"Mr. Ranger? Sir? Ah. Well, Claire, I don't suppose you know where he went either? Sword, what about you?"
Either of them have ideas? If no, pack up whatever is left of camp and head onward. I believe we were headed along the canyon looking for a bridge.
If they do have a lead, follow it.
Claire breathes calmly for a moment and continually fails to blink as she gets up, little gray shapes dancing in her mind's eye as she looks at you. No comment, she mouths quietly. You look at your sword, looking unusually and ineffably turgid.
One must admit that one has little idea on who you might mean. Material is material, after all. As for a bridge, one may have a solution for that - much material has been tested and checked along the course of the year, and there is rather a surplus of it on hand. Stab it where you would like a bridge to begin, and look to where you would like it to end. The rest will be taken care of accordingly.
You notice Claire looking distrustfully at your sword. Only for a moment, mind you. She averts her eyes and starts walking quickly away right after.
"Oh, if you need to eat feel free, but I don't really seem to be affected by hunger. It's really convenient, actually. Side note, what does the word 'well' mean to you?"
Join her anyway, then - conversation without a good meal to go with it is such a waste of time, and vice versa. She ushers you inside - the inn is littered with many an unconscious and half-conscious body, and reeks of vomit mixed with excellent ale thickly enough to give you a moment's pause as you head in. Rainbow navigates the remainder of the awake patrons handily, and motions to a pair of men, brothers most likely, clad in white smocks stained with a great deal of powdered spices as well as many-colored sauces, oils and meaty juices. A feast, she whispers in a way that makes them snap to attention, for an honored guest!
You take a spot at a table that empties instantly for you, and are brought a hearty breakfast of minced turkey and omelette in the style of faraway El with a side of what looks like well-done falafel. Rainbow digs in, and offers you to have some as well - it's tempting enough to dig into, and as you do so you get the sense that you were far hungrier than you thought you were, as if your body were remembering the sensation and attempting to compensate. A fierce appetite awakens in you, and proves more than equal to the breakfast. Coffee is readily brought along with oddly colored biscuits that snap and crackle in your mouth, and ice cream in unfamiliar favors covered in cloudberry jam followed by a rather lovely thing you can't readily describe made out of bacon, cheese and what turn out to be living maggots. Rainbow eats most at the start, but you readily overtake her as the sights and smells begin to easily get to you.
And as you eat, conversation flows as well. Not that you really speak, mind you. She finds that her appreciation for regular speech rapidly drops when her mouth can be put to better use. You find the sound of the ensuing mental chuckle inordinately amusing - entirely by design, you suspect, and accurately at that. But you had a question - the well? You are asking what the word means to her, and she notices that you are asking a particular thing - for while she, much like you, knows wells to be dark, deep and lonely places. She also knows that most of them do not contain strange and terrible forces beyond simple comprehension.
[Places of Power: 5]
And you ask this, furthermore, because the minders you have met seem to have found a salient exception. A thing that trades in souls and connections, and traffics with mortals to the best of its ability. A god in the darkness for which you hope to be an important agent in return for receiving its favor? You seem to lead a very interesting life, Mr. Daniels, if you do not mind her saying so.
Best of all, darkness like what you describe may not be a thing merely found in Anglefork. Such things are whispered of sometimes, places of extraordinary danger and emptiness on the manifold edges of the world. And at least one monastic retreat, she suspects. Not here, mind you. El has had much more time to cultivate these little gardens of impossibility - the ground here may be threadbare, but its freshness does gird it in many ways against this kind of thing.
One of the cooks comes up to you as the foods run out - having sampled the menu, he says, what would the honored guest and third mate like today? Rainbow opts for the bacon maggot thing, and you order the same in the interests of not dragging things out. They come back with an American-sized tray filled with freshly-made, gently wiggling breakfast. It does not lose anything in being scaled up.
There is a place on the way in fact, Rainbow continues. She hasn't been personally, mind you. But the crew seem to have very entertaining notions about it. She'd love to guide you to if you would be interested - were half of what she has gleaned correct, it ought to be a most intriguing place.
"Game? I'm not much of gamer, but if there's one game I'm good at, and it's a drinking game! Contest of drinking mind altering liquids to see whose mind and body can withstand largest quantity and quality! After all, I'm devout follower of Ęgir, the brewer of gods!"
"Let's get wasted!"
Let's get wasted! And let Ęgir know about approaching drinking contest. Assuming it indeed approaches. Gonna need his blessings.
A drinking contest, the air trembles! Only very rarely has a drinking contest been issued in these halls, the greater voice booms! Officially, anyway. Luckily, the familiar voice notes, you are nothing if not entirely predictable. A drinking contest it will have to be!
You feel yourself lifted suddenly as things swarm and spin around you, raising you on a wave of chitinous feelers and legs. You are deposited along tunnels and yawning chasms, spun through passages and finally tumble into place, nearly fall over and are then raised to eye level.
Before you sits the devil, a Baphometian figure with horns, burning eyes, smoking nostrils and an excellent rack separated from you by a table of black glass. You look at the surface and see yourself, dead and decomposed. You ask Ęgir to come and check this shit - he sits down next to you as small cups grow out of the surface and fill with something - the scent of it is alcoholic without a doubt, and makes the room sway gently as it hits your nostrils.
Now, the devil tells you in a friendly tone, your arm situation is unfortunate if you would like to drink on your own. Earnest will have to be your second in this. Just to be fair, she will have one as well. Elder, would you assist?
A grinning shadow hesitantly rises on her side, barely visible even when right in front of you. He sits down. The man looks even more stoned up close, he says in his booming voice, remarkable! And next to you, conforming perfectly to Ęgir's own shape in a way that feels more profound than it really should be. So, uh, is he supposed to pour it down your throat? The devil shrugs almost imperceptibly. Your preference, she says to you. Her second will do the same thing. First one under the table will be pronounced a loser and defaced with ritual markings. The audience may drink along at their own pace. There is a small cheer.
"Well, to be honest I'd certainly be more than a little down following what looks like an eternity of torture. What did they even do?"
They were criminals, the alderman helpfully explains. Heinous ones, usually - you can see by the markings. Look at this one, he picks out one fellow in particular who looks to be incredibly deformed. Had to stitch him back together manually! Hanged, drawn and quartered. High treason is quite a crime! The creature struggles in the alderman's hands like a wild animal, seemingly in terrible pain even after being removed from immediate torture. It is frayed much like the other prisoners, but it also seems like it's been taken to pieces many times since the original execution. The alderman examines it - teeth are gone, most of the bones are broken, partly flayed in places - very thorough work! He upends the creature, and you notice the wardens start to torture a little more absentmindedly as they look at what the alderman is doing.
A few moments pass and a thin string of drool comes out of the struggling prisoner's ruined mouth. The alderman raises it to eye level and wiggles it around. That's good phlegm, it is. Shame it doesn't seem inclined to spit much. Or even, say, rake its claws over his face or anything. But it is, one of the wardens protests! Look at its hands flail helplessly against sir's implacable head! The alderman shakes his head at this batting and growls back. That seems more like an accident than a purposeful act of malice, he replies. Not at all appropriate, he's afraid. He has to agree with you - torture doesn't seem to be doing them any good. Should let them lay fallow a little bit, maybe - could he see the cells, he asks as he gingerly balls up the prisoner and tosses it back to the wardens. He has a thing he'd like to check.
You are collectively taken down a dark and terrible cell block with but a little flame to guide your way, the air feeling uncomfortably muggy and oppressive in addition to slightly burning in your lungs as you attempt to breathe. Great atmosphere they're building here, an enthusiastic warden explains to you, who doesn't appear to be listening. They do try to make it as wildly unpleasant as they can - the walls especially take a lot of work, you need to cultivate exactly the right kind of mold - had to have it shipped in from the King's own castle! Only the best for these prisoners, he assures you. The alderman picks a random cell and the warden opens it.
The first thing the alderman picks up on seems to be the door, which he nearly crawls through as he examines the cell - yes, as he suspected. Chew marks on the bars, very light since they're iron bars of course. But he doesn't see any real traces of more systematic attempts at escape. The day count on the wall - absolutely disheartening, seems like it hasn't been touched in weeks. And the escape tunnel under the cobblestones seems to have barely progressed at all. He emerges. Yes, seems like these prisoners are in something of a depressed state. You see the warden's bloody beak visibly sink at this. Unacceptable, he says. Definitely let them lay fallow for a bit, otherwise they'll absolutely break them. And then where will they be?
It's the community involvement, the warden mutters half to himself, should probably work on that. How are they at lunch hour, the alderman continues to ask. Suspiciously well-behaved? Er, the warden says, not very. Mostly they, well, have a little trouble understanding what they're supposed to be doing. Hm, says the alderman, that would be a bit of a problem. Should certainly work on that - less torture would be a good start, he suspects. Perhaps slave labor? Have them maybe build something. The less horrible air would do a bit of good! And maybe one of them would try to escape, or at least deliberately get lost, the warden offers with an air of excitement! He'll be sure to suggest it at the weekly meeting.
"No, I can't get close enough to the floor to see much," I yell. "We'll need to make the rope a little longer. Help me back up." I climb back up the rope, pull it up into the lab, lengthen it with some more cloth from the bedroom, and then climb back down into the cave.
It's a bit of an ordeal to get back up, but you manage it in several minutes of climbing, crawling and other kinds of physical effort. You and the doctor then lengthen the rope some twenty feet, and get down back into the underground chamber.
[One Hundred And Eighty Days In The Hole: 5]
This time you manage to plant your slippered feet solidly on the ground, swinging to the side so as to not have to step into the obviously jellied pile of corpses. The rest of the room seems like a veritable graveyard, filled with a lot of creatures - some with broken limbs, some cut or ripped in places, but most with absolutely no marks on them. Most noticeable of all is a rather large bear that you find yourself face to face with as you turn to look to one side of the chamber - it simply stands there, motionless and dead, staring off into the distance. You poke at it, and it seems to have been coated in some kind of strange, pine-smelling resin about halfway to becoming amber. Generously sized though the hole may be, this absolutely could not have got in here through it - you look around for how it could have entered, and spy a passage leading off into darkness.
Slightly down this passage, however, you also spy a little natural alcove - there is an old lamp standing in it, now long-extinguished, and also a table and chair of clearly different extractions. And next to it, on the ground, you see signs of not-quite-fresh straw that would point to there having been a bedroll there fairly recently.
Is that better, you hear the doctor call from above. Anything good down there?
Leif Erikson, Miner
- Half-basket of apple-like mushrooms
- Itchy Woolen Britches (worn)
- Traces of Mischief: No Arms
- Apples to Apples: The Drinking Contest
- A Word: INEVITABLE
- A Word: APOCALYPSE
- Body Count: 228
- Mead of Poetry (4 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
- Distilled alcohol (in flask)
- Spirits of salt (in clay jar)
- Soaps of elk, bear, bat and snake
- 4 flasks of lamp oil
- Oil lamp (lit)
- Linen stoat shirt (worn)
- Stoat trousers (worn)
- Comfy slippers (worn)
- Never-made scimitar (blackened, slightly dull)
- Tooth-handled hunting knife
- 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
- Sword of the Sand People: Cleaning Supplies
- Sword of the Sand People: The Services of a Minder
- Higher Tonight: There And Back Again
Jack Daniels, Karate Man
- Red and gold vest and breeches combo (worn)
- Leather boots (worn)
- Rubber mattress (filled with water)
- 14033 gp (in sack)
- Poor Unfortunate Soul: Forever Captive
- The Queen's Guard: Actual Asset
- Powers of the Beyond: Gardener of Thoughts
- Garden of Thoughts: the Stoat-Magistrate
- 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
- 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
- Body Count: 3
Thomas Minstep, Insurance Agent
- A Word: ABSENCE
- A Word: GOODBYE
- A Word: WORM
- A Weapon: The Sword They Fear
- Make A Man Out Of You: Battle-Tested
- Ranging fork
- 2 feet of sinew-thread
- Tooth-needle
- 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 Queen's Guard: A Reward Well Earned
- The New Queen: Lasting Gratitude
- Lonely Roads: Walk Away
- The Box: Absolutely Delightful
- Body Count: 2
Oscar Wilde, Chemistry Teacher
- A Word: REVELATION
- Wounds: 1
- Traces of Mischief: Glowing Facial Rift
- The Serpent's Egg: Dissemination
- Body Count: 4
- Cornerstone Helm (worn, collecting light)
- 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
- The Crawling Township: Motivational Wanderer
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Topic: Our Salvation: It Is Written (Read 264048 times)