Prologue: Welcome!
"I-I found it! I found it!" the elf calls up, standing and waving some papers around.
"The ah, the three captains, um, Princess Blacktongue!
Baron Bollwheel!
Chancellor Gruelfist!
They shall, uh, each shall lead one of the three ships behind me, each of which shall be stocked with ample supplies and a suitable crew!
Uh, standard colonists shall consists of 100 farmers, 50 hunters, 50 soldiers, 20 lumberjacks, 20 carpenters, 10 miners, 10 masons, 10 channelers, 10 bureaucrats, 5 blacksmiths, and an architect!
Uh, this, uh, concludes everything, you may board the correct vessels and depart now!"
The elf deflates a little from apparent relief before scurrying off.
Three individuals ambulate to the front of the crowd, calling for order and quiet.
The first to speak is a black and stone-blue woman with the lower body of a serpent. A few from the crowd recognize her as a Lapuli Gorgon, presumably hailing from their hostile kingdom. Her voice has that silky arrogance you sometimes get from slimy nobles and the like. "Now now, would all the craftsmen please direct your attention to the leftmost vessel? That is your destination."
Her vessel, a giant wooden barge like all the others, appears to be crewed by skeletons. Twenty of them, as far as you can tell.
The second is a thundering reddish minotaur with muscles straight out of a statue. He wears a monocle, and his moustache is unusually pronounced. His voice leaves no doubt that he's a brash valor type. "WHAT HO! Hunters and soldiers, to the middle! We'll teach these landlubbers what true valor is, won't we?!"
His vessel appears to be crewed by... some kind of ambulatory mushrooms. White-speckled red tops, dull looks on their faces. Also twenty, as with the skeletons.
The third is a fat ogre. A very, very fat ogre. An ogre of a different sort than the necromancer from the wizards, apparently, with normal-ish beige skin and enough fat to make his torso look like a ball. Which makes it all the more disturbing when he sashays forward gracefully, cigar in hand, monocle over eye, and tophat on head. His voice is predictably oily, the kind someone wants to sell you something with. "Now now, friends. I know all you farmers are feeling left out, but no worries! Ol' Gruelfist has your best interests at heart, and if you'll just find your way to my vessel on your right, I'm sure we'll get along just fine."
His vessel... his vessel is crewed by ratman banjo squads.
With the other colonists shoving their way into the appropriate vessel, you deign to get a look at what's below the ships. The docks don't open into water- they open into air. Specifically, the air above The Eye. A great pulsing sphere of incandescent blue energy, The Eye is a nexus of magical forces, surrounded by a city founded in large part to harness and control it. Only a fool would use it for planar travel... unless they were in a hurry and could manage the added protections. Normally this would include a vessel made of precious metals for a start, but wood works just as well so long as it's totally shielded and nothing goes wrong.
Then it's onto the gorgon's vessel, Princess Blacktongue apparently, and off you go.
Extraplanar travel of this sort is a bit harsher than it has to be, which mandates certain precautions. The short version is that they stuff everybody into barrels and then stack them like any other cargo. Gee, thanks.
The trip begins mundanely enough; you feel the ship unmoor and begin rocking gently. This doesn't last long- soon the rocking becomes more pronounced and erratic, as though you're accelerating and spinning around improbably. Other, less coherent symptoms start cropping up; you feel a flash of tingling, a bout of depression, something seems off but you can't place it, or the fact that you've got a left arm abruptly seems wrong somehow. These then fade compared to the raw magical energies you can feel, and the strange movements become more pronounced and less uniform.
Blacktongue: [4, Malus]
Bollwheel: [17, Bonus]
Gruelfist: [19, Bonus]
When you wake up- you don't recall falling asleep- the ship is still rocking severely. You dimly recognize something is wrong, before terrible realization takes hold: You're in a storm or some other turbulence. Judging by the muffled roar coming from beyond the walls... uh, that sounds like an angry ocean, but there's also a constant patter that makes you think rain.
It occurs to you that you probably should have gotten the details of where you were going before getting on the ship.
With no time for regret and limited ability to skitter out of your barrel without ruining everything forever, you're stuck waiting for thing to improve.
In typical fashion, they do not.
What feels like forever but was probably only a few minutes after waking, there's a thunderous shudder as the ship comes to rest. The roaring and rain have no ceased, which is concerning, but on the bright side you're probably on solid ground. There's an ominous water flowing sound, though...
Skeletons are down to pry you out not long after, which gives you a good look at the hold. There's water flowing down the stairs, and nearby Princess Blacktongue is hunched over the floor as though ill.
"Ship," she wheezes, "Damaged. Idiots, left. Will have, to walk." She looks around with an expression that says she really does not want to walk.
Morbidly curious and in no danger of remaining dry anyway, you climb abovedeck to see where you are. Like most of your decisions, this one is arguably a mistake.
It is indeed raining. It is raining furiously. It feels as though someone is personally standing above you with a bucket of water pouring it directly onto your head, shoulders, shoes, and everything in a five mile radius just to make sure. There are, as befitting the rain, at least two raging rivers flowing past the grounded vessel. They are both leading to what looks like a giant cave with something glowing in it; it's hard to see because of the rain, but you'd wager that's the jump point you just came from.
You didn't get very far, if so.
Otherwise, your surroundings appear to be jungle. Lots and lots of jungle.
A quick check of the vessel confirms that is sustained rather serious damage during the trip; the actual structure is probably mostly fine, but most of the stuff, physical or otherwise, that makes it fly or traverse dimensions is pretty badly shredded. A sufficiently skilled mage or mages might be able to fix it well enough to limp along, but otherwise you are indeed just going to have to walk wherever you're going.
...you do not see the other two ships.
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Topic: The Expedition Arcane [ded] (Read 44476 times)