Information. Information is key, and probably worth more than its weight in gold, if you could weigh it. Probably at least 16 times its weight in gold.
*ahem*
Yes... Let's try to get some information on our quarry.
There are some philosophers who insist that you
can weigh information, and that you can do other things with it too.
Jacob Diamonds stands up from the table and meanders around, eying potential sources of information on the basement. [4] As luck would have it, he spots a table in the corner where a badly injured man sits and describes, gestures and all, his experience in the dungeon.
"...And Ballin turns back and 'e gives me this signal," the man holds up his right hand. It is completely swaddled in bloodstained gauze, and he stares disappointedly at it for a moment, and then raises his left hand and throws up an 'all-okay' gesture followed by a single finger, "Telling me that we should be good to go, but we gotta stay quiet 'cause of
the owls. And then he starts going down this corridor, this... stone corridor that looked just like all of 'em. And he steps, and there's this
THUNK and I look up and 'is head is just gone," the man, by now, is becoming somewhat agitated, occasionally touching the bandage covering most of his head. "And I look up and I see the blade, and Ballin's head kebabed on it, like it would've cut a man in two but took the dwarf at the shoulders, and my god, jus' seein' so much blood..." He buries his head in his hands and his crutch falls over. The motley crew of novice adventurers gathered around look alternately appalled or nauseous, except for a couple who either seem excited or just noncomprehending.
Jacob pulls up a chair and listens for a little while as the man continues.
Some dungeon facts:
1. There are dangerous owls in the upper levels.
2. There are a large number of highly lethal boobytraps.
3. Hundreds, even thousands of gold coins are to be found, sometimes left completely unguarded.
4. There is a strong and common belief among adventurers that the dead will rise if abandoned in the basement.
5. The dungeon is very difficult to consistently navigate; passageways that you thought lead to one place may take you another on your next trip. Places that were once safe may not be safe when you return.Drink ale. Go with the flow.
[2] Sir Deikos tilts back his mug and slips into a reverie about chivalry just in time to be jarred out of it by a fat peasant getting shoved into him and his all going all over his armor. "Ahhhh!" The peasant flails his arms as he and Deikos tumble into a heap on the ground. Deikos looks over and sees a particularly tall, skinny, old man wearing a rusty antique helmet and shouting agitatedly at the obese peasant. Something about scurrilous roguery and insulting some kind of peerless flower of courtly love or something.
"Huehuehue!"
It's as if Brother Omada is here with still, it is.
Quack-Quack finishes his meal of aged bread and stale wine before looking for a merchant in need of safe passage to another town. He offers the merchant the protective services of himself and any accompanying party members for a generous 5 gold a head, plus a fair share of any loot the caravan comes across. If any more charismatic party members tag along he lets them do the talking.
After bandying about some banter and at least one prophecy regarding the doom of one of his companions, the ruffled duck gets up and waddles off in the opposite direction of the snow elf. [1] It quickly becomes apparent that the merchants who supply the castle do not patronize this tavern. Upon inquiring with one of the fortress' guards, he is informed that not only do they have their own accommodations, but Lord Crotalus, the ruler of this keep, provides armed escorts through the wilderness and maintains a monopoly on who trades here. Everything goes through him. That he knows of.
((So I don't have a quiver of javelins, I have a golf bag of javelins. Fuckin' love this already.))
Get drunk, chalk the tip of a nine-iron javelin, then join in the attempt to gather information.
In that order.
Fath slides out of his chair and moves to avoid getting bowled over by the fat knave. He lifts and drains his mug, pulls a nine-iron javelin from his javelin bag, and starts chalking the tip as he goes to gather information on the basement below the castle.
[6] "Hah, holy shit! Hey, boss!" A surprisingly familiar face grins at him from a table. It's Muta, one of his old lieutenants! The muscular human gives a wave and beckons his former superior over to a seat at the table. He actually looks to be doing pretty well for himself; he's wearing a shiny winged helmet with an ornate visor, and his armaments are both well made and well maintained, possibly even enchanted. He pours Fath a flagon of the high quality ale the tavern keeps for actually paying customers and they get caught up on things; Muta has made multiple extremely successful trips into the basement and accumulated a significant amount of wealth. He's waiting for the weather to clear, and then he's going to leave this place and head south to warmer climes where he can start that organic giant weasel farm he always dreamed of.
The two sit and talk for a while, and Muta tells Fath just about everything he can remember about the dungeons.
(Bonus to basement knowledge rolls!)Some facts and opinions and things Muta has to say:
1. The owls. My god, the owls. I never want to see another pie faced subterranean meatbird in my life.
2. Don't be afraid to go down and then come up quickly if the situation starts to get out of control. Just grab the money and leave.
3. Remember that time we repelled a charge from those Atrian ostrich cataphracts? With the pikes and that whole thing with the wooden stakes you had us set up on the slope? That worked down there too, but on a smaller scale.
4. It's usually worth trying to talk things out first. Sometimes.
5. You can make some pretty good money hauling things up that aren't just coin. The guy who runs this place takes a cut, but it's not as bad as you'd expect from someone who calls himself "Lord Crotalus."
6. You probably wouldn't be too surprised at how the natives down there behave, but a normal person would. Heh.
7. There are traps everywhere.
8. About things getting out of control and leaving quickly; it's surprising how you can lose track of how deep you are. Sometimes when things get intense, it seems like the dungeon around you just gets deeper without you going anywhere at all.
9. If you go down far enough, there are things like temples and even towns way down there.He throws in some more facts, but also spends a little while describing some of the common traps.
(Bonus to noticing traps!)The hooded figure watches everyone else silently for a while. He seems to be staring at the duck in a tophat mostly, allthough it's hard to tell because his hood casts as shadow over his face meaning that you can't see very much most of the time. Infact if it wasn't for the Lootington Emblem emblazoned on the top of his hood and back some people might mistake him for a bad guy. Which he's not... probably. Oh, and he pushes his mug of ale to the dwarven mercenery. Must not like it.
Go with whatever everyone else does, stay silent.
Sir Lootington gets up and follows the snow elf, pulling up a chair near him and listening to the maimed adventurer talk about the dungeon. At the moment, he's spiraling into a post-traumatic episode and talking about "owls behind the tapestry,
waiting for us."Ask around about the basement.
[4] Akashir gets up and looks for people who don't look like craven cowards to ask some questions of. He soon finds himself wrapped up in a game of darts with an assortment of warriors wearing various spiky or macabrely decorated helmets. The idle conversation about swords gradually shifts over to the basement, and those that have been down there add in some of their observations;
1. There are tons and tons of different entrances down into it, some of them aren't obvious.
2. It's really hard to keep track of the place. Chalking the ground helps, but it can still get confusing.
3. I never knew owls could make noises like that.
4. It's surprising how much money there is down there.
5. There are a lot of traps set up in corridors and rooms, but it doesn't make sense how a lot of the things down there don't know about them.
6. One guy brought a pickaxe and a wooden mallet down there. He tapped on the wall with the mallet to find secret doors or thin walls and then broke through them with the pickaxe.awoooooo
The wolf lets loose another baleful howl from its perch on the small coppice-dune overlooking the moor. The stones of the fortress off in the distance seem to glow in the pale yellow light of the moon. Or is that what's inside the fortress?
Either way, an aural disturbance, a twist in the ether, makes the fortress shine and loom gigantic on the horizon of Theta's mind. Such a dramatic shift could only mean one thing; is the prophecy about to be fulfilled?
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Topic: ROGUELIKE 2: Sword of Azirkan Turn 8: Our Heroes Beat-Down One of Their Own, heh (Read 20368 times)