At some sort of house in the deepest, darkest woods...
Kevin goes right into the cabin, looking around carefully.
This is somewhat difficult, as the entire house seems to be filled with some kind of weird fog. Can hardly see anything, to be honest. Seems like a nice enough cabin apart from that, though, if a bit rich in odd-looking junk that Kevin can only begin to guess the purpose of.
As he wanders through the cabin, the fog only becomes thicker. Soon enough, he thinks he wouldn't be able to see his own hand in front of his face. In addition, he thinks he hears the voice from before singing somewhere, but the fog appears to be messing with that, too - it seems to echo and come from all directions at once.
Inside a filthy flophouse...
Scott, in a mischievous mood at the moment, tries to take his usual approach of trying to seem far more intimidating than he actually might be. He walks up to Red-Chested Elron and tries to take him by the arm in a friendly fashion, but Elron doesn't seem to be willing to do so, taking a step back from the guy.
[Scott intimidation roll: 5]
"You know what? Tell me everything and I'll promise you 10 coppers once I hear a name that might actually be connected, and 5 gold after *if* what you say is true. *If*, by chance, you gave the wrong name I will happily accept another..." he says, then immediately sinking his voice to something like a rather malevolent whisper, which works rather well due to the raspiness of Scott's voice caused by the gaping wound in his throat that he has to plug to speak. "Persons who dabble in volatile, explosive or...necromantic Majicks do not like to be impersonated, have their names besmirched or be taken for fools. And not being known for patience, their vengeance often lacks... subtlety."
Elron nods and gulps, looking a bit creeped out as Scott limps to the door.
"Purple Pete works with conmen all the time, he probably knows something. Go ask him. Yeah. He lives in a house by the port, right next to the weapon shop. That's near the shipyard, which has this great big ship in it that you just can't miss. Yeah."
Ah. So good he could reach an understanding.
On the shrieking ship of Shriekpot...
Mark, intent on helping Niklas by any means necessary, thinks about going to look for some more bodies to steal.
But can the doctor really leave his patient? After all, Niklas has just gone through a highly traumatic experience.
"My weapons. She took my weapons," comes a voice from the pseudo-catfish. Niklas' head twitches oddly, obviously trying to make noise as well. The fish begins to move rhythmically as it begins to sing, reminding Mark all too much of that one toy his mother forbade him from getting in that carnival once due to it being magework.
"Do you know how the body works, boys and girls,
It's its own little magical kind of world,
Disregarding the head, we have the heart for the start and end,
Thumping in the chest, one two six ten
It pumps blood along the veins and into the feet,
All along the arms, boy, isn't that neat!
The body's a machine, a very complex one, too,
But can you take it apart and look at the insides,
The insides that squirm and wriggle and twitch,
Then put it back together again?
I can,
IIIII CAAAAAAAN,
I KNOW HOW TO EXTRACT THE LIVER AND PUT IT IN A KIDNEY,
TAKE OUT THAT KIDNEY AND PLACE IT IN A LUNG,
CHEW UP THE INTESTINES, PLACE THEM IN THE HEART,
LET IT GO BACK TO THE VERY START,
AND YOU KNOW JUST WHAT?! I THINK I'LL DO,
YOU TAKE MY BODY,
I'LL TAKE YOURS TOO,
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA!"
He seems fine, so Mark heads off on his search.
Fortunately, he does not have to look long, for there is a fellow walking down the street - a bit scrawny, looks to be a bit of a layabout - nobody'll miss him, probably. Perfect for his purposes!
At a still-raging hate-fire...
Sigmund has a brilliant idea. He picks up a few rocks and tosses them at mushrooms, causing a few of the nearby ones deflate visibly and form large clouds of spores that subside quickly. He reaches out with the guisarme and tries to remove a smaller mushroom. However, he notices something at the last minute - a mushroom he's missed! One right next to him!
[Dodge roll: 6]
He leaps away exactly as the mushroom explodes into yet another cloud of spores. Okay, so he'll wait some more, then he'll just retrieve the mushroom and be done with it. He leans in once more, about to cut a mushroom off, but alas, it is not meant to go so smoothly! The wind changes direction suddenly, blowing a whole lot of the hate-smoke in his direction!
[Dodge roll: 5]
Luckily, Sigmund, knowing that fate is an asshole if there ever was one, was prepared for exactly such an occurrence, once more diving away from danger. He feels good about his chances now, though. After all, third time's the charm. He carefully ambles over to the mushroom patch, carefully pushing his guisarme in it and trying to get a mushroom out. However, as he pulls back, he notices that it's kind of stuck. Mushrooms have grown all over it now. Damn it!
[Strength roll: 3+1]
With difficulty, he pulls the thing out. Okay... uh... fourth time's the... eh, screw it, he'll just try again and think no more. He'll try again like none have before! He goes nuts on the mushroom patch in a fit of rage, slicing off dozens of the little bastards in a furious chopping extravaganza! At the end of it, he has a pile of mushrooms. He fashions a bag out of some of the red cloth he has and picks them all up, because gods damn it, he's not coming back here ever again! For any reason!
As he heads back into town, the sun proceeds to rise slowly and sluggishly. Not that Sigmund gives a rat's ass - he just walks determinedly back to Tailor Craig, utilizing his frustration to bypass any crossroads on the way.
At Tailor Craig's traveling clothing enterprise...
For a while, Morton just stands around, being all desk-like and playing it cool. Then he realizes that one thing does kind of bug him.
"Good Tailor Craig, if you don't mind my prying, could I ask of you a question?"
"Sure," says Craig, currently lounging against the side of his resting donkey and reading a book titled "The Horrors of the Dimension of Love".
Morton hesitates for a moment, then asks his question.
"I truly don't mean to offend, but might I ask why you have a clawed hand? You don't often find people with such I've seen."
Craig closes his book and looks at Morton.
"So. You want to know where I got this claw from? Well, I'll tell you."
He clears his throat in a dignified fashion, then commences his tale.
"Back in the good old days of about seven or eight years ago, I was but a demonologist-in-training back in the good old University of Magic. Wonderful place, it was. Too bad it was mostly populated by people who were, shall we say, dangerously unhinged and occasionally psychopathic, particularly the demonology department - that one attracts whackjobs like you wouldn't believe. I swear, on my first day, one guy who I suspect didn't know how the whole thing worked tried to sacrifice me in my sleep. Or maybe just shiv me, was difficult to tell with him. And he wasn't even the worst one. I didn't fit in at all, to be honest. It seemed like everybody was trying to kill me at any given point except the head of the department and maybe Marianne, who mostly kept all of her craziness deep down. So there I was, a well-adjusted guy from a good family, curious about the boundaries of the world in the midst of a slew of murderous eldritch cultists whose idea of a prank was to twist your cat inside out and put a candle on it. Yeah, I don't know either. Problem was, despite everything, I was really the outsider there - the idiot eldritch doom cultists, though a whole lot got their brains pureed after they tried to lead a session of prayer to the Demon of Logic to call it into the world and an Almirian Herald showed up, were still the norm. And every week I was getting closer and closer to being next on their makeshift sacrificial altar - gods only know what they hoped to achieve with that."
Craig sighs and shakes his head, his face still completely obscured by his robe.
"Anyway, I had to keep the idiots at bay somehow, so I took drastic measures - my life was in danger, after all. I decided to draw up a portal to the realm of the Demon of Fear - it's known to be an amiable creature if approached correctly, and doesn't always ask for your soul, either, so it was my best choice. I drew up the portal and was seized by its minions practically immediately, whereupon they took me to their leader, exactly as planned. Now, I'll not bother describing the terrors visited upon me by the realm - they are always rather private and hardly comprehensible to others in their nature, so you'll have to forgive me for not elaborating. So I got to the Demon of Fear eventually after facing certain inner demons, and then I did what any good demonologist does on an all-or-nothing venture, and that is to try and entertain the demon with music. A harmonica, in this case. I was a bit unsure at first, but the Demon of Fear seemed to like it just fine. It danced rather amusingly, too, though that was probably just my personal perception at the time, considering that the Demon of Fear is a mask behind which all of the world's terrors hide. So, after a bit of that, the Demon of Fear motioned for me to stop, so I did. I knew at this point that I was doing pretty well, so I asked the demon to help me out a bit, make me more intimidating to discourage those idiots from screwing with me too much. And the demon obliged - it made me into a living nightmare and sent me right back out into the world of humans. First time I looked in a mirror, I nearly passed out from the shock. I still can't bear to look into a mirror without my robe on, to be honest. Still, my looks served their purpose rather admirably. After the first two days, pretty much everybody stayed away from me, particularly since I made a point to sleep without my robe on in the night. I still recall the time Herbert looked at me and immediately lost control of his bowels - incredibly cathartic. With the free time I got from not needing to dodge lunatics, I even managed to get an illusionist buddy to make me a nice set of robes that kept the nightmares from creeping out at people that didn't need to see them."
He thinks for a moment.
"Well, I think that's about all there is to it. I managed to finish my education, though I never went adventuring in other dimensions again. Too dangerous. And I kept getting flashbacks for years after the Fear Realm. Place is crazy. I did still experiment with portals, though, and did some tailoring on the side. And now I'm here, after a few years of trying to get settled. I dare say it's gone swimmingly. And that's the story of how I got, among other things, my claw. Funny thing is, it's not even a claw. It just looks like one due to the illusions. I could show you what it really is for a moment if you want, though," Craig says, looking at Morton questioningly.
Before Morton can answer, though, Sigmund reappears, carrying a great big bag of something. Oh dear.
Author
Topic: Life Begins At Death - Epilogue: We Live And Live Again (Read 565583 times)