"Did you make a deal with the well? Just curious to see if you got pseudo-ripped off like I did. Either way, let's get us out of here, shall we? There's a chain over this way."
If Mr. Wilde agrees, help him up the chain and out of the well.
You whistle contently as you grab onto the chain and effortlessly climb topside. It takes a moment for Mr. Wilde to make significant progress, so you expedite matters by grabbing his hand and, using the nearby stone pillar the chain is attached to, whip him right out of the pit and over on the ground, where he flops a moment before getting up and looking at you in confusion, then at the surrounding area.
Disappear before being cornered by the doctor again. Head up to the walls to see if there's any place that a bridge-analog could be built. What are those stout fellows up to anyway?
[Observations of the Noble Stoat: 6]
A trip to the battlements proves less than informative, the sun having set and the environs being a little dark. Granted, the moonlight does help a tad in that you can see what look like mildly glowing embers of a once-proud bridge off in one part of the river. Supports still jutting out of the water and everything, even. Seems like a good place to start if bridge building is your thing.
That established, you subject a group of stout fellows in strict formation some two hundred feet away from the walls to your discerning eye. Their silhouettes in the dark are quite difficult to make out, and you do need to lean a little out between the parapets. Hm. Something with their hands, you think. Kind of difficult to see with how their bodies twist in unnatural-looking ways. They've got something in their hands, yes. And they're pointing these things at you, you think. How odd.
[Thirty Bolts, Just To Be Safe: 5 vs. 6]
A light rain of crossbow bolts showers the wall around you shortly afterwards, none really getting very close to hitting you, but nevertheless being slightly concerning as they clank off the battlements and down into the courtyard, no doubt making quite a ruckus as the shafts roll down this one fellow's roof. A door opens shortly afterwards, a dishevelled youth looking in glee at the sudden wealth of wood and metal in his backyard before running to gather as much as possible before the next volley comes in - somewhere along 10 make it back inside along with him, an admirable performance considering the semi-darkness.
"Uh... thanks." I run out of the tombs. Hopefully I tripped all the traps on the way in.
[Feet of the Unwary: 6]
You sprint down the corridor that led you to this tomb, running right into your dead companion as its palm squarely meets your face and the rest of you slams into its body, which once again fails to budge an inch (unlike a couple of your teeth upon impact). You ponder for a moment what that was for as you try to move around the creature, and discover that its other hand appears to be pointing at the ground. Curious, you carefully check it...
... a pressure plate. Still unpressed. You think you must have missed it in your first walk through here. You navigate around it with a sigh, and proceed along the rest of the hallway, which is blissfully free of interruption. You can't quite say the same thing about the crossroads room, however, as the priestess immediately takes note of your arrival. Must be that creaky bit of metal you're carrying. Quite noisy, really.
What is this, she asks. Did you survive? What have you brought here? The last question carries a hint of uncomprehending alarm.
"The... Well? Do you mean the darkness beyond the threshold? What is it like? What do you mean, ripped off? Though I suppose we had best leave this place. After you, naturally."
Questions, questions, questions. Then follow Mr. Daniels up the chain and out of here.
[Adventurer's Fitness: 3]
It's a bit of a climb to get up the chain, and you're not in quite as good a shape as you'd like to be for it, not to mention the fact that your hands are pretty cut up and kind of hurt throughout. Fortunately, just as you are about to falter in the final stretch, Mr. Daniels helpfully holds on to a nearby stone pillar and offers you a hand - you take it and he disturbingly easily
whips you out of the shaft and onto the ground, where you lay a moment in confusion before getting up and making sure you didn't just dislocate a shoulder or something (hearteningly, this does not appear to be the case).
The sight that greets you is quite unusual. Around you is the courtyard of a medieval castle, complete with tense-looking guards wearing period-appropriate mail and keeping their hands on their weapons. There's quite a few buildings about, some built in quite an unusual style (including a chapel with holes in the walls, a ramshackle assemblage of stolen building materials, a circle of stones and quite a few dilapidated wooden buildings, plus an out-of-place cob tower in one corner and a stately stone keep with remarkably small windows dominating one side of the yard). The smell of desperation and confusion is on the air. Awkwardly, it seems like nudity isn't really the choice of dress around here as far as you can tell. Seems to just be Mr. Daniels' thing. Maybe you ought to address this somehow. Fortunately, this being nighttime, the guards don't seem overly bothered by your appearance regardless.
Ugh, that was unpleasant. I think I want to go back into wooden labyrinth. Or since the word seems to be working now, follow the INEVITABLE path to outside.
You wish it was that easy, really. That you could just say your escape was
INEVITABLE
[Word: 1]
and you would not just get a depressing view of yourself a hundred years later, still in darkness, still alone, still hounded by dumb invertebrates unaware of how hopelessly outclassed they are. At that point you will hardly even resemble what you used to be, your hands having grown claws, your head erupting feelers from now-vestigial eyes, your brain adapting to a fundamentally different mode of perceiving the world. At this point you will have given up on finding a conventional way out and try to dig the stone - little will you suspect the true reason of your failure. But at that point your meeting with it will be an inevitability of its own, drawn into its inexorable grasp as you will be-
-okay, you think that's enough of that. You poke the feelers back into your face and try to focus on the task ahead. Maybe banking on predestination isn't the way forward, since predestination seems to feel like being a dick right now. Like using a compass in the South Pole, you swear.
Leif Erikson, Miner
- A Word: INEVITABLE
- Wounds: 2
- Reappropriated, Clean Skirt
- 1 gp
- Anglefork Castle: A Free Man
- The Box: ?
- Tower of the Mind: a Lack of Patience
- Induced Inebriation: Bone-Chilling Fear
- 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: Swallowed By The Pit
- Gods of the Underground: Did You Just What
- Labyrinths of Anglefork: The Underground Brook
- The Voracious Dark: Two Deals Made
- The Voracious Dark: The Promised Sixth
Eileen Minett, Vinyl Collector
- Naked
- Wounds: 2
- An Arm And A Blade (blunted, bloodstained)
- A Word: HUNGER
- A Word: CHAOS
- A Weapon: Explosive Cysts
- Rat Pantheon: Disliked
- Traces of Mischief: Mouthful of Blackness
- Traces of Mischief: Loosened Smile
- 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
- 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: Tomb of the Valiant Knights
- The Impromptu Prophecy: the Sensible Solution
- Sweet Little Children: Helpfulness
Jack Daniels, Karate Man
- Voluntarily Naked
- Traces of Mischief: A Bisected Left Kidney
- Uncoupled: Strength
- Wooden Door (held)
- The Majordomo: ?
- 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
- Travels In The Fourth Dimension: Sunday ± 2 Days
- The Impromptu Prophecy: There's A Mountain Higher Than We Knew
- The Voracious Dark: Three Connections Given
- The Good Doctor: A Recommendation
- 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, wet)
- Incredibly Tight Blue Dress (worn, mutilated, mildly provocative)
- Travels In The Fourth Dimension: Saturday, July 24th, 409 S.D.
- The Majordomo: A Fresh-Faced Lunatic
- The Good Doctor: House Call
- 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
- Burlap Foot Wrappings (worn)
- Burlap Hand Wrappings (worn)
- Blue Shards of a Probable Bottle
- Blue Glass Shiv
- A Wealth of Burlap Ribbons
- The Voracious Dark: the Threshold