I felt sharp pain, but then there was something different.. I saw colors I had never seen before, dark tunnels with light at the end, Elven songs...The roots of the tree they.. they were growing into my head, fixing things. I was running over a rainbow.. There was a unicorn at the end of the rainbow, it was angry because I ate that poor turtle in the holy tree. It stabbed me with its horn, Then there was pain, and that dark tunnel again.
I wake up covered in tree roots, my neck feels a bit stiff. Other than that I'm feeling fine though. Not a scratch. Must have landed more softly than I thought. Sure have been lucky. Also, that was one weird dream. Eman was right about the magical herbs here.
I find Eman under one of the other trees, unconcious. When she finally wakes up I find out she has drunk our entire supply of booze since she tought I had died. Great.
We travel a bit further east, and cross a river. After a while we pass some strange artificial ditches in the terrain. When I turn to Eman to ask what those are, I find out she is gone. I search, and scream her name but there is no response, and my tracking skill does not offer any clues. Worried, I continue, I haven't seen her since that last river we crossed.. I continue and see many more of the strange ditches and finally then finally I arrive at a large collection of square towers. With a shock I realize what those are, I must have wandered into the goblin city of Jackallabor.
Instinctively, I hide in the shadow of a glumprong tree, and watch for trouble. strange red clouds noiselesly drift through between the towers. It is eerily silent, the city appears to be deserted. I decide to investigate. I have heard rumours that great treasures can be found in goblin keeps, and if this one is unguarded..
There is one tower that dwarves all the others, both in height and size. It is made of a dark material that somehow, looks more solid than anything I have ever seen.
Avoiding the unnatural clouds, I sneak in. Not a goblin in sight. The floor is covered under a thin layer of dust, confirming that the place is likely abandoned. Carefully I explore the building, working my way from the ground floor to the higher floors. The place is a maze, with many rooms both large and small. In some of these the goblins have stored armor, but none of it will fit me. There are weapons too, but nothing that looks like an improvement over my iron two handed sword.
There are many levers. At first I am a bit anxious that pulling these might trigger a trap, but studying the mechanisms I find they are connected to the doors. It's high quality work too. All the doors still function, but they all lead to empty rooms, that remind me of prison cells.
I confidently stride through the hallways now, looking for treasure. I no longer sneak, and give up being silent. After bashing down a door for which I can't find the lever I find that may not have been so wise. I fall into the room on top of the unhinged door, making a terrible noise, then find a mighty and muscled goblin look down on me from the other end of the room. I try a friendly greeting, but his answer is clear:
Everything in his voice and movement tells me he will easily master me in combat. This goblin in his room in the top floor of the tower likely rules the place, even if he has nobody to rule over.
I trust on my longer legs and make a run for it. The goblin doesn't even try to keep up. I head back down, but somewhere end up taking a different staircase. All the halls I travel through are empty without a trace of other goblins. I decide to resume my treasure hunt, and descend deeper and deeper into the fortress, Until I arrive at a floor where there are no further downstairs.
I walk back up, but none of the rooms I walk through look familiar. The entire fortress seems to have magically rearranged itself, or am I still not sober?. The new layout forces me to walk back up, ever higher and higher, until I arrive at the top floor again, a different top floor. This time I do not bash the door down, but I sneak in. The goblin is there again, but he doesn't see me. I sneak up to him, wait until I have the perfect opportunity, then bring my sword down, his head flies of with one clean cut.
The rooms stay the same now. I look outside on the entrance level, but the entire landscape is covered in red clouds, I better stay inside a bit longer. I head back down, and explore every corner I can find. There is again a level where I can't continue further down, but the level above that has a narrow passage into a large underground cavern. While there is a lack of living goblins there is definitely not a lack of dead ones here. There is a huge heap of corpses in the centre of the room, There are holes in the cavern floor that seem like botomless pits. When I toss in a stone it takes at least 20 urist before I hear a sound. At the other end of the cavern I find an entrance to what must have been living quarters for the goblins. Its a dead end though, and completely abandoned.
The fortress is a dead end, but I won't be stopped that easily. I drop some of the heavy stuff I am carrying around, and then, slowly climb down the deep shaft.
(OOC: so somehow those horrible wounds from the fall all healed. My upper spine still shows up in cyan, which I think means a complete loss of function, but I'm doing fine actually. If Toady ever fixes that bug, my character will suddenly suffocate in seconds)
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Topic: The Museum II; adventure succession world (game is finished) (Read 110470 times)