Shorast should be quite happy to return to the surface now, but he could also hang around and finish his quest. He decides to check out the next chamber before dropping a small pile of treasures at the entrance to the catacombs. It turns out, it all led nowhere... so he returns to exploring the sewers, picking up the pile of stuff he'd fruitlessly left behind.
He finds a staircase leading to the surface in front of some shops, so he sells the loot and pockets some coins. He lets them know that he's killed someone of note. Delving back in, expecting to find less resistance than that with which he has already dealt.
He hears a fish woman vampire threaten him, but has no idea where she is. Looking down, he sees her predictably lingering in the sewer water. She spots him before he can get close, and lashes out, but he leaps out of the way. He returns the blow, but she dodges. He sense the opportunity to attack from a distance, and throws an arrow straight into her heart. He tries to hit her again, but she has run off into the shadows; however, she does not manage to flee more than a few paces before she expires of blood loss.
Although this quest is over, he decides to more thoroughly explore the sewers, in case anyone else happens to have been hiding down there. The sewers appear to be completely tapped out however, so he returns to the surface to find somewhere to go and have a bit of a kip. He relays news of his successful exploits to a goblin merchant, who lets him sleep on the floor for the night. Eating some snake tripe and water for breakfast, he ponders his options.
Remembering that his plan was to actually train before getting seriously stuck in to adventuring, he grabs his crutch and hobbles (even though he doesn't need to) to the beach, to engage in some leisurely swimming. What better exercise is there than sneakcrutchswimming?
Pausing on the way to fill his waterskin, he shiftily hobbles like a disabled child into the ocean, confident that it probably isn't going to freeze over and encase him in ice with no warning in this balmy climate. He eats bruch after swimming straight out into the deep ocean, utterly unafraid of cramp, and continues until noon. Then, he turns about, and heads back, assuming that he'll be back in time for tea.
Clambering ashore from the Absolute Dented Gulf, he blithely saunters back into the city, determined to do a little shopping. Treating himself to some troll spleen he buys from a goblin merchant and which he doesn't consider to be entirely ethical even though it certainly appears to be legal and therefore acceptable to a dwarf, and sipping a little water, he moves on to an empty metalcrafters shop and a weaponsmiths with nothing of value inside. Disappointed, he decides to bed down for the night.
In the morning, he decides to make a quick visit to the Terrible Chapel, after breakfasting on snake tripe and water. It has a catacomb and a pool, but is otherwise, well, quite terrible. Satisfied overall with his progress yesterday, he decides to complete the quests he'd accepted earlier, and asks about town where some of his enemies are hiding. Apparently, they're both hiding out in the sewers. Oh really? He doubts he'd be able to find them after such a thorough lost wander as had been undertaken the day two previous. The marketplace has nothing to offer, so Shorast ambles off, wondering what to do with hisself.
Seeing no other plain option, he decides to go off for another swim, lunching at sea and returning at noon, have dinner and going to bed again. Now a legendary ambusher, Shorast is pleased with what he's accomplished for the day. One more full day of sneakcrutchswimming tomorrow. He sleeps in some peasant's hut near the beach for the night.
The next day, Shorast sets off at the crack of dawn, determined to swim way, way out there. Just before noon, he realises that he's already a legendary swimmer, so he sets back to Rulewatch. To his surprise, thirsty and a little hungry, Shorast has arrived back at the beach in mid afternoon. The only thing he feels he needs to train now are his defensive skills, which are now only moderate. That means he needs get something angry that can't do him any significant harm. It shouldn't be too difficult to find some hapless but senselessly aggressive animal out in the wilderness somewhere, should it? For now, he decides to find a well to restore his waterskin. He also needs to get rid of some of his clutter; preferably, by buying gemstones or some other sort of valuable, light trinket.
Stumbling into a general store, he manages to acquire some expensive but to his thinking hideous gem-encrusted bone jewelry. However, he gets passed a flattering comment for wearing them, which makes him chuffed. He decides to find a place to rest, then investigate the tunnels in the morning after breakfast to find those darned outlaws again.
Shorast decides to start by investigating beneath the Terrible Chapel. He creeps in, not holding much hope. To his surprise, he haps upon a villain and his gang. He decides to attack from stealth, making good use of his now accomplished ambushing abilities. He knocks the human axeman in front of him down with his masterwork iron shield, before siezing him in a stranglehold. Whilst unconcious, Shorast breaks his hands, feet, legs, and arms with mighty punches. Satisfied that the axeman is now an invalid, he moves on, to two female soldiers occupying the same tile for no clear reason.
The frenzy of untraceable quiet violence sends him into a martial trance, as he stands surrounded by enemies. One by one, starting with the crossbowwoman, he throttles three of them unconcious, then executes them all in a row. He discovers that he really doesn't even need his axe; his fists appear to be a brutal enough weapon as it is. Still, he does want to be a legendary axedwarf one day... Moving on, he quickly slays a pikeman and another axeman. It doesn't take long.
The master is sporting a masterwork crossbow. That could be trouble. Shorast bumbles about the chamber he's in collecting bits and bobs to throw at the master. Prepared (and encumbered) he begins the chuckery. The torrent of objects leave the master severely injured, but by no means incapacitated. Annoyed, Shorast starts throwing individual bolts that he found. He makes a mental note to learn how to use a crossbow properly; he's about to claim a very good one in short order, after all, and this feels like cheating.
The second bolt knocks the master over, leaving Shorast no choice but to close in and attempt to strike a killing blow. The master parries the first strike from the unknown assailant in the darkness, but the second brutalises his foot. The master scrambles away from the next eight swings, but Shorast finally lands a solid blow at his waist, popping the stomach open. The master is surely near death; it would be safer to simply wait for him to die now.
It takes a little while, but the master expires. The master, it seems, was a vampire, but not one of the ones he was tracking. Still, it explains why he was so tough. He advances to a human armed with a flail, who immediately spots him and thwacks him in the head; fortunately, it causes only bruising. Still, he's uncovered, and with three hostiles still in the room. Retreat is, of course, his first course of action, but he's heavily weighed down, so he drops some of the junk he picked up. Dropping the arrows and bolts lightens him enormously, and he makes his escape through an as yet unexplored door.
He dashes into an alcove through the door, and the flailman stands in the door way, unable to spot Shorast. As he steps closer, the lasher crawls in under the flailman's legs. Shorast cuts the lasher's dangerous whip-holding hand off first, and then after two successful parries, sinks his chopper into the flailman's shield-arm. A swift swing to the legs hacks the left one off, sending the flailman down; but Shorast has been spotted, and the flailman's still dangerous. In three frenetic hacks, two of the flailman's hands come off. Pleased with this turn of events, Shorast takes many attacks of opportunity against the debilitated warriors, cleaving the flailman in twain and removing many limbs from the lasher before he bleeds to death.
Diving back into the shadows, Shorast presses on, now only needing to deal with the pikewoman. Shorast decides to play it safe, sneaking up on the pikewoman from behind a statue and quietly choking her to death. She proved strangely resistant to his throttling, but eventually expires.
Shorast decides to fully explore the catacombs before collecting his loot. To his surprise, the completely broken axeman spotted him briefly and tried to follow him; Shorast puts him out of his misery, by mercilessly beating him down with his bare hands. Soon after, Shorast happens upon a bowman. He sneaks up and sends him to sleep in a chokehold, and then bites one hand off and chops off the other.
Creeping up to a bowwoman, he does the same thing and bites both her hands off. Then to a nearby pikeman. All now sound-oh and completely harmless, starts pummeling them with vicious punches to the gut until they all start sicking up. The bowwoman regains conciousness, so he repeatedly kicks her in the tits. Then the bowman wakes up, so he bashes him in the head with his shield until his cranium cracks, whereupon he resumes kicking her in the boobs. She eventually scrambles away but is not looking healthy.
He turns his attention to the pikeman, giving him two black eyes, boxing his ears, and biting his nose off before trying to feed it to him. Unfortunately, he rouses before this is finished. Shorast elects to throttle him to death, and pace on to find the bowwoman, who he quickly decapitates. He finds himself standing next to a swordsman; Shorast wrestles him to the ground, fumbling to beat him to death in short order, a swift kick to the back of the head finishing him off.
Checking to make sure that the room is now empty of living enemies, Shorast decides that it might be fun to put away his shield and axe, and just take down any more enemies barehanded. It's a risk, but he thinks it will be a fun challenge. He enters the next room, coming toe-to-toe with a pikeman. He unleashes a flurry of unarmed blows from the darkness, the pikeman oblivious to his assailant, defeating him with another powerful kick to the head. Huh. That was easy. And fun!
Moving forward, he takes down a swordsman in a nearby corridor, ignoring all the potential valuable items left lying around, so as not to compromise his ability to remain light-footed. Next, a lasher in the next corridor; he doubles back to check a room he missed and launches into a spearman, but in his assault on the maceman, is spotted. Shorast dashes through the door as a lasher and another pikeman approach, thinking to renew his ambush from the other side of the room.
Again, the maceman spots him, but Shorast is deft enough to flee and repeat the same tactic, but not before receiving a bruising blow to the left calf by the maceman's morningstar. He finds the maceman attempting to hide in a corridor, but he is again spotted. Tiring of this, he gives it one last try, again being spotted, but by this time Shorast is too frustrated to flee again, and grabs the maceman by the throat, knocking him out, as Shorast assaults him by all available means. His foe defeated, Shorast stalks back to take out the two other combatants.
The lasher spots him after the pikeman doesn't but a lucky strike breaks a rib into the lasher's heart, ensuring his swift demise. Moving on, Shorast spots a weapon trap in his path! He moves on, cautiously, inspecting everywhere he steps intently. He spots another in a ledge below, inching around the walkway in the long, two-level hall in which he finds himself, before descending to the lower level. The room is barren apart from the two traps, and he moves through two corridors to encounter another room with a trap in it. He tiptoes about, scanning for more weapon traps. This room is empty save for the lone trap, so he continues, finding a trapdoor leading down.
Two levels down, he finds a doorway, and two more descending routes. He checks the door first finding two ascending staircases and another door. Investigating the empty room, Shorast discovers a mummy; it's also an elite crossbowman! Knowing a mummy can be no easy opponent, Shorast readies his axe and shield.
Sneaking up to the mummy, he knows he has only a limited chance to gain the upper hand. Wrestling proves fruitless, and the mummy uses the time to raise a handful of zombies nearby. However, being surrounded by zombies is enough to activate his martial trance; this might be the edge he needs. His first axeswing takes off the mummy's right hand, the next his left hand, taking the crossbow out of the equation.
Severing the foot next, he buries the axe into the mummy's spine, all without being seen. Again, a vicious hit to the torso; again a severe punch to the chest; a mighty hew to the head shatter's the monster's skull, but without a living brain, it's not enough. Another blow to the emaciated stomach. Another blow to the, and finally, the opportunity comes to remove its head from its shoulders.
The nearby undead show little promise of challenge, so he puts away his is shield and axe. Beating the all down to squishy piles in short order, he continues on through a large double-levelled chamber, exploring it briefly before moving through a doorway on the second level. He emerges into a large room with a single trap, and a smaller, empty. He finds two routes that double back, and tries the next doorway, finding only a dead end. He tries the hatch, but it leads only to a room with two weapon traps. Trying the bottom floor, he creeps into a room overflowing with the dead and worthless items.
A corridor reveals another door and passage leading up. His ability to keep track of where he is and where he has been is by now severely compromised. The door leads to a room cluttered with junk, mostly weapons and oversized armour. He heads up, it goes nowhere. He discovers a route leading up that he must've missed but it goes nowhere. He tries some of the routes up that he'd found before, running into a weapon trap, a room full of dead bodies and junk, a tomb... it seems to go on forever, with no sort of order or design.
Eventually, Shorast stumbles in to a tomb with another mummy in it! The mummy doesn't look like he has any weapon skills, but before even noticing Shorast, animates some twenty unliving minions. Taking three careful paces back, he enters a martial trance... perfect.
Stepping back to lay into the mummy, he can see no sign of him. Odd. Shorast starts laying into the zombies, not bothering to equip his weaponry. The trance doesn't last much longer than about ten of the walking dead, but he continues on tearing them to still bones. The whole room dead... there were lots of them, he decides to soldier on.
Running about like a lunatic through this endless maze of nonsense, he finally gives up, thinking it thoroughly explored. Shorast enters a martial trance after he returns to pick up the masterwork crossbow he'd won earlier, despite there not being anyone around (as far as he knows.) Puzzled, but otherwise spent, he returns to the surface to rest and recover. He retires in a leatherworker's shop, sleeping almost a full day.
After a breakfast of more troll spleen and water, he decides to find a place to practise using his crossbow. It didn't take long to master the art of throwing things; how hard can marksdwarveship be? The city is built on low undulating hills and is full of abandoned buildings. He finds a choice one where he can fire bolts from his new crossbow and save them, dropping to the ground below a half standing wall. He has emptied his quivers once, feeling that he has made improvement; he notices that most of the bolts hit their mark fairly often, as he goes to collect them. It's still fairly early in the morning, so he resumes this activity.
By the late afternoon, Shorast is confident that he can fire his crossbow with the best of them, having spent many profitable and satisfying hours pumping bolts into the abandoned building's exposed brain. Having to carry around all these bolts is weighing him down, though; he decides to suspend the possibility of training with a regular bow for another time, selling the spare bow and all his arrows and most of his bolts for ease of portability. He then buys a trinket to save having to lug all this gold around, and goes to sleep for the evening.
After trundling about town for a bit, Shorast hits the sewers again. There must be some more vampires down there. In fact, after only a brief wander, he bumps right into one, knocking her over. Still carrying his crossbow, he strikes her with a series of unarmed attacks and knocks her into the water; thereafter, shooting her in the chest once before trying (and failing) to kick her in the head over and over again until he slips up and falls into the water.
Two shots from the crossbow in the water finish her rather decidedly. He hops out of the water, and though he is pleased with hisself, this was not the quest he was looking for. Still, he marches on. Next, he finds an amphibian woman boss, armed with a blowdart. Interesting... He fires three bolts at her, the fourth sailing over her head as she falls over from the pain. He crosses the sewer channel, and closes to finish her off with dozens of melee attacks. Again, this villain was still not one of the ones he had been tasked to dispose of. He claims his bolts back, and the blowgun and darts, to boot.
He kills another amphibian woman blowgunner in melee, also picking up some gobs of bee venom from a pool of it she leaves behind, shoots another twice and coup-de-graces with a crossbow bash, accidentally barelling over and stomping on yet another, before his dwarf sense tingles (he trances) despite there being no obvious enemies.
Sneaking on, a villain announces himself, and Shorast spies an olm man. Shorast shoots him, hitting right in the stomach, causing him to be violently sick. The second shot devestates a leg, the pain causing him to collapse unconcious. He batters the spearolmman all over with the but of his crossbow, until the unfortunate creature wakes up, finding most of his bones shattered. Shorast tries to strangle the creature, but the amphibian proves to be surprisingly difficult to throttle; the protracted wrestling tires even the mighty, seemingly indefatigable Shorast out. Shorast elects to finish the olm man off by ripping enormous chunks out of the creature's exposed throat.
Striding over the body, Shorast picks up the olm man's wooden shield (being light, this could be useful for keeping encumberance down) and his bolt, as well as some chunks of vomit (to test the effects of throwing it). Curiously, he then finds a passage up leading to another part of the sewer... which is odd, as he had no idea that there was a part of the city that high from sea level.
Shorast heads back, thinking he might have missed something; sure enough, he notices creatures fighting eachother in the water. Hopping in to join the fracas, he is quickly spotted by a serpent woman, and deflects a blowdart. To secure his escape route, he fires his crossbow wildly into the olm people surrounding him; an effective strategy. He jumps out of the water, and continue firing his 'bow. Satisfied that he's knocked most of the olm people swarming him out, he caves two of their skulls in with his crossbow butt and then dives in to unleash bolt after bolt into the one remaining.
Shorast leaps out, hiding around a corner; then returns, to swim stealthily through the water to find the olm overlord and his serpentwoman assailant. Accidentally bumping into both of them, he fires again and again until they are both unconcious, then beats down on them both indescriminately until they both cease living. Then, he picks up some of their stuff, and his bolts.
Still not having been able to cross off the quests he'd taken, he continues to explore the upward passage. Running into two amphibian men, he bowls them over and beats them down. He moves on, but is spotted and fired at. Leaping out of the way of the dart, he falls down into a dry sewage channel, not hurt but stunned and standing right next to an amphibian person.
Reacting quickly, he stands and fires twice at a blowgunner, chipping a bone in her leg and knocking her down. He swiftly runs up and dodges her dart, finding himself standing right next to a phenomenally deep pit, from whence the creatures probably emerged. Terrified, he steps back again, quickly beating her to death, and firing two bolts at the approaching amphibian men, knocking them both down and permitting his safe retreat so that he can find a way back up to them. He runs into a blowgunner on the way, instinctively caving his brains in with the butt of his 'bow, and finds a way back up. Creeping up to them, he takes them down with two well placed knocks to the back of the head, and pops back down to retrieve his bolts.
He spots their commander waiting in an alcove. Unseen, he launches a bolt into the commander's stomach, the force of which is great enough to knock him to the ground. He inches on; the commander stands up again, only to be floored by another painful shot to the leg. He steps next to the amphibian man commander, severely bruising every one of his digits with some well placed crossbow bashes, before the commander wakes up again. Shorast puts him in a chokehold and knocks him out once more. Shorast continues his bashing campaign, breaking every bone in the commander's body. Content with this, he steps back to admire his handiwork, and then performs the coup-de-grace its squishy, frog-like skull. He picks up the fancy blowgun and some darts, noting how light they are. This might be worth learning to use... you know, as a hobby. He puts his crossbow away and holds the foreign ranged weapon in his hands, and progresses into the inky depths.
Heading back down to the main sewers, he runs across two more amphibians, darting them. One he knocks unconcious, and tries throttling the thing; it takes some time, but he is eventually met with success. Casually beating an olm man in the head as he floats oblvious in the water, darting another three times before breaking her head apart, and being spotted by two sparring olm and serpent folk in the water. Seeing no obvious way down to them, he thwacks them with all available means from the ledge above.
Out of nowhere, a blowdart aimed at Shorast forces him to jump out of the way into the water. Scrabbling for safety, Shorast spots some of his assailants standing on the opposite ledge. He fires a dart at one, which is reciprocated, but the dart fails to penetrate his thin leather armour. It leaps into the water, which puts it in range of Shorast's furious fists, a fatal mistake. Creeping forward, he runs into another one, Shorast releasing a torrent of hand-to-hand attacks from the shadows.
His continuing subterranean sojourn reveals a saltwater crocodile; a surprise. Only a few darts drives it unconcious, and Shorast closes to beat down on it. It takes a huge amount of punishment, knackering him. Shorast has to step back for a breather several times, until the croc eventually wakes up and catches wise to his presence. Trying to beat a retreat, the crocodile leaves itself open to repeated dart shots, knocking it out in the water. Shorast pursues and resumes beating the creature, but it simply won't expire. Shorast whips his axe out, and dives back in, the heavy metal weapon quickly finishing the brute beast off. Shorast moves onwards, after butchering the creature for its delicious organs. This weighs him down heavily but it can all always be dropped if need be. He eats the beast's heart first, to gain its strength. He washes it down with honey bee venom, surprisingly flavoursome and piquant.
He spots a lone spider silk quiver, which he picks up to sell later. Odd; there's usually not much random loot in sewers. He finds a staircase leading up to a much higher part of the sewers, and a goblin vampire announces himself. He notices that he's taken down one of his quest targets (when this happened, unknown), and marches to meet his foe with renewed vigour, dropping the enormous pile of crocodile meat and bones he's been lugging about. Stepping but a few inches further, another vampire announces itself, but the locations of both of them remain obscured to him.
He soon spots the goblin vampire, thankfully some way off on the opposite walkway. He starts by throwing piles of venom, one gob of which the goblin dodges, falling into the dry sewage channel below. Shorast closes the distance, and quickly defeating the vampire with a surprise rake with his nails against its undead ear, which accidentally yanks out its whole brain. Apparently.
Shorast runs down to loot the body, only to discover that it had been moping around down there stark bollock naked. What a weirdo. He proceeds on through the channel to a point with no walkway above; this was the right move, and not one he'd have normally made, because the olm woman vampire he'd heard earlier is standing there. Softening her up with some darts, each one forcing her back as she attempts to dodge them. He accidentally stumbles forward and into her, knocking her over but fails to press the advantage.
She eventually spots him, leaping forward to attack, but bumps into him, falling arse over tit in the process. He cleaves a mighty wound into her gross toady tits with his trusty axe, deep enough to get stuck. Shieldbashing her in the leg, scratching her, bashing her, and again, Shorast remembers that he's not likely to be able to quickly defeat her without severing something important, so he steps forward to heave his axeblade out, slapping her stomach once with the flat of the blade, and finally releasing the cap from her skull like a popped champagne bottle.
He marches on through the tiny, narrow, dry channel. Then, he runs into another goblin vampire, releasing his lack of stealth means that the goblin is running right up to him. He tries dropping some stuff to speed himself up, and accidentally empties his entire backpack onto the ground. Shit! What a mess. Still, it works, and Shorast steps back a few paces, clearing enough distance to blow a dart at the vampire. He still isn't very good at using it, and it takes so long to reload that the vampire closes in and takes several wild swings at him; Shorast dodges them ably, and the goblin vampire overreaches and tumbles onto his bum.
Shorast takes this opportunity to swing his axe, knocking its right arm clean off at the shoulder. The naked goblin then takes a bonk to the spine from the hilt of Shorast's axe, and a devestating blow to its waist spills the goblin's guts out onto the sewer floor. Shorast impulsively goes for the goblin's throat, tearing out a huge chunk and spraying blood everywhere. The goblin is visibly enraged, but Shorast isn't sure that it's going to help him much by this point. His suspiscions are confirmed after a swift kick to the forehead destroys the goblin's brain.
Shorast picks up most of his pile of stuff and creeps forward into the claustrophobic gloom, but there's little else to see in this direction, so he doubles back. He hears another cry in the gloom from a villain, but fails to identify the source. A little further, he finds a serpent man vampire, who succumbs to a hail of blowdarts until Shorast runs out. Shorast thuds into the vampire and then puts the blowgun away. He lays indiscriminately into the serpent man vampire, culminating in a magnificent decapitation.
Shorast manages to spot a goblin vampire somehow stuck inside a solid wall. Shrugging, he swipes the vampire, tumbling into a prone position in the water. Ineptly trading counterblows, he finds himself somehow stuck in the wall, and the vampire spluttering and choking in the water. The vampire spots Shorast, so he hauls himself out of the water to make attacks from above. Annoyingly, the vampire dodges strike after strike, eventually joining Shorast on the ledge above.
Shorast retreats, concealing himself in an alcove, the confused vampire abruptly giving up the chase in confusion. Trading his axe for his trusty crossbow, Shorast launches five or six bolts at the goblin, knocking him down. Shorast trades back and closes again, chopping one arm off, missing, and then ruining another. His blade chews into one foot, splits the vampire's stomach open, severing a leg, a hand, tearing a great wound in the chest, and again, before getting stuck. Twisting it about and slashing wildly a few more times, the goblin eventually bleeds to death.
The ledge above is a dead end, but Shorast hops into the water to check where the channel goes. It unfortunately seems to lead nowhere, and he decides it isn't worth the risk to explore. With all this vampire blood knocking about, he could turn himself and make the dive... but that would mean becoming the very things he has sworn himself to destroy. So, no, then.
He doubles back, hoping to trace that villain he heard earlier, soon finding her; it's an olm woman boss. He goes out of his way to find a cross point to her, and has to cut through a lackey to get there, knocking him into the water and severing him at the hips. Shorast barrels into the boss and immediately severs her head.
He creeps forth, finding some blowdarts, and begins to get sleepy. He's been adventuring all day. His sense of thoroughness compels him to continue, but despite finding a nice spear and shield made of fungiwood, he finds nothing else, emerging at the point he first entered. Demoralised at having failed to clear his quests but otherwise satisfied with his days work, Shorast looks through the city streets for somewhere to bunk down for the night. It's actually only afternoon, but he has no idea how long he's been down there.
He staggers into a shop and trades some shark meat for some of the stuff that he's found, and goes to sleep. In the morning, he eats some of the meat (actually intestines, yum!) and drinks some water, and stumbles through the streets to find a well. He doesn't find one, but does find a small river. According to his map, there's a a sewer entrance about here, but it looks awfully rural... still, it's worth a look.
Shorast's suspicions are confirmed as he hears a threat from near the river; the sewer dumps to the river at this point. However, there's no way that Shorast can swim into it; he can't hold his breath for too long (though far longer than most people can). Shorast attempts to lure the fishman boss out, but the fishman just stands there throwing darts at him, so he returns the favour. The first shot knocks the fishman unconcious; Shorast swims in, bashes the boss's brains in with his shield, and swims out again.
He searches for a while, but in the end cannot find any other way into the sewers. Shorast decides to head to the castle, and search the keep. There might be a way to get to these villains that way... but he doesn't hold much hope. The keep yields a large number of bolts, so Shorast whips his crossbow out again, readying to blast evildoers away.
Checking out the top floor of the keep's dungeon first yields nothing. Just as he's about to descend, a vampire jumps out from nowhere, stacks it, and falls down three floors. Shorast realises he hasn't been moving stealthily; the goblin vamp soon catches up to him and they're standing toe-to-toe. Ill-prepared, Shorast drops his heavy stacks of bolts to quicken himself up, saving enough to take a few steps back and fire at the approaching goblin. Shorast can't outpace the goblin, though, so he starts firing. The first bolt hits him in the leg, knocking him down. Shorast steps back and produces his axe, but swinging manically for the (he now realises) naked she-goblin's head, the goblin manages to twist and evade the attacks.
This isn't working, so Shorast withdraws and tries to sneak up behind the vampire. This strategy is successful, and he manages to sink wound after wound into her prone form. He returns the axe, and sneaks off to find other targets. Picking up the bolts he'd dropped earlier on the way.
He comes across an elf hammerman, who expires with one bolt and a swift kick to the head. He wanders aimlessly through the insane architecture beneath the keep, occasionally picking up the odd choice gemstone here and there. He happens upon a room with an overlord in it. It's an elf archer, who fails to resist two swift crossbow bolts, and has nothing worth picking up.
Wandering for what feels like forever, he finally happens upon a human maceman, taking him down with a bolt to the elbow and a swift clonk to the side of the head; the same to a swordsman across the way. He tries this with a she-goblin swordsperson in the next room, but although the bolt drops her to the ground, she doesn't faint, and catches Shorast in the act. Eventually, he clocks her around the head with a haymaker, as a human spearman approaches. The spearman appears not to have noticed him, however, and the bolt he fires is pulled out as the spearman scarpers off.
Shorast pursues, but isn't sure where the spearman went. However, he meets a goblin axeman, who he quickly floors, followed by a maceman ahead who follows a similar fate, and again a spearman. He pumps bolts into a gormless swordsgoblin and a human maceman. The maceman, to his credit, stays standing, bolt after bolt, until he swiftly expires from massive haemorrage. Shorast closes to batter the goblin with his shield before knocking the goblins grey matter out with the back of his crossbow.
The goblin has no decent armour, so Shorast presses on, taking out a human axeman with three bolts; next, an axegoblin. Descending, he comes across a bowman who spots him and sends an arrow flying, which Shorast manages to block with his shield. Reacting quickly, he fires back into the archer's leg, causing him to faint from the pain and giving Shorast the opportunity to batter the man's brains in.
Shorast enters the next chamber, and enters a martial trance immediately. He's forgotten to sneak in, so he jumps out again, and hides, just as six guards head through the door. Surrounded, and armed with a poor melee weapon, he drops his bolts and whips his axe out. Hacking, bashing, and generally taking every opportunity he can, he lays into the confused assailants, but is soon spotted. He makes a quick escape to hide above a trapdoor, a maceman shortly falling before getting hacked to pieces. A goblin spearman follows and shares the same fate; as he leaves the trance, a human spearman is next.
Shorast descends to fire a bolt at and then decapitate a goblin swords. Moving forward, he does the same to a human pikeman, tearing him apart with a series of brutal axe blows. His last two bolts are fired into the doorway, and they hit home; he closes in. Three are in the doorway, two at the bottom of the frame and one elite swordsgoblin at the top. His axe spills the pikeman's guts, and then has a go at the warlord. He doesn't see Shorast, but does manage to counterstrike, lashing him in the foot. It only bruises him, but he's forced to step back. Feeling like he has no other option, he searches around for items to throw to soften up these two formidable enemies. Fortunately, the place is cluttered with armour, weapons, and shields. After picking up a few things, including a stone coffer, he positions himself and throws. One goblin jumps away from the coffer; the other deflects a shield; a spinning coppper bow bounces off the warlord's cloak. He dodges a silver spear, and deflects an iron crossbow, before a human-sized iron cap strikes him in the chest, injuring the lung and making it difficult for the warlord to breath. A copper shield hits him in the leg, before half a dozen arrows he picked up hit home, eventually forcing the goblin to the ground.
Shorast tentatively approaches the warlord. Shorast manages to wrap his heavily muscled arm around the neck of the warlord, the safest method of taking him out of the fight. Harmless, Shorast avails himself of the opportunity to start ripping the digits off him with his teeth. It's not long before the goblin bleeds out, allowing Shorast to continue into the other room. An ignominious death for Mater Spellsearch.
He picks up warlord's shield and whip, cobbing them at the elite swordsgoblin. The shield breaks the goblin's spine, paralysing him from the waist down. He steps closer, decapitating an unconcsious pikegoblin who he'd been standing over first, and the hacking off first the swordsgoblin's left hand, then putting him in a sleeper hold, affording him the chance to finish the goblin off with a vicious gnashing to the throat.
He moves on through the room, encountering a crossbowman. He decides to go back to get some bolts, and beat him at his own game. The first shot causes the crossbowman to drop his crossbow, and to the ground. He's been paralysed, and can barely move. Shorast takes his time, bludgeoning the crossbowman until he suffocates, probably due to injured lungs.
Unable to find his quarries and frankly sick of look, hungry, thirsty, tired and bruised, Shorast picks up some loot and sets off to leave. Unfortunately, he's not entirely sure of how he got in here in the first place. Dragging an enormous chest along behind him, he eventually finds his way back to the surface, dropping asleep in the keep antechamber. In the morning, he drags the stuff he's carrying to a nearby shop, buys some trinkets, sells some crap, and refills his waterskin.
He decides that this is it. Time to say farewell to Rulewatch. It's been swell, but greater adventures lie to the northeast (apparently some guy up there has work for him). Shorast heads back to the keep still weighed down with too many spare weapons, ammunition, and food, and goes about the task of recruiting some lackeys to accompany him on the journey. He makes a point of only recruiting goblins, purely because it amuses him to have goblins die in his defense.
Speaking of defense, he's not that happy that he's not yet properly had time to train his defensive skills; the constant combat has helped, but there's much room for improvement. Still, he's pretty much tapped Rulewatch out. They're grateful for his help; everyone in town sings his praises. Maybe one day, he'll return to get those two marks; but not today.
He's hitting the road. On a crutch, because he's still not completely awesome at using it. He's got to go northeast, but Rulewatch is on a peninsula; so he's first got to travel south, in a direction he's not yet been. Off he goes.
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Topic: Shorast Steelgirder the Ways of Scintillating - Adventure Log (Read 1574 times)