"No, not at all. No clue what happened. Unsanitary hand-to-face contact fuelled growth of you supernatural fungus peoples? Dunno, don't really care. Bye."
Where was El? West, I think? Start going west, or whichever direction it was in.
Since they don't seem interested in fucking with you, you quickly lose interest in the fungal statue people and try to remember what you were doing. A moment's think lands you at El - probably far away, but not like you're in a particular rush or anything. You head westward, passing by the storehouse you vividly recall assaulting, now a charred and smoking husk. There's a few people around, but screw this, you've been delayed long enough by their silly distractions.
You take a long walk off the shortest available pier and jump into the river, aiming to cross westward. It makes for a curious scene as you easily manage to paddle yourself out of the water, surprising even yourself as you rise out like a speedboat at full tilt, almost running on all fours in the water as you exert disproportionate force in relation to your mass. Emerging from the other side, where the relative density of the east bank has given way to scattered and mostly collapsed fishing huts and outlying farms (no doubt due to the treacherous, even if in your case unchallenging crossing).
[Life Is Peaceful There: 5]
Your walk through the outskirts of Anglefork attracts eyes. Familiar eyes, and more than a few belong to stoatmen, uniformly frightened and unsettled at your presence, quick to hide as you look back. Some of them even vacate the ruins of the houses they've set up in and take off at an ineffectual run on their short, stubby legs. You see a bear walking down a side street, pawing at piles of rubble, presumably in search of survivors. A pack of mongrel dogs holds court over the remains of an improvised shrine, but the mere presence of your murder-thought scatters them easily.
At the western edge of it all is a house, and beyond it the woods properly begin. It looks like something between a duplex and an archway, striking in its peculiar architecture. The right part of it has collapsed along with the archway, bent rooftop statues of shining solid gold littering the rubble, but the left seems to have held up very nicely, the three-story affair looking downright livable, especially considering the light shining in its top floor window. Beyond it you see a path leading west, a long road of hardened black earth with readily distinguishable segments where the side of the road waves and curves regularly.
"Eh, that didn't go right."
I did that "walk through stone" trick once before, surely I can do it again. It would be fantastic if I could include "walk through dragon" part into it. It was INEVITABLE, right? Important part of my fate or something.
You're not sure a man in your state of dismemberment would be wise to court inevitability. Wisdom, however, was never your strong suit.
INEVITABLE
[Word: 6]
The valley shakes as you let the Word rip through it, and suddenly your resting spot crumbles and you fall, the entire crevice folding in on itself rapidly as you tumble down the cliff wall. Solid rock snaps shut over you. The roaring continues for a good minute as the entrance closes, and you are left in pitch blackness here beneath the earth, water gently rushing along your back as you become acutely aware of several hundred feet of rock now separating you from the surface.
"Eeeeyaaaag!" That probably counted as a battle cry.
Okay, better fight back for real. Recall battle training with the guard. Maybe fork that joint?
[Valuable Recollections: 5]
This isn't quite like beating people up with sticks at arms' length, but you do recall your training! Combat is, after all, a state of mind. And it's one you try to adopt as best you can as you free your hand and go for a good forking.
[Fork The World: 3+1 vs. 4]
This does not work out quite as intended, but the scratch along the back of its leg that you expertly deliver is enough to throw the beast off - sensing that getting into a close quarters fight is perhaps not to its advantage it yelps and withdraws a little, giving you time to get on your feet and regain your composure as you assume a more proper combat stance, the creature seemingly ready for a winner-take-all duel with you as it attempts to circle round and look for an opening. Go around it, says the ranger! He'll help in a pincer attack! The creature shoots a distrustful glance in his direction before refocusing on you.
"Maybe there's a room with someone's weapon collection."
I continue exploring the house.
Wouldn't be unexpected, the doctor supposes. Many country nobles are also avid hunters, or at least avid hunting enthusiasts when the local wildlife is a little too ferocious to personally hunt. And what's a hunter without a favored weapon?
[The Country House Expedition: 6]
After a false start with a guest bedroom that seems to have been stripped of anything but a canopy bed and littered with now-decaying rose petals, you and the doctor try the next door and find that it leads to a study - and also a trophy room! The doctor seems more excited than you are about this discovery, rushing in ahead of you at the first glint of heads on the walls.
And what heads they are!
Quite an avid hunter, the doctor comments approvingly, or at least a gifted taxidermist! There's the head of what resembles a proboscis ape, but with enormous, jagged, antler-like tusks coming from its mandible, its dark glass eyes of pupilless red apparently very anatomically accurate according to the doctor. Springheel, she provides a name. They live in treetops. Rooftops too, sometimes. Very nimble for their weight. There's also the skull of a night gaunt, smaller than most of the ones you've seen, but still an impressive and very shiny trophy regardless. There's the length of something that looks a lot like a lamprey, except instead of the usual teeth it seems to have a wealth of hooks in its mouth, the entire thing disinfected and coated in varnish for posterity. The doctor taps one of the hooked teeth, each one about the length of her hand. River grinder, she calls out! See, how it works is that it unfolds its mouth of hooked teeth and juts them out, then uses a combination of its powerful tail fin and good old suction to pull in its prey, such as the leg of an unwary swimmer! At which point, she demonstrates as she makes a spinning motion with her hands and a very illustrative noise with her mouth, it uses its adaptable musculature to turn it into a digestible slurry.
She's quite knowledgeable on this, you note. You're kidding, the doctor says, this is essentially a breakdown of the big five of northern killer fauna. Look, there's a gorebeast head as well, she points at something a lot like a more menacing version of a rhinoceros beetle. Looks blunt, of course, but it makes up for the difference in sheer force. Less prominently displayed than the others is a strange-looking skull with two rows of stubby horns along its top, the maxilla tapering to a single long tooth, the lower jaw seemingly missing. The fabled antwerp? The doctor shrugs - maybe? Doesn't look like what she's seen in any of the books she's read.
But look, there's even a dragon souvenir, she coos and goes toward what looks like a fan made of feathers on the wall, engraved with what look to be war chants. Bought off some wandering clanfolk, presumably, but it's a presence of some kind. Rather nice workmanship, she says as she takes it off the wall and gives it a delicate sweep through the air, the fan making the distinct noise of steel being swung through the air. Would be a shame to leave it here for somebody else to steal, wouldn't you think? She sits down by a desk covered in failed attempts at writing letters and a good deal of spilled wax, fanning herself with the artifact as she gives a smile.
Leif Erikson, Miner
- Itchy Woolen Britches (worn)
- Wounds: 3
- Traces of Mischief: No Arms
- A Word: INEVITABLE
- A Word: APOCALYPSE
- Body Count: 228
- Mead of Poetry (5 shining revelations remaining)
- Enders' Friend: The Grave of Red Clouds Parting
- Inscribed Wooden Stylus
- Iron spear
- 1.03 gp
- The Box: ?
- Induced Lucidity: the Aftermath, or the New Beginning
- Compatibility: Minding
- Tricks of the Mind: Perception, Memory
- Tricks of the Mind: Engagement, Negation, Abstraction, Prestige
- Tricks of the Mind: the Self, the Other
- Gods of the Underground: Did You Just What
- A Visit From The Stork: Is What You Yes
- The Voracious Dark: Two Deals Made
- The Voracious Dark: The Promised Sixth
- Moth's Flight: the Way to Rise
- The Miracle of Life: Wayward Rabbit
Eileen Minett, Vinyl Collector
- Linen stoat shirt (worn)
- Stoat trousers (worn)
- Comfy slippers (worn)
- Black leather boots
- An assemblage of amber and amethysts
- Silver thread-necklace
- Onyx spiral earrings
- 2 oaken rings
- Rusty, bloodstained knife
- A Word: HUNGER
- A Word: SYNTHESIS
- A Weapon: Explosive Cysts
- Grenade Jumping: A Solid Technique
- The Good Doctor: Secret Histories
- Higher Tonight: There And Back Again
Jack Daniels, Karate Man
- Naked
- Red and gold vest and breeches combo
- Leather boots
- Rubber mattress (filled with water)
- 14033 gp (in sack)
- The Queen's Guard: Actual Asset
- Powers of the Beyond: Gardener of Thoughts
- Garden of Thoughts: the Stoat-Magistrate
- Garden of Thoughts: Alphonse the Clerk
- Dusty Wooden Speaking-Trumpet
- Crossbow Bolt (in throat)
- A Word: REND
- A Word: SILENCE
- A Weapon: Murder-Thought
- Uncoupled: Strength
- Wooden Door
- The Winding Path of Inspiration: Run Like Hell
- Tower of the Mind: Endless Well of Mystery
- Induced Lucidity: A Garden Well-Tended
- Elongated Affairs: Enemy of the New State
- A Place In History: Vastly Unreliable
- Anglefork Castle: the Great Worm
- 2 rats, crushed
- 1 rat, strangled
- 1 rat, live
- Travels In The Fourth Dimension: Sunday ± 2 Days
- Doomstones: So High Up But Such A Bitter View
- The Majordomo: A Great Divide Between Us Now
- The Voracious Dark: Decreasing Demand
- The Voracious Dark: More Specific Requests
- The Good Doctor: A Vague Memory
- Body Count: 3
Thomas Minstep, Insurance Agent
- Ranging fork (wielding fiercely)
- Troubles In Anglefork Town: Bearer of the Sword
- Wounds: 1
- A Word: ABSENCE
- A Word: GOODBYE
- Tooth-needle
- The Doom Guard: A Productive Discussion
- A Weapon: The Sword They Fear
- Traces of Mischief: Whole-Body Radioactive Burn
- A Bowl, Black and Knobby
- Tight Leather Pants (worn)
- Incredibly Tight Blue Dress (worn, mutilated, mildly provocative)
- Travels In The Fourth Dimension: Sunday, July 25th, 409 S.D.
- The Good Doctor: An Island of Sanity
- The Queen's Guard: A Reward Well Earned
- The New Queen: Lasting Gratitude
- Lonely Roads: The Man, The Legend
- The One They Fear: A Satisfactory Contract
- The Box: Absolutely Delightful
- A Boy's Life: Out Back
- Body Count: 2
Oscar Wilde, Chemistry Teacher
- The Mind, It Goes A-Wandering: 1
- A Word: REVELATION
- Traces of Mischief: Glowing Facial Rift
- The Serpent's Egg: Dissemination
- Body Count: 4
- Bog mummy (wearing metal helmet)
- Time-ender's measure (wrapped, processing? stopping?)
- 10 m of rope
- Half a candle
- 1 rat, skinless and smoked
- 6 gp
- Poor Misshapen Dice
- Lock of Hair (unidentified)
- Iron nail, unused
- An Inauspicious Key
- Burlap Foot Wrappings (worn)
- Burlap Hand Wrappings (worn)
- Moth-Eaten Hat (worn)
- Respectable Brown Skirt (worn)
- Old Brown Waistcoat (worn)
- Bright Yellow Tunic (worn)
- A Wealth of Burlap Ribbons
- The Winding Path of Inspiration: The Less Dangerous Friend
- Fuligin Gates: A Delivery for the Town