rey took a defensible position and fought them.

Once the giant crashed through, Edward told Thalia to shoot a fire arrow into the Wall of Thorns in order to make it another Wall of Fire that would last longer than Ogre-Rey's. She did so, and nothing else came through it. Ogre-Rey Lightning Bolted the giant dead, but the flying ogre escaped. The ogres in the room were all killed, but that pesky, regenarative Troll stayed around until the Ogre-Rey's Wall of Fire came down because a giant stuck his magical sword in it. Suddenly, there were two more giants, two more ogres, and a Winter Wolf to worry about.

Jean-Claude: Parley!

to be continued...

My God, We Need to Rest Badly
Tuesday, May 15th, 988 AD

After resting, we heal those that can be healed and stone shape the entrance to our little hidey-hole and make it look like an unbroken part of the wall from the outside as best we can. We leave four mouse-sized holes at the bottom so that we don't run out of air and so that Nicolae can go out and scout if need be. We try to rest again.

End Chapter Twenty-Nine