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NOW LIVE! Into the Woods--new character species, eerie monsters, and haunting villains to populate the woodlands of your D&D games.
Sagiro's Story Hour Returns (new thread started on 5/18/08)
- Thread starter Sagiro
- Start date
RangerWickett
Legend
*blink*
Mrs. Horn with Herr Turlis? Eh? Where's that smiley where the eyes are all screwy?
Mrs. Horn with Herr Turlis? Eh? Where's that smiley where the eyes are all screwy?
MavrickWeirdo
First Post
KidCthulhu said:
I bet Farazil exists in this world.
What you need is a "Guinan" character walking around saying "this is wrong, everything is wrong".
KidCthulhu
First Post
MavrickWeirdo said:
We don't have the budget for Whoopi cameos. We tried putting a dead flumph on Ernies head and having him dispense drinks, but it wasn't the same.
Sagiro
Rodent of Uncertain Parentage
Sagiro’s Story Hour, Part 177
“So what should we do then?” asks Flicker, after a few moments of depressed silence.
“Het Branoi,” says Aravis. “I don’t see any reason not to make that our first priority."
“Would we use the rope,” asks Kay, “or try the Gartine Arch?”
“Rope?” asks Snokas.
“We have a rope that will take us directly back to Kivia,” explains Ernie. “But we don’t know how many more times it will work. If we use it to go there, it might not work to get us back.”
“I came through the Arch,” says Snokas. “But I snuck through. I doubt we could get a group this big past the Delfirians.”
“And we don’t know if it’s more guarded or less guarded in this reality,” points out Grey Wolf.
“We need more information,” says Morningstar.
“It might not matter,” says Aravis suddenly.
When everyone turns to look at him, he adds:
“Maybe the Uncrossable Sea isn’t uncrossable anymore. It’s possible I could simply teleport us there. I can try tomorrow morning.”
Everyone is quiet again for a minute, thinking.
“It’s late,” says Flicker. “I’ve had a long day. Unless you want me to go sneaking around some more, I’m going to bed.”
“We all should,” says Ernie. “I’ll be up early to make us some breakfast, unless Skorg beats me to the Icebox. Skorg, I don’t want to wake up to the smell… of…”
He trails off.
“Say, where is Skorg, anyhow?”
“Maybe he want to bed already?” suggests Flicker.
“I’ll check his room,” says Eddings.
“He was down in the basement with us, right?” asks Dranko, pensively. “I mean… he was, wasn’t he?”
But no one remembers seeing Skorg there.
“He’s not in his room,” says Eddings, coming back down to the living room. “Or in the secret room. Shall I check the basement?”
“I’ll be he went outside,” says Morningstar. “He usually goes off by himself when we’re doing something dangerous.”
“But,” cries Flicker, “if he was outside when whatever happened happened, and only people inside the Greenhouse were protected…?”
“I guess Skorg was never born!” says Kibi, trying really, really hard not to look as pleased as he feels.
“Well, if we fix what’s happened, that should bring him back,” says Dranko. “And in the meantime I’ll have to start looking around for another torchbearer. ”
The Company sleeps, their first night in a strange new world.
* *
“Damn.”
“Didn’t work?” asks Flicker.
Aravis shakes his head. “No teleporting to Kivia, I’m afraid.”
“Now what?” Flicker pesters.
“First things first,” says Morningstar. “Who’s got the rash this morning?”
Everyone looks at everyone else, but no one speaks up.
“Hey, something good came out of all this!” says Ernie brightly. “Whatever causes the rash doesn’t exist in this reality.”
“Which means that if we ever solve this mess,” says Grey Wolf, “we have more mystery-itch to look forward to.”
Over breakfast the Company makes a thorough review of the various prophecies spoken by the Eyes of Moirel, bits of relevant conversations they’ve had, books they’ve read – anything that might help them in their current predicament. The signs still point to Het Branoi, and the need to find a third Eye of Moirel. The only question is: go there straight away, or wait to collect more information about what Charagan has become.
The majority of Company sentiment is for the second of these options. As long as they can go undetected there is no immediate rush, and many in the group want to know more of the “new” world. And Kibi is keen to scribe the spell non-detection into his books, which will take a few days anyhow.
So begins three days of information gathering, in which most of the Company remains safely inside the Greenhouse. More prying eyes are sent out to scour the city for a mile around the house. And most usefully, individuals are made invisible and then sent wind walking to observe everything possible about Pyke Vale and its environs. From these scouting missions the Company is able to piece together a fairly complete picture of what they've landed in.
Pyke Vale is about the same size as Tal Hae, but the population is difficult to measure. This is because groups of slaves, all dressed in uniform drab grays or browns, are constantly being shuttled down into the mysterious mines, and then back again to be herded either into buildings or large outdoor holding pens. One thing is clear: the slaves are more numerous than the free citizens. And most of the latter seem to be armed; there is a highly disproportionate number of soldiers and barracks in Pyke Vale, as if its ruler expects to march off to conquer his neighbor at any moment.
Disturbingly, there are no children in the city.
Atop the hill sits the grand fortress that Morningstar observed in Ava Dormo. It is ringed by stone walls with iron gates, guarded by hundreds of men on the ground, and dozens more upon walls behind the parapets. Even invisible and wind walking, the Company stays outside the inner walls of the fortress, fearing a magical alarm.
The strangest feature of Pyke Vale lies beneath the earth. The mines aren’t mines at all, in the sense that valuable ores or gems are their purpose. Instead, thousands of slaves appear to be put to work simply to expand the city downward. Already there are roads, crude buildings, living quarters, built in the large hollowed-out spaces beneath Pyke Vale. And yet there is always more digging, downward, downward, not following valuable veins of anything. Just downward. It’s baffling, especially considering the huge effort (and expense, no doubt) required for the undertaking. All day the huge machines are run, connected to their pulleys and cables that help haul the endless fill up from the caverns below. Forest-loads of wood are carted into the city to be fed into the monstrous furnaces that power the machines. Hundreds of slaves shovel the constant stream of fill onto dozens of elongated carts, which are driven out of the city to the Waste Piles in a constant stream. “Waste Piles” is the name for the hundreds of acres east of Pyke Vale used as a dumping ground, where mountains of rock, mud and debris blot the landscape as far as the eye can see. It stands in stark contrast to the abundant fields north of the city, where yet more slaves tend the crops that feed Pyke Vale.
After three days The Company is unanimous in their intense dislike for the city and whoever runs it. The only real bone of contention is what to do about the person Kibi’s prying eyes discovered on their first day in Pyke Vale, alone in a building less than 50 yards from the Greenhouse. Every once in a while someone peers through a boarded window to check on him; he is always curled up in a ball in the corner of an empty room, probably sleeping.
“I don’t see the point,” grumbles Aravis. “What can he tell us that we don’t already know? I think the real question is whether we should go to Djaw to find this “Seven Dark Words,” or just head straight for Het Branoi.”
“It’s possible that person could tell us something useful,” says Kay. “And I’d like to know if the slaves here are criminals.”
“It’s dangerous,” says Grey Wolf. “Do we want anyone in this place knowing that we’re here?”
“He doesn’t seem like the sort of person who’d report us to the authorities,” says Ernie. “He’s probably a slave who’s escaped. He’s got a mark on his face.”
“We can check easily enough,” says Dranko. “We could bring him back to the Greenhouse and question him. I can just knock him out, and…”
“…or I could cast sleep,” points out Aravis. “We don’t have to hit everyone over the head.”
“Yeah, I guess we could do that,” mutters Dranko.
“We can get some information without waking him up,” says Morningstar. “I can cast memory read while he’s asleep. If he wakes up during the spell, Aravis can be ready to put him back to sleep magically. We can wind walk over there to avoid waking up him getting into his house.”
So that’s what they do. After some discussion they agree to delve for two memories: one of how the man became a slave, and another of how he escaped. Morningstar, Aravis and Dranko slip gaseously beneath the door and into the man’s building. It’s a small, squalid one-room hovel. The man is lying in the fetal position up against a wall, on a rough pile of dirty rags. Scattered around the room are the remains of meager meals, rotting and smelly. There is no furniture.
The three members of the Company coalesce in the room, Morningstar standing above the sleeping man. She can see the slave mark on his left cheek; at this close distance she can tell it’s a brand. And that's not the only mark on his body -- his face, arms and hands are covered with burn scars, but not from branding. Whatever caused them, they've long since healed naturally, and Morningstar thinks the man is very lucky not to have developed infection. Shaking her head she casts a silent memory read and gently touches the man’s arm, targeting the memory of when the man first became a slave. The man stirs in his sleep but doesn’t wake, and Morningstar…
…is a ten-year-old boy, sitting on a bunk. The bunk is one of many, as is the boy. The room is large and crowded with children and beds, maybe 50 of each. Two adult guards stand near the only door. Candles light the room with an inadequate glow. There are no windows.
Each child wears a plain gray tunic and no shoes. Most are nibbling on hunks of hard bread. All have fear in their eyes.
The door opens and a adult male enters. All of the children look up anxiously, some of them shrinking back in their beds. The man points at another child, a girl of about eight, and snaps his fingers. The girl slides sullenly off her bunk and shuffles over to the door. The man points again, at a different boy two bunks down. That boy doesn’t move; the man strides quickly over, grabs the child, and hauls him back to stand with the girl.
Then the bad man points at him.
Morningstar stands… he stands, slowly, still chewing, and walks to join the other two children. Five more children are selected, and are ordered to follow the man out of the room. They are led into a dimly-lit hallway and marched a long way, past several more rooms full of children. From somewhere up ahead comes the sound of a boy screaming. He cringes. One of the girls in his group of eight starts to whimper. The man cuffs her on the ear.
Eventually they are led into the room with the screams, and made to line up against the near wall. Morningstar sees that in the center of the room (bare, stone, windowless) is a Device. It has a seat, and clamps, and a cruel man, and a pit of glowing coals, and metal rods. Another boy is shoved into the chair of the Device, where his head is restrained by clamps. The cruel man takes a metal rod out of the fire pit; the end is flat and wide and glowing red and white. Tears roll down the trapped boy’s cheeks even before the rod is applied, and he wails in anticipation of the pain. The brand is pressed to the boy’s cheek; his scream becomes louder and mixes with horrified cries from the other children. There is the smell of scalded flesh.
The boy is released and ushered out of the room, still wailing.
The cruel man motions to Morningstar. The boy is led to the chair. She… he… doesn’t resist. He doesn’t want to cry. Her head is clamped tightly, and the glowing brand comes closer to him, closer to her, closer…
Searing pain. The boy refuses to cry out. Morningstar struggles to stay quiet. The smell of his own burnt skin reeks in her nostrils. The cruel man chuckles.
Morningstar yanks her hand away from the man on the floor to find tears dampening her face. Dranko gives her a questioning look: is she okay? Is she willing to do another one? She nods. Trembling slightly she casts again, hoping that the memory of escape and freedom will have some measure of happiness after the fear and pain of the enslavement.
The second memory is much worse.
…to be continued…
“So what should we do then?” asks Flicker, after a few moments of depressed silence.
“Het Branoi,” says Aravis. “I don’t see any reason not to make that our first priority."
“Would we use the rope,” asks Kay, “or try the Gartine Arch?”
“Rope?” asks Snokas.
“We have a rope that will take us directly back to Kivia,” explains Ernie. “But we don’t know how many more times it will work. If we use it to go there, it might not work to get us back.”
“I came through the Arch,” says Snokas. “But I snuck through. I doubt we could get a group this big past the Delfirians.”
“And we don’t know if it’s more guarded or less guarded in this reality,” points out Grey Wolf.
“We need more information,” says Morningstar.
“It might not matter,” says Aravis suddenly.
When everyone turns to look at him, he adds:
“Maybe the Uncrossable Sea isn’t uncrossable anymore. It’s possible I could simply teleport us there. I can try tomorrow morning.”
Everyone is quiet again for a minute, thinking.
“It’s late,” says Flicker. “I’ve had a long day. Unless you want me to go sneaking around some more, I’m going to bed.”
“We all should,” says Ernie. “I’ll be up early to make us some breakfast, unless Skorg beats me to the Icebox. Skorg, I don’t want to wake up to the smell… of…”
He trails off.
“Say, where is Skorg, anyhow?”
“Maybe he want to bed already?” suggests Flicker.
“I’ll check his room,” says Eddings.
“He was down in the basement with us, right?” asks Dranko, pensively. “I mean… he was, wasn’t he?”
But no one remembers seeing Skorg there.
“He’s not in his room,” says Eddings, coming back down to the living room. “Or in the secret room. Shall I check the basement?”
“I’ll be he went outside,” says Morningstar. “He usually goes off by himself when we’re doing something dangerous.”
“But,” cries Flicker, “if he was outside when whatever happened happened, and only people inside the Greenhouse were protected…?”
“I guess Skorg was never born!” says Kibi, trying really, really hard not to look as pleased as he feels.
“Well, if we fix what’s happened, that should bring him back,” says Dranko. “And in the meantime I’ll have to start looking around for another torchbearer. ”
The Company sleeps, their first night in a strange new world.
* *
“Damn.”
“Didn’t work?” asks Flicker.
Aravis shakes his head. “No teleporting to Kivia, I’m afraid.”
“Now what?” Flicker pesters.
“First things first,” says Morningstar. “Who’s got the rash this morning?”
Everyone looks at everyone else, but no one speaks up.
“Hey, something good came out of all this!” says Ernie brightly. “Whatever causes the rash doesn’t exist in this reality.”
“Which means that if we ever solve this mess,” says Grey Wolf, “we have more mystery-itch to look forward to.”
Over breakfast the Company makes a thorough review of the various prophecies spoken by the Eyes of Moirel, bits of relevant conversations they’ve had, books they’ve read – anything that might help them in their current predicament. The signs still point to Het Branoi, and the need to find a third Eye of Moirel. The only question is: go there straight away, or wait to collect more information about what Charagan has become.
The majority of Company sentiment is for the second of these options. As long as they can go undetected there is no immediate rush, and many in the group want to know more of the “new” world. And Kibi is keen to scribe the spell non-detection into his books, which will take a few days anyhow.
So begins three days of information gathering, in which most of the Company remains safely inside the Greenhouse. More prying eyes are sent out to scour the city for a mile around the house. And most usefully, individuals are made invisible and then sent wind walking to observe everything possible about Pyke Vale and its environs. From these scouting missions the Company is able to piece together a fairly complete picture of what they've landed in.
Pyke Vale is about the same size as Tal Hae, but the population is difficult to measure. This is because groups of slaves, all dressed in uniform drab grays or browns, are constantly being shuttled down into the mysterious mines, and then back again to be herded either into buildings or large outdoor holding pens. One thing is clear: the slaves are more numerous than the free citizens. And most of the latter seem to be armed; there is a highly disproportionate number of soldiers and barracks in Pyke Vale, as if its ruler expects to march off to conquer his neighbor at any moment.
Disturbingly, there are no children in the city.
Atop the hill sits the grand fortress that Morningstar observed in Ava Dormo. It is ringed by stone walls with iron gates, guarded by hundreds of men on the ground, and dozens more upon walls behind the parapets. Even invisible and wind walking, the Company stays outside the inner walls of the fortress, fearing a magical alarm.
The strangest feature of Pyke Vale lies beneath the earth. The mines aren’t mines at all, in the sense that valuable ores or gems are their purpose. Instead, thousands of slaves appear to be put to work simply to expand the city downward. Already there are roads, crude buildings, living quarters, built in the large hollowed-out spaces beneath Pyke Vale. And yet there is always more digging, downward, downward, not following valuable veins of anything. Just downward. It’s baffling, especially considering the huge effort (and expense, no doubt) required for the undertaking. All day the huge machines are run, connected to their pulleys and cables that help haul the endless fill up from the caverns below. Forest-loads of wood are carted into the city to be fed into the monstrous furnaces that power the machines. Hundreds of slaves shovel the constant stream of fill onto dozens of elongated carts, which are driven out of the city to the Waste Piles in a constant stream. “Waste Piles” is the name for the hundreds of acres east of Pyke Vale used as a dumping ground, where mountains of rock, mud and debris blot the landscape as far as the eye can see. It stands in stark contrast to the abundant fields north of the city, where yet more slaves tend the crops that feed Pyke Vale.
After three days The Company is unanimous in their intense dislike for the city and whoever runs it. The only real bone of contention is what to do about the person Kibi’s prying eyes discovered on their first day in Pyke Vale, alone in a building less than 50 yards from the Greenhouse. Every once in a while someone peers through a boarded window to check on him; he is always curled up in a ball in the corner of an empty room, probably sleeping.
“I don’t see the point,” grumbles Aravis. “What can he tell us that we don’t already know? I think the real question is whether we should go to Djaw to find this “Seven Dark Words,” or just head straight for Het Branoi.”
“It’s possible that person could tell us something useful,” says Kay. “And I’d like to know if the slaves here are criminals.”
“It’s dangerous,” says Grey Wolf. “Do we want anyone in this place knowing that we’re here?”
“He doesn’t seem like the sort of person who’d report us to the authorities,” says Ernie. “He’s probably a slave who’s escaped. He’s got a mark on his face.”
“We can check easily enough,” says Dranko. “We could bring him back to the Greenhouse and question him. I can just knock him out, and…”
“…or I could cast sleep,” points out Aravis. “We don’t have to hit everyone over the head.”
“Yeah, I guess we could do that,” mutters Dranko.
“We can get some information without waking him up,” says Morningstar. “I can cast memory read while he’s asleep. If he wakes up during the spell, Aravis can be ready to put him back to sleep magically. We can wind walk over there to avoid waking up him getting into his house.”
So that’s what they do. After some discussion they agree to delve for two memories: one of how the man became a slave, and another of how he escaped. Morningstar, Aravis and Dranko slip gaseously beneath the door and into the man’s building. It’s a small, squalid one-room hovel. The man is lying in the fetal position up against a wall, on a rough pile of dirty rags. Scattered around the room are the remains of meager meals, rotting and smelly. There is no furniture.
The three members of the Company coalesce in the room, Morningstar standing above the sleeping man. She can see the slave mark on his left cheek; at this close distance she can tell it’s a brand. And that's not the only mark on his body -- his face, arms and hands are covered with burn scars, but not from branding. Whatever caused them, they've long since healed naturally, and Morningstar thinks the man is very lucky not to have developed infection. Shaking her head she casts a silent memory read and gently touches the man’s arm, targeting the memory of when the man first became a slave. The man stirs in his sleep but doesn’t wake, and Morningstar…
…is a ten-year-old boy, sitting on a bunk. The bunk is one of many, as is the boy. The room is large and crowded with children and beds, maybe 50 of each. Two adult guards stand near the only door. Candles light the room with an inadequate glow. There are no windows.
Each child wears a plain gray tunic and no shoes. Most are nibbling on hunks of hard bread. All have fear in their eyes.
The door opens and a adult male enters. All of the children look up anxiously, some of them shrinking back in their beds. The man points at another child, a girl of about eight, and snaps his fingers. The girl slides sullenly off her bunk and shuffles over to the door. The man points again, at a different boy two bunks down. That boy doesn’t move; the man strides quickly over, grabs the child, and hauls him back to stand with the girl.
Then the bad man points at him.
Morningstar stands… he stands, slowly, still chewing, and walks to join the other two children. Five more children are selected, and are ordered to follow the man out of the room. They are led into a dimly-lit hallway and marched a long way, past several more rooms full of children. From somewhere up ahead comes the sound of a boy screaming. He cringes. One of the girls in his group of eight starts to whimper. The man cuffs her on the ear.
Eventually they are led into the room with the screams, and made to line up against the near wall. Morningstar sees that in the center of the room (bare, stone, windowless) is a Device. It has a seat, and clamps, and a cruel man, and a pit of glowing coals, and metal rods. Another boy is shoved into the chair of the Device, where his head is restrained by clamps. The cruel man takes a metal rod out of the fire pit; the end is flat and wide and glowing red and white. Tears roll down the trapped boy’s cheeks even before the rod is applied, and he wails in anticipation of the pain. The brand is pressed to the boy’s cheek; his scream becomes louder and mixes with horrified cries from the other children. There is the smell of scalded flesh.
The boy is released and ushered out of the room, still wailing.
The cruel man motions to Morningstar. The boy is led to the chair. She… he… doesn’t resist. He doesn’t want to cry. Her head is clamped tightly, and the glowing brand comes closer to him, closer to her, closer…
Searing pain. The boy refuses to cry out. Morningstar struggles to stay quiet. The smell of his own burnt skin reeks in her nostrils. The cruel man chuckles.
Morningstar yanks her hand away from the man on the floor to find tears dampening her face. Dranko gives her a questioning look: is she okay? Is she willing to do another one? She nods. Trembling slightly she casts again, hoping that the memory of escape and freedom will have some measure of happiness after the fear and pain of the enslavement.
The second memory is much worse.
…to be continued…
Last edited:
el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
Sagiro,
After skipping over a large section I recently jumped back into reading this story hour and am so happy to see it is still going strong with the characters I remember well - and now you've pulled the ultimate rat bastard switcheroo.
I'm gonna start a campaign to get P.Kitty voted out of the Rat Basatard's Club so you can be voted in. . .
Keep up the good work.
After skipping over a large section I recently jumped back into reading this story hour and am so happy to see it is still going strong with the characters I remember well - and now you've pulled the ultimate rat bastard switcheroo.
I'm gonna start a campaign to get P.Kitty voted out of the Rat Basatard's Club so you can be voted in. . .
Keep up the good work.
Last edited by a moderator:
Ciaran
First Post
What, not even Cranchus? Jeepers. You'd think that someone in Charagan would be over a thousand years old...KidCthulhu said:
Then again, you aren't limited to Charagan. At the very least, Aravis can have another chat with the former masters of the Crossers' Maze, assuming that any of them might have information that the Defenders might find useful. And assuming that the Maze itself hasn't been duplicated.
- Eric
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