Huh. Never thought I'd see ball lightning. What odd properties.
Anyway, not going to be going out that way. Forget a bicycle; I need a boat.
Locate the dockmaster around here. Who is the master of boating?
[Master Boaters: 3]
You head down to the courtyard and ask for a dockmaster. You didn't see any docks on the riverside, at least not intact ones, but you remain optimistic. The people in the courtyard also seem quite drunk for the most part, which is an additional issue. Nevertheless, you inquire about the availability of any sort of master boater.
You what, is your answer in most cases. Hurgh, answers one particularly enlightened fellow. Eh, the naked dancing girl asks. The what now? You look politely away as you ask about any trusty master boaters in the area.
Master boaters, she repeats. Like the ferryman? Yes, you say, that probably is a better word for what you're looking for. She sits down on a nearby passed-out person. Well, she thinks really hard for a second. Ferryman might have been in town, she suggests? Maybe? She doesn't really know.
The town, you say. Does she mean the one on the opposite side of the river you are trying to cross? Yes, she says with a disarmingly honest smile. Exactly that town.
What wierd foreplay. Oh well, stoats can wait. Let's dance!
"Baby, I'll show you my moves..."
[Show Me Your Moves: 3]
She guides you along the platform, keeping you close as you step along in a delicate, asymmetric dance, correcting your missteps at every turn with delicate nudges and motions of her head, until you are right back in the middle again, a small trail of oddly descended wooden tiles left behind on the surface.
Very close, she says, resting her head on your shoulder from where she's maneuvered herself behind you. Now you need to step forward, she says - the exact sequence was... well, not entirely important, she would venture to guess. A few mistakes were made along the way anyway, she's reasonably sure. She then takes a discreet step back. This is as far as her reasoning will take you - from here you must improvise. Step to impress, she suggests with a mischievous smile.
"Hmm. I reckon this works, but it'd probably be better if I got it stitched shut or something. Who knows, maybe there's a doctor around these parts."
Go out of the church and ask the nearest sober person if there's a doctor or someone with needle and thread or something like that around here. If knight lady happens to be the only one available, ask her from a distance.
[Search for Sobriety: 2]
In a grim conflux of events it seems that Mr. Minstep is the only one in the courtyard able to at least pretend to be sober, and just from looking at him you get the sneaking suspicion that he will be of absolutely no help. Even the knight seems to have gone off somewhere.
Gah. Too late to stop now, though.
Push grate open fully, preferably with fingers this time. If not, headbutt grate again, though more carefully. With luck the damage won't be permanent.
[Twisting and Contorting: 3]
In a rather more painful set of movements than you anticipated, you manage to wrap the fingers of your right hand around the grate, and try to push outward - it takes effort, your leverage limited and your range of motion laughably small, but after some pushing you manage to push it away, overturning a pot on the other side, at which point you can push your arm out, then your other arm, and by using the outer wall as a bracing point you tear yourself out of the shaft, rolling out on the stone floor covered in unidentifiable sludge, breathing heavily as you suddenly enjoy the ability to be able to move more than a few inches. It is a surprisingly great feeling.
Your mandatory short rest completed, you look around, and you can't say you like what you see. The room you're now in looks to be rectangular and quite large, and also completely windowless. You're not sure what it smells like, your senses numbed from horrific confinement, but it looks like some long-forgotten basement. Spiderweb-laden pots line the walls, bags piled up in one corner, another corner featuring a pile of drapes in the final stages of burning up, the top of the room filled with smoke from the fire. In one corner you see the outline of a black door, the words 'Be Staying In Away' glowing softly green on it.
The rest of the room is strewn with upturned wooden tubs and other crap, and notably in the center you see a construction of tubs and what look like inscribed bricks, the goal of which appears to be to allow access to a chain hanging down from a stone shaft reminiscent of a well. There is little light in here, but even that manages to nearly blind you as you emerge from what you think was a completely dark little vent shaft.
You look back, something vaguely bothering you, and look at the hole you just crawled out of. It takes you a moment to realize it as you crawl toward it curiously, confirming that what you see is not a trick of the light - you put your hand into it experimentally. It... only barely fits.
I suppose the rat shit tunnel leads somewhere mundane... Honestly, though, it probably leads to these guys' heaven or something. They really do like rats.
Whatever lies ahead, I guess I should try to be as prepared as I possible. I sit down and try to rest against the wall as I contemplate my situation. What shape is the room? Rectangular, I suppose, with an exit on each wall? The positioning might have some symbolism. And which wall did I climb down?
[Architectural Considerations: 2]
With your luck, you suppose the exact function of each passageway is written clearly above each passageway, save perhaps the ratshit tunnel. In this complete lack of light, however, you don't think you can discern much more about what any of them could possibly be. Especially given that you're unfamiliar with any specific architectural conventions of this area. For all you know the layout could be just as much like an ancient Egyptian tomb as it could be a Swiss bomb shelter.
The spot you fell down from, however, seems to be in the middle of the room, a shaft right in the middle of the ceiling. Not even particularly hidden, it seems.
Leif Erikson, Miner
- A Word: INEVITABLE
- Wounds: 1
- Reappropriated, Clean Skirt
- 1 gp
- Anglefork Castle: A Free Man
- The Box: ?
- Tower of the Mind: a Lack of Patience
- Imaginary Inebriation: South of Sobriety
- Induced Lucidity: the Burning Church
- The Prison Stone
- Elongated Affairs: A Noble Task
- Elongated Affairs: The Numbers of the Stoat
- Compatibility: Minding
- Tricks of the Mind: Cormick's Condescending Riddle
- Tricks of the Mind: Perceptual Rebuke
- Tricks of the Mind: Erikson's Inexplicable Grapefruit
- Party in the Courtyard: Celebration in Earnest
- Never In: A Final Flourish
- The Voracious Dark: Two Deals Made
- The Voracious Dark: The Promised Sixth
Eileen Minett, Vinyl Collector
- Naked
- A Word: HUNGER
- A Word: CHAOS
- A Weapon: Explosive Cysts
- Rat Pantheon: Disliked
- Traces of Mischief: Mouthful of Blackness
- Origins: Witness to Dissolution
- Tower of the Mind: There's Something To Remember
- The New Queen: And Something To Forget
- The Queen's Guard: Bringer of Doom
- Gross Incandescence: Crumbling Shell
- Touch of Flame: the Secrets of Flammability
- Inscribed Brick ('Water')
- The Voracious Dark: Two Connections Given
- Body Count: 1
- Never In: the Obvious Candidates
- Labyrinths of Anglefork: Four Paths To Inevitable Doom
- The Impromptu Prophecy: the Sensible Solution
Jack Daniels, Karate Man
- Wounds: 2 (alleviated)
- Voluntarily Naked
- Traces of Mischief: A Bisected Left Kidney
- Uncoupled: Strength
- Wooden Door (held)
- The Majordomo: A Most Displeasing Brigand
- The Winding Path of Inspiration: the Sword of Destiny
- The Winding Path of Inspiration: Something Priceless?
- The Winding Path of Inspiration: An Unspeakable Garment
- The Winding Path of Inspiration: A Profane Megalith
- Tower of the Mind: Endless Well of Mystery
- Induced Lucidity: A Garden Well-Tended
- Doomstones: ?
- A Place In History: Emergent Abomination
- Anglefork Castle: the Great Serpent
- 2 rats, crushed
- 1 rat, strangled
- 1 rat, live
- Touch of Flame: the Second Degree
- Gross Incandescence: Unilluminated
- Travels In The Fourth Dimension: Sunday ± 2 Days
- The Impromptu Prophecy: There's A Mountain Higher Than We Knew
- The Voracious Dark: Two Connections Given
- Body Count: 2
Thomas Minstep, Insurance Agent
- A Word: ABSENCE
- Anglefork Castle: From Another Time, Another Land
- Gross Incandescence: Partly Illuminated
- Tight Leather Pants (worn)
- Incredibly Tight Blue Dress (worn, mutilated, mildly provocative)
- Travels In The Fourth Dimension: Friday, July 23rd, 409 S.D.
- The Majordomo: Happy to Redirect
- The Queen's Guard: Okayed by the Queen
- The New Queen: Within the Margin of Sanity
- Tower of the Mind: the Quest for Signage
- Body Count: 1
- Army of the New State: 455 Stout Strangers
Oscar Wilde, Chemistry Teacher
- Naked
- Wounds: 1