Conquering the Barbarian Altanis: Session 164
Adventurers
| Character | Race | Class | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kho Rimbo | Human | Magic-user level 3 | A knife throwing wizard extraordinaire. Covered in ritual knife scars. Cuts himself whilst casting. Prone to being sarcastic. |
| Jacob Vin | Human | Assassin level 1 | Slick black hair, inconspicuous dress, youthful for his age, and of keen instincts. |
Hysterium
From delirious mind of Kho Rimbo. Written by his player, Brulligrum.
Wizard extraordinaire Kho Rimbo turned on his heel and vacated the Hog's Head tavern. He left behind the adulation of the folk of Ironburg and bizarrely found himself in a cave. Last autumns leaves fluttered and rustled past his feet, ushered on a slight breeze that still carried the sound of Father Ambros' baritone singing
“For he's a jolly good fellow.”
“And so say all of us” finished a voice nearby.
Kho realised he was not alone.
A swerve man stood at his side, pale skinned and sporting a widow's peak of swept back glossy black hair.
“That looks sore” said the man, motioning with one finger towards Kho's midriff. Kho glanced down and noticed a quivers worth of arrows protruding from his body. Plucking them free they turned to ink quills as they fell, reminding Kho he was meant to be elsewhere. At old Crus', copying recipes from his cookbook, the cranky old chef would be angry if he was late.
Realising his lack of manners Kho introduced himself to his companion giving a flamboyant exaggerated bow.
“Vin” responded the man.
“Jacob Vin, at your service”
“Well master Vin” asserted Kho
“We best set off post-haste lest we are sure to be late.”
“As you like” replied Vin.
Together the strode deeper into the caves, needing no more light than the glow emanating from their bodies to show the way.
Two paths forward soon became apparent. The first, an uninviting sinkhole, was rejected in favour of a ledge that led down to a forest of rock pillars. Whilst passing amongst the stone trunks Kho admitted to Jacob that he always had a problem telling which was which when it came to identifying stalagmites and stalactites.
“It's easy” assured Jacob Vin.
“You've just got to remember that tights always come down” he continued with an overfamiliar nudge and salacious wink.
“I defer to your mastery of geology” replied Rimbo, sarcastic.
“And ladies undergarments” Jacob offered followed by another nudge. “Indeed” sighed Kho Rimbo.
Further exploration uncovered a bear deep in slumber. The odd couple thought it prudent to leave it to its dreams of honey pots and homely caves and so moved on.
In a cave like cyst of milky flowstone they came upon a deep pool of crystal water. The surface refused to show Jacobs reflection, whilst Kho's shimmering twin was sneering and rude.
“You will always be a coward” it accused.
“Because you are incapable of being brave.”
At this statement Jacob raised a questioning eyebrow in Kho's direction.
“Caution is not cowardice” defended the slighted mage.
The slanderous reflection began to sink into the pool, face smug and condescending. Incensed Kho gave chase. Diving into the water and swimming deep until his lungs felt fit to burst, but when caught the mirage flowed between his throttling fingers and dissipated. Bursting back to the surface, gulping for air, he clambered from the pool. Only to discover he was bone dry.
“How peculiar” exclaimed Kho.
“Agreed” replied Jacob scratching his chin.
Onwards they forged. Through a collapsed floor. Via rappel and rope they descended deep beneath the earth, leaving behind the natural caves and finding themselves in in a huge circular chamber hewn by hand rather than nature. Here were old bones, clad in bracelets of rusted iron, manacled both hand and foot. The majority lay before an imposing set of double doors. Seams sealed in concrete, surface scarred by scratching fingers. Jacob prowled the chambers circumference like a sleek black cat whilst Kho, trusty crowbar in hand, chipped away, releasing the door from its bonds. The work done, and with shoulders to the job, they forced egress from the chamber. Jacobs nose wrinkled at the ancient earthy waft from beyond, undaunted, Kho was eager to push on. He had no inclination to feel old Crus' ladle upside of his head, a very likely prospect if he was late. Furthermore today was the day when the old Crotchety chef had promised to teach him the secret of Phantasmal force flan.
The chambers beyond were old. Older even than the longest beards of the most ancient dwarven ancestors. The walls of ununiformed polygonal blocks fitted together with impossible precision. Mosaiced side passages led to doors sealed with rusted padlocks, but the subjects depicted on the walls kept them from these paths.
Their route eventually opened into a long gallery, its high tessellated walls depicting a foul world where wormish overlords ruled over men. As they traversed the passage the mosaics seem to squirm and wriggle in step with the travellers, although when Kho pointed this out to Jacob he claimed it was not so. Down broad steps they trod and to doors they were led. Barred from without. Meant to keep something within. Jacob preached caution, Kho flung the bars free like a man driven, he was desperate to get to old Crus' house as well as eager to leave behind the gallery of crawling worms.
Beyond was a grand circular chamber. Its centre a gaping pit. Narrow ledges traversed the the chambers circumference meeting at a twisted chimeric statue of gross proportion. Its slitted gaze fell upon the depths below its clawed feet. A flight of narrow steps led down to a floor carpeted with the husks of men, giant insects and the dusty, papery, caste of an enormous serpent. Across this charnel jumble a the shadowed outline of a passage was just visible.
After a cursory search of the upper works and a brief, cautious, examination of the statue, they chose to descend the narrow steps, tense with trepidation. But the danger did not come from below as expected. The vile statue, its mouth stretched to a gaping maw vomited forth a scorpion of huge proportion. clacking claws heralded its arrival and in turn spurred the explorers into action. They ran. Fled for the dubious safety of the darkened passage, across the floor of snagging, grasping, corpses, and away from the monstrosity disgorged from the gullet of the statue.
Down the passage they sped without heed, dreading to hear the chitinous tip tap of pursuit. An ill chosen turn and they blundered into a dead end chamber, walls a gallery of wormish vileness. Hastily backtracking they chose differently, blindly fleeing in fear of snapping pincers. Panting, they finally tumbled into another great passageway. Like unto its predecessor depicting the vileness of squirming wormdom, a world where worms ruled over man. A door in the opposite wall mirrored the position of the passage through which they stumbled. To their right the grand gallery was swallowed by pitch darkness. To their left the passage terminated in menacing, looming statue. It was a thing of no sane aspect, of alien outline. A contorted mass of hooked claws, tentacles and beaks. A twisted spawn spat from the delirious minds of the insane. Worse still Kho was sure that it moved. Jacob did not notice this but was spooked enough to go with Kho's urgings to ignore both door and statue and hastily move on.
Accompanied by a parade of bloated worms and tortured men they pushed along the passage, its path ever leading.
After an hour, perhaps ten, a day even, the journey came to an end at a great archway. Before the gaping portal lay a large pool, free of liquid, but marred with the tidemark of old dry blood, its bottom filled with russet cracked flakes. Kho shuddered at the thought that it would take the blood of hundreds to fill such a pool, and for a moment, just a brief figment of his overworked imagination, he saw the pool full to capacity. Within, the bloated forms of giant worms. Eager to move on he led the way through the archway.
Beyond they found double doors, tall, cast of iron, buckled from within as if something of ridiculous strength had sought exit. Despite their ominous aspect the doors provided the only way forward. Kho was frantic to push on. He was already late.
No doubt Heinrik had already stoked the ovens and laid out fresh aprons for the days baking at Crus' home.
The squealing of the iron doors, moved by back breaking labour, heralded their entrance. Another vast circular chamber, like the previous housing a great pit at its centre, only this one led to a pitch black void. Multiple statues ringed the pit. Each a perfect likeness of Kho Rimbo. Whilst this stirred Jacobs interest, Kho had no time for his effigies. Instead he was focused on a stairway of sorts that descended into the pit, no more than iron bars driven into its sides and corkscrewing precariously into the abyss. Without second thought he began to descend, calling to Jacob as he went.
“Hurry! Hurry! I am going to be late!”
Despite his lack of enthusiasm for the endeavour, Jacob reluctantly gave chase.
Down they spiralled, for how long they could not tell, but into the very bowels of the earth they must of travelled, perhaps deeper. It took a mutiny from Jacob to turn them back, Kho returned only reluctantly. The journey up took only a fraction of the time of the descent.
Back up top they were flummoxed as to a way forward until Jacob recalled the door at the end of the long passage. So back they headed. Under the fanged great arch, past the pool filled with sloshing blood. Along the squirming passage and back to the hellspawned statue and its adjacent door.
After numerous failed attempts Jacob breached the door and disappeared into the room beyond. Kho remained outside, attentive to the statue.
“It's a library” Jacob called out.
Kho barely heard, he was sure the statue was moving, shifting ever so slightly.
“Going to check a few books” came the voice, unheard by Kho.
The statue was slithering into a parody of life, hooked claws groping, tentacles probing, sharp beaks snipping and snapping.
“The pages are all blank” called Jacob no doubt scratching his chin confounded.
Finally Kho found a key to unlock the terror that had seized him.
“Run you fool!” he shrieked.
“Run! Run! the statue is upon us!”
Jacob burst from the room, book under arm, dagger in hand. He glanced anxiously to the statue then sidelong at Kho Rimbo.
“Are you all right lad?” he inquired.
“Get back! Get back!” Rimbo begged.
“Are you addled of the brain? Its just a statue! Look!”
And Jacob stepped towards the statue.
Kho watched in horror as he walked into the groping grasp where he was promptly eviscerated by claws and beaks.
It was all too much. Kho turned tail and ran. Screaming as he went.
The passage around him transformed into organic matter, like being inside an undulating intestine. Behind him a Phantasmagorical host gave chase, baying for blood.
The spawn tumbling on squirming appendages. Jacob flopping, trailing innards and gore. Father Ambros swinging an oversized gavel of justice. Rall Kyle, the landlady of the Hog's Head tavern, the one armed priest. Even Old Crus with ladle flailing, and countless squirming worms.
Feet fleet with fear, he ran. And ran. Ran back to the circular chamber, where the great abyss was now a giant sucking maw. Without stopping he leapt in. Eyes tightly shut.
Kho awoke back in the secret enclosure Tikatu had grown for him. He felt even weaker than before, his body soaked in cold sweat and fears piss. Nearby stood a man. A swerve fellow, sporting a widows peak of swept back glossy black hair. He had a book under one arm.
“Vin?” croaked Kho Rimbo
“Jacob Vin??”
“At your service” replied the man with a cheeky wink.
Mind made flesh
As told by Jacob Vin. Written by his player, Lord Jubalon Flux.
Jacob Vin was perplexed, he hated to be perplexed. He had been resting, ready to take on his first proper ‘job’ when suddenly he found himself in a cave. Next to him was a badly scarred and clearly unwell man who said he was a magic user named Kho Rimbo. He centred himself by repeating the guild mantra for such unexpected circumstances: Be Shaken, Not Stirred.
Slicking his black hair back into place he nodded to Kho Rimbo, who seemed to be equally bemused by this turn of events, and the pair began exploring.
They were in a small cave system. In one cavern they sound a sinkhole, and in another a clear pool of water that was fed from above via said sinkhole. The water shown no reflection when Jacob peered in, unusually for him despite the affliction of his birth. Kho Rimbo’s reflection appeared as normal, except it spoke to him and berated him for cowardice, which he vehemently denied.
Kho Rimbo insisted on exploring the pool and so, rope around his middle, dived deep; when he returned he reported nothing of note until Jacob pointed out that he was bone dry!
The duo then crept to a passageway they had spotted earlier while carefully avoiding a sleeping bear. This new route soon became rough stairs which lead to another sinkhole.
“Down, we should go down!”, argued Kho Rimbo. With no better options Jacob tied his rope to a stalagmite and they lowered themselves down into what was clearly a constructed circular chamber.
There was rubble strewn about and under it crushed humanoid skeletons. On one side there was a partially constructed corridor, and to the north a pair of massive reinforced double doors, with the gap between them sealed with a concrete-like substance.
Four intact skeletons lay in front of the door, they looked like they had spent their last few hours beating to get out. Jacob was quick to note that all showed signed of having been shacked and manacled in life. Kho Rimbo in his feverish haste soon crowbarred the concrete out, and the pair found the doors swung open with almost an eagerness to usher them on.
Beyond was a small area of rooms walled with beautifully hewn stone. Leading off from the first room were two doors each set with a pair of rusted padlocks. The alcoves each were set in contained marvellously ornate mosaics showing increasingly violently scenes of humans being subjugated and tormented by vast and malevolent worm-beings.
Ignoring both of the doors on the grounds of prudence the pair followed a long tunnel to the north-west eventually finding themselves in a lengthy, tall hallway. It was a dead end to their east, but decorated with more worm-being related mosaics, these seemingly even more grisly. To their north was a narrow staircase down, and to the west, at the far end, a set of wide stairs leading down, which ended at a north/south corridor, and a wide double-doors carefully barred on the side they could see.
Trying the corridors showed that each went a quarter-turn around what was probably a circular chamber of considerable size. Each quarter-turn ended with another barred door leading into the presumed chamber.
Entering the chamber it was clear that it had been used as a gladiatorial combat arena. There was a walkway down, presumably for combatants, an archway into the arena at its floor level from somewhere deeper in to complex. Presiding over all of this was a monstrous statue, with the look of an ogre, except for its segmented legs and dragonfly-like wings.
Jacob and Kho Rimbo bravely entered the arena and made to investigate the tunnel. As they were just about to enter it Kho Rimbo screamed that he had seen the statue distend its jaw and vomit forth a giant scorpion. He ran and Jacob followed him, having glimpsed the statue’s motion and heard the thump as the beast had landed.
After a short run, helter-skelter through more passages and rooms, they found themselves in a massive vaulted hall. At the east end, on a dais, was another huge statue, this one seemed to consist of a mass of tongues, tentacles, and other writhing protuberances that Jacob did not want to think too closely about.
There was a door to the north which the pair ignored for the time being, choosing to check the west end of the hall, away from the statue which Kho Rimbo swore he saw twitch. In the floor at the far end there was a sunken pit, crusted with blood. Jacob’s stomach gave an unhelpful rumble at the thought of it full of blood, and he pushed that thought away.
Beyond that gruesome receptacle was another circular room, accessible via huge metal doors, all of which showed signs of having had massive violence inflicted on them from within room beyond.
This room contained a massive circular pit with a stairway circling down into the dark carved into its walls. This was the most normal thing about the room noted Jacob. At each of the cardinal points, looking pitward, were two life-sized carving of Kho Rimbo, and in an alcove to the east a giant statue of the wizard.
Jacob, who as part of his training had been microdosing with all kinds of interesting substances for months began to suspect that reality was more than a bit subjective here, wherever here turned out to be.
Kho Rimbo then beseeched his companion to accompany him down the staircase, and so they trudged down and down for half an hour day, got bored of never seeing the bottom and trudged back up to the top. By this time Kho Rimbo’s mind seemed to fraying a little, he kept muttering about tossing himself off.
And so they found themselves back at the blasphemous blob statue. Kho Rimbo kept watch on it while Jacob forced the door they had seen earlier. Beyond the door was a large library, Jacob looked at some of the book, all blank. He had just stuffed one in his backpack when he heard a high-pitched scream and raced out to see Kho Rimbo barrelling east screaming the statue was coming to life. Dear reader it was not.
Jacob raced after the wizard now understanding his mutterings of earlier. He arrived at the edge of the pit just in time to see Kho Rimbo disappearing down into the dark. And then…
Jacob Vin was perplexed, he hated to be perplexed. He started awake next to Kho Rimbo who was lying feverish on a rough bed in the centre of a sealed woodland dwelling of some kind. He kept repeating a name that sounded like Pikatchu, from the sound of it some kind of diminutive woodland creature or sprite who he imagined had promised to bring him food.
The poor man was in a wretched state and Jacob thought it would be a mercy to end him while he was unaware. What stopped him was that he did not want the guild to find out that he was a softie who did ‘freebies’.
It was then that Jacob noticed the book he had taken was real. He got it out of his pack and found it contained a map showing the location of the place he and Kho Rimbo had been, and in that moment he knew in his cold killer’s heart that it was truly a real place.
Discuss at Dragonsfoot forum.
Subscribe to get the latest post in your inbox. No spam.