Chapter 4: The Cold Chains of Hell

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kensanata
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Re: Chapter 4: The Cold Chains of Hell

#41 Post by kensanata »

Splinters looks over the stuff on the table. The pole arm might come in handy! He takes it and shoulders the smoking musket. I wonder whether these flesh lumps can be used to fix holes in flesh people?

I can do some mapping using Gridmapper?
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Re: Chapter 4: The Cold Chains of Hell

#42 Post by ChubbyPixie »

"Eh... verily, yes, " says Blix, clopping into the room. He's certainly the scrawniest centaur you've ever seen, certainly not buff like the ones in the books of legends you may or may not have read as children. Otherwise he mostly fits the stereotype - bow and arrows strapped to his back and all. He does posses a set of saddle-bags with various pockets, which somewhat throws off the image. "Ahem... gather thine belongings and get thee hence, hastily is... bestily..." He looks at the party from the corner of his eyes, gauging whether they're buying his archaic manner of speech or not. "Just kidding. That's exhausting, talking like that. We should go before they come back," he says.

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Re: Chapter 4: The Cold Chains of Hell

#43 Post by Starbeard »

The Princess applauds the rest of the party on a job well done. She does not seem surprised by the entrance of Blix the Centaur, and instead expresses relief that she will no longer be having to tax her royal feet by walking everywhere.

She does point out the problem of the bodiless Horton. Is he still alive? Can some hammer his head back into place?

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Re: Chapter 4: The Cold Chains of Hell

#44 Post by Urson »

Jake

Jake shudders at the thought of using the flesh lumps to heal people.

He gathers his things, then joins the Princess. Let me see that, please, your Highness. He examines Horton's parts, to see if they can be put back together.
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Re: Chapter 4: The Cold Chains of Hell

#45 Post by kensanata »

Splinters looks back at the table, shrugs, and takes the remains of the Crooked Theodolite. He quickly fiddles with it, trying to reassemble it. As soon as it looks more or less OK, he shoves it in his backpack.
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Re: Chapter 4: The Cold Chains of Hell

#46 Post by ChubbyPixie »

Starbeard wrote:The Princess applauds the rest of the party on a job well done. She does not seem surprised by the entrance of Blix the Centaur, and instead expresses relief that she will no longer be having to tax her royal feet by walking everywhere.

She does point out the problem of the bodiless Horton. Is he still alive? Can some hammer his head back into place?
Blix seems taken aback by the suggestion that he'll be giving rides... but then shrugs and somewhat reluctantly says "Well... alright, I guess you've been through a lot today. Hop on, lady. Try not to sit on my mess kit."

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Re: Chapter 4: The Cold Chains of Hell

#47 Post by kensanata »

Map for the current situation.
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Re: Chapter 4: The Cold Chains of Hell

#48 Post by Pulpatoon »

Splinters collects a polearm and reassembles the Crooked Theodolite. It doesn't look quite the same, but it functions just fine. Thanks for taking on the task of mapping! I'll return to providing precise measurements for interior spaces, and Splinters will receive +1 Armor when in a space that has been mapped.

Jake is able to force Horton's head back onto his body. Horton now has a splitting headache, and a crick in his neck.

Blix kneels down and allows the Princess to gracefully ascend his back. It is a distinct strain upon the skin-and-bones of the scrawny centaur.

Deet and Schroff tend to the fallen body of Wikerus, still bleeding on the floor. Deet: "Go ahead, we'll catch up."

Blix leads the party out through the vestibule, into a space choked with smoke and licks of orange fire. Visibility is poor, but there are a few twists and turns, and two flights of stairs. The sounds of battle ring out, here and there, but the general impression is that the fight is winding down. Several squads of warrior bears bustle by, as does a troop of centaurs—broad-chested, rippling with muscles, making Blix look even smaller by comparison.

You are led into an intensely cluttered room, packed wall to wall in luxurious accumulation of centuries. Plush divans, long velvet couches, high-backed mahogany chairs, darkwood chests with painted panels, delicate carved ivory screens, short teetering marble columns with bronze busts of fabulously bearded men, faded tapestries, and piles of embroidered pillows all chaotically vie for room here.
The Crooked Theodolite: The room is too cluttered to make out its exact outlines, but the Theodolite assures you that it is 30' deep x40' wide with 25' high ceilings. There is a door in the center of the western wall, and another in the far eastern corner of the southern wall.
In the center of this opulent nest reclines an astoundingly hirsute, buck naked man. There are no overt signs that this man is a god, but you feel it in your bones. Your knees try to bend of their accord, and it it hard to resist averting your eyes. Next to the godling rolls his gender-ambiguous bear-lover dressed in wispy, silken veils and silver spangles.

Several armed bear guards halt your progress and announce your presence to the godling. One turns to you and growls, "Velcome to divine presence of deathless Master of Ursine Dunes, Medved the Munificent. Vatch yourselfs."

Medved looks you over and says, "Mmmmm. Well, you didn't half kick the hornet's nest, did you?

"Those bloodless Eldur and my idiot cousin have held my Glittering Tower divided into factions for years... decades. Well, honestly the Eld were here before I was, and I've alllllllways been here. I knew tensions were high, but to think that all it would take was a pair of humans and marionettes to stumble into the middle of it and bring the whole arrangement crashing down.

"I don't know who you are, mortals, or where you came from, or what your reasons were, but I'm grateful. Come, have a seat. Eat some dates and honeycakes. Would you care to peruse some curious woodcuts of gladiators? Yes? No? Tell of yourselves while my darlings tend your scrapes and bruises.

"Little centaur, stick around for the nonce. The girl looked so diverting upon your back, I'd hate to break up the pair of you."


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Re: Chapter 4: The Cold Chains of Hell

#49 Post by Urson »

Jake

Jake is glad to settle on the floor and dig into a generous helping of honeycake. He has _no_ interest in the "curious woodcuts," and is visibly a bit uncomfortable around Medved.

Thank you, sir.
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Re: Chapter 4: The Cold Chains of Hell

#50 Post by kensanata »

I'm inventing the map as we go.

Splinters says, Hello, mighty deathless Master of Ursine Dunes, oh Medved the Munificent! We freed this honorable Princess from a glass prison where she lay entrapped by the wizard Drosselmeyer for eons. We, the honorable soldiers who managed to break his spells and our friends of flesh, iron or wood have come here, through a portal controlled by a shark pirate king, sailed across the cold void, and have arrived in the clutches of these most foul minded Eld and their giant white apes. We need to find our way to Frankenland in order to return the princess, or lacking this, find her a kingdom to rule. In exchange for help in this quest of ours we are willing to help you vanquish these terrible fiends, the Eld.
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Re: Chapter 4: The Cold Chains of Hell

#51 Post by ChubbyPixie »

"Thank you, Your Divine Munificence," says Blix automatically in between deep laboring breaths. He's putting a brave face on it, too proud to reveal otherwise, but has come to the conclusion that he needs to work out more. "Hooo... No, it's fine. I'm good," he says, huffing and puffing, in response to no particular sign from the princess. Although he's pretty sure a concerned look might have crossed her features a minute ago...

"Pfffffff... I'll just wait here, then," he says, nodding, happy for an excuse to abandon his toll-collecting duties for a moment.

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Re: Chapter 4: The Cold Chains of Hell

#52 Post by Starbeard »

The Princess Dormillon acknowledges Medved with a dignified bow of the head, dutifully averting her eyes from the excess of nudity so freely cast about the room. "We are grateful for your hospitality and gladly join you for honeycakes."

Once dismounted and settled into her desserts, The Princess explains her own situation further. "It is true that the charlatan wizard Drosselmeyer had entrapped Us in a glass encasement, for a time that, to Our own understanding, was merely a number of days, but which Our saviours here tell Us was in fact many scores of years. We are now more pressed than ever to return to Our kingdom and restore Our dynasty properly to the throne."

Looking over the woodcuts, she speaks bittersweetly of her favourite sculptor of the royal court, Jean De Gratty, who would now be dead many generations. Just before her capture she had rewarded his service with a royal patent, giving him the sole rights to produce or sell any woodcuts with representations of two-legged animals in them.

She then begins to recount her family's impressive genealogy back to the Ancients, all the way to the Myrmidon Athlomeas, legendary founder of Atlantis and inventor of the gladiatorial games.

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Re: Chapter 4: The Cold Chains of Hell

#53 Post by coil23 »

Horton, glad to have his body back-wooden though it may be, is properly deferent to the godling. He sadly eyes the honeycakes, knowing they are no longer an option to a body such as his. Did you say you are cousin to the shark pirate, sir?

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Re: Chapter 4: The Cold Chains of Hell

#54 Post by Pulpatoon »

The food is rich and wholesome, suffusing the body with a sense of well-being that has been sorely missed during your recent privations.

Perfumed bears tend to each of you with unguents, salves, wood putty, and paint. Everyone restored to full HP, and 1 STR recovered. A longer recovery is necessary to recover more STR, as the party is pretty well depleted in this regard.

While being tended to, the bears rub something that smells of earth and spice into the Princess' hair, and also into Blix's mane. As they wash the Princess' wounds and mend her clothes, they rinse this substance out as well, revealing that both Blix and the Princess now have matching auburn locks. Medved nods approvingly at the increased visual harmony between the two.

Meanwhile, the god listens to the party, perking up particularly whenever the Princess addresses him with her regal tones, drinking in the details of her lineage and patronization of the arts.

Medved: "Drossel... That does sound familiar. Was he a... fond of patterns, was he? Gaaaaaaaarish? If he's who I'm thinking of, that was a long time ago. Before Ondrj came to the Persimmon Sea. He had suffered a great disappointment, and was looking to start afresh. Marlinko? He might have been headed for Marlinko, where his family had land, or someone owed him money, or... Well, who knows where he might be by now?

"Frankenland? Franceland? Oh, you lot are intent on rousing the old facilities of recollection from their cozy bed. I feel I've heard of it before, although only in passing, and I couldn't tell you a thing about it."
He claps his hands and calls for an attendant to bring him his maps. After several minutes during which he continues chatting amiably about people you've never heard of, an ivory chest is brought in and opened. Medved paws casually through a stack of maps, each of which looks ancient and immensely valuable. Several spill to the floor:
Image
Image
Image
Image
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Finally, with a triumphant grunt, he pulls out a small scrap of wrinkled paper and presents it with a proud flourish:
Image
"I knew I had something. This is a town in your country, isn't it? This came with a few casks of wine recovered from... oh, something or other. A raided galley? Or maybe it was found in a roc's nest? Belly of whale? Either way, this is it, isn't it? You may keep this map, if you like, as a gift from my divine self to a dashing Princess, tempest-tossed and lost among the centuries.

"Now, to business. I am grateful to you for having sparked off the present conflagration—I'm eager to clear out some of the dead wood and bramble,
so to speak. But make no mistake, it will be a conflagration. The Eld have been up to something for awhile, and they do not care for interference. They will pour out of their misty islands in the cold hells. There will be more fighting, and lives are going to be lost. Not yours, though. The Eld will have more...
attenuated plans for you. And I... you do get that by 'attenuated' I mean centuries of torture, right? You can never be too sure with mortals.

"And you lot are looking entirely mortal. My lovely bears have patched and prettied you up, but I wouldn't give you much of a chance against the ranks of the Eldur. You are welcome to stay here for as long as you wish, but I would recommend you cross the Dunes and seek the hospitality of the Old Smith,
Jaromir. He would take you in, I'm reasonably certain, and it's possible that the Eld won't poke their pointy noses in that direction. Or, if you wanted to return from whence you came, I could send you downstairs with an escort, but only if you leave in the next hour or two. We hold those halls at present,
but that state of affairs will certainly not endure."


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Re: Chapter 4: The Cold Chains of Hell

#55 Post by ChubbyPixie »

"Ahem... your highness," says Blix, "Thanks for the, ah... makeover. Am I... so, I can't help noticing... the matching hair..."He indicates himself and the princess. "I'll be giving rides, then, to our guest? That is to say, I'm totally up for it. I'm small, but I'm scrappy, your Godliness." He privately wonders how he will manage without dying of heart failure or going lame within a day.

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Re: Chapter 4: The Cold Chains of Hell

#56 Post by coil23 »

The librarian's knees go weak at the sight of all of the lovely parchment with delicious erudition of yore. What beautiful maps, sire, he offers, the wood around his jaws feeling a bit damp as if remembering the act of drooling.

Centuries of...attenuation do not sound enticing to these old timbers but I will accede to the wishes of the group. I wonder about this host smith across the dunes.

And map jpg stolen to my desktop! *Yoink*

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Re: Chapter 4: The Cold Chains of Hell

#57 Post by Urson »

Jake

For my part- Jake coughs (the honeycake is awfully dry) I think we'd better go visit this Jaromir. Would it be possible, sir, to get a.. letter of introduction? Or something like that? So that he knows we actually _have_ met you, rather than just trying to trade on a well-known name?
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Re: Chapter 4: The Cold Chains of Hell

#58 Post by Pulpatoon »

Medved the Master is increasingly distracted by the showing the various maps to his bear lover, and whispering cringe-worthy cartographic double entendre. He seems a little put out to realize you're still here, but recollects himself and switched back from breathy intimations to stentorian pronouncement:

"Very good, then. To the Old Smith with you. Blix shall be your guide and my letter of introduction. Blix, tell you kin that these people have my leave to pass through the Dunes without burden of toll, and see them safely to Kugelburg. One of my bears will make sure that you are provisioned for the journey. I wish you luck, and, after you have recovered, invite you to return and... continue... the struggle against the... inimical forces of the... ah... Eldur..." He trails off, his attention fully diverted by some bewitching movement from his spangled companion.

A deep-chested exhalation behind announces the presence of a bear-at-arms who leads you out the western door into a short corridor. Directly across from the door you have just exited is another door, which leads to a room piled high with all manner of riches and finery. "All Medved's," growls the bear, "Don't touch touch shit." One corner of it has been turned into an armory for the bears. You are lead there, and presented with packs of food and travel gear. "Here, take. Gift." The bear thrusts a small chest of lacquered wood, filled with 100 small gold coins. "And this." You are given a scroll of Classical Hyperborean erotic poetry complete with graphic illuminations. "And you take weapon. ONE weapon."

Before you are displayed a range of weapons:
1. a display sword in a jeweled scabbard
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2. a similarly fancy saber
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3, 4. a pair of maces, one notably more practical than the other
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5. a spear which the bear informs you "Belong to Grand Duke Boris Pavel Konstantin Alexandrovich."
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6. and, lastly, a crude dagger
Image
Once you have selected any weapons, the bear (who clearly does not approve of you being given such treasures while he is armed in a considerably more pedestrian fashion), leads you back out of the room and turns left. The corridor becomes a foyer, thickly carpeted with rich old rugs that smell of urine and wet dog. An elderly bear with stump-legs starts awake from guard duty and announces, "Welcome to the glittering domicile of Medved, King Bear, Lord and Master of the Dunes, Lover and Protector of yadda yadda..." before drifting back asleep. The bear accompanying you snorts derisively.

The foyer's double doors are opened, and crisp air washes over you. You stand at the base of a sandstone tower, 90 feet tall, tapering pylon-like from a square, red marble base. The smooth, yellow surface of the sandstone is set with two-foot-long semi-translucent mollusk shells across its surface. The shells catch the sunlight in brilliant flashes.

Before you stretch humongous red-sand beach dunes.
Image
The scale of the dunes boggles the mind—exterior dune faces rising precipitously up to 350 feet in height at dizzying 45-50 degree angles. Between their peaks, you can see more and more dunes, stretching away for miles and miles. A small trail leads away from the Glittering Tower, winding between the bases of the daunting dunes. It runs roughly Northwest.

The bear huffs, "Dunes. Go now." The Tower doors close behind you.

Marching off, you travel for about an hour, walled in by steep red sand. You occasionally catch drifts of sweet-smelling sea breezes, reminding you of the purple waves that lapped against Ondrj's ship.

Rusted sections of a massive iron statue are strewn across a dune face ahead. Half sunk the shattered visage lies, whose frown and wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command tell that its sculptor well those passions read. And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandiavich, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains.

Campfire smoke lazily drifts out of the right ear of the statue’s massive head. The metallic glint of the Glittering Tower sparkles behind you to the southeast. Two other trails wind in tight, convoluted valleys to the northwest and east.

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Re: Chapter 4: The Cold Chains of Hell

#59 Post by ChubbyPixie »

"I wouldn't mind one of the cavalry sabers, because... well, you know..." says Blix, nodding towards his back half. "Unless you guys want them. The spear is very nice, too," he adds, indecisively.

At the gate, in a moment of foolish man-horse pride, he invites the princess to hop on once again, kidding himself that he'll somehow be better able to endure this time, now that he's "used to it." But, like carrying too many grocery bags at a time, he soon regrets it, though, of course, he won't admit it. (huff...huff..)"The ah... tolls are... managed by my people." (huff...) "But don't, ah.... worry about... I got it... all good..." he manages to puff out between laboring breaths as the trudge through the sand.

When they arrive at the smoke emitting head, he lets the princess down as gently as he can, then nearly collapses, hunched over, hands on one set of knees. He points to the smoke, but is unable to speak yet.

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Re: Chapter 4: The Cold Chains of Hell

#60 Post by Starbeard »

The Princess has no need of weapons.

At the campsite she thanks Blix the Centaur with the sort of directness and honest humility that only be achieved by someone of truly superior birth. Quietly she sets about washing his sore hooves and knees wth a small handful of her water.

"I wonder who is in there." she says of the smoke lifting out of the hollow statue's ear. "Shall we enquire?"

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