Intrepid Adventures of Legend or Hobo Murderers on the Loose (a pogre storyhour)
Episode 14
Nothing Gets Out Alive
The adventurers splashed cold water on the bound dark elves to bring them to consciousness.
"Which of you wants to live?" Cabo asked.
Osbourne took the gags out of the dark elves' mouths.
"Whoever talks to us and tells us what we need to know lives. The other two," Cabo made a motion across his throat with his index finger.
The dark elves made some hurried whispers to each other.
"Shuddup!" Brodek yelled and kicked the nearest dark elf. "We need to split this trio up." Brodek roughly grabbed the elf he had kicked and yanked him to his feet. Brodek dragged the elf out into the hall and Cabo addressed him in common. The Dark Elf spoke two or three languages, but no one in the group could understand him.
“Enough of this!” Cabo yelled. “Brodek bring him back in here.” Cabo gestured for Brodek to bring the dark elf back into the chamber with the other dark elves.
“This is to make a believer of you two,” Cabo announced to the other two dark elves and promptly sliced the neck of the first Dark Elf. The other dark elves winced, but revealed no further emotion.
“What now?” Osbourne asked. “They clearly do not speak any language we share.”
Cabo whirled around with an angry glare and then composed himself and in a low voice said, “You know what, you are right.” The halfling thief then nodded at Brodek. Brodek sword flew in two quick swipes and both dark elves’ heads flopped to the ground.
“That was a quality use of our time,” Gideon stated as he watched the spreading pool of crimson beneath the elves’ corpses.
“Yeah, well thanks for all of your helpful suggestions,” Cabo retorted.
“There could be no better use of our time than killing elves,” Brodek snarled. “Let’s move out.”
*****
Cabo burst into the room and stabbed one of the dark ones and then zipped back out before the piscean creatures could react. Gideon and Brodek stormed in and attacked. The melee went quickly and soon all of the Deep Ones were done.
*****
The group flung open the door and found a pair of hideous creatures.
At first, the melee went very well, and the adventurers quickly had the pair of monsters heavily wounded. As the creatures struggled with their many wounds and unearthly howl came from the creatures and they broke into a berserker rage, Now the blows from the creatures were staggering the adventurers and the group was put on the defensive.
A wide sweep of Brodek’s sword saved the battle for the adventurers and turned the tide. The monsters were finally put down and the group collectively heaved a sigh of relief. They rested and patched up their wounds.
*****
This level was mostly explored and in one of the last rooms the group discovered a group of marooned dark elf warriors. In what quickly was becoming his standard, Cabo jumped in and stabbed a dark elf and then quickly exited.
The dark elves never got their footing and the combat was a one-sided slaughter. Only a pair of stairs remained to be explored.
*****
As the adventurers descended a thick, swampy, foetid odor rose to their nostrils. Osbourne complained briefly. Brodek growled in reply, “Deep Ones - lots of ‘em.”
The level was a maze of collapsed tunnels and stagnant pools. The group struck down Old Ones of all sizes, young and old, and was forced to dig out many passages to make their way through.
*****
The group came to a chamber that resembled a primitive temple. The mostly bare chamber had numerous runes scrawled on the walls and a large arcane circle surrounding a pit entrance.
“What’s in the pit I wonder?” Gideon asked. As if in answer to the halfling monk’s question a low, deep, rumbling growl came up through the pit entrance. Gideon edged closer to the pit to take a look.
“Stop!” Osbourne commanded. Gideon froze in his tracks and turned to face the sorcerer. “We have no idea if the circle has bound some horrible beast. Breaking the circle might release it.”
Brodek stepped forward and stomped on the circle. The dwarf ground the ball of his feet into the painted arcane symbols like he was putting out a stray ash from a campfire. “Old Ones’ magic holds no sway over me,” Brodek announced. His devilish grin revealed he was clearly enjoying Osbourne’s discomfort.
The cat out of the bag, the whole group edged closer to the pit to take a closer view. Another low growl came echoing up from the pit.
Cabo started fishing a coil of rope out of his gear.
“What are you doing?” an alarmed Osbourne asked.
“Going to get a closer look,” Cabo replied.
“It will see you and you won’t see it,” Gideon reminded him.
Cabo hesitated. He pulled out a copper and instructed Osbourne to cast light on the coin. Osbourne reluctantly complied and his light source immediately extinguished as the coin began to emit a golden glow of light. “Right, now make me invisible,” Cabo demanded of the sorcerer. Osbourne objected, but the combined cajoling of the party forced him to relent and he cast the spell.
Cabo had the trio hold one end of the rope with Brodek serving as anchor. He then dropped the coin down into the pit and the group was plunged into darkness. A deafening roar issued forth from the pit. A short time later the noise dissipated. “Now, when I tug on the rope pull me up.”
“Jigging with peck bait; this is my kind of fishing!” Brodek proclaimed.
The trio felt tension on the rope as Cabo lowered himself down the pit shaft. The group could hear the low rumbling of the monster below. A few excruciating minutes later, the trio felt a violent tugging. All three pulled with all of their might and they could hear Cabo’s muffled curses as he bounced up the pit shaft.
A bruised and battered Cabo finally emerged from the pit. Osbourne quickly re-cast light to illuminate the chamber. Cabo’s chest was heaving from exertion as he tried to catch his breath.
“What was it?” Gideon asked.
“No idea, but it is enormous,” Cabo replied. “It looked like a whale-lizard with big teeth. It’s head was gigantic with a jaw to match.”
“Could swallow you in one gulp, eh?” Brodek asked.
“Easily,” Cabo confirmed. He began looking around the room for something.
“What are you looking for?” Osbourne asked.
“I need something solid to anchor this rope to. Something that can support Brodek’s weight.”
“You want to go back down there?” Gideon asked incredulously.
“Yep, I’ll go first invisible. I’ll jump it and you fellows can attack it then,” Cabo replied.
“Peck, I admire your style, but there is no way I am shimmying down that hole to fight an enormous beast,” Brodek stated.
“No way I’m going down there,” Gideon concurred.
“I did not come down through ten levels of this place, fighting goblins, troglodytes, undead, elves, goatmen, and fishmen to turn around and leave. We are going to kill this thing. Now grow a pair!” Cabo retorted.
“I’m in,” Osbourne said. The dwarf and the monk turned to look at the sorcerer in disbelief. Osbourne shrugged, “He’s right. I did not come all this way not to fight this thing.”
“No way Peck!” Brodek growled. “It is certain doom.”
“Let’s put it to a vote,” Cabo suggested.
“Why?” Gideon replied. “It’s clear it is two against two.”
Cabo retrieved the imp carcass from his bag that he had fashioned into a puppet and held it aloft on the mummified hand he had taken from the crypts. “What do you say Spot?” Cabo asked the gruesome puppet. In a high falsetto voice he replied, “I say we go kill the monster or die trying. We should ignore fraidy dwarf and sister monk and prove we have a pair!” Cabo smiled broadly, “I agree Spot! It’s decided.”
“It most certainly is not decided,” Gideon replied. “And, put that thing away. Better yet, throw it away.”
“That’s not helping the cause,” Osbourne agreed.
“At least Spot has courage. Something sorely lacking here right now,” Cabo pouted.
“You can see you have aligned yourself with a lunatic,” Gideon said as an aside to Osbourne.
“How about this? We go back to the larder and bring back all those barrels of oil. We pour all the oil down in the pit and set it on fire,” Gideon suggested.
“Is it a closed chamber peck?” Brodek asked cautiously.
“No idea,” Cabo admitted.
“The plan does have merit. The problem is a fire that size could very well snuff out all of the air. We could suffocate,” Brodek explained. “Let’s explore this level further and see if there is another entrance. I’d rather not face this beast after shimmying down a shaft like a chimney sweep.”
*****
The group tripped their way through a moist, algae-ridden chamber full of breeding ponds and young old ones. The chamber soon looked like the deck of a cod trawler and the besmirched group pushed on.
They entered yet another swamp-like room. This one was occupied by an enormous Old One and his mates.
The huge Old One gurgled some threat at the group and began casting spells at them while his mates rushed to his defense. The halflings avoided the mates and concentrated their efforts on taking out the big Old One. Brodek bladed the two mates in short order and joined the attack on the chieftan. The groups combined efforts put the creature down, but not before nearly everyone was wounded.
*****
Gideon rubbed the sleep from his eyes and stretched, recovering from his slumber in the larder. Brodek was happily rubbing his stomach after enjoying the bounty of the storage room yet again. “Good thing we are done,” Brodek said. “We’re nearly out of food.”
Gideon began rolling oil barrels towards the door.
Osbourne awoke and looked over with half-open eyes. “What are you doing Gideon?”
“Getting ready to take care of some final business.”
*****
The whoosh of the oil catching was not explosive, but palpable all the same as air rushed down to the pit. The group could hear the awful screams of agony from the terrible creature below as they fled the area.
“Fry Fishy! Fry!” Brodek shouted during the retreat.
*****
Back at the Old Ox Inn there was a great celebration. The proprietor Lant gave them a fair price for their sizable cache of hand crossbows and Cabo put on a bizarre puppet show with ‘Spot’.
Following a fortnight of celebrating and carousing Lant approached the group.
“I have this problem I am hoping you can help me with…” the Innkeeper began.