In the library of the Red Tower of Power...Niklas decides that he needs to master the ways of an expert enunciator - there can be no mastery of magic without mastery of one's own linguistic apparatus, obviously! So he opens up the
One-Stop Guide to Supreme Enunciation and commences the learning.
He is a bit disappointed when the book doesn't really turn out to be filled with vocal secrets that would let him master the ways of pronouncing things in no time at all - instead, it seems to be a whole lot of exercises, with pronunciation guidelines and number of repetitions written out for each. Apparently flawless diction is hard work! Who knew?
He concludes that it will probably be quite a while before he's mastered the whole thing if he tries to get through it right now, and now that he's got a mortal body with physiological needs he's not sure he's got that kind of time - then again, maybe it'll be really useful later. Oh, the dilemmas of autodidactics!
At the harbor of Mothdale...As the Second Shank slowly sinks into the Doom Strait,
Morton tries to gather all this precious information about the who, the what, the where and the why that he appears to be missing about
Kevin and his giant worm.
"Good jester Kevin, is everything alright? Do you perhaps know what's going on? And, ah, oh dear. You appear to have a, er, giant worm behind you. I quite hope its rather friendly..." he says, slowly reaching for the stick from the Tree of Hate - however, the attempt causes him to fall over, given how he used that arm to support himself previously, which
Unbeknownst to Morton, though,
Sigmund is quite annoyed how the single person able to identify him without too much fuss just hopped away like the insensitive bugger he is. So he resorts to signs, wiggling his body in a negatory manner, then pointing his maw at a cobblestone, then burping loudly in the direction of the walruses. It's all very strange and confusing to both Morton and Kevin, not to mention kind of disgusting, so Kevin chooses to not acknowledge that and instead convey his speechlessness to Morton in the best possible way - dance!
[Kevin's interpretive dance roll: 2]
And though he dances most interestingly, Kevin gets the feeling he is not getting the main point across to Morton. Perhaps his dance requires a bit too much imagination to successfully divulge any information out of. Or maybe he's just not very good at it. It's difficult to say, really, and not just because he's mute. It's also because
Mark appears to be hopping back to the ship, followed by three dolphins.
[Mark's escape roll: 3]
[Screechy's pursuit roll: 5]
[Beakley's pursuit roll: 1]
[McStrange's pursuit roll: 3]
He is a good fifty meters away from the harbor, however, when one of the dolphins - one that seems to be wielding his missing leg in its mouth - catches up to him!
[Screechy vs. Mark: 5+1+
1 vs. 2+3-
1]
The dolphin's head jerks to the side, and Mark's leg is momentarily reunited with the rest of his body as it strikes him square on the shoulder!
[Mark's balance roll: 6]
Mark, though he seems a little distraught at the abuse targeted at him, just keeps hopping away as the strange dolphin draws near!
[McStrange vs. Mark: 2+1 vs. 6+2]
[Counterattack: Mark vs. McStrange: 3+1 vs. 3+1]
However, the aquatic creature's attempts to bite any more of Mark's limbs off are for naught, as Mark just pushes it away, propelling himself forward at the same time.
The others wonder what the dolphins' deal might be, attacking Mark like that. Also of interest is the question of whether they should assist the fellow.
In a place of blinding white...Scott, deprived of much-needed emotional release at the expense of other people's suffering, decides to just rant instead.
"Darkness? Are you addled? I am not evil...I am disabled! You try staying rational after half the trials I have been through! Try being raised as a shambling abomination by your pervert of a lover! Try being enslaved by some probable half-demon princling thing! Try being slowly maimed and mangled by various evil entities and becoming nothing but an incorporeal head!" he says, groans in frustration and heads off in a random direction.
"I will try that, Jeremy, but maybe right now we should focus on getting out of here! Also, you're going in the wrong direction, J! The way out is the other way!" the voice says as he heads off. Hm.
At the engineers' graveyard of the City of the Dead...Darren is shocked at his own emergent preference of metallic, monstrous insects over women - he guesses he has been disappointed less by the former, but still! He looks for some loose objects to build a construct out of - strangely, though, there aren't any around. Only thing that
is around seems to be the dirt that the insects are excavating - Darren guesses he'll have to work with that, then.
[Darren's Animate Construct roll: 5]
Immediately, he forms a humanoid shape with his telekinesis - all this floating around and talking sure hasn't hurt his abilities none. However, an insect immediately takes notice of the telekinetic construction, and ambles over to poke at it ponderously, as if deciding on whether extermination is desirable when the ground itself suddenly starts to move.
Darren briefly considers making another construct, but then he realizes that it would probably take a lot of concentration to suddenly telekinetically shape another body while keeping another one together with nothing more than practiced willpower.
Author
Topic: Life Begins At Death - Epilogue: We Live And Live Again (Read 564804 times)