(5E) D&D/Moorcock Multiverse Inspiration PBP

[JharyOConnah]

Sirroco spied a swarm of weird, chaos creatures flying away from the smoldering trees and smoke where Sylvania should've been. They went high into the air and never noticed him all alone.

He wondered if he'd taken a wrong turn. He wasn't far from where he remembered the portal from Sigil to be.

As he thought to himself about returning to a warm bed at the Civic Festhall, Rocko wandered through the woods.

He heard voices ahead. Well, one particularly powerful voice. It sounded like he was having a conversation with one or two others.

The voices in conversation:

"Which way was it, anyhow, Boris? Wasn't there uh... portal somewheres about?"

"How in the great abyss should I know, guv? Been naughty word-faced since the start o' the whole thing, haven't I? Can't remember which bloody plane we're on anyway…" A loud hiccup followed.

A third voice interrupted. "Oi there! You lads want any more o' this? I'm about to get outta this stinkin' place...head back down the river Styx…"

Sirroco couldn't see much ahead but shapes. A large castle or ruin on one side, near some running water. An oddly shaped structure, closer, on the other. That's where the voices seemed to be coming from.

* * *

 

[JharyOConnah]

Eovin flew away from everyone to investigate further. Still keeping her distance, she could hear the trio carry on.

"No thank ye. He's had too much, but I'll have some more!"

"Shove it, lad. YOU'VE had 'nuff! I'LL have some more!"

The mezzoloth stated: "So, that's a yes for the both o' yous..." He started to gather two large barrels, with his four insect arms, from the wagon and bring them to the ogre and troll.

* * *

 

[Mark Chance]

Ralph Crenshaw chided the satyr for hiding. The horned guy rolled his eyes and huffed, pointing to his right at a corpse in a little clearing (Laynard from Eovin's caravan, for those keeping score).

"Chaos can be ANYTHING Sir Champion. Best be careful..."

"You're yelling again," Ralph said. "That's not very sneaky."

Crenshaw, though, was out in the open. He watched as a little pixie (Eovin) descended to the cart and spoke. The cart, horses and all the fey-folk went on their way toward the riverbank. The little fairies waved at Ralph as the cart rolled away.

Ralph waved back. "Huh. A pixie. Cool." Ralph picked up the pace, falling into line on the cart's path, taking long strides, enjoying the ease with which me moved. "Man, if Coach Savage could see me now."

The satyr looked at Sir Ralph as the cart trundled away toward the group at the boat. He shrugged and ran to follow the Dreaming Knight, who was chasing.

"Relax, dude," Ralph said to the satyr. "Chaos may 'be anything', but that doesn't mean anything we bump into is chaos."

"Hey, Champion! Where's yoo mustache?" "Gunther! This is bad!" "Gunther, this lady gonna help us!" "These elves too!"

Ralph rubbed the stubble on his chin. "I don't know. I guess I could grow one here." He listened to the exchange of comments and questions. "Uh, I'm Ralph. Ralph Crenshaw. What's bad? What do you guys need help with?"

 

[jmucchiello]

Eovin watches the insect demon pour drinks for the big monsters. What are they waiting for? she wonders. I could ask. She lands on the top row of the bleachers. "When does it start?" she calls down to the giants. She holds a hand to her forehead and peers across the open field in front of the bleachers. "Wasn't it supposed to start by now?"

 

[JharyOConnah]

Gunther, the satyr, hobbled over to the other fey on a cart. They all conversed and stared at Ralph Crenshaw.

"You need help with that mustache!" "Teeheehaha!" "We think that's the princess!" "The queen is dead the castle is ruined..."

"Chaos, Champion o' the Grail. They done all this." The satyr nodded his head in a sort of I've-been-right-all-along sort of way.

Bradrick looked around in the bottom of the boat at Selythin's donated weapons.

The faeries kept chattering: "That one sure looks like Aov." "Sounds like him too!" "Why'd she done run off?" "She's chatting with the monsters!"

* * *

 

[JharyOConnah]

"Wasn't it supposed to start by now?" Eovin called out from the upper level of the bleachers.

The ogre and the troll, keen on receiving their barrels of ale and already drunk to boot, didn't notice who spoke.

"Already done. Over. Finito. Finished. It was a massacre!" The ogre with the eye-patch replied as he started drinking straight from the new barrel.

"I'd imagine we're missing the beginning of the next round..." The troll was filling a giant mug from his barrel. Also distracted.

The four-armed insect demon waved three of his arms lazily toward Eovin. "Shoo! I'm surprised you're not already fleeing like the rest o' your kind. Nothing to see here now, anyway..."

The mezzoloth continued to the pair of big guys. "Alright, lads. See you at the next one then?"

It was more a rhetorical question or a good-bye. He immediately tipped his hat and pushed his cart along.

* * *

 

[jmucchiello]

That didn't help much, Eovin thought. She flew west off the bleachers and made a wide circle before returning to the boat, just in case.

"They seem to be resting after a big fight that is 'over'," Eovin reports to the group. "I think they had something to do with the castle smoldering to the north."

 

[William Smith1]

Avoiding the voices and the strangely shaped structure, Sirocco doing his best to be quiet, moves toward the castle thinking to himself, "Hope there is some clue to what happened to Sylvania there."

 

[JharyOConnah]

Sirocco went north. Seemed to him he was already in Arborea, which layer, who knew.

He snuck, clippity-cloppity, toward the smoldering ruins of the castle. Something was wrong. Very wrong.

This should be a happy place. Rocko's planar sense was spot on most of the time. This was not what it should be...

He heard the ogre and troll in the distance, swilling ale and clambering around on the bleachers.

He kept to the trees, investigating the castle. He saw the bleachers in the distance, a pixie conversing with the monsters for a moment before flying off, and then LOST her as she dipped into the trees.

On the ramparts of the castle in the middle of the river he saw a brooding figure. The figure occasionally threw out a black blob that turned into a winged, deformed, animal-like, chaos-beast.

The bariur ranger heard laughter echoing through the smokey forest.

* * *

 

[jmucchiello]

OOC: Someone saw Eovin fly "west off the bleachers and made a wide circle before returning to the boat" from the castle? The idea was she didn't want her destination to be known to anyone who saw her on the bleachers.