Sorry for the delay in posting; I would've had this out this morning if it wasn't for a family issue on my end.
28th Moonstone(?)(Multiple pages are crusted over with cyan and red blood; the following entry is written in a different hand to the others.)
We slaked our thirst for treasure and blood on the goblin pits of Polishedghoul and Jackalriddled. Crude though their craftsmanship is, their arms and armour are some of the few sized for Athama – Irthu and I are far too large to fit even the largest of their armour.
Truth be told, we needed little from them. Strifefularmour’s shops were more than willing to provide us weapons and a few small pieces of armour. The shields and bucklers taken from the fallen will provide at least some more protection when we move towards that accursed pyramid in the north. 2nd Opal
…
…I have made a terrible mistake.
In seeking the rumoured slab at this pyramid – Uklasut – I thought I would be able to expiate some of my dark reputation, and find myself at least partly redeemed.
I was a fool, and I fear that the realms shall pay for my folly.
Finding the slab was of no great difficulty. It lay at the limits of this accursed place, upon a patch of rain-sodden grass; a mere few steps brought me close enough to grasp its smooth sides. My treacherous eyes strayed from the grass around it, upon which I had tried to fix my gaze, and were dragged towards the infernal words inscribed upon the bronze.
In that moment of reading the slab, something possessed me momentarily. I felt, for a brief second, a freezing cold presence beside me; a feeling of intense frustration; then a sudden, terrible sense of joy, oily and cruel; a rush of power came to me, pulsing outwards as the secrets of life and death were ingrained into my mind. The scent of blood and rot struck me like a hammer-blow, pouring from Athama and Ragnar like a miasma; if I had any doubts before about what was in that ‘wine’ the Museum staff gave us, I have them no longer.
From within the pyramid, the lid of the coffin slid off. A decaying, hairless hand pawed at the air, before seizing the side of the coffin and raising its owner up with a horrid wrenching motion. Skin stretched tightly across visible bones, a blistered, blackened skeletal grin, and the loss of its former coat of hair did nothing to disguise the rising creature’s identity, nor the horror of what I had done.
Raki Umberclan the Bulbous, the Demonic Monkey King, was alive again.
The living corpse turned its face towards us, a grotesque look of satisfaction spreading across its features as the clouds parted overhead –
People say that necromancers and the living dead feel no terror. That is a lie; ‘Terror’ is the only word for the sensation in my heart at the sight of the full moon’s light shining down upon us all.
The first spasm seized the risen monkey, and made him into a monstrous thing, hideous and twisted. Every joint, knuckle, angle, and organ within his half-rotten body seemed to shake like a tree caught in a raging flood; his flesh made a furious twist within his body, sending grotesque ripples through the skin. One eye bulged out of the socket as his head began to change, almost falling sideways along the cheek; the other shrank so deep within that a wild crane’s beak ought not to be able to reach it. The spine erupted from his back like the back-borne fin of a fish, flesh tearing and then closing over as the monstrous being’s body continued to mutate; the bones of his fingers cracked and thickened, bursting through the flesh and changing to the shape of wickedly-hooked claws, thick as a man’s arm was broad. His mouth cracked and weirdly distorted, the cheeks peeling back as two vast, hooked tusks forced their way out through bone and flesh alike; the lower jaw snapped at the air, striking the upper a blow great enough to bite a man in half as the nose lengthened and thrashed between the tusks like a Goblin’s whip.
Fully transformed, the Weremammoth reared up, raising its elephantine head to the sky and trumpeting in blind fury. That was the sole reason we escaped: while I stood frozen in fear, Athama and Ragnar seized me by the arms and heaved backwards, pulling me away as the beast began to vent its fury on everything in sight.
…I can hardly say that I didn’t deserve that strike to the jaw that Athama gave me in the aftermath.
Nor can I say that I did not deserve the scimitar to the throat.
What happened after that, I can recall only vaguely. A shout of horror, a frantic scramble – blood, hot and thick, soaking into the soil. My vison went dark; how long for, I cannot tell. Hours, days, weeks – and then, a sudden pull.
I awoke on red-stained soil with the faces of Athama and Ragnar peering down at me – the hand of the latter crackling with necromantic power, and the former… horrified, I believe it would be, at what he had unknowingly caused.
Little more needs to be said. I feel neither anger nor sorrow at what happened there; I cannot begrudge him a moment’s madness at the sight of one of his people’s greatest sins arising again. I would return there and strike that risen monster down in a heartbeat (metaphorically, now), were it not for this strange… barrier
in my mind. Should I think of returning there, I find myself distracted, my attention fully drawn to other places, other memories – unable to focus even upon the map before me as I become lost in thought.
But now, I find myself at a crossroads. Where am I to go?
My master’s clan would never accept a creature of the night into their midst, agreement or no; much of the same may be said for most sane cultures in this world. The Realm of Silver I remain a criminal in. The Goblin pits are no place for any but those vile creatures. The Museum –
…Yes. My goal may yet remain unchanged – an artefact in exchange for shelter.
OOC: Raki didn’t actually transform - there was heavy cloud cover on the night, which might have had something to do with not triggering the transformation – but I couldn’t pass up the chance to write a WB transformation and rezz him. And yes, he is a Fell One.
Journal of Athama Stalkhandled, 7th Opal.I lived. I died. I live again.
I do not know for sure what killed me as I slept that night.
I only know that when I awoke that fateful night, my throat had been torn wide open. Choking on my own blood, pouring gouts of it down my chest – I barely managed to stagger to my feet and gurgle a desperate, garbled cry for help before my knees gave out. Irthu was at my side in moments; I could see the horror in his eyes, and the vague sight of Ragnar, slumped and motionless, lying far from the embers of our campfire.
I would dig the details out of him later – something had attacked us as we slept, tearing open Ragnar’s throat and attempting to drag his body away for its own purposes. It had awoken him as it strayed too close, and he had managed to put it to flight only after it delivered this mortal blow to me.
In that moment, though, he set about saving my life in the only way he could – with such a serious wound, there was no other way.
My resurrection has come at a price. The dark magic which animates my flesh has changed my mind as well. The sensations of battle no longer bring my blood to run in my veins. The anger I held towards the elves of the north has grown cold. The emotions and feelings of my past life have become vague concepts, fogged memories that I can recall only from an outsider’s viewpoint.
Another time, perhaps I would have been outraged at Irthu’s actions. Perhaps I would have despaired at what I have become. Perhaps I would have accepted this as some form of karmic retribution for my actions in the past.
Perhaps I would simply have come to the conclusion I have now.
I must endure. I will
endure.
Yours,
A. Stalkhandled.
12th OpalArchquakes was renowned for its mugs, even in the distant south of the Realm of Silver – the craftsdwarves of this place were said to be of great skill, and their trade-based links to the nearby settlements were strong ones.
Too strong, it would seem.
The sight of a score of beak dogs, pawing at the dirt-encrusted form of a finely-crafted chalk mug, was warning enough for us. We fell upon them without a word, sending limbs flying and casting an unlucky few into the air to join them. Their fellows did not notice their deaths, busying themselves with their mindless wanderings or occasional attempt to destroy one of the many articles of furniture lying around.
The inside of the fortress was no better: the ballistae overlooking the entrance tunnel were unmanned and coated with cyan smears of blood; the halls were silent beyond our footsteps, and the low growls and snarls of the beasts left to haunt this place. Beyond a dozen or more corpses and a few cave moss-covered statues in the former fortress, there were no signs of the dwarves that once inhabited this place.The main stockpile, at least, provided us with some direction. As we picked our way through the dirt and sand, careful not to step on the scattered mugs and give away our presence, a quartet of trolls seemed to almost materialize from the shadows. Nostrils sniffing the air, flattened noses twitching, the four of them suddenly whipped about to face us with snarls and low bellows of rage; we wasted no time in dispatching them.
As their corpses crashed to the ground, I could not help but notice that their chests were branded – a sigil unfamiliar to me had been burnt into the fur and flesh of their torsos, as if to indicate some kind of rank or allegiance.
Athama claimed to recognise it, from when he had been willing to call himself a member of The Squeezing Fords – there had been some event which resulted in a great migration of goblins from their blighted territories. Many had settled in the forest retreats of the elves, trading their service as soldiers against their former kin in exchange for shelter, and enough of them had borne such marks that a skilled observer could trace them right back to the dark pit from which they had come from.
These beasts almost certainly were sent from The Most Sin and as coincidence would have it, their capital – and the one ultimately responsible for this assault – is only a day or two’s travel southwards.
That, then, will be our next destination.OOC: Archquakes fell to the forces of The Most Sin on the 23rd Moonstone, 769; my adventurers arrived too late to save the last surviving dwarves of the fortress, who look to have been slain by the trolls deeper within the fortress. The site is infested with dozens of beak dogs and trolls which are (mostly) still around, so I advise any prospective fort mode reclaimers to come loaded for bear.
A moment of silence, if you will.
…
Okay, moment’s over. Time for payback.
15th OpalNight had fallen over the dark fortress of Poisonuttered. There were no sentries, no guards – not a single living soul, neither troll, nor beak dog, nor goblin stirred within the towers and trenches.
Emphasis, of course, on
living.
If one was to look very closely into the shadows, you might just catch sight of three hunched, dirt and dust-covered figures picking their way through the loamy clay with inordinate care. An even closer look would most likely send the viewer running in blithering panic, considering the deep wounds visible across their throats and the infernal light glowing in each of their eyes.
Athama led the way, dressed in the scavenged armour of a goblin swordsman, sword ready to strike at a moment’s notice and as close to a wary look in his eye as was possible. Irthu and Ragnar flanked him on the left and right, weapons at the ready and the bright copper of their armour smeared with dirt and the brownish crust of dried blood. Their destination lay ahead, jutting upwards from the reddish loam of the soil: a great, blunt tower carved from the darkest stone, windowless and broad, easily dwarfing the smaller towers they had passed through earlier.
The beating heart of the dark fortress lay ahead – and with it, their monstrous ruler.
The three crept through the silent halls of the structure, picking their way past the slumped, slumbering frames of goblins, trolls, and beak dogs alike; every now and then, where the bodies were too thickly pressed together to move without disturbing them, there would be a sudden halt to their movements – a sharp motion of the hand, a swipe of a sword – and then a resumption, the three undead adventurers burrowing their way ever deeper into the black heart of Poisonuttered.
There was an odd whispering in the air, Irthu could not help but note, as he dragged a troll’s bloodless body out of a stairwell door. Phantom voices crawled at the edges of his hearing; faint laughter and unintelligible whispers buzzed at the limits of his hearing. They called to mind memories of his old, mortal self, and of the irritation such noises would cause him. A sharp twitch of Athama’s hand called him back to the present, accompanied by a rather sharp, almost admonishing stare. He could feel the elf’s gaze boring into the back of his skull as they went sneaking up the staircase, the eerie whispers growing louder all the time.
The source swiftly became clear as they reached the top of the staircase.
Wreathed in smoky, half-opaque clouds of gas and clad in outsized garments, the three-eyed monster stood stock-still merely a few dozen paces from the stairs; were it not for the lazy, almost invisible blinking of its eyes or the whisper of its shifting tail, it might have been mistaken for a creature asleep upon its feet. For a moment, he could not help but wonder if such monstrous creatures even needed to sleep or dress, before dismissing it as irrelevant as his fingers closed along the bolts in his backpack.
This was a demon and it needed to be destroyed.
That was what mattered, now.
Before he could whisper a command or even glance at his allies, something rushed past his head, close enough that he could see the engraving upon the surface of the projectile. A coin, of all things, was what Ragnar had chosen to open their assault with, yet its impact was unmistakable: from the towering beast’s arm there came a sickly cracking sound, the makeshift projectile impacting with enough force to tear the flesh, punching through to shatter the bone beneath.
It wheeled to face its attacker, Ragnar rising from the ash-smeared stone with his axe and shield drawn. He brandished them in open challenge, daring the great mammoth-demon to strike at him and avenge the wound he had dealt it its flesh and pride.
The creature needed no further justification – it rushed towards him with a long, braying cry of fury, one inhuman hand seizing up a heavily-decorated copper battle axe as it came. Though it looked tiny in the demon’s massive hand, the handle had been crudely elongated, and the blade broadened by some goblin weaponsmith, rending it nearly as tall as Ragnar himself. If it struck home, the damage would be unpleasant, to state the least.
Athama and Irthu seized their own projectiles – Irthu, an iron bolt, Athama, a silver coin – and hurled them as hard as they could, aiming for the massive, lumbering demon’s chest and leg, respectively. The creature’s knee buckled, and it pitched forwards onto its face as the bolt struck home, bone cracking as the simple projectile punched through the hair and muscle of its calf. The damage seemed to inconvenience it only mildly; in a few seconds, it was back up onto its knees and crawling forwards, bellowing nonsense and lashing its trunk back and forth in open fury.
A massive swing of its axe crashed into Ragnar’s raised shield, driving him back several steps with an involuntary grunt of exertion. It was rearing up for a second strike when Irthu reached them, iron longsword raised to strike at its exposed hand. With its attention focused solely upon his companion, the creature had allowed him to slip beneath its notice.
There was a moment of resistance as the sword met the thick fur that covered the demon’s massive hand, then the splintering crunch of bone breaking as the slash half-turned into a slap – the thick troll-fur had turned the blade slightly, just enough to prevent the blade from cleaving fully through the bone. A slick, stinking goo sprayed from the wound as its hand spasmed open, the axe crashing to the ground a few feet away. Athama’s blow landed a second later, skimming the edge of its right arm as the beast wheeled away, eyes blazing with fury.
It shook its head from side to side, as though trying to clear its head, before lurching forwards toward Ragnar amidst another burst of noxious gas and nonsensical gibberish. It was met with a trio of strikes. Ragnar delivered a thunderous kick to its descending skull before slamming into the ground and rolling aside as Athama charged in, whirling his entire body into a slash to the against the arm; opposite him, Irthu’s blades bit into the flesh of the beast’s other arm. Chips of bone and gobbets of stinking goo flew in all directions with each blow, the three adventurers now aiming to disable the towering demon’s clumsy, flailing arms and legs.
As the monstrous creature rushed towards Ragnar, braying in rage, Irthu let fly with his shield. Its razor-sharp teeth met hard iron with a horrendous screeching wail – and then yet another a sickly crunching noise, as vampiric strength overcame demonic flesh. Teeth broke and splintered as it reeled from the shield bash, roaring in fury and simple, blind hatred. Chips of enamel showered his face and pinged off the helmet.
From there, the fight's end was a foregone conclusion. Its arms and legs made useless, its teeth broken and shattered, and its neck broken by repeated blows, the demon was reduced to trying to roll and shove the deadweight of its body into the attackers. It was helpless as the three of them darted about its broken form, cutting away at the limbs and tearing open new gashes in its thick, hairy hide; about the greatest hazard in the room was the increasingly slick floor, as the demon's freely-flowing goo began to form smears and pools from the force of its struggles.
Several long minutes of fighting later, the massive creature lay sprawled out across the goo-slick floor of its throne room.
Its garb hung from its maimed body in battered, blood-stiffened shreds, breath wheezing through the remnants of its throat as Athama and Ragnar closed in for the kill. The demon’s arm fell away as the axe tore through the last remaining tendons and veins keeping it attached, followed swiftly by its head.
The three adventurers stood victorious over the broken body of the once-mighty demon lord – drenched in reeking goo and stinking of noxious gas, but triumphant and unwounded. All three twitched sharply as a sudden spike of pain burst into their heads, accompanied by a stream of nonsensical words and strange images: a pair of great black towers thrusting up through magma into smog-choked skies, a great fortress in which an even greater vein of glassy ore gleamed, a vast portal of light controlled by two vast hands – and then a name, engraving itself into the minds of all three as surely as a dwarven engraving upon stone.
Egu Craftlenses the Key of Trading.OOC: I expected that to be a lot harder. Maybe goblin-raised Clowns are less funny/more prone to heckling than those down in the Circus? Going to drag it back to the Museum, maybe butcher it later if I survive my endgame.
17th OpalDragging the immense corpse of the black-haired demon from the fortress of Poisonuttered to Boltspumpkin was no easy task. Strong though we were, its sheer size made it an unwieldy burden even in its mutilated state, and it made us quite the conspicuous sight as we passed through the goblin-blighted lands near the mountains. That did not stop us, of course.
Fitting it through the door of the Museum was in itself a difficult task, and I am quite certain that we left at least a few scraps of flesh on the doorframe and wall, but we succeeded in the end. Its corpse currently lies slumped about one of the pedestals in the main hall, bar its head and part of an arm – I cannot help but wonder what the reaction of the staff will be, when they awake to the sight of such a massive beast lying slain upon their doorstep.
As my companions perused the journals and exhibits of the Museum, I recalled what the staff had said to us weeks ago: that in the far west of Orid Xem, hidden amidst the dense mountain-chains, there exists a fortress filled with crafts forged from the Divines’ metal. We can make the journey easily, and should these claims be true… yes, that would be a fitting contribution for the Museum indeed.
Our travels are not yet done.24th Opal
For days we travelled through the mountains in the far west of the world. Frozen peak after frozen peak, bleak, featureless plateau after bleak, featureless plateau passed by as the howling winds snatched at us, to the point where I began to believe we had been sent upon a wild chase to search for a fort that never was.
We were about to turn back when Athama froze, and suddenly whipped forward into motion, seizing upon one of the crags of this mountain and hauling himself up with a mandrill’s agility. Ragnar and I exchanged a split second’s glance before following, but his lead was already showing – the two of us could barely make out the distant, fuzzy smear of his form, scrambling up the slopes amidst rattling streams of pebbles like a man possessed.
By the time we caught up to him, Athama stood at the top of one of the hills, head cocked to the side. He remained still for several long moments, seemingly ignoring the two of us, then jerked back into life, raising a long finger to point to a distant peak. There was something odd about it, he claimed – something evil. Said he was certain we’d find what we looked for there, with the dark reputation of the supposed fortress.
I will not deny a degree of initial scepticism. We had come this far without a single sign of this fortress’ existence beyond the tales of a half-mad adventurer; continuing on would be folly. But in the end, he convinced me to carry on further – if the tale was true, the artefacts there were not only priceless masterworks, but of the mythical metal known as adamantine. Few things would make a better submission to the Museum than those, would they not?
By the time we reached the peak, I could tell what he had felt: there was an odd sensation in the air, crawling at the edge of my senses, coming from deep below the ground – just like that feeling in Poisonuttered. Only a long, extensive search revealed the source – a broad, downward-sloping ramp of smoothed and hard-packed dirt, mostly covered with powdery flakes of snow. It led into a deep, twisting series of tunnels and bends, the sensation Athama had first felt growing stronger all the time as the dirt gave way to smoothed stone.
They say that nothing can surprise the undead. That might be true, but were I still alive, the sight of what lay beneath this mountain would’ve taken my breath away.
The legends were true.OOC: I’ve reached The Abyssal Sanctuary and I legit have few words to describe this place at the moment. All I can say is oTL Imic, you really outdid damn near every other fort in the thread so far (in my opinion, at least). Pics and a proper writeup on the fort and its treasures will be coming tomorrow. I leave it to the thread and to Imic as to whether or not I should do anything to the adamantine wafers and ore there with advfort.
Author
Topic: Museum III, adventure succession game (DF 0.47.05) (Read 475959 times)