I know, I know. Swore on your graves, promised to have it up yesterday. Once again, my bad. Shit went down, far less time than expected, and given the importance of this particular update, I wanted to make sure everything was as great as I could make it. Hopefully my efforts will allow you to find it in your hearts to forgive my incredible disrespect to you and your future resting places.
Enjoy!
run to the portal and find that the other side is...
your home? oh well, it seems to be a good time to check your forum game.
Bronze dwarf: raeg at who did that
Drawmancer: create a masterful bone throne engraving to sit at that is carried around by cheese men into the portal
Fan head: go for the shiny portal
Spiritual Fan head: "good, you are going bac- wait, where are you going? GET BACK HERE YOU FIEND!"
Drawmancer: create a masterful bone throne engraving to sit at that is carried around by cheese men into the portal
While doing so proclaim that they shall soon rule over all and that: "It will be mine all miiiine!!!"
Then get zapped by a man that says "Excuuuuuuse me Princess!" repeatedly and has a sword that shoots pink bullets.
I stand at the butcher's shop, ready to commence the construction of my creation. When all of a sudden, the brief thought of abandoning the soon-to-collapse mountain hall, as well as my work, for the sake of self-preservation enters my mind. However, this thought is quickly pushed aside due to the fact that every other ounce of my being is telling me to
BUILD THE FUCKING ARTIFACT!As I head out to look for a suitable victim to construct my creation with, my attention is momentarily caught by a large crashing sound, followed by a small cloud of cave-in dust that quickly spreads across the area and causes me to stumble slightly. I then turn around to find the butcher's shop(along with a good portion of the rest of the room) buried in rubble. Well, no excuse not to focus on escaping now.
Meanwhile, the berserk bronze-clad dwarf, bruised but not beaten, furiously charges back into the mountain hall like a very small and very pissed off bull, ready to unleash his ungodly rage upon whatever being is responsible for interrupting his undead elephant massacre. The fan-headed raptor, also making its way back to the mountain hall, zooms by the dwarf. Despite its apparent lack of eyes, it seems to be drawn toward the shininess of the recently created portal. The raptor's spirit just barely misses its physical body, and continues to chase after it, while hoping it doesn't end up as a flattened mess on the ancient stone floor.
Back in the mountain hall, the engraver treads through the filth and terrors that fill the brewery-esque room, in order to reach a section of the wall that isn't completely soaked in blood yet. Once there, he begins to carve a masterful engraving into the stone, while shouting about something becoming all his. Not entirely sure what it is that something is, but he seems fairly confident that it will belong to him.
Once finished, he steps back to observe his work. The engraving depicts a bone throne and cheese men. The cheese men are lifting the bone throne.
Using his enigmatic powers, the engraver imbues life into his new piece of artwork. Within moments, the cheese men begin marching off of the wall, carrying with them an impressive ☼Bone Throne☼. The engraver gazes in awe at the sight of his creation, at least before said gazing is interrupted by a swordgun-toting stranger who, for some reason, insists on referring to the dwarf as "Princess". Before the poor engraver even has time to react, he is zapped by the stranger(who I guess is gifted with some kind of electricity-related ability), sending sensations of intense pain all throughout his body, before causing him to fall over, paralyzed. Hopefully he doesn't drown in the horrid, bloody cesspool he is now half submerged in.
The dwarf Drawmancer has been stunned!>The priest leans on a wall panting. "Dear Armok. I don't think I'm cut out for this."
He notices the portal. He makes a dash for it, shielding himself from falling rocks with his staff. He looks back at the butcher's shop for a moment before breaking into a dash again.
DZA: Notice Tasrak and others heading for the portal.
Tired and covered in zombie dust, the priest has successfully released all of the zombie dwarves in the area from the dark magic that had prevented their mortal shells from accepting death.
Taking a moment to catch his breath, Tasrak notices a strange glow coming from the main hall. It only takes him a few moments of observation to realize that it is in fact, a gateway out of the mountain hall. He may not be sure exactly where it leads to, but it sure as hell seems like a better alternative to being crushed alive in a couple minutes.
He runs out toward the main hall, deflecting falling rubble with his staff, before not-so-gracefully diving out of the way of a rather large chunk of the collapsing ceiling, and landing just a few feet from the portal. Just before entering the portal, however, he sees me stumbling out of the butchery, as I try desperately to maintain my sanity.
I can't fucking take this. Every thought, every feeling I have is being blocked out by my growing need to
BUILD THE ARTIFACT! BUILD THE ARTIFACT! BUILD THE ARTIFACT! BUILD THE ARTIFACT!!Control over my own mind slipping away little by little with each moment I spend on
not building the goddamn artifact.
Me and Tasrak lock eyes for only a moment, before the mountain begins to quake once more, and the blood god priest hastily enters the portal. Well that's rude of him, I totally would have helped
him out if he were in the same dire condition as I. But nope, just one glance at me and then straight through the po- Wait...A PORTAL! Hell yes! I don't even care where the fuck it will take me, I just want to get out of this godforsaken hellhole!
>Miner: J-just lie there for a minute.
Several hundred feet away from the mountain, the miner lies outside, recuperating from the uncomfortable chain of events that landed him in that spot in the first place. Apart from some quiet grunting, some minor twitching every now and then, and fact that he is laying in a pile of broken, jagged rocks, he seems very relaxed.
> When you make it out of the mountain hall, you transform back into a human. You become as young and healthy as you were when the story began, two lungs and everything.
I'm just over a dozen feet away from the portal, though to me it feels more like a dozen miles. I fight to keep focused on escaping from the mountain hall. Despite wanting to just lay down and rest, there's more than a good chance I wouldn't wake up again if I did so.
It's strange, As I get closer to the portal, the mind-unraveling urge to construct my creation lessens. I even see what looks like my home on the other side of the portal. Although I may just be hallucinating, as even though it has been a while since I've visited it, I distinctly remember my house
not being located in an otherworldly wasteland.
Regardless, as I get closer and closer to the portal, my spirits feel lifted. I can't explain it, but I have the sense that, even though the odds may be stacked against me at the moment, everything's going to be all right.
Sock puppet man screams out as you begin to move. Unfazed in wanting to create something beautiful, sock puppet man takes advantage and goes to jump on your back. "I'm a police doctor!" He then yells out a yeehaw and somehow has gained spurs on his shoes, jabbing you in the sides as the sock puppet has a little string loose attached to a cowboy hat in which it twirls it around. Daddy be proud of us! Yeehaw!" And then the poking commenced. The sock puppet man takes his free hand to poke you in the cheek over and over again. "I'm a police doctor cop. Stop in the name of the fire department." Though he doesn't actually do anything other than attempt to ride you and yell a yeehaw every so often.
My moment of happiness is then broken my none other than my favorite sock puppet wearing maniac. Who, after letting out a scream that almost gave me a heart attack, drops down from the ceiling and excitedly runs toward me to hop on my back, knocking me over and severely impeding my progress toward reaching the portal.
He claims to be a police doctor, whatever the fuck that is, before apparently changing his mind and deciding to be a cowboy instead. Through means I cannot fathom, he somehow seems to have also obtained a pair of spurs, and a pair of shoes to go with them, which he then uses to jab me with as he continues to act out his cowboy fantasy. "
Ow, goddamn it! Is this payback for using him as a mount...?", I think to myself, struggling to get back up with the sock puppet man sitting on my back.
After finally managing to get back on my feet, the sock puppet man, refusing to get off of me, deduces that the best course of action is not to do anything that would actually contribute to our mutual survival, but instead to repeatedly poke me in the face and continue to yell random nonsense. I cannot tell whether I'm more annoyed or confused by my companion, but what I can tell is that in less than two minutes, it's not going to matter.
Mountainhall: Quake and get parts of your tunnels caved-in.
Even despite the added weight of the sock puppet man slowing my progress a considerable amount, I'm not willing to give up now. More than half way to the portal, I press onward. I then begin to hear the sound of cracking coming from above me, much louder than all of the other breaking and crashing going on throughout the mountain hall. At that moment, the fan headed raptor bolts down the main hall and straight into the portal, with its spirit continuing to follow closely behind. A bit surprised by the sudden arrival and departure of the raptor and its spiritual counterpart, I almost forget to watch out for the huge chunks of rock crashing down toward me.
A section of the mountain hall has collapsed!>Gold-Cloaked Man: Run with speed as no mortal being has seen before to DZA, to assist him in seeking the portal but first handing him the body of Alduin to finish his artifact with.
Music, for added flavor.Narrowly avoiding being buried under the collapsing ceiling, me and the sock puppet man are blown back by the cave-in dust. Once the dust settles, I am discouraged to see that our path to the portal is now blocked off, and my yearning to
BUILD. THE. ARTIFACT!!! has come back full force.
I am distracted from my generally tormented existence when I see the golden cloaked man standing before me, with the corpse of the great dragon behind him. Either I have been very unobservant up to this point, or he was able to haul the massive thing here in an incredibly short amount of time. The golden cloaked man smiles at me, before turning his attention further down the main hall. The mountain quakes yet again, more violently than ever. We're almost out of time.
"
OK, OK, we just need to get through that wall of rubble and...RAAAAAAGGH SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!", I think, as I try to silence the artifact creating urge long enough to think up a plan.
The golden cloaked man calmly walks over to the collapsed section of the mountain hall between us and the portal, and lightly places his hand on the mound of broken and crumbled stone, attempting to clear the way. Unfortunately, the attempt is thwarted when the golden cloaked man is sucker punched by a very unhappy vampiric, undead, nightcreature assassin, who seems to be holding a grudge against the golden cloaked man for his twirling demonstration during their last encounter.
Unappreciative of having his concentration broken, the golden cloaked man turns toward the VUNA, and prepares to make him wish that he
did have the ability to die. That is, before the golden cloaked man is caught off guard by yet another attack.
The bronze-clad dwarf collides with the golden cloaked man! The golden cloaked man tumbles backwards! The golden cloaked man slams into an obstacle!Having put all of his berserk, dwarven rage into one mighty tackle, the golden cloaked man was knocked back, causing a fairly painful collision into the crumbled stone mound. Now confronted by two enemies who wish to mercilessly dismember him, the golden cloaked man has no choice but to fight.
Meanwhile, I find myself locked in a fight of my own. A fight to hold onto my last bits of sanity. With maybe a half a minute left, I finally give in.
"You want an artifact?? I'll show you a fucking artifact!!", I think angrily, in a heated argument with myself. I walk over to the dragon corpse, extend my hidden blades, slice it open, and crawl into the beast. After rummaging around inside of the dragon for a little bit, I finally emerge, drenched in dragon blood, and holding my newly created artifact.
D.Z.A. has created-Music, because no ending is complete without it.And that's when it happens. The mountain, unable to hold itself together for any longer, comes crashing down. It creates a thunderous, roaring sound that can be heard across the entire realm, as a monstrous cloud of cave-in dust rushes over the land, as far as the eye can see.
Just for the record:
>Meteors: Fall down from the skies.
>Flesheating locusts: Destroy plants (plump helmets and stuff), also eating any unlucky dwarf who happens to be in the way.
>Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Appear, and bring forth great terror. Postponing this for now.
>Adamantine Colossus MKII:APPEAR FROM THE INSIDE OF THE HALLS, AND DESTROY.
Meteors begin to rain down from the sky, penetrating the thick cloud of dust, and causing further destruction, while flesh devouring locusts swarm over the landscape, seeking to destroy any form of plantlife they encounter. Unfortunately for the locusts, the plantlife here is already almost non-existent, and the mixture of dust, smoke, and meteors causes many of them to drop dead after only a short time in the area. They then reanimate, making the entire situation that much more unpleasant.
The new and improved Adamantine Colossus, who must have somehow made it into the mountain hall at the last second, can be seen drifting away into the horizon. Blown away by the tremendous force of the collapse.
Where my adventure continues from here, or whether it even continues at all, is unknown to me. But as the smoke clears and the dust settles, as destruction and evil consume everything in sight, and as an artifact is born, in a place flooding with death, it seems there is only one thing left to say...
The fortress has crumbled to its end.Well, I honestly can't say I expected this outcome. Then again, I don't expect most of the things that happen in this story. We have once again reached a point in the adventure that could either serve as the ultimate end, or a grand new beginning. Just like before, I'm perfectly content either way. I love writing this story, but I'd be satisfied to have this moment be the epic(if somewhat tragic)conclusion to it, should you all find it appropriate.
Like always, the fate of this adventure is yours to decide.
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Topic: You are Me, Chapter IV: Into Lands Unknown (Read 131345 times)