Shemeska's Planescape Storyhour (Updated 29 Jan 2014)
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Shemeska
Adventurer
Nice kitty. Niiiiice kitty. Oh God it's eating my face!
The jungle was alive, both in the metaphorical sense that its red shrouded depths and hidden places resounded with the suggestive drip of water and the rustle of unseen denizens, and the literal as well. The flora was attracted to the warm bodies that passed through it; blossoms that might open to a sun on the prime bloomed and keened towards the scent of passing creatures. Vines decorated with minute and delicate flowers would drift and coil out towards the sounds of footsteps, rows of barbed thorns revealed as they unwrapped, seeking to entrap and devour.
“What the hell is wrong with evil people?” Toras asked as they cut their way through the jungle. “Why can’t they have their homes on sandy beaches with sunshine and cool breezes?”
Kiro chuckled. “Keeps nosy neighbors from dropping in on you I suppose.”
“Reminds me of my mom’s place…” Clueless said with a mild shudder. “And that’s not a good thing.”
“Evil trees?” Nisha asked randomly.
“Yeah, you could say that.” The half-fey replied. “Different climate, but yeah.”
“Evil trees.” Nisha repeated with a giggle.
They trekked through the scarlet jungle for nearly six miles without incident before they paused to rest. They were lucky, nothing had attacked them at that point, though they had to remain wary and watchful, hacking at or kicking away some of the more animate plant-life from time to time.
“We’ve got a choice to make here shortly folks.” Clueless said as they slowed down and looked at him.
The ground had been getting gradually moister for the past mile or so, the soil more spongy and giving to their footfalls. In short, the further they went in their current direction, they were heading towards a lowland swamp.
The bladesinger pointed first in one direction, directly ahead, and then a bit off to the right.
“First way is going to hit a swamp, probably a Styx tributary. The other way is going to hit more stable ground, but opens up into grassland. Neither of which is probably all that much safer in the long run.”
“Yeah but I’d rather dodge things in tall grass where I can run, than get stuck in mud fighting things where I can’t.” Fyrehowl said. “Plus, you can fly over the grass. There’s no tree cover stopping you like in a swamp.”
“Point.” Florian said.
“Either way should be fine really.” Kiro said with deference. “Whichever you all decide.”
“Swamp equals bad.” Nisha said, pointing towards her hooves. “I sink.”
“You also float above the ground by about an inch.” Tristol mentioned.
The tiefling stuck her tongue out at him.
“I’m actually inclined to avoid a swamp too.” Clueless said. “Chalk it up to bad experiences with the Styx. Or something like that.”
“Besides, like I said, we can always fly over the top of the grass.” Fyrehowl said. “If anything happens to be running around under it, they probably won’t be able to honestly reach us.”
It sounded like a good idea at the time, and so they deviated off in the direction of the plain. Slowly, over the next hour the ground grew firmer, the jungle receded back, and they looked out onto a sea of razor edged grass. Twenty feet high, nothing could be seen lurking under the surface as the deadly flora swayed in the breeze with an otherwise almost tranquil quality.
“Hmm.” Nisha said. “Maybe the swamp wasn’t so bad after all.”
It had sounded like a good idea at the time.
The boat was slowing, Skalliska could tell as she regained consciousness. There was a soft lapping of water against the hull, a shudder and noise as the boat came to a stop. The boat rocked side to side and water slapped against wood as her captors stepped from the boat and onto the hard surface of what sounded like a dock of sorts.
“Wasn’t so bad was it?”
“Could have been better. Your damn quasit was making faces at me the entire time.”
“ It’s ‘cause I like you…” The least fiend crooned out in a way both endearing and sickening at the same time.
The ogre carrying her stepped onto the hard surface of the dock, or perhaps a stone platform nestled against the edge of the canal. The sound of their boots was hard, sharp, without the echo and rattle of wood. So yes, likely stone.
“Hope you like stairs and switchbacks.”
“Better than going through the jungle.”
“It’s under a mile walk up to the top. Not bad at all. But with his money you think he’d make some magic to get us up there.”
“How do you mean?”
“You know. You’re the sorcerer, you explain it.”
“Humor me.”
“Magic us up the side of the plateau. Step on some magic rock, and bamf you’re there. Can’t fiends do that? Teleport things?”
“Easier said than done. And Rakshasas can’t teleport like that. Only the true fiends can.”
Skalliska was ignoring their banter as they began to climb up some sort of staircase. The sounds of their boots on stone hid the noise of her hands as she loosened the remaining knots on her bonds and began to weaken the threads in a patch of the sack that she was held within. Given time she’d have a hole in the sack, and given luck she’d be able to break loose and hopefully outrun her captors.
Still, she didn’t know where she was on the plane, or how she’d get off of it. Plus they’d stripped her naked before tying her up. Running around a lower plane without equipment or clothing wasn’t a pleasant thing to contemplate.
Some indeterminate period of time passed and they ascended up the side of the mountain, or whatever rise in the land they were seeking the top of, presumably where their employer was in residence.
“So how much are we getting again?”
“We’ll find out.”
“Oh come on, you know. Tell us.”
“You’ll be f*cking two whores a night for the next year. If that’s an indication.”
There were some slow whistles as they continued. The ground leveled out, they quickened their pace. They were near to their destination.
“Alright… damn he’s got a big place up here…”
“With his money you think he’d keep it something other than ruined though.”
“You try keeping stone intact in this air. With this sort of jungle snapping at its foundations? Good luck with that. We’d be skeletons by now if he hadn’t given us protections against the environment.”
“Alright. True. Hadn’t thought about that.”
“Idiot…” The quasit sneered.
Skalliska peered out through a hole she’d managed to gnaw in the side of the sack. The scarlet jungle only grudgingly seemed held back atop the mountain or plateau they stood atop, a sprawling palace of limestone and marble rising up from the bedrock with a breathtaking suddenness. There was jungle, and then there it was breaking free. Towers both intact and fallen pierced the sky above the treetops, all festooned with flowering vines that coiled like garrotes around thousands of figures: mortals, angels, and fiends alike, carved into the walls.
They walked further, stepping into a paved courtyard before the columned main entrance of the palace. A single figure stood in the doorway, reclined casually against the pitted limestone that was badly eaten by the acid of the jungle’s proximity, though garbed in silk he seemed not to notice the harshness of the environment that must have been gnawing away at his home for centuries.
“Greetings and welcome to my home.”
The grasslands were an illusion in superficial amber and green, windblown grasses undulating atop a scarlet ocean in whose depths and under whose waves predators swam. The sea of grass stretched out for miles upon miles out and away from the jungle behind them, and distantly they could see the mountain where the Rakshasa, and presumably Skalliska, were waiting.
“Are we so sure that this is the best way to go?” Nisha asked cautiously as she looked at the swaying grass, tall as trees.
“We can fly. It won’t be a problem really.” Tristol said with a smile as he started to cast the spell.
Moments later they were all hovering a few feet above the surface of the grassy sea, their misgivings fading away as they slipped free from the bonds of gravity. Scarlet light leaked up from below, casting a reddish speckled shroud over them as they flew above the surface towards the plateau in the distance.
A series of eight separate currents drifted through the sea of razored tall grasses, trailing the flying prey above, tracking them silently, growing closer and closer.
There was a rustle from below a few minutes later.
“Guys?” Florian asked suddenly as she glanced down at the placid, softly swaying grass below. “What was that?”
No answer. The deadly carpet of grass below was silent but for the wind.
“I can’t hear anything.” Fyrehowl said, glancing down.
They shrugged and began to move again, letting their guard down for just a moment.
There was a sudden flurry of noise from below and something shot up through the scarlet tinted grass. Like a cross between a rabid hyena and a porcupine, it snarled and cackled madly as its legs extended and it leapt towards Florian.
“Holy!” Florian shouted as the fiend rocketed past her, its jaws snapping with bone crunching force on empty air as it narrowly missed her by inches.
The razorgrass below them erupted into a chaos of snarls and cackling howls. Two more of the beasts burst through the top of the veldt and snapped at their intended prey, again missing only by inches.
“Everyone fly higher!” Clueless shouted as once more another howler launched itself skyward.
Ascending another twenty feet higher, they looked down and felt themselves momentarily safe. Looking closer they could see the trampled paths through the grass, see where the beasts had crept up on them, stalked them before pouncing.
“Ok, maybe the swamp was better…” Tristol said, glancing at Nisha who wore an ‘I told you so’ look on her face.
“No, we just let our guard down. Just, be on the look out.” Toras said.
The razorgrass sea was calm. Pensive. Down below came soft growls, snarls and erratic barks. They were talking, thinking, planning.
“Alright. We’re safe.” Florian said. “We just need to…GAH!!!”
Florian screamed and clutched her side as a jagged, erratic hail of two to three foot long spines shot up from the grassy sea. Bony flechettes with barbed tips, Howler spines, they arced skyward and stabbed with the force of a horse’s kick into her and Fyrehowl.
Another pause in the grass and a Howler came leaping up again, aiming for Florian as she drifted lower, the pain causing her to lose concentration on the spell keeping her aloft.
“Watch it!” Toras shouted as he dove to intercept the fiend, stabbing it with a quick thrust of his blade and letting it crash down into the unseen depths below.
The injured howler screamed in pain and spite back up at them, and the razorgrass rustled as it turned and fired another volley of jagged quills at them. But its injuries were great, and it was living on borrowed time. Its pack-mates were hungry, perhaps starving, and they smelled blood and opportunity.
“Serves you right, you son of…” Florian cursed down at the blood-spattered frenzy below.
She winced and cursed again a moment later as Kiro pulled the spine from her back where it was still lodged.
Sorely tempted as she was, Florian held her spells in reserve, and so did the others.
“You’ll need them more later.” Kiro said. “Save them for when you do.”
Tristol glanced down at the Howlers as they left them behind to feed on their former sibling. Nasty creatures they were, deserving of a fireball, but the cleric was right and so he kept his instinct in check as they resumed their flight across the scarlet sea of grass.
Nothing happened for another hour or two as they flew at a higher distance above the ground.
“Guys. Stop.” Fyrehowl said, peering into the distance and keening her ears in the same direction.
Something was moving beneath the grass, churning and grinding a huge swath of it underfoot. Like a wave, it rushed forward a constant, frightening speed, roughly perpendicular to them.
“What is that?” Florian asked warily.
It grew closer and they began to make out the sounds of its motion: harsh, angry, heavy, mechanical; eight heavy pounding noises of limbs crashing through the grass in rapid fashion, accompanied by the roar of engines and scream of metal on metal.
“Guys, I don’t like whatever that is.” Nisha said nervously. “Whatever it is.”
Something jerked above the level of the grass. A white and purple head and tip of a wing it seemed. There was a scream of gearwork and the swath of trodden grass shifting and changed direction. Whatever it was, it had seen them.
They were waiting for it when it grew to within a few hundred feet and two creatures, escorts or handlers, Vrocks, flew up over the grass and into the open air. The two of them squawked angrily, spittle flying from their swollen tongues and jagged beaks as they screamed out curses and commands in Abyssal.
Kiro and Fyrehowl dove near simultaneously as the Vrocks gave commands to the Retriever.
A gargantuan spider of flesh and steel, hellfire and rage molded into physical form, the thing rose up over the surface of the razorgrass sea and fixed its eyes on the targets it had been commanded to obliterate. Eyes of jelly and crystal, living and mechanical at once, they narrowed, focused, and burned with light and fury as the construct rattled with the sound and fury of furnaces and capacitors.
A bolt of lightning from one eye alone cut across the sky with a thunderclap that sent a wave through the grass with its force. A second eye let loose a horizontal column of liquid flame, igniting a swath of the grass and incinerating the path before it. A third eye spat a line of blistering, boiling acid through the sky.
Thought left and instinct took its place. Pain, injury and urgency had caused the former to become superfluous.
Tristol would remember hurling a fireball at the massive Tanar’ri construct while Fyrehowl hurled a cone of ice at one of the two Vrocks. Toras had vague recollection of being caught by a bolt of lightning that drove him backwards and rattled his teeth with its force even as the bolt ran through his body and caused him no harm. Clueless and Florian would both hurl spells at both the Vrocks and the massive Retriever, though Florian would mostly recall wondering openly why she was never taught such things in her temple when she watched Kiro cut the wings off of one of the pair of Vrocks and send it screaming to the ground in a hail of feathers of spores.
Scorched and bleeding they looked down at the trampled, burning expanse of bloodied veldt below them. Their own injuries, some of them severe, were ignored as they exhaled and hung there in the air, more than a bit stunned at what they had just done and at the devastation below them spread out like a mad artist’s nightmare tableau. One Vrock was dead from a dozen slashes and covered in sorcerous burns, the other somehow still alive and writhing in impotent agony on the ground, clutching madly for its own severed wings as it bled to death. Between them though lay the broken and battered Retriever, its shattered gears still spinning away madly inside, the furnaces growing cold and its infernal engines ticking away to likely detonation in the next few minutes.
They were a mile away when they did, seeing the flash a moment before the blast wave rocked them forwards and sent a spherical shock through the grassy sea below them.
Nisha glanced back at the burning Retriever behind them. “Anyone else think taking on the Rakshasa again might be anticlimactic after that?”
“That was satisfying.” Toras replied. “Always room for more. Don’t worry.”
“We’ll be fine.” Kiro replied with a humble smile. “Sutekh will watch over us. He has thus far, and will continue to.”
No one could argue with either of them.
Within the hour they reached the edge of the plain where it grew rocky and the highland plateau rose up above them. Dimly, in the distance, the wreckage of the Retriever belched a column of smoke into the sky and billowed erratic bursts of flame out into the grass to ignite a local inferno. It would likely attract attention, but they were far enough away that it spared them the unwelcome notice of any other denizens of the plane.
They hovered a safe distance above the shifting grass and took appraisal of their situation.
“We’ll be noticed easily if we just skirt up the side of the mountain.” Fyrehowl said. “We’ll probably attract more predators too.”
At that, most of group glanced up into the darkness overhead where the scarlet light of the ground grew pale, swallowed up by the void overhead. Distantly, high in the distance, crimson stars stood against the sackcloth sky like drops of blood against the ebony flesh of Carceri itself. Anything could be up there lurking in the darkness, held aloft on leathery wings or sorcery; anything could be waiting to dart down upon unsuspecting prey.
“You’re right.” Clueless said. “We should stick close to the rock itself. There’s more light there and we’ll at least be able to see anything coming for us.”
“Anyone else have a better idea?” Florian asked.
Tristol shook his head. “I’d say a dimension door but I don’t have enough of a clue of the top of the plateau to risk it. Normally I could just scry, but…”
“Stupid Rakshasa.” Nisha said.
Kiro pointed to a spot of shadow nestled between a narrow furrow in the stone and a minor rockfall: a cave mouth.
“Then how about we go into the mountain itself and work our way up?” He suggested. “The rock is pretty soft it looks like, and with the type of rain you’ll probably find the whole mountain riddled with caves from top to bottom.”
Clueless nodded and the others were quick to agree.
“The only problem might be finding a passage large enough to navigate, but I think we’ll be lucky, Sutekh willing.”
Kiro drifted over to the cave mouth, glanced inside briefly and seemed to whisper a prayer of sorts.
“We’ll be fine.” He said.
Siddhartha stood in the doorway of the ruined palace, looking down at them with some small measure of impatient disdain. Behind him, his tail flicked side to side in a predatory gesture. His hired mercenaries didn’t see it coming. They were blinded by their greed.
“We have her. The kobold you wanted.” The sorcerer called out to the fiend.
The ogre hefted the sack holding Skalliska. Inside, the kobold could see scarlet light filtering up through the frayed stitches in the side of her burlap prison. One swift motion and she’d be free. But did she dare make the attempt with the Rakshasa standing so close?
“So go ahead man, let’s see the gold.” One of the other mercenaries said as they all walked up to the fiend, crossing the courtyard between them.
Siddhartha smiled as they did so. Under his sight the courtyard was not the battered field of weathered, acid pitted flagstones grown weary and settled over a millennia of existence. Under his sight the courtyard did not leak scarlet light dimly through the cracks, it was not spotted with hungry, poisonous weeds and clumps of angry red moss. Under his sight the courtyard was illuminated by the overlapping lines of dozens of spells, racing like razor slashes into an exposed arm, bleeding up magic like welling venous blood, pooling in the courtyard’s center where the mercenaries were walking.
“One of you is missing.” The Rakshasa stated, his voice a soft rumble like approaching thunder. “Dead I assume?”
“Yes. An accident...” The sorcerer said warily. “Is that a problem?”
“No.” Siddhartha replied. “It simply means the rest of you split the payment one way less.”
Several of the mercenaries laughed and smacked each other around in celebration. Their pre-emptive jubilation echoed across the courtyard.
“Give me the kobold and I’ll give you your payment as we agreed.” The Rakshasa said as he watched them approach. He was hungry for what would come.
They walked further, stopped next to the ruined reflecting pool in the courtyard. It was filled with tangles of water lilies growing somehow in the muddy, tainted water that they were suspended in. Siddhartha watched as their movements broke the lines of the wardings one by one, snapping them like cords supporting a heavy weight, putting tension on the others, building to a critical point where they would simultaneously collapse and trigger. There was a smile on his face, anticipation if anything to the pointless slaughter approaching.
The sorcerer strode a few steps ahead of his fellows who were still slapping each other on the back and already speculating about how they’d be spending their newfound wealth. It was a substantial amount certainly. The Rakshasa was still staring at them.
“She’s here in the bag.” The aasimar said. “Pay us and you’ll have her for whatever you want.”
“Certainly.” Siddhartha purred and smiled.
The last line snapped like a taught string.
The quasit on its doomed master’s shoulder suddenly tensed and looked up at the Rakshasa. He saw something there in those eyes, something unexpected, something terrible beyond expectation. The quasit screamed as the wards collapsed and triggered.
Be it divine prescience or blind luck, Kiro was right about the caves. They ascended up into a maze of meandering passages, each eaten away by the action of dripping acidic rainwater over centuries or millennia. Tristol and Toras both held conjured balls of light aloft to light their way, and after an hour of slow, cautious ascent they had yet to run into anything dangerous.
“Any idea of which way to take guys?” Florian asked. “The higher we go there’s more and more splits in the passages.”
Fyrehowl sniffed at the air and gave a good, hard look down several of the tunnel branches.
“Can’t really say for sure. There’s a weird scent down some of them though.” The lupinal said.
Kiro paused and sat down on the stone, taking out a bit of cloth, a bit of flint and a dagger.
“Normally there’s going to be a draft through the tunnels if there’s an opening up top since the air at the base of the caves was much warmer than presumably up top.”
The cleric struck a spark and ignited the tip of the cloth. The flame shed a warm yellow-orange glow across them all and fluttered in multiple directions. There seemed to be multiple paths to open air above.
Fyrehowl’s ears perked and swiveled a split second before a few pebbles clattered down from a passage some ten feet above them.
“That light’ll attract someone you know.” Came a voice from above, calm and measured, human.
Kiro looked up, holding the flame higher to illuminate the source of the voice. A dirty man in rags sat there looking down at them. He had a slight furtive air about him, but he was smiling.
“Indeed. And it did.” Kiro said to the stranger as Toras moved his own light into place.
The cleric extinguished the flame with another whispered invocation to his deity.
“Who are you?” Clueless asked the man.
“Garret. At least that’s the name I go by.” The man said, making a wave to them all.
“And you live here?” Tristol asked.
The man glanced around and shrugged. “If you want to call it living I suppose. Surviving is more like it.”
Fyrehowl leaned over towards Toras and whispered. “Petitioner. Don’t trust him. Not on this layer of the plane. Not ever.”
“You know these caves then?” Florian asked.
“More than you might think. What’s it worth to you then?” He said, holding out his palm. “You’re trying to find a safe way through this place, and I know where to go and where to avoid going at all costs. I’m willing to share that information perhaps.”
Toras removed a ring from one of his fingers. A ring of feather fall, he didn’t particularly need it since he was flying rather than climbing.
“How about this then?” The fighter asked, holding the ring up into the path of the light.
The petitioner’s eyes glittered with momentary greed. The ring was a slim band of band topped with a swirling bit of carved filigree, and it glittered with a slight dim glow of magic. Though the man was not a mage, or trained in magic, he could tell it was valuable.
He paused as if thinking, perhaps hoping to get a better offer. None came, but it didn’t matter, because in the back of his head was the knowledge of where he’d be leading them, and knowing that after their flesh was picked clean, he’d have his choice of what was left intact.
“That works for me.” He said.
Kiro took the ring from Toras and drifted upwards to hand it to the their newfound guide.
The man happily snatched the ring from Kiro’s hand.
“Follow me and I’ll see you to the top.” He said, gesturing to one of the passages. “Trust me, I know these caves.”
Kiro smiled back. “Lead on.”
Skalliska stared from the underbrush of the jungle at the smoking, bloody devastation that speckled the courtyard of the Rakshasa’s palace. Smoking corpses lay strewn about in a lingering haze of ozone, acid fumes, and smoke. Several of them had been turned to stone and them shattered by subsequent spells, the broken pieces tossed about to litter the courtyard like the fallen petals of jungle flowers. It had to have been a dozen prismatic sprays at the very least: pointless gloating overkill.
She dared not breath nor utter a word as she hid in the undergrowth. She had run there blindly in a panic after she had heard the first screams from her captors as their employer betrayed them. She hadn’t managed to completely free herself from the burlap sack; only her legs had been free to allow her to run, but it had probably afforded her enough cover to somehow escape the spelltrap that had slaughtered her captors.
Naked, she looked over the gory aftermath, hiding herself partially under the burlap sack and partially beneath the fronds of some sticky, rancid smelling vine covered in orange blossoms. The Rakshasa smiled and floated over the bloody remains, pausing to gesture at the sorcerer’s electrocuted corpse.
Skalliska watched as it whispered and gestured, levitating the body up into the air, running a claw over the back of the dead man’s hand. Blood welled up from the scratch of the claw in soft flesh and erupted into flames, burning a symbol in place, cauterizing and blackening skin and subcutaneous fat.
The eyes of the corpse shot open, he jerked and whimpered.
Skalliska darted into the bushes and never looked back. She was free, that was all that mattered. She only paused to rest a few hundred yards away, fully out of sight of the palace and its fiendish master.
“Holy…” She whispered breathlessly on the heavy, pungent air. “Kidnap nothing, he didn’t give two sh*ts about me. He just wants all of us dead for screwing with his work in the Astral, but he wanted to do it himself. Now how the hell do I get out of Carceri…”
Her exposed skin began to sizzle and burn.
Her eyes widened.
“Oh bloody hell!”
She dove back into the burlap sack, having far more to immediately worry about than escaping.
The jungle was alive, both in the metaphorical sense that its red shrouded depths and hidden places resounded with the suggestive drip of water and the rustle of unseen denizens, and the literal as well. The flora was attracted to the warm bodies that passed through it; blossoms that might open to a sun on the prime bloomed and keened towards the scent of passing creatures. Vines decorated with minute and delicate flowers would drift and coil out towards the sounds of footsteps, rows of barbed thorns revealed as they unwrapped, seeking to entrap and devour.
“What the hell is wrong with evil people?” Toras asked as they cut their way through the jungle. “Why can’t they have their homes on sandy beaches with sunshine and cool breezes?”
Kiro chuckled. “Keeps nosy neighbors from dropping in on you I suppose.”
“Reminds me of my mom’s place…” Clueless said with a mild shudder. “And that’s not a good thing.”
“Evil trees?” Nisha asked randomly.
“Yeah, you could say that.” The half-fey replied. “Different climate, but yeah.”
“Evil trees.” Nisha repeated with a giggle.
They trekked through the scarlet jungle for nearly six miles without incident before they paused to rest. They were lucky, nothing had attacked them at that point, though they had to remain wary and watchful, hacking at or kicking away some of the more animate plant-life from time to time.
“We’ve got a choice to make here shortly folks.” Clueless said as they slowed down and looked at him.
The ground had been getting gradually moister for the past mile or so, the soil more spongy and giving to their footfalls. In short, the further they went in their current direction, they were heading towards a lowland swamp.
The bladesinger pointed first in one direction, directly ahead, and then a bit off to the right.
“First way is going to hit a swamp, probably a Styx tributary. The other way is going to hit more stable ground, but opens up into grassland. Neither of which is probably all that much safer in the long run.”
“Yeah but I’d rather dodge things in tall grass where I can run, than get stuck in mud fighting things where I can’t.” Fyrehowl said. “Plus, you can fly over the grass. There’s no tree cover stopping you like in a swamp.”
“Point.” Florian said.
“Either way should be fine really.” Kiro said with deference. “Whichever you all decide.”
“Swamp equals bad.” Nisha said, pointing towards her hooves. “I sink.”
“You also float above the ground by about an inch.” Tristol mentioned.
The tiefling stuck her tongue out at him.
“I’m actually inclined to avoid a swamp too.” Clueless said. “Chalk it up to bad experiences with the Styx. Or something like that.”
“Besides, like I said, we can always fly over the top of the grass.” Fyrehowl said. “If anything happens to be running around under it, they probably won’t be able to honestly reach us.”
It sounded like a good idea at the time, and so they deviated off in the direction of the plain. Slowly, over the next hour the ground grew firmer, the jungle receded back, and they looked out onto a sea of razor edged grass. Twenty feet high, nothing could be seen lurking under the surface as the deadly flora swayed in the breeze with an otherwise almost tranquil quality.
“Hmm.” Nisha said. “Maybe the swamp wasn’t so bad after all.”
It had sounded like a good idea at the time.
***
The boat was slowing, Skalliska could tell as she regained consciousness. There was a soft lapping of water against the hull, a shudder and noise as the boat came to a stop. The boat rocked side to side and water slapped against wood as her captors stepped from the boat and onto the hard surface of what sounded like a dock of sorts.
“Wasn’t so bad was it?”
“Could have been better. Your damn quasit was making faces at me the entire time.”
“ It’s ‘cause I like you…” The least fiend crooned out in a way both endearing and sickening at the same time.
The ogre carrying her stepped onto the hard surface of the dock, or perhaps a stone platform nestled against the edge of the canal. The sound of their boots was hard, sharp, without the echo and rattle of wood. So yes, likely stone.
“Hope you like stairs and switchbacks.”
“Better than going through the jungle.”
“It’s under a mile walk up to the top. Not bad at all. But with his money you think he’d make some magic to get us up there.”
“How do you mean?”
“You know. You’re the sorcerer, you explain it.”
“Humor me.”
“Magic us up the side of the plateau. Step on some magic rock, and bamf you’re there. Can’t fiends do that? Teleport things?”
“Easier said than done. And Rakshasas can’t teleport like that. Only the true fiends can.”
Skalliska was ignoring their banter as they began to climb up some sort of staircase. The sounds of their boots on stone hid the noise of her hands as she loosened the remaining knots on her bonds and began to weaken the threads in a patch of the sack that she was held within. Given time she’d have a hole in the sack, and given luck she’d be able to break loose and hopefully outrun her captors.
Still, she didn’t know where she was on the plane, or how she’d get off of it. Plus they’d stripped her naked before tying her up. Running around a lower plane without equipment or clothing wasn’t a pleasant thing to contemplate.
Some indeterminate period of time passed and they ascended up the side of the mountain, or whatever rise in the land they were seeking the top of, presumably where their employer was in residence.
“So how much are we getting again?”
“We’ll find out.”
“Oh come on, you know. Tell us.”
“You’ll be f*cking two whores a night for the next year. If that’s an indication.”
There were some slow whistles as they continued. The ground leveled out, they quickened their pace. They were near to their destination.
“Alright… damn he’s got a big place up here…”
“With his money you think he’d keep it something other than ruined though.”
“You try keeping stone intact in this air. With this sort of jungle snapping at its foundations? Good luck with that. We’d be skeletons by now if he hadn’t given us protections against the environment.”
“Alright. True. Hadn’t thought about that.”
“Idiot…” The quasit sneered.
Skalliska peered out through a hole she’d managed to gnaw in the side of the sack. The scarlet jungle only grudgingly seemed held back atop the mountain or plateau they stood atop, a sprawling palace of limestone and marble rising up from the bedrock with a breathtaking suddenness. There was jungle, and then there it was breaking free. Towers both intact and fallen pierced the sky above the treetops, all festooned with flowering vines that coiled like garrotes around thousands of figures: mortals, angels, and fiends alike, carved into the walls.
They walked further, stepping into a paved courtyard before the columned main entrance of the palace. A single figure stood in the doorway, reclined casually against the pitted limestone that was badly eaten by the acid of the jungle’s proximity, though garbed in silk he seemed not to notice the harshness of the environment that must have been gnawing away at his home for centuries.
“Greetings and welcome to my home.”
***
The grasslands were an illusion in superficial amber and green, windblown grasses undulating atop a scarlet ocean in whose depths and under whose waves predators swam. The sea of grass stretched out for miles upon miles out and away from the jungle behind them, and distantly they could see the mountain where the Rakshasa, and presumably Skalliska, were waiting.
“Are we so sure that this is the best way to go?” Nisha asked cautiously as she looked at the swaying grass, tall as trees.
“We can fly. It won’t be a problem really.” Tristol said with a smile as he started to cast the spell.
Moments later they were all hovering a few feet above the surface of the grassy sea, their misgivings fading away as they slipped free from the bonds of gravity. Scarlet light leaked up from below, casting a reddish speckled shroud over them as they flew above the surface towards the plateau in the distance.
A series of eight separate currents drifted through the sea of razored tall grasses, trailing the flying prey above, tracking them silently, growing closer and closer.
There was a rustle from below a few minutes later.
“Guys?” Florian asked suddenly as she glanced down at the placid, softly swaying grass below. “What was that?”
No answer. The deadly carpet of grass below was silent but for the wind.
“I can’t hear anything.” Fyrehowl said, glancing down.
They shrugged and began to move again, letting their guard down for just a moment.
There was a sudden flurry of noise from below and something shot up through the scarlet tinted grass. Like a cross between a rabid hyena and a porcupine, it snarled and cackled madly as its legs extended and it leapt towards Florian.
“Holy!” Florian shouted as the fiend rocketed past her, its jaws snapping with bone crunching force on empty air as it narrowly missed her by inches.
The razorgrass below them erupted into a chaos of snarls and cackling howls. Two more of the beasts burst through the top of the veldt and snapped at their intended prey, again missing only by inches.
“Everyone fly higher!” Clueless shouted as once more another howler launched itself skyward.
Ascending another twenty feet higher, they looked down and felt themselves momentarily safe. Looking closer they could see the trampled paths through the grass, see where the beasts had crept up on them, stalked them before pouncing.
“Ok, maybe the swamp was better…” Tristol said, glancing at Nisha who wore an ‘I told you so’ look on her face.
“No, we just let our guard down. Just, be on the look out.” Toras said.
The razorgrass sea was calm. Pensive. Down below came soft growls, snarls and erratic barks. They were talking, thinking, planning.
“Alright. We’re safe.” Florian said. “We just need to…GAH!!!”
Florian screamed and clutched her side as a jagged, erratic hail of two to three foot long spines shot up from the grassy sea. Bony flechettes with barbed tips, Howler spines, they arced skyward and stabbed with the force of a horse’s kick into her and Fyrehowl.
Another pause in the grass and a Howler came leaping up again, aiming for Florian as she drifted lower, the pain causing her to lose concentration on the spell keeping her aloft.
“Watch it!” Toras shouted as he dove to intercept the fiend, stabbing it with a quick thrust of his blade and letting it crash down into the unseen depths below.
The injured howler screamed in pain and spite back up at them, and the razorgrass rustled as it turned and fired another volley of jagged quills at them. But its injuries were great, and it was living on borrowed time. Its pack-mates were hungry, perhaps starving, and they smelled blood and opportunity.
“Serves you right, you son of…” Florian cursed down at the blood-spattered frenzy below.
She winced and cursed again a moment later as Kiro pulled the spine from her back where it was still lodged.
Sorely tempted as she was, Florian held her spells in reserve, and so did the others.
“You’ll need them more later.” Kiro said. “Save them for when you do.”
Tristol glanced down at the Howlers as they left them behind to feed on their former sibling. Nasty creatures they were, deserving of a fireball, but the cleric was right and so he kept his instinct in check as they resumed their flight across the scarlet sea of grass.
Nothing happened for another hour or two as they flew at a higher distance above the ground.
“Guys. Stop.” Fyrehowl said, peering into the distance and keening her ears in the same direction.
Something was moving beneath the grass, churning and grinding a huge swath of it underfoot. Like a wave, it rushed forward a constant, frightening speed, roughly perpendicular to them.
“What is that?” Florian asked warily.
It grew closer and they began to make out the sounds of its motion: harsh, angry, heavy, mechanical; eight heavy pounding noises of limbs crashing through the grass in rapid fashion, accompanied by the roar of engines and scream of metal on metal.
“Guys, I don’t like whatever that is.” Nisha said nervously. “Whatever it is.”
Something jerked above the level of the grass. A white and purple head and tip of a wing it seemed. There was a scream of gearwork and the swath of trodden grass shifting and changed direction. Whatever it was, it had seen them.
They were waiting for it when it grew to within a few hundred feet and two creatures, escorts or handlers, Vrocks, flew up over the grass and into the open air. The two of them squawked angrily, spittle flying from their swollen tongues and jagged beaks as they screamed out curses and commands in Abyssal.
Kiro and Fyrehowl dove near simultaneously as the Vrocks gave commands to the Retriever.
A gargantuan spider of flesh and steel, hellfire and rage molded into physical form, the thing rose up over the surface of the razorgrass sea and fixed its eyes on the targets it had been commanded to obliterate. Eyes of jelly and crystal, living and mechanical at once, they narrowed, focused, and burned with light and fury as the construct rattled with the sound and fury of furnaces and capacitors.
A bolt of lightning from one eye alone cut across the sky with a thunderclap that sent a wave through the grass with its force. A second eye let loose a horizontal column of liquid flame, igniting a swath of the grass and incinerating the path before it. A third eye spat a line of blistering, boiling acid through the sky.
Thought left and instinct took its place. Pain, injury and urgency had caused the former to become superfluous.
Tristol would remember hurling a fireball at the massive Tanar’ri construct while Fyrehowl hurled a cone of ice at one of the two Vrocks. Toras had vague recollection of being caught by a bolt of lightning that drove him backwards and rattled his teeth with its force even as the bolt ran through his body and caused him no harm. Clueless and Florian would both hurl spells at both the Vrocks and the massive Retriever, though Florian would mostly recall wondering openly why she was never taught such things in her temple when she watched Kiro cut the wings off of one of the pair of Vrocks and send it screaming to the ground in a hail of feathers of spores.
Scorched and bleeding they looked down at the trampled, burning expanse of bloodied veldt below them. Their own injuries, some of them severe, were ignored as they exhaled and hung there in the air, more than a bit stunned at what they had just done and at the devastation below them spread out like a mad artist’s nightmare tableau. One Vrock was dead from a dozen slashes and covered in sorcerous burns, the other somehow still alive and writhing in impotent agony on the ground, clutching madly for its own severed wings as it bled to death. Between them though lay the broken and battered Retriever, its shattered gears still spinning away madly inside, the furnaces growing cold and its infernal engines ticking away to likely detonation in the next few minutes.
They were a mile away when they did, seeing the flash a moment before the blast wave rocked them forwards and sent a spherical shock through the grassy sea below them.
Nisha glanced back at the burning Retriever behind them. “Anyone else think taking on the Rakshasa again might be anticlimactic after that?”
“That was satisfying.” Toras replied. “Always room for more. Don’t worry.”
“We’ll be fine.” Kiro replied with a humble smile. “Sutekh will watch over us. He has thus far, and will continue to.”
No one could argue with either of them.
Within the hour they reached the edge of the plain where it grew rocky and the highland plateau rose up above them. Dimly, in the distance, the wreckage of the Retriever belched a column of smoke into the sky and billowed erratic bursts of flame out into the grass to ignite a local inferno. It would likely attract attention, but they were far enough away that it spared them the unwelcome notice of any other denizens of the plane.
They hovered a safe distance above the shifting grass and took appraisal of their situation.
“We’ll be noticed easily if we just skirt up the side of the mountain.” Fyrehowl said. “We’ll probably attract more predators too.”
At that, most of group glanced up into the darkness overhead where the scarlet light of the ground grew pale, swallowed up by the void overhead. Distantly, high in the distance, crimson stars stood against the sackcloth sky like drops of blood against the ebony flesh of Carceri itself. Anything could be up there lurking in the darkness, held aloft on leathery wings or sorcery; anything could be waiting to dart down upon unsuspecting prey.
“You’re right.” Clueless said. “We should stick close to the rock itself. There’s more light there and we’ll at least be able to see anything coming for us.”
“Anyone else have a better idea?” Florian asked.
Tristol shook his head. “I’d say a dimension door but I don’t have enough of a clue of the top of the plateau to risk it. Normally I could just scry, but…”
“Stupid Rakshasa.” Nisha said.
Kiro pointed to a spot of shadow nestled between a narrow furrow in the stone and a minor rockfall: a cave mouth.
“Then how about we go into the mountain itself and work our way up?” He suggested. “The rock is pretty soft it looks like, and with the type of rain you’ll probably find the whole mountain riddled with caves from top to bottom.”
Clueless nodded and the others were quick to agree.
“The only problem might be finding a passage large enough to navigate, but I think we’ll be lucky, Sutekh willing.”
Kiro drifted over to the cave mouth, glanced inside briefly and seemed to whisper a prayer of sorts.
“We’ll be fine.” He said.
***
Siddhartha stood in the doorway of the ruined palace, looking down at them with some small measure of impatient disdain. Behind him, his tail flicked side to side in a predatory gesture. His hired mercenaries didn’t see it coming. They were blinded by their greed.
“We have her. The kobold you wanted.” The sorcerer called out to the fiend.
The ogre hefted the sack holding Skalliska. Inside, the kobold could see scarlet light filtering up through the frayed stitches in the side of her burlap prison. One swift motion and she’d be free. But did she dare make the attempt with the Rakshasa standing so close?
“So go ahead man, let’s see the gold.” One of the other mercenaries said as they all walked up to the fiend, crossing the courtyard between them.
Siddhartha smiled as they did so. Under his sight the courtyard was not the battered field of weathered, acid pitted flagstones grown weary and settled over a millennia of existence. Under his sight the courtyard did not leak scarlet light dimly through the cracks, it was not spotted with hungry, poisonous weeds and clumps of angry red moss. Under his sight the courtyard was illuminated by the overlapping lines of dozens of spells, racing like razor slashes into an exposed arm, bleeding up magic like welling venous blood, pooling in the courtyard’s center where the mercenaries were walking.
“One of you is missing.” The Rakshasa stated, his voice a soft rumble like approaching thunder. “Dead I assume?”
“Yes. An accident...” The sorcerer said warily. “Is that a problem?”
“No.” Siddhartha replied. “It simply means the rest of you split the payment one way less.”
Several of the mercenaries laughed and smacked each other around in celebration. Their pre-emptive jubilation echoed across the courtyard.
“Give me the kobold and I’ll give you your payment as we agreed.” The Rakshasa said as he watched them approach. He was hungry for what would come.
They walked further, stopped next to the ruined reflecting pool in the courtyard. It was filled with tangles of water lilies growing somehow in the muddy, tainted water that they were suspended in. Siddhartha watched as their movements broke the lines of the wardings one by one, snapping them like cords supporting a heavy weight, putting tension on the others, building to a critical point where they would simultaneously collapse and trigger. There was a smile on his face, anticipation if anything to the pointless slaughter approaching.
The sorcerer strode a few steps ahead of his fellows who were still slapping each other on the back and already speculating about how they’d be spending their newfound wealth. It was a substantial amount certainly. The Rakshasa was still staring at them.
“She’s here in the bag.” The aasimar said. “Pay us and you’ll have her for whatever you want.”
“Certainly.” Siddhartha purred and smiled.
The last line snapped like a taught string.
The quasit on its doomed master’s shoulder suddenly tensed and looked up at the Rakshasa. He saw something there in those eyes, something unexpected, something terrible beyond expectation. The quasit screamed as the wards collapsed and triggered.
***
Be it divine prescience or blind luck, Kiro was right about the caves. They ascended up into a maze of meandering passages, each eaten away by the action of dripping acidic rainwater over centuries or millennia. Tristol and Toras both held conjured balls of light aloft to light their way, and after an hour of slow, cautious ascent they had yet to run into anything dangerous.
“Any idea of which way to take guys?” Florian asked. “The higher we go there’s more and more splits in the passages.”
Fyrehowl sniffed at the air and gave a good, hard look down several of the tunnel branches.
“Can’t really say for sure. There’s a weird scent down some of them though.” The lupinal said.
Kiro paused and sat down on the stone, taking out a bit of cloth, a bit of flint and a dagger.
“Normally there’s going to be a draft through the tunnels if there’s an opening up top since the air at the base of the caves was much warmer than presumably up top.”
The cleric struck a spark and ignited the tip of the cloth. The flame shed a warm yellow-orange glow across them all and fluttered in multiple directions. There seemed to be multiple paths to open air above.
Fyrehowl’s ears perked and swiveled a split second before a few pebbles clattered down from a passage some ten feet above them.
“That light’ll attract someone you know.” Came a voice from above, calm and measured, human.
Kiro looked up, holding the flame higher to illuminate the source of the voice. A dirty man in rags sat there looking down at them. He had a slight furtive air about him, but he was smiling.
“Indeed. And it did.” Kiro said to the stranger as Toras moved his own light into place.
The cleric extinguished the flame with another whispered invocation to his deity.
“Who are you?” Clueless asked the man.
“Garret. At least that’s the name I go by.” The man said, making a wave to them all.
“And you live here?” Tristol asked.
The man glanced around and shrugged. “If you want to call it living I suppose. Surviving is more like it.”
Fyrehowl leaned over towards Toras and whispered. “Petitioner. Don’t trust him. Not on this layer of the plane. Not ever.”
“You know these caves then?” Florian asked.
“More than you might think. What’s it worth to you then?” He said, holding out his palm. “You’re trying to find a safe way through this place, and I know where to go and where to avoid going at all costs. I’m willing to share that information perhaps.”
Toras removed a ring from one of his fingers. A ring of feather fall, he didn’t particularly need it since he was flying rather than climbing.
“How about this then?” The fighter asked, holding the ring up into the path of the light.
The petitioner’s eyes glittered with momentary greed. The ring was a slim band of band topped with a swirling bit of carved filigree, and it glittered with a slight dim glow of magic. Though the man was not a mage, or trained in magic, he could tell it was valuable.
He paused as if thinking, perhaps hoping to get a better offer. None came, but it didn’t matter, because in the back of his head was the knowledge of where he’d be leading them, and knowing that after their flesh was picked clean, he’d have his choice of what was left intact.
“That works for me.” He said.
Kiro took the ring from Toras and drifted upwards to hand it to the their newfound guide.
The man happily snatched the ring from Kiro’s hand.
“Follow me and I’ll see you to the top.” He said, gesturing to one of the passages. “Trust me, I know these caves.”
Kiro smiled back. “Lead on.”
***
Skalliska stared from the underbrush of the jungle at the smoking, bloody devastation that speckled the courtyard of the Rakshasa’s palace. Smoking corpses lay strewn about in a lingering haze of ozone, acid fumes, and smoke. Several of them had been turned to stone and them shattered by subsequent spells, the broken pieces tossed about to litter the courtyard like the fallen petals of jungle flowers. It had to have been a dozen prismatic sprays at the very least: pointless gloating overkill.
She dared not breath nor utter a word as she hid in the undergrowth. She had run there blindly in a panic after she had heard the first screams from her captors as their employer betrayed them. She hadn’t managed to completely free herself from the burlap sack; only her legs had been free to allow her to run, but it had probably afforded her enough cover to somehow escape the spelltrap that had slaughtered her captors.
Naked, she looked over the gory aftermath, hiding herself partially under the burlap sack and partially beneath the fronds of some sticky, rancid smelling vine covered in orange blossoms. The Rakshasa smiled and floated over the bloody remains, pausing to gesture at the sorcerer’s electrocuted corpse.
Skalliska watched as it whispered and gestured, levitating the body up into the air, running a claw over the back of the dead man’s hand. Blood welled up from the scratch of the claw in soft flesh and erupted into flames, burning a symbol in place, cauterizing and blackening skin and subcutaneous fat.
The eyes of the corpse shot open, he jerked and whimpered.
Skalliska darted into the bushes and never looked back. She was free, that was all that mattered. She only paused to rest a few hundred yards away, fully out of sight of the palace and its fiendish master.
“Holy…” She whispered breathlessly on the heavy, pungent air. “Kidnap nothing, he didn’t give two sh*ts about me. He just wants all of us dead for screwing with his work in the Astral, but he wanted to do it himself. Now how the hell do I get out of Carceri…”
Her exposed skin began to sizzle and burn.
Her eyes widened.
“Oh bloody hell!”
She dove back into the burlap sack, having far more to immediately worry about than escaping.
Last edited:
Ryltar
First Post
Nice update, once again 
. I guess the "high grass" scene was (at least somewhat) inspired by the 'raptors in Jurassic Park (2, I think it was)?
Oh, and what did you do to the retriever - did you "template" it somehow, or was it just a fluff change? That was seriously wicked imagery.
Taking a page out of Gez's book:
. I guess the "high grass" scene was (at least somewhat) inspired by the 'raptors in Jurassic Park (2, I think it was)?Oh, and what did you do to the retriever - did you "template" it somehow, or was it just a fluff change? That was seriously wicked imagery
.Taking a page out of Gez's book:
Some minor nitpicks and typo corrections:
A bolt of lightning from one eye alone cut across the sky with a thunderclap that send a wave through the grass with its force --> should probably be sent
A second eye let loose a horizontal column of liquid flame, igniting a swatch of the grass and incinerating the path before it --> swath
Nisha glanced back at the burning Retriever behind them. “Anyone else think taking on the Rakshasa again might me melodramatic after that?” --> might be
It was filled with tangles of water lilies growing somehow in the muddle, tainted water --> muddled
A bolt of lightning from one eye alone cut across the sky with a thunderclap that send a wave through the grass with its force --> should probably be sent
A second eye let loose a horizontal column of liquid flame, igniting a swatch of the grass and incinerating the path before it --> swath
Nisha glanced back at the burning Retriever behind them. “Anyone else think taking on the Rakshasa again might me melodramatic after that?” --> might be
It was filled with tangles of water lilies growing somehow in the muddle, tainted water --> muddled
Shemeska
Adventurer
And fixed those typos too.
Yes. The Howlers in the grass were directly inspired by that scene.
No, it was just a big Retriever. A -really- big Retriever. I don't think I added any templates to it, the descriptions of the fight were just flavor to spice it up.
Ryltar said:Nice update, once again
Yes. The Howlers in the grass were directly inspired by that scene.
Oh, and what did you do to the retriever - did you "template" it somehow, or was it just a fluff change? That was seriously wicked imagery
No, it was just a big Retriever. A -really- big Retriever. I don't think I added any templates to it, the descriptions of the fight were just flavor to spice it up.
Ectoplasmoid
First Post
Out of curiosity, what level are the characters at this point?
Are all of your games like this?
Are all of your games like this?
Clueless
Webmonkey
13ish? Something like that. Maybe 14.
And yes. He has an intensely immersive game technique, which shows most strongly in the retelling of the story. At the table we roll just as many dice as the next group, but we also consider the acting and character development, so scenes and plots like this develop easily. (Check the SH2 for some of that as well, that's what we're currently playing.)
And yes. He has an intensely immersive game technique, which shows most strongly in the retelling of the story. At the table we roll just as many dice as the next group, but we also consider the acting and character development, so scenes and plots like this develop easily. (Check the SH2 for some of that as well, that's what we're currently playing.)
Hellraider
First Post
Just my humble opinion...
Well, about one comment done looong ago on the thread, about the similarity between Clueless and the Nameless One (From Planescape Torment).
My 2 cents... In my new, badass, dumb, funky drunkard style:
Drunkard: Nuthin´ like drinkin´ a few kegs outta Styx water, the one that makes you forget all your probs, ´n then findin´ yerself all a high ´n´ mighty guy thrownup in the potential core of the mult´ verse´s treets, so someone gives ye a hnd n explains ya effrthing!
Pecially f your new to Plan Escape! Hey, bartender, twoo more roooo... teern... passes... sets of mug... eh... drink... liquid... uh... strong funny-tasting planar drink made out of rasos... rose... sharp unhealthy local plant plague!
Bartender: Sure... hey, what´s with you, you haven´t draught nothing yet and you´re drunk already! :\
Drunkard: Me´s gotta weird accent, ven there in Zigg... Zagg... Funny sigilrock-based, importation-built ring-in-the-top-of-the-spire city...! Mean no harm anyway.
(Focus on the bartender´s face)
Bartender: I hope you have enough jink to pay for it. :
Drunkard: ... Actually, nope. Nevermind. Just gotta quest-shuns, eh... wherr doI join the Xebosi... Cabosti... Travesti... Funny-acting chaos-encased guys?
Bartender: I dunno. They are actually too weird to talk to. :\
Drunkard: I can´t bello...! truest....! booy...! uh... think it´s true! Anyway, let m´ sniff that stuff. I´m from a race that drinks by smelling ´em.
Bartender: Then this is your bill... you smelled these things under MY stablishment.![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
Drunkard: Eh... Tell me about the Lady of Serenity.
Bartender: Do you want problem so SOON?
Drunkard: True that she mazes you when you worsheep... venerable... give her your faith and belief? :\
Bartender: I don´t know nor want to know. Your bill...,
Drunkard: Wait a while...
(Produces a bladed rag doll from his pockets, and begins whispering something)
(Focus on the bartender´s face)
Bartender: Don´t do that here...
(Refocus on the drunkard´s chair. Empty, and several crickets are playing)
Bartender: Now that was a barmy blood... Todd! You cannot make cricket juice with live crickets!
Well, about one comment done looong ago on the thread, about the similarity between Clueless and the Nameless One (From Planescape Torment).
My 2 cents... In my new, badass, dumb, funky drunkard style:
Drunkard: Nuthin´ like drinkin´ a few kegs outta Styx water, the one that makes you forget all your probs, ´n then findin´ yerself all a high ´n´ mighty guy thrownup in the potential core of the mult´ verse´s treets, so someone gives ye a hnd n explains ya effrthing!
Pecially f your new to Plan Escape! Hey, bartender, twoo more roooo... teern... passes... sets of mug... eh... drink... liquid... uh... strong funny-tasting planar drink made out of rasos... rose... sharp unhealthy local plant plague!
Bartender: Sure... hey, what´s with you, you haven´t draught nothing yet and you´re drunk already! :\
Drunkard: Me´s gotta weird accent, ven there in Zigg... Zagg... Funny sigilrock-based, importation-built ring-in-the-top-of-the-spire city...! Mean no harm anyway.
(Focus on the bartender´s face)
Bartender: I hope you have enough jink to pay for it. :
Drunkard: ... Actually, nope. Nevermind. Just gotta quest-shuns, eh... wherr doI join the Xebosi... Cabosti... Travesti... Funny-acting chaos-encased guys?
Bartender: I dunno. They are actually too weird to talk to. :\
Drunkard: I can´t bello...! truest....! booy...! uh... think it´s true! Anyway, let m´ sniff that stuff. I´m from a race that drinks by smelling ´em.
Bartender: Then this is your bill... you smelled these things under MY stablishment.
Drunkard: Eh... Tell me about the Lady of Serenity.
Bartender: Do you want problem so SOON?
Drunkard: True that she mazes you when you worsheep... venerable... give her your faith and belief? :\
Bartender: I don´t know nor want to know. Your bill...,
Drunkard: Wait a while...
(Produces a bladed rag doll from his pockets, and begins whispering something)
(Focus on the bartender´s face)
Bartender: Don´t do that here...
(Refocus on the drunkard´s chair. Empty, and several crickets are playing)
Bartender: Now that was a barmy blood... Todd! You cannot make cricket juice with live crickets!
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