Part Three: Unicorn guts
Bora soon abandoned the filthy creatures to their infighting and headed south again, to finish his circumferential trek around the coasts. The goblins pointed him to a city on the coast, Monsterrenown, apparently across The Disgusting Jungle, which divided the tundra on the southern half of the island into two halves. The other half to the west was called The Healing Frost. Bora made it to the treeline in good time The trek through the woods seemed comparatively long and miserable, but that may have just been due to the accumulation of a horrid, bright-pink slush. It was undeniably revolting to behold for all the senses. It burned the retinas, singed the sinuses, felt like some hideous soup of guts and ichor from a great insect, and the horrible glop-glop-glop it made as one trekked through it... Bora could barely tough it out enough to reach the tundra on the other side, only to find out that the city of Monsterrenown was, in fact, built partly in the forest.
Monsterrenown it seemed was an enormous city, rivaling Dinnerwandered in many aspects. There was no conceivable room for expansion without calling the new structures part of their own town. The streets were a labyrinth of snow-drenched wood and stone, made worse by yet more of the hot-pink revolting slush. The entire place appeared abandoned, besides a puff of smoke coming from the city keep. That is where Bora headed, and that is where he met their law-giver, Stasost Groupwitches, a hideous woman of average build. Luckily for Bora, she had no interest in diplomatic association with foreigners, and he was able to leave her in her sick little castle.
Bora did, however, hire an off-duty warrior to travel with him. The soldier led him to a cave outside town, The Crevices of Blinding, which he promised was a hive of filthy kobold scum whose demise would seal Bora’s place in the royal court and the goblins’ allegiance to him. When they arrived, there was, sure enough, a kobold thief to slaughter. It was the only kobold in sight. The pair crept into the cave in search of more of the vermin, but all was not as it seemed. As Bora explored one end of the maze, the goblin attacked him from behind, the blow glancing off Bora’s helm. The ensuing fight was quick, and the goblin had stood no chance. Bora finished his survey of the cavern but found not one more kobold. If they used this cave at all, it was probably to sneak out from the caverns, rather than crossing the tundra.
Escaping the caves, Bora set out westward across the tundras. Along the western seaboard were more goblin settlements, which Bora found relatively welcoming. However, when he visited the city of Boilmenace, he found naught but haunts and madness. There wasn’t a single goblin in the city, nor anything more civilized than a goblin. Not in the sewers, not in the dungeons, nor any of the many perfectly-intact buildings. Perhaps it had been sacked, but maybe the inhabitants were simply driven out by the magic flying muskoxen of the tundra and their elk allies:
The world may never know...
The somewhat aggravated vampire travelled north along the coast, through the undead-filled Hills of Barbarity and into the mind-numbingly “good” and “pure” Jungles of Consideration. There, he hunted the local beasts, and came upon a rare and beautiful sight: unicorns! He promptly butchered several of them, spilling their guts and lopping off their horns, ripping their hearts out and hacking off heads. He reanimated one of the heads and took it with him. The next day he travelled back Eastwards, and stumbled upon the Elven retreat of Umberlace. Hiding his more despicable possessions and the undead unicorn head, he spoke to the elves. They told him their allegiance could be bought by dethroning the Law Giver Stasost, and soon Bora set out for Monsterrenown once again. He could live with making one more circuit through the tundras.
When he returned to the keep of Monsterrenown, he was not welcomed with open arms. Rather, he was assaulted with unsheathed arms, but soon he had entered the keep and smashed in the skull of Stasost, ending her reign of terror. He then crept into the castle dungeons to weed out those so wicked even the goblins would seek to undo them, yet found them the only openly friendly souls in the land. He spoke to the chieftess Dostngosp Flyraces, who led her warriors with a crossbow.
Although she was unwilling to talk about the area around Monsterrenown, she had no such issues discussing her family history very openly:
She said it with a completely straight face, without the slightest hint of disdain. Weary that this woman was more troubled by his actions than she admitted up front, Bora immediately left to hang out with the many other bandit gangs whose family members he had not recently hacked to pieces...
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Topic: The Museum: Adventure mode succession world (DF 34.11) (Read 780845 times)