In the dark kingdom of the vilest of gnomes...Sigmund begins to understand why these cave-dwelling individuals seems so intent on making such a damn racket - obviously, it's the echolocation potential! It's so simple! Now, echolocation is not a terribly easy thing to accomplish for somebody who isn't a bat - Sigmund, though people may be pardoned for making this mistake, dark as it currently is, is not, and to his knowledge has never been a bat. In addition, clicking one's tongue isn't really helpful in the dark when there's already a very solid background level of clicking as well as other noises present.
So Sigmund just does the reasonable thing and listens for the noises all these approaching schmucks are making, and rather easily extrapolates their very rough location from that. Standing defensively, he prepares to catch and bodyslam any gnome that makes a move!
[Grab: Gnome 1 vs. Sigmund: 3+1 vs. 4+1]
He grabs a particular nearby clacking presence, but finds its surface altogether too smooth and non-hairy to plausibly belong to any gnome he's ever heard of, and the surprise is enough to accidentally lose his grip.
[Grab: Gnome 2 vs. Sigmund: 3+1 vs. 3+1]
But he also doesn't let another gnome that makes a pass at him make a fool of him, either - he sends the creature packing with a good dose of blind flailing, his senses not sufficiently sharp to discern its exact location, but certainly enough to frighten off the subterranean equivalent of a day laborer.
[Grab: Gnome 3 vs. Sigmund: 4+1 vs. 3+1]
Rather troublingly, though, one of his arms is quickly seized by yet another gnome, and the feeling is one he does not enjoy particularly, as the grip of the creature is somewhat sharp and not very fleshy at all - furthermore, the creature begins to emit a squealing whistle as he tries to ward it off, and the attempt does not go very well at that.
[Grab: Gnome 4 vs. Sigmund: 2+1 vs. 1+1-
1]
And in his distraction, he barely even notices as yet another gnome grabs and stretches out his other arm, sort of keeping him drawn out, only his legs sort of still free. All in all, this is going poorly already! Joy! And the whistling becomes louder and louder, more creatures pouring in from a great deal of directions, it seems.
In a dead end tunnel...Kevin isn't entirely pleased by all this magic gnome bullshit going on.
"Fucking traitorous mages! Sneaky little gnomes!" he says, spitting into the vent.
"Where the fuck did Sigmund go?"Unfortunately, nobody sees fit to reply, though the vent does seem receptive to spit - it's been so long since Kevin's been able to spit properly. He'd almost forgotten its perks, honestly. Pettily amused, Kevin nods his head at the vent. That showed them.
Then the ground seemingly opens up beneath him, and Kevin emits but the shortest of yelps as he falls down into darkness, the ground closing up above him as he falls a short distance, landing into soft dirt that opens up again, allowing him to fall some more. This continues for a good eleven or so times before Kevin finally tumbles down to what feels like a pile of hay arranged atop a bed of solid rock - judging by the sound of dripping water, this is either a cave or some other subterranean hollow. And judging by the sound of clicking and clacking, and also whistling, gnomes seem to be around.
In the office of some guy...Niklas is satisfied! Filled! Bursting with knowledge!
"All right! Let's go then! Hear that, Torkel and Tree Guy? We're going to go be bureaucratic spies!""Yay!""I feel ambivalent about this information!""Off you go, then," the wizard says, and suddenly the universe melts, and a superior one takes its place! One where both Niklas and Lifeboy seem to have found themselves in what is very obviously a magical laboratory - the two of them are standing next to a large stone pillar, and around them is a glowing enclosure of what may or may not be glass - it certainly is transparent, and there's a tall fellow with really messy hair and the face of a baby standing outside it, observing the two.
"Why have you come here?" the man asks as if several feet of glowing glass were not separating him from the two visitors.
Outside Castle Melville...Morton, intrigued by this magical map, begins to plot out a route to Eckledun - it immediately becomes clear that to get there, they will need to trek through many miles of wilderness first - there is no nearby road to Eckledun, since there don't seem to be any villages on the coast of the Sea of Death for reasons that may be entirely understandable if one thinks about all the violent dolphins, cloud jellies, evil birds, property-unfriendly walruses and maybe even the gub-gub.
In addition, it is with great sadness that Morton discovers that the map, while very dynamic, is but an illusion - he cannot really touch it or mark anything upon it, as the map only becomes slightly disrupted wherever his desk-hands touch.
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Topic: Life Begins At Death - Epilogue: We Live And Live Again (Read 562017 times)