You have decided that the beardless beard is supposed to be bad, and you crack the picture with your mightiest punch. This also cracks your leg a bit, but you're sure you'll heal. This seems to be the right response, and the beards gesture to you to follow them. You walk up the stairs for the first time, and you pass many strange workshops and objects. One dwarf sits on a pile of stone mugs, making more with no regard for his surroundings. A patch of dirt grows many of the familiar plants from the cavern, except these ones are bigger and somehow more vivid. A beard pulls thin blue strands out of a rock with the disposition of a master, not breaking a single thread. A pump creaks and channels water to parts unknown. Everywhere is noise and activity, and you can scarcely believe such a place exists.
Suddenly, a crack of light beams out of the wall. You recoil as your eyes adjust to yet more brightness, but eventually, you can see again. This wall is boarded up, and looks like it's been untouched for years. From far in the distance, you hear a regular pounding.
"For twenty years, the goblins have sieged us. We have spent two decades crafting baubles and riches to trade once they leave. You are our last hope. If you fail, our fortress will drown under waves of blood and mugs."
You do not understand the purple-robed beard, who seems to have regained consciousness, but he sounds like he'll burst into tears any second. There are certainly a lot of mugs around, more than a hundred for every beard you've seen so far. Rooms are supported by pillars of stacked mugs. Kittens dart in an out of a pile of mugs, wedging themselves through little tunnels inside. Some mugs are encrusted with shiny bits, some mugs are made of metal. One mug is exceptionally purple and makes a rapid clicking noise, although none of the beards can hear it. There seem to be a lot of injured kittens nearby. You make a note to avoid it. Another mug appears to have a beard's face stitched onto it, frozen in shock. The mugs are uncountable.
A grease-covered beard throws an ancient lever, and the wall in front of you begins to bend downwards, groaning and creaking before touching the floor with a sigh. Behind it is another wall, which does the same, and another, but the last one pauses for just a second before groaning down and flooding the hallway with blinding, intense light. Even filtered through the cracks in four walls, it hurt your eyes, and now you are utterly blinded. The curtain of sheer white fades a bit, but all you can make out is two vague figures and a large horned monster (smaller than you though). You desperately hope you're supposed to kill them as you dazedly rush through the tunnel...
Author
Topic: You are a Forgotten Beast (Read 5109 times)