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Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Tomb of Gadra: Actual Play Summary

Recently we were able to run a second session for our friends who had their first adventure just outside the village of Kridlist. This time we started off safe within the bounds of the camp set-up by Gnosiomandus. After a good night's sleep the party did an inventory of their loot and considered where they might want to go from there. The old man and his two companions were headed off to Wermspittle with the newly-captured tiger (the same one that the party had managed to avoid previously). Since it turned out that the tiger was in fact pregnant, Gnosiomandus was in a good mood and offered to barter with the group to help them get themselves together so they would be prepared to face whatever lie ahead of them. Q took advantage of the opportunity to unload some of the bulkier items he was lugging about and was interested in acquiring a good short sword or something along those lines. When J's character, a run-away from one of the three circus families in Wermspittle, offered Gnosiomandus the little pouch of White Powder she had recovered last time, he was in a tremendously good mood and offered everyone their personal choice of any three weapons or what-not contained within his traveling fold-box panoply (literally a tesseract-container fitted-out as an arsenal filled with all manner of weapons, devices, mechanisms and such-like).

While the group did a bit of shopping, the winged-monkey that they had found earlier took off to go scout a number of limestone formations in the vicinity that might have caves or some other sort of explore-able locations in, on or around them.

In short-order the group finished-up their various transactions, said farewell to the sleeping (and very pregnant tiger), and headed off to a likely looking location discovered by the winged-monkey, who led them to the spot, pointed it out, and left to rejoin its master Gnosiomandus who was in the process of trundling down the closer spiral of the yellow brick road on his way back to Wermspittle.

The location in question was none other than The Toxic Tomb of Gadra, an adventure that has been in dire need of some play-testing for a good long while now. Oh, to be sure, there were several other possible locations available, but this was the one the group settled upon, so it is where they went. The only rail-roading around here is underground as part of the Unter-rail...and they have not yet found a way down to that yet...

So...here are J's notes:

Here are my raw notes for Gadra. They're numbered to make them a little easier to follow.

1. Gnosiomandus's flying monkey scoped the area for us and pointed us to the outcropping where we found the tomb.
2. On the way there we went through some ferns and avoided a poppy field.
3. We found a cave opening that had been sealed with glazed yellow bricks. Most had been removed and stacked to the side.
4. There was an inscription at the entrance that said Gadra and the words for "toxic" in Pruztian, Franzikaner, and Achuin. They glowed purple.
5. There was a pit with spikes that had already been released. There was a dead child's body.
6. There was a chamber with a vent shaft to one side.
7. The corridor went down and up. We used R's pitchfork to trigger another pit trap and used rope to cross it.
8. New chamber. Walls have been scraped clean. Floor did have mosaic tiles. Three spiral mounds. One mound chipped at the top. Chipped area has had something removed.
9. R (the Archer) found a gold and silver pendant with a teardrop pearl. Pearl has a purple sheen. Chain is unclasped. She keeps it.
10. We opened a mound. It's a Minken barrow. Bottom falls out, no one hurt. We pull the casket out. Dart trap sprung. Each person takes 1hp damage. Open the casket. Spider-hand symbol on inside of lid. N thinks it's moving. We move the body. Casket has a false bottom. We count 14 hand spider eggs in it. 7 are crushed in extraction. R has other seven eggs.
11. We hear second party come in. We wait to ambush them. They get as far as the gas trap. They trigger it. Two looters dead, the kid leading them leaves quickly (Scared). Gas sinks, is heavier than air, leaks through cracks in lower walls, revealing a chamber below.
12. Open third mound. Uncover then open an ornate casket. Smash another nasty hand spider. Take six more eggs.
13. Come to a spinnable door. Room behind it is weird, "feels bad." Door shuts once we're in. Open chamber, painted white, metallic under dust. Cinnabar carvings, mercury dripping from ceiling. We break through a wall section. Air quality in here is really bad. Something in the walls hurts our eyes when we look at it, especially N (the spell-caster).
14. Chamber with pool of mercury and a man-sized sarcophagus. Q figures out how to drain pool and raise sarcophagus. R's pearl necklace is pulled toward the sarcophagus. We decide not to open it and it's too heavy to take with us but we have info to sell.
15. Tomb is spirally. Use rubble in final chamber to build ramp to entry corridor so we don't have to go back through everything, then re-seal hole in corridor wall and leave.


As you can see, this place included some nasty traps, some of which were already set-off by previous explorers...and one of which was set off by a trio of opportunists who followed the party into this place.

The level of mercury fumes in this place varies a bit, but no one can last for very long before showing signs of mercury poisoning. Luckily for the group, they managed to open some ventilation and moved past the worst of the traps--even avoiding a couple of deathtrap situations by using good, common sense and a bit of intuition and strategy. For first-timers and newbies, this group played more old school than I've seen in ages and it was truly grand. They managed to get a lot of loose low-end loot here and there, which made the Thief-in-training very happy, but they also managed to acquire some very valuable information regarding this tomb that they can now sell to some interested party, including a rough map outlining the known hazards, identified traps, and the spots best left alone by the next group...unless they come prepared with gas-masks and hazard-suits.

Now I am at work revising the adventure a bit to take advantage of the group's feed-back to make things run a little more smoothly in places, and to incorporate some of the changes they've made into the final version of the manuscript.

Thank you to all the members of our little adventuring crew. I hope you all had as much fun as I did exploring Gadra's Tomb!

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Thursday, July 16, 2015

Bujilli: Episode 136 (Rust Never Sleeps)

Previously...
Ferropede! Huge, iron-clad and on the hunt for fresh meat. It just scuttled out from behind a mound of wreckage and lunged at Bujilli...

...but the sudden motion caused the heavy metal vermin's back third to sink into the soft mud.

Leeja pulled Bujilli back behind a partially melted pillar of cracked basalt marbled with veins of three kinds of metal. She only noticed the metal as it glinted unnaturally in the rain. It reminded her of something she had encountered as a child in Aman Utal. Metal.

They didn't stick around gawking at the pretty metal streaks. Quickly, quietly, carefully Leeja led Bujilli up and around the pillar and the accumulated, compressed debris wedged between it and the next one. Rain made the metal and ceramic bits slippery. Mud seeped up through the broken sections of crushed pipes and conduits. Rubble tottered and collapsed in the wind or from the effects of the rain...or something else.

Leeja found a reasonably-sheltered spot, an overhang blocked the worst of the rain and they could look down at the space just past the pillars where the Ferropede still prowled.

Looking down at the implacable insect forty feet or so below them, Leeja realized it was not some sort of construct like she had initially thought. Seven feet long, possibly eight, from tip of mandibles to spiky-bits on the tail-end, not counting the antennae. Each segment was heavily armored, with wickedly curved blades extending out and down from a lateral line or ridge along each side and down the middle of its back. Valve-like spiracles dilated and closed just below the lines of blades, releasing little puffs of vapor into the cold rain. This was a living beast with iron integrated, concentrated within its exoskeleton. The iron was arranged in a particular pattern. Just like the not-quite-as-glassified section of the pillars all around them.

Thunder reverberated overhead. The rain fell harder. Lightning brought the angular features of the less-melted section of the nearest pillar into focus.

Jeelo runes.

"We can't fight that thing. Not barefoot. In the rain. Not with blades and I seriously doubt either of our fire-arms will amount to much even if they do work in this rain..."

Bujilli nodded, not taking his eyes off of the Ferropede. It was casting about, waving its whip-like antennae about, trying to pick up some scent, some small chemical trace of its prey. The rain was interfering with it, making it have to rely on its other senses.

"Yes...you have a good point. We don't need to fight the thing. At least we won't if I can keep it from finding us.

Bujilli considered his repertoire of spells as he observed the beast below their position. He knew it was only a matter of time before the thing detected them. He half suspected that his scars made him more visible to these sorts of things. He had been severely marked by a Lichipede he had awakened within an old tomb as a child. It had been his third foray into the dark places below on behalf of his uncle. It had nearly killed him. When he had mostly recovered from the worst of his wounds, yet still suffering from the lingering effects of its fever-inducing venom, his uncle lowered him down into the tomb in a basket and demanded that he destroy the thing.

The Lichipede was old. Powerful. Knowledgeable in many things, well-versed in all sorts of esoteric arts. Bujilli was a child equipped with a stolen table knife he had sharpened on a rock.

He should have died that day.

That was what his uncle had intended.

He was furious when Bujilli returned to the surface dragging the Lichipede's head in a rough burlap sack behind him.

Bujilli didn't do things like other people expected him to...and that had saved his life then, just as it might now.

The Ferropede down below was too massive to levitate and only a fool wasted time trying to charm such a thing; he could feel the vrillic emanations of its nervous system even at this distance.

His scars ached.

If only there was some way to keep it from finding them...

Invisibility might work. It was tricky to get it to really work well in the rain. If one was dead-set on not being seen. There was more to being invisible than simply not being seen. The spell distorted light, in some versions, but more often it relied on deranging the perceptions of those observing the caster. The version Bujilli had learned was from a moldy old scroll, the one crafted from satyr-parchment and lovingly illuminated with egg tempera containing ground lapis and beetle shells. He took it from his uncle's cabinet during a solstice ritual. The initial theft had taken less than two minutes...returning the scroll afterwards, so he wouldn't be caught had taken hours. The damned lock had nearly bit off two of his fingers in the process.

Bujilli visualized the arcane structure of the spell. It was constructed using Naacal. Essentially, grammatically, it was a string of glyphs arranged along a primary line, much like a chord of music. One visualized each glyph one after the other in sequence, building-up a composite/compressed mass of energy that was then released like a spring of sorts, the sequence and harmonic relativity of the glyphs dictating the overall structure of the spell.

Shifting some of the glyphs, rotating one here, replacing another there, allowed Bujilli to modify the spell, to adjust its parameters and shift its ultimate expression so that it caused other effects. Each step ran the risk of spoiling or scrambling the root-spell, possibly even prematurely detonating the thing inside his own head. Even a mediocre low-level spell could prove fatal to someone lacking the proper internal resources. It took more than rote memorization to master something as energetically mutable and imaginatively volatile as a spell. It required imagination.

There. He had it. A sequence fell into place that would turn the target's perceptions back upon itself in a feed-back loop.

Three steps and a deep cleansing breath. Calming mudra. The rain felt good in his whiskers. He fixed his vision on the Ferropede and cast his new spell.

SHRIEK-reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeennk-KKKKKKkkkkkkkkkkkkk!

Thrashing, splashing, slashing this way and that the Ferropede chittered and clattered and clattered as it struck out blindly all about it.

Leeja smiled in approval.

Bujilli was proud of his handiwork.

Then the dislodged a pent-up pile of debris that roared down like a landslide, trapping the thing.

Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee---

Green ichor ran from gaps in the chunks of concrete, twisted metal and other wreckage.

ZZZZRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

The mound of rubble on which they stood wobbled slightly.

"Scheiss." Bujilli fell to one knee. His scars throbbed painfully.

"Something big is moving around--"

"This one is just a hatchling..."


Meanwhile...
Yorim Balthome sipped his coffee. It wasn't coffee this morning any more than it had been for the last thirty-odd years. It was more of that rancid red swill made from Red Weed seed-pods. Vile, oily stuff with a metallic after-taste he still wasn't used to and probably never would. Just like the morning reports on his desk. Another casualty. They were down to only five certified mail-carriers left on the rolls for the Night Mail now. If Jezka didn't recover they'd be down to four. He picked up his pigeon-bone pen and started composing yet another help wanted ad. Maybe this time someone would respond...



Leeja stifled a scream as the angular rune-embossed patterns of a gargantuan Ferropede moved past just below their position. This new Ferropede was gigantic in comparison to the first one. It had to be over thirty feet long. Probably longer.

Bujilli struggled to even-out his breathing, to regain control of his nervous system after the intense shock of the second Ferropede's vrillic emanations.

His modified Invisibility spell popped like a soap bubble.

It had served its purpose.

Leeja turned to him, her gold-green eyes luminous in the darkness and rain.

It was getting darker, colder, more substantial.

Bujilli could feel the transitoriness, if that was even the right word for it, slipping away. They were sinking through immaterial layers, quickly moving past the threshold of the liminal regions, the mirrorspace regions and entering into another region or realm...one farther removed from the Oneirical Seas or Dreamlands.

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII-k-click-KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK

The larger Ferropede pulled the hatchling out from under the collapsed pile of wreckage and proceeded to devour it.

They didn't have a lot of time before this huge beast began looking for something more to eat.

Gonnes, knives, the usual forms of violence just were not an option--not if they wished to go on living.

Even the thinnest sections of the massive Ferropede's iron-bound chitin were far too thick and tough to hit it with an axe and expect anything useful to happen.

Bujilli stared at the creature. The patterns built-up from the accumulated layers of metal-reinforced chitin were angular, almost runic in nature, but if that was so, it was in a language he did not know.

The top sections were darker, but marked with orange stains and red streaks that grew more pronounced towards the bottom of each section and at the joints of the thing's many, many legs.

Rust?

Bujilli nodded to himself. Oxidation. A chemical process. All processes are a sort of movement, if only in terms of the passage of time and time was the key. He called up his repertoire of spells once more. He had not been able to master the spell his uncle referred to as 'Celerity,' but he had learned the rudiments of Haste from a chartreuse talking serpent with an affinity for mead.

Haste accelerated the user, boosting their metabolism and giving them rapid movement. If one adjusted it so that it focused on accelerating a process rather than facilitating motion...yes...the structure of this spell was much simpler than Invisibility had been. Fewer moving parts, not as many contingencies, no provision for the user's safety; this was a very straight forward utility spell.

He converted it over to Low-Pruztian so it would be even more efficient.

"I'm going to cast another spell. This time, once it is cast, we need to get moving as far away from here, as fast as possible."

"In what direction?"

"At this point I'm not sure it matters, as long as it is away from that thing."

"You do realize that I'm barefoot?"

"Yes."

"Can you use your Levitation spell to help us get past the worst of the debris? There's barbed wire down there. And worse..."

"No. When I cast this spell, we need to go. There won't be time to try to cast any follow-ups, and I'm not sure that I can speed-up the Levitation spell enough to get far enough away from this thing fast enough..."

"Then I suggest you make this spell you're going to use really count for something. there's no way we're going to move very fast across all this jumbled crap in the dark in the rain and not get seriously injured, buried under a rubble-slide, caught in mud, or fall down some hole in the ground--"

"Fine. I'll do what I can...but then you're going to have to watch over me again. this is going to take a lot out of me..."

"Do what you need to do. I'll be here. Always."

One heartbeat. Two.

The spell slid into reality like a well-honed knife.

Bujilli turned, faced the gargantuan Ferropede's flank and cast his modified spell.

Lightning crashed. Thunder rolled through the little valleys between the pillars and mounds of debris.

Red light streamed from every pore in his body.

His scars writhed across his chest.

Bujilli screamed.

The spell took. It worked. Even as it went into effect he realized he might have adjusted it far more easily to simply accelerate the thing's aging process or perhaps induce its own digestive system to run amok and dissolve it from within using its own juices.

He suspected that hindsight was an occupational hazard for a sorcerer.

Bujilli watched as his spell slithered through the vrillic currents of the Ferropede's internal systems, a cascade of violet-red flames coursing through its nerves and tissues.

It took barely any effort at all to connect the beast's internal energies into the spell.

Three gestures and a slight on-the-fly revision.

He didn't notice the blood flowing down his upper lip.

Or the scent of his singed hair.

Or Leeja's attempts to pull him away from the rim of the ledge they were on.

Crackling, sizzling ripples of orange dust spread out from the center-mass of the huge metallicized insect.

Ripples grew into waves.

Waves of rust.

One after another.

Each one spreading out farther, extending past the Ferropede.

Washing across the rubble and wreckage.

Bujilli raised the Synchronocitor in an attempt to ward off the crashing surf of rust roaring outwards from the crumbling, collapsing shell of what once was a mighty Ferropede...



Roll a couple of Saving Throws...

Then, depending on what happens with the run-away spell... what should they do next?

You Decide!
Synchronocitor Status: Fully Recharged.

Roll to Save!
Bujilli needs to roll a 9 or higher on 1d20.
Leeja needs to roll a 4 or better on another 1d20.
We'll also need another 1d20 roll for the Synchronocitor.
The Ferropede already failed, spectacularly, I might add.

 Should either or both of them make their Save, then the effects of the run-away Accelerate Rust spell will be modified one way. If one or both fail their Save, then things take a different turn. Whoever rolls first, determines the outcome. You decide!

 You can read more about Saving Throws on Pages 54-55 of the Labyrinth Lord book.

Additional Defensive Measures?
Bujilli has just enough time to try one special action before the waves of rust crash down on them both. He might call upon his Counsel for some assistance (no guarantee that it can do anything in this space).  He could attempt to revise the run-away spell one more time, but that runs a very high risk of making things even worse. Attempting to dispel the rust-waves would require a lot of effort, and we're well past the point where he could shut the thing down by force of will alone...but maybe Bujilli could try to deflect it, or re-route the stuff away from them? Or he could try to use the Synchronocitor either to take them elsewhere, such as it can under the circumstances, or perhaps to shift the rust away from them somehow? If ever there was an opportunity to get creative or to put your imagination to work to come up with a last-second solution--this is it--after all; You Decide!

Roll 1d6 for a Wandering Monster.
Please roll 1d6 and let me know the result. If you get a 1, the encounter is an environmental factor. A result of 6 will mean all this wild vrillic energy going all over the place draws the attention of something attracted to large amounts of vrillic energy...which ought to be pleasant, I mean interesting...

What Should They Do Next?

You Decide!
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Thursday, April 16, 2015

Bujilli: Episode 126 (Through the Mirror)

Previously...
Bujilli faces a small pack of Blemmyes who are attacking Idvard's Keep by way of an unshuttered mirror and he sees an opportunity for something other than just more mindless violence...

Slash! A tall, burly Blemmyes huffed and wheezed through a mass of little pits in his bulging belly as he hacked at Bujilli with his massive flamberge.

Hack! Bujilli struck the Blemmyes alongside its left arm with his hand-axe. A good, solid hit. The creature wavered, almost lost it's grip on the heavy weapon.

Swish! It was faking. The wavy-bladed sword nearly gutted Bujilli. He backed off a bit. This opponent was fairly skilled with his blade. Thankfully Leeja had immobilized two of its fellows with her Web spell. that got him to thinking about his own repertoire of spells. Those little pits spread across the creature's belly seemed a lot like the breathing-holes in the beetle-thing he'd taken down using Gestural Globs. Maybe that spell would work on these Blemmyes? Maybe...but it might work better if it was modified to really infiltrate those little pits, and not just coat them so it could be blown-off like so much snot.

Whoosh! The flamberge swung high, it was aiming for his head. Bujilli ducked low and lunged at the Blemmyes, driving his hand-axe into the things belly. He missed. The Blemmyes hip-checked him into the great table.

Chock! Wood splinters sprayed upwards from where the flamberge sank deep into the once elegant table. Bujilli kicked the flat of the blade as hard as he could while it was stuck in the furniture. The warrior kept his grip, but the weapon was bound more tightly in the wood.

Two strikes by his hand-axe and the Blemmyes lost its right-hand and relinquished the flamberge. Another hit to it's sternum and the thing fell dribbling blood from all the little orifices along its belly.

Leeja grinned up at him as she withdrew her own sword from the still-gurgling guts of her opponent.

He turned to the other two Blemmyes and came to a decision...


Meanwhile...
Cosgrove sipped his coffee--no--it wasn't coffee; we haven't had real coffee in this place since the last of the airships tried to anchor at the Dry Pier and their crew was overwhelmed by a mob. This stuff was made from the bean-like bud-pods of the Red Weeds, soaked in lime-water then slow roasted and ground into a gritty powder that the brewers blended with chicory or dandelion roots. It had a nutty aroma, but a metallic after-taste, but you could get used to it. Especially if you dosed it with some basement-distillery schnapps. The more schnapps the better it got.

 He stopped in mid-pour. The sirens blared. Fog was rolling in...



"Boy! End this quickly! We have..."

"My uncle used to call me 'boy.' He's dead. Call me that one more time and we won't be friends any longer. Do I Make Myself Clear?"

Hedrard glared at him, but eventually nodded in assent. Her eyes narrowed in thought as she began to reconsider this strange little creature who had stirred-up so much chaos and turmoil in his brief time at the Academy in Wermspittle. He had come there to learn, but had not made it to a single class and now his mentor was off-campus on a wild goose chase and everything was in flux. This one outsider, a half-breed from some barely-known Adjacent World had saved her from abductors, given her Bloodthreads from his own wounds, given her Lemuel to heal and to mold as her servant and most of all he was directly or indirectly responsible for her recent run of good fortune. She owed a lot to this boy...this young man. She had gained too much to alienate him over some triviality...and she began to realize for the first time that she would rather not find out just what he could do to her as an enemy...

"I apologize. At my age it becomes much too easy to slip into bad habits."

"Just so we understand one another. I came here seeking knowledge. I wanted to learn things that I needed to know. To be a better sorcerer. I thought that meant accumulating more spells, or acquiring objects of power or something like that, maybe puzzling-out some weird old secrets or reading ancient tomes and grimoires. I've done a good bit of that. Made some mistakes and enemies along the way, made some friends...and I've learned a lot about myself and about magic and sorcery. I want to thank you for having been a good friend and for all you've done for me, taught me, given me...but now it's time for me to leave."

Bujilli looked over at Leeja. An unspoken question on his lips, just one breath away from taking flight; but then he saw the look in her eyes and he knew the answer without asking.

Laughing hand-in-hand Bujilli and Leeja leaped through the unshuttered mirror and were gone.

After she dispelled the Web and immobilized the two remaining Blemmyes--they would make good specimens for her experiments later--Hedrard closed the heavy shutters one at a time, then locked them into place and renewed the wards and seals. so no more unwelcome intruders would make use of the mirror to invade Idvard's Keep.

"You let them both go?" Idvard wobbled slightly as he floated free of the healer working on his regenerated new eye.

"Do you imagine that either of us could have stopped them?"

"No." Idvard chuckled.

"They'll return when they're ready, at least that's what they both are planning. We'll see how that turns out. Now, about my offer..."


Misty, murky, and dim; it was like drifting through a smooth, flowing non-landscape of liquid quarts or moonstone. Shapes rose from the foggy surroundings only to recede or to morph into other things. The rectangular mirror-shape behind them went black then the edges took on a malefic red glow. No going back that way.

Away from the mirror everything shimmered and swirled with the hint of some sort of forest off to the right, a fluctuating series of dunes or waves slowly undulated away into obscurity to the left, perhaps some sort of desert? Ahead of them there appeared to be some sort of obelisk or raised stone-like object of immense size and seeming solidity. Behind them extended a sort of marsh or bog like region of increasingly dense shadows and slippery things that slithered along oblivious to their observation...

What should they do next? Which way should they go?

You Decide!
Synchronocitor Status: Fully Recharged.

Roll for Initiative!
Someone please roll 1d6 for 1) Bujilli, 2) Leeja, 3) Any other interested parties.

 More Blemmyes?
We also need to roll 1d100/d% to determine if there are any more Blemmyes on this side of the mirror. Let's say there is a 30% chance that there are 1d4 more of the things in the immediate area. So any roll of 30 or under means we have an encounter in-progress when we pick up things next episode.

 Roll for Random Encounter.
The opening and closing of the mirror, as well as Hedrard's wards all stir up things enough to provoke a roll for a possible random encounter in addition to the chance that there are any Blemmyes lingering or loitering on the scene. We'll use one d6 roll, with a result of '1' meaning they spot some sort of sign or spoor and a result of '6' meaning there is a more substantial encounter. Another roll of 2d6X10 will tell us how far away any such encounter might be in yards. And another 2d6 roll will tell us give us the encountered creature's reaction as per the table on p. 52 of the Labyrinth Lord book.

 Spot Mirror Roll. (1d30)
We'll also need a d30 roll to determine if Bujilli or Leeja spot another mirror in the distance. A result of 10 means maybe/it isn't clear, a result of 20 means that there seems to be a mirror in a random direction, but it looks closed/shuttered; and a result of 30 means that they spot a mirror in the distance that might be open and accessible...or at least whatever they are seeing appears that way from a distance. A result of 1 means something else mirror-related happens--I'm working on a special table just for that sort of thing and will post it in time for use for the next episode if we need it.

 Which Way To Go?
so...should they go right into the forest, Left to the gray desert-like dune-sea, back towards the swampy-place, or forward to the obelisk-object? If you prefer, they can spend some time looking for an alternative route(s), if they linger here long enough, they might spot another option in terms of a direction to travel, but doing so provokes another Random Encounter Roll...

So what do you think Bujilli & Leeja ought to do next? Which way should they go?

You Decide!
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Thursday, January 22, 2015

Bujilli: Episode 116

Previously...
Ambushed by a pack of Feral Children, Bujilli and Leeja find themselves out-numbered and surrounded. One drone is ruined and another is seriously damaged. They are not far from the entrance to the building where the Weak Point leading to Idvard's Keep is located...but can they survive the onslaught or the cruel machinations of the Cuckoo leading this particular pack?


He remembered falling. A stone had struck him in the head. Rotten kids.

Bujilli winced in pain. Blood was matting the hair along the side of his head. The rock that had struck him had hit harder than he had at first thought. He knew from experience that he was lucky to not have a fractured skull. then again there was no guarantee that he didn't. sling-stones are grossly under-estimated weapons. He'd seen an expert cave-in the breast-plates of Jalvani invaders one after another, but that was long ago and a world away.

He tried to sit up. Nausea disabused him of that notion. Dizziness. The impact to his head was worse than he'd hoped. Something wet spattered across his back. Blood. It wasn't his, not this time.

The ringing in his ears subsided enough for him to hear the screaming all around them. Leeja was hissing, her white-flame hair lashing out to slash, to rip, to sting and to strike one after another of their young antagonists. She ducked and dodged, twisted and turned, avoiding the stones slamming down into the pavement all around her. He gold-green eyes smoldered in the dark as she went after the Feral Children like a fury from their wildest nightmares.

She was buying him some time. He knew that. Sitting up took more effort, but he managed it. Eventually. Every movement took longer than it ought to, but he forced himself to rise. He fell back on his right knee. Twice. Then he stood. Wobbly, but standing. He looked down at his hand-axe. No way was he going to try to bend down and pick it up. He'd use a spell instead. Even with head trauma, it beat falling face-first into the pavement.

Something hot was pressing into his chest. Bujilli swatted at his armor, pulled open his collar. Hedrard's amulet. It was glowing deep red. The hair on his chest was singed and curled. The pain cut through the haze he'd been settling into. It grew worse. More intense. His skin blistered. He grabbed hold of the flexible-metal cord and pulled it away from his skin and called upon his Counsel.

///Machine! Help me! Why is the amulet burning me?///

Flash Analysis Indicates Deliberate Third-Party Interference

///Interference? Who?///

There. Counsel overlaid a soft yellow glow over the form of his adversary that only Bujilli could see.

Not three steps away from Shael was a dirty girl wreathed in rags, her face streaked with tears of rage. She clutched a rusty length of reinforcing bar taken from the rubble of some fallen building as a staff of sorts. She needed it--her left foot was twisted at a bad angle. The girl glared at Bujilli, virulent sorcery flowing from her eyes in a shimmering, spiraling stream that clutched his amulet and sought to sever his connection to Hedrard.

///Machine. Can you neutralize the pain long enough for me to deal with this matter?///

Counsel responded by causing the intense pain to quickly fade away. His hair and skin were still singed badly, but for now it would not hinder him.

Bujilli took a deep breath. Loosened up his shoulders. Stopped himself from shaking his head--that would be a bad idea right now--and flexed his fingers. He looked at the girl, past her clumsy auric defenses, the cluttered and unstructured jumble of her innermost self. She knew a few spells, but she was no sorcerer, not really, not yet. Self-taught and unguided, she considered herself far more clever than she really was, which was a common failing for those caught-up in ignorance. He smiled; this girl had a lot of potential. She might become somebody with a capital S...someday...but not today.

He quickly jammed the girl's flawed defenses into a swirling vortex of feedback and flux. A push here, a tug there, everything was so imbalanced and out of order that it was all too damn easy to disrupt things and make an even worse mess of it all. For a moment he felt almost guilty for crashing her internal processes but then he smelled burnt hair and his injured flesh twinged. For a moment he considered completely extinguishing her mind. It wouldn't take very much effort. He could strip her of the little power she had accumulated unto herself...but no...such a thing was beneath him.

His Uncle's cruelty toward him began to make a twisted sort of sense to him. Standing there looking directly into the soul of this young girl Bujilli realized the full extent of what he could do to her and it made him ill. Or perhaps it was the blow to his head. In either case he felt nauseous. The girl was a Cuckoo whose mental powers had developed far too rapidly, too quickly for her to adapt. She had sought to sever his amulet's connection out of some instinctual awareness that it held a type of power she desperately wanted but would likely never have. She was jealous. Spiteful. She intended to ruin the amulet in order to deny it to him, knowing full well that she could never use it, never wield it for herself. She wanted to spoil the thing she could never have.

The amulet went cold. Her link to the amulet was broken. Bujilli caught the flashing, flaring tendril of her magical link and directed the severed end of her spell to collide with her makeshift staff. The steel flared red-hot. She screamed. Dropped the thing. Fell to her knees. Collapsed onto the street. Unconscious. The pain had been too much for her.

Bujilli turned slowly to survey the other children that had ambushed him and his friends. Leeja was disarming them or scourging them with her hair as it writhed and flared and flashed about her like a cloud of angry cats in the dark.

He closed his eyes and drew upon another spell. Wrathful Facade. It proved to be the last straw; the Feral Children broke off their attack. Two or three turned and ran away. Then another five or six. Soon all of them were gone, except for their leader who remained face-down and passed-out.

Bujilli grinned. He hadn't cast that spell in a while. It really did the trick. Then it popped into oblivion far more quickly than it should have done. Then he dropped. His knees weren't working right any more. He wasn't sure but he might have vomited as he collapsed. It certainly smelled bad, over and above the burnt hair on his chest. He wondered if the amulet would leave a mark where it had burned him.


Meanwhile...
Old Man Putney squatted down behind the broken section of wall. The Sewer Militia would catch up with him before too much longer. He'd left enough of a trail for them to follow. He rummaged around in his haversack and pulled out a can of green-peaches in syrup. The hilt of his trench-knife made short work of the lid. He sipped the syrup and kept an eye on the bridge below his position. The whole damned place stank of at piss and rotting flesh. At least he was used to the smell. The peaches were too sweet. He ate half then dumped the remainder onto the ground for his friends to get their share. A dozen glossy black rats squirmed and jostled one another as they fought over the peaches.

 "Eat up you little bastards. You'll earn it soon enough."

 A pebble skittered and skipped down behind the old man.

 "Scheiss. They were waiting for us." He lunged for his war-lamp.

 Three Nosferatu Tunnel-Fighters charged down the slope. One fired a blunderbuss packed with random metal-junk, mostly nails. Then blood and fur flew everywhere as one shrieking horde of rats collided with the other. Putney and his pets were outnumbered five to one. Then the grenade exploded.

Bujilli couldn't sit up. Something held him down. He opened his eyes. He was in a bed. It smelled like fresh-cut rhododendrons and apple blossoms. White hair was wound about his torso and shoulders. Leeja's hair.

"He's awake." She sat up from beside him.

"Excellent." A man wearing a much-patched old suit came over to the bed-side and examined Bujilli.

"What--"

"Happened? Ah. Well, you have suffered a nasty injury to your head my young friend. A concussion, slight fracture, some bleeding; the usual sort of thing in these cases."

"Relax. Doktor Niemann is here to help." Leeja placed one hand on his shoulder and slowly, carefully, delicately withdrew her hair from around him.

"You are most fortunate to have such a good friend alongside you in such endeavors. Her hair made a much more effective restraint than any jacket or truss I have on-hand. It was most essential that you remain still during the surgery." Doktor Niemann unwound some sort of wrapping...a bandage...from around Bujilli's head.

"Surgery?" Bujilli closed his eyes and examined his aura, his repertoire of spells, his defenses. There were some lingering traces of the Doktor's intrusion into his head, but it made him slightly sick to try to examine them too closely. Like most sorcerers, he had grave reservations regarding anyone cutting into his skull. He knew all too well how a simple flick of a scalpel could be used to strip him of his power, of his very identity. He hated the thought that he had been vulnerable to this surgeon.

"Yes. Nothing much, mostly alleviating some pressure in order to give your own body the chance to rectify things for itself. By now your skull has settled back into place nicely. Yes. Indeed it has." The Doktor felt along the side of his head just back of the temple; "Very good. Excellent progress. You should be able to resume your usual escapades in two or three weeks. Possibly sooner, if you take care not to re-injure yourself."

"Weeks?" Bujilli croaked. The idea that he had been much more severely injured than he had imagined coming as quite a shock.

"It's okay. Idvard has been more than gracious in receiving us both. This room is yours to use whenever you like, for as long as you want." Leeja's hand grew warm on his shoulder. Comfortable. Comforting.

"Can I get out of bed then?" He had things to do...

"But of course. Do go slowly at first. No need to rush anything right now. You need to heal." The Doktor nodded his farewell and left the room.

Bujilli sat up. There was a funny bare-patch on his chest where the amulet had burned him. The wound was mostly healed underneath a glossy greenish coating of some sort of salve. It smelled of roasted olives. The scent made him hungry.

"My clothes? Armor? Other things?" He looked at Leeja.

She smiled. Stood up from the bed and walked over to a heavily-carved antique wardrobe. The doors snicked open. She stepped back and he could see all his gear carefully stored in there. Except his hand-axe. That was lying on the floor, on a rug, next to the bed. Like a faithful hound watching over its master.

"It would not leave you. they gave up trying to put it away after it nearly sliced off one of the attendant's fingers. Very loyal."

"Yes. We've been through a lot together." He tried to picture Stril...what she would have looked like now...if she had lived.

"If you like, we can join the others for a late breakfast. Shael is doing much better--"

"Damned Right she is!" A rude woman in rough clothes barged through a side-door.

"Mildred. I told you--"

"You insisted that I wait until the quack was gone before I came in to check on the boy and make sure the old swindler didn't remove his thumbs or some other form of grievous malpractice. He's gone. So I'm here. Let's take a look at you then." Mildred waddled over to Bujilli and began to poke and prod his head where the surgeon had done his work.

"Ach! You'll need to be repairing that hole in your aura, but even so, it's filling-in much more smoothly and cleanly than most folks manage, so that's some good news. You must have had a good teacher."

Bujilli snorted. "No. Not good. My Uncle taught me quite a lot, but only in the course of terrorizing me until I could stand up to the old bastard."

"And did you?"

"Yes." He had fought with his Uncle the night he left. It had gotten ugly as much verbally and emotionally as physically. He won. Finally. Releasing one of the little demons trapped in a seven-metal cage had been a dirty trick, but it had worked. He'd enjoyed flying off into the sunset on a stolen carpet while his uncle was distracted...too bad the damned thing frayed away before he had reached the Sea of Tears. He was only just able to get the thing low enough so as not to break his neck when it finally fell into dust and shreds. The scratches and scars had been worth it.

Mildred fixed him with her stern left eye; "These knife-jugglers and organ-grinders don't know squat about matters of the soul. They can re-attach a limb, sometimes, or fix some broken bones and such, but even so a Seamstress is far better for stitchery and you'd be a damned fool to let those uppity snot-weasels at the Medical College try to cure your aches and pains. They rely entirely too much on White Powder derivatives and solutions to deal with everything."

"Mildred. Is...will he be..." Leeja seemed nervous.

"The burns are mostly healed. No lasting damage there. That little girl pulled quite a stunt there. Quite clever. Might have caught nearly anyone with that one."

"I know that much. It's the other injury that I'm concerned about."

"You've been nothing but a bother all this time, so I know full well you're 'concerned' about the boy's head. As it happens, I have some friends who are quite gifted in brewing-up curatives and cure-alls far superior to the poisonous scheiss those--"

"Did you bring it?" Insisted Leeja near frantically.

"Of course I brung it girl." Mildred pulled a small vial on a tiny golden chain out from beneath her fish-scale corset.

"Good."

"Here. Drink this boy." She held out the vial to Bujilli. It smelled horrible.

"What is it?"

"If you don't want to be wasting the next couple of weeks lying around being useless then you'd best drink it." She pushed it toward him more insistently.

"I don't know..."

"Drink it." She scowled at him.

He took the vial and drank down the contents. Thankfully there was as little of the stuff as it was nasty-tasting.

"What was it? Or don't I dare ask?"

"It'll fix you up right as rain in a jiffy. No need to thank me. Your...ahem...this one...she pestered me night and day until I was finally able to get my hands on it."

"Thank you."

"Oh don't thank me. Not at all. You can thank her. Leeja. She can be thanking me."

"And I will. Later. Once Bujilli is fully recovered and we've had a chance to talk."

"Talk? All you want to do is talk? Coulda fooled me--ACK!" Leeja forcibly escorted Mildred back through the side-door.

Leeja closed the door and locked it. She held the key in her hand. A silver key. It was ornately carved and seemed to almost flow in the late morning light streaming through the window.

Bujilli slipped out of the bed and walked over to the window. Four steps. It wasn't much, but it felt good. He looked out on a garden surrounded by hedges, a maze of sorts, which was in turn surrounded by trees. Beyond the trees...a wall...and ruins that stretched on and on for as far as the eye could see. It was like an oasis in the midst of a cold, dead landscape.

They had made it to Idvard's Keep after all.

Leeja was there beside him.

He turned to look at her.

"It's beautiful."

"Yes," she turned to look out the window at the gardens below.

Sirens shrieked. The window rattled. Something exploded down below.

Smoke filled the garden.

Dozens of Grunters* charged out of the smoke...


What should Bujilli & Leeja do next?

You Decide!


* We saw the Grunters beneath Idvard's Keep in Episode 41 to Episode 45. We also learned more about Grunters in this post.

Synchronocitor Status: Fully Recharged.

What should they do now?

First we need to Roll for Initiative (1d6 each): 1) Bujilli, 2) Leeja, 3) Bortho's People (Idvard's Guards). (as per LL p. 50)

We won't require a Reaction Roll this time out as the Grunters are not just another random encounter. They are a well-organized invasion force.


Bujilli is pretty-much ready to go, but will probably want to pull on a pair of britches before running off to fight vicious pig-things from the underworld. Just saying.

 Should Bujilli and Leeja let the guards deal with this recent incursion? They do need to talk about a few things. Or should they help defend the Keep against these porcine aggressors? Maybe they should check on Shael, or try to locate Idvard (If only to verify the parameters of their contract), or maybe they ought to consider finding the Weak Point and abandoning this place? Maybe they should look up Bortho and his family? It's pretty much wide open. Bujilli could also check on the amulet, or maybe he'd be wise to try to contact Hedrard, or at least find out what happened to the Cuckoo girl who burned him...

Do you have a great idea or suggestion?

Feel free to ask questions or to discuss the situation in the comments. I'll do my best to respond to comments in a timely manner.

Let me know what you think they ought to do in the comments below, or via email and we'll resume things next week!

What do they do next?
You Decide!
Previous                            Next
Series Indexes
One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six  |  Seven
About Bujilli (What is This?) | Who is Bujilli? | How to Play
Bujilli's Spells | Little Brown Journals | Loot Tally | House Rules
Episode Guides
Series One (Episodes 1-19)
Series Two (Episode 20-36)
Series Three (Episodes 37-49)
Series Four (Episodes 50-68)
Series Five (Episodes 69-99)
Series Six(Episodes 100 - 111)
Series Seven (112 - ongoing)
Labyrinth Lord   |   Advanced Edition Companion

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Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Low-End Loot: Table VI

Low-End Loot, Table VI

  1. A ball of grotty yarn dripping with saliva. It used to belong to a very big cat.
  2. The hardened steel at the middle section of this crow-bar has been turned to lead. No refunds.
  3. Three screw-drivers in a heavy oil-stained canvas roll-up case. All of the tips are chipped, twisted and bent.
  4. Airship goggles; the left lens is cracked, the right one is missing, otherwise in fine condition.
  5. One very ugly scarf knitted in uneven stripes over thirty feet long when stretched out. It might hold as much as four hundred pounds, for a little while, before splitting apart.
  6. Jeweler's loupe packed full of reeking black mold. The mold is fairly harmless, though it is incredibly flammable.
  7. A single boot, completely waterproof and with a very good bit of tread, but no laces.
  8. This letter opener was hand-carved from Boreal Sea Beast ivory and glows a subtle shade of pink when it is exposed to most poisons. In desperation it can be used to inflict 1-2 points of damage with a base 60% chance to break and ruin the piece, if you insist.
  9. The scratched-up and tarnished frame of an antique hand-mirror. The mirror itself was removed long ago. There is dried blood on the handle.
  10. It's a unicorn horn...made from papier mache filled with 36 dried orange beetles. The beetles release a fragrant smoke when burned that has the tendency to made those exposed ravenously hungry.
  11. Spackle Knife; +1 to hit and damage versus all Gobbling Grouts. Takes on a dim green glow whenever an Attack Spackle is within 100'.
  12. Six small tar-stained burlap sacks that spontaneously unravel into a tangled mess of fibers when exposed to water, creating a nasty, sticky plug.
  13. A case of 142 medium-sized corks. One corner of the case shows signs of having been chewed by rats who quickly lost interest.
  14. Four blue-tinted wigs packed inside a partially-crushed hat box. Very much out of fashion.
  15. Zinn-plated canteen that fumes and foams over with a putrid ochre slop that reeks of rotten peaches for half an hour every time water is poured into it.
  16. A wooden bucket that holds twelve gallons of water as though it were only one.
  17. Elegant black mask. Anyone donning it must Save at -2 or be burned horribly by acid across their face. Requires a combined STR of 22 to remove the thing. For every round it remains in place, the victim must Save at -1 or lose 1 point of CHAR. Anyone losing 3+ points of CHAR to the mask becomes permanently scarred.
  18. Six pair of rubberized Line-Man's gauntlets, still bundled together by a rubber band. Grant wearer +2 to all Saves vs. Electrical/Galvanic effects.
  19. Glass-cutting tool, well-worn and inscribed with the initial P. Q. T.
  20. Top hat containing three doves, two rabbits and a deck of blood-soaked playing cards. The animals are all dead and the cards all stick together and are ruined. Examining the hat-band reveals three small yellow-green gems that might not be paste.
  21. Femur-bone flute that grants the bearer a +4 bonus to all reaction rolls with Winged Monkeys, so long as they never actually play the thing. If the proper tune is performed using this item, the flute casts Charm Winged Monkey (at 8th level) once per day, however at the expiration of the spell they incur a -4 penalty to all reaction rolls with Winged Monkeys for the next week.
  22. Beetle-Ward stamped in cheap tin on a thin red cord. Continually repels all Beetles within 30' radius. Each beetle repelled by the thing costs 1 charge, it currently has 3d10 charges.
  23. Morlock Cod-Piece. Wearer ignores first 6 points of damage from hostile spells every two hours.
  24. Black Lamp. When lit, the lamp creates a 12' diameter globe of Darkness for as long as it remains lit.
  25. Pitch-fork, +2 versus all Soft Automata, but has a cumulative 5% chance to break each time it is used in combat.
  26. (1d4) Green Pearls in a pouch crafted from translucent fish-hide. Each Pearl will remove all poison effects if it is pulverized into a fine powder and mixed with beer--never wine. Mixing the pearl dust with wine will make it into a virulent toxin that will reduce the victim to green sludge within 4 rounds.
  27. Four tiny mole-harnesses. Each one has a little brass bell attached.
  28. Small rectangular wooden case covered with brittle black velvet. Inside the case is an oblong lens of some sort of unnatural crystal that allows anyone holding it to see into walls to a depth of 2d6 inches. The visibility shifts every two minutes. It only works on walls and similar architectural structures, not on people or beasts.
  29. Brass horn. The jaunty blue tassels are worth a fair bit to a collector of militaria. Even if it is a replica; very few of these survived the demise of the Great Kapitain Thaliss and his failed attempt to take over the Privy Council nearly three hundred years ago.
  30. Ivory-inlaid planchette from a missing talking board. Anyone touching this thing is compelled to lie for so long as they remain in contact with it.



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Monday, October 27, 2014

Index: Low-End Loot

Low-End Loot: An Index to the Series

Scavengers and Foragers dare the dangers of the Burned Over District, sifting through wreckage and crawling about in ruins in search of forgotten or buried stockpiles of food or medicines, caches of useful things left-over from before the last war...but those sorts of finds are increasingly more difficult to uncover or discover. A lot of what they find tends to be so much Trinkets and Trash or Low-End Loot...


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Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Lemuel [Episode 106.5]

“Do you know who I am boy?”

“Yessir.”

“Say it. I want to hear it.”

“You sir are General Octravius Culver. Hero of the Battle of the Greensward and Liberator of the three Greenhells--”

“Edens! They were Green-Edens when we took them over. It was only after betrayal and malfeasance that they descended into hellishness. I conquered Eden itself three times over only to see it corrupted, poisoned, turned against me by my enemies.” The old man slumped back onto his rough bed, palsied hands wiped away the memory of sweat and mud and blood. Green thread-like tendrils curled and coiled just beneath his waxy skin, a lingering reminder of how wrong things went so long ago and far away.

Lemuel knew that if he could see the green-marks there was too much light in the room so he turned down the alcohol lamp. The General could not tolerate bright light. It made the green-things under his skin twitch and writhe with life. The green-things tormented the general and anything that caused him displeasure or discomfort caused him to torment Lemuel. He belonged to the old general. No one else wanted him.

“Bah. You're a worthless little shit, like all these ignorant peasants.”

“Yessir.”

The old man glared at him for a long time. Lemuel needed to pee really bad. But the General was in one of his moods again. A bad one. He clamped his legs together and waited it out.

“I've been good to you boy. When no one would take you in, I gave you a place, fed you, clothed you, taught you how to be a man and a soldier. I beat the weakness from your flesh and scourged the fear from your mind. Preparing you for your holy mission.”

“Yessir. Thank you sir.”

“You're of an age now. It is time for you to leave for Wermspittle. Before...you become twisted and ruined like some of your kin. But before you go I wish to give you something. Here. Hold out your hands.”

A knife. No. Not just any knife. The one Grandfather, the General, made his name with all those years ago. It was heavier than it looked.

“I pass on my knife to you so that you will avenge me boy. That is your only purpose in this life, you holy mission. You will avenge me!”

“Yessir.” The knife turned in his hands. The well-worn handle slid into place.

The old man sat there staring at him. His bed reeked of hatred.

The knife struck three times before he could stop it.

He ran from the room.

He took nothing with him.

Except for the knife.

His Grandfather's knife.



Hedrard stretched her shoulders with a series of bony clicks. She stood taller, straighter now. Frailty fell away from her like chaff from wheat in a mill. An old cold light twinkled in her eyes; it was not a pleasant thing to behold by any means. Lemuel had some idea of what she intended to do. What she could do. He knew of her power first-hand.

Spiders. Huge, wicked things that served vampires. A swarm of them was approaching. Lemuel looked at each of his companions. Bujilli was tired. Leeja had suffered a draining attack that left her weakened. Hedrard was still struggling to free herself of the after-effects of the spells the Purple-eyes had used on them both. The other two were useless. Well, the roof-runner might manage to do something with the knife they'd given them...but he didn't want to bet on it...especially not with their lives.

"Get everyone moving. I'll buy us some time. Just let me know which way you're going--up or down--and I'll follow as soon as I am able."

Bujilli looked into Hedrard's eyes. A mistake. Lemuel knew that as well.

"Up. We'll look for a way to get back to the roof-tops and take our chances with the Synchronocitor. It got us here in the first place, I'm hoping it can get us out of here once it has recharged."

"Go then. I'll--"

Lemuel rushed past them both. The make-shift barrier collapsed as he pushed his way through it.

"Scheiss!" Hedrard made to follow then stopped herself. Lemuel looked into her eyes. She knew then that he was no longer her problem or property and never would be again. She smiled ever so slightly, then he turned back to the business at hand and drew his Grandfather's knife.


"Hand me the knife." Hedrard demanded.

 Lemuel refused. He tried to shake his head. It sloshed and jiggled wetly making him dizzy.

 "It is a hateful thing. One that will only bring you pain and sorrow. Give it to me, if only for safe-keeping..."

 "No." He struggled to get the word out--it felt like his mouth was filled with thick, sweet honey, like he was drowning in the stuff, but he could breath just fine. It was disorienting.

 The hag glared at him hotly. Few dared to refuse her. But this boy, this low-land orphan defied her. Perhaps there was hope for him yet.

 She had already examined the knife while the boy was recovering from his drastic transformation. Bujilli had only barely managed to save what he could of the boy. The effort had nearly claimed them both...now they would be inextricably bound to one another.

"Have it your way then. But I will not have that knife in my work-space any longer than is absolutely necessary. Once you are stable enough to leave, you'll take it with you."

 "Where?"

 "Where will you go? I've spoken with Zirl. Shiidri will take you to him when you are ready."


They said there was maybe six of the spiders out there. They were wrong. There were twelve of the things. The spiders were not afraid of the boy rushing to meet them. Lemuel smiled; they would learn to fear him soon enough. He had hunted river-spiders and the noose-weavers that infested the forests near his people's enclave. These things were bigger, but they were only spiders and he knew how to kill spiders, even really big ones.

THUNK!

Lemuel skidded to an abrupt stop. A single black spike of gleaming chitin jutted suddenly from out of his chest. One of the Varn-spiders had caught him from above, impaled him on its blade-like claw. He twisted about, tearing his wermhide sheath in the process, and hacked through the flexible joint of the limb. Three cuts and he was free of the thing. He drew out the spider-leg and cast it aside. Another spider sensing an opportunity rushed in to bite him. He stabbed it in one of its larger eyes. It shrieked and recoiled from him.

The rest of the spiders moved-in to surrounded him. Good. That would make this easier.

The knife flashed hatefully in the blue-tinted gloom as Lemuel charged the nearest spider.


“So you are Lemuel then? Of course you are. No one else would stand there dithering in the darkness like that. Come in boy. I've been expecting you. Hedrard has told me quite a bit about you.”

It took him a bit of effort to reform a working tongue. Speaking wasn't easy for Lemuel. It took concentration. But it was getting easier as he relearned how to do it. “I um Lemuel. Sh—She sent me. You.”

“Yes, yes, I know. You've been through a terrible ordeal. Hedrard told me. You need not explain; I am very familiar with the ravages of White Powder and all its derivatives, including Hard Candy. You are very lucky young man; most people in your situation wouldn't be walking about let alone trying to re-learn how to speak. No. Most of them would be reduced to oily black puddles of corruption after the Vile Transformation. But not you. Somehow you survived the process, were dragged out of it by the intervention of this Bujilli person. It remains to be seen if they've done you any kind of favor by doing so, but where there is life, there is hope.”

“Hope?” It was not a word he'd ever heard before. He wasn't sure what it meant.

“Of course. Otherwise Hedrard would have ended you when she had the chance. Instead she sent you to me.”

“You?”

“I am Zirl, Keeper and Curator of Atrocities. Hedrard has asked me to consider becoming your mentor here at the Academy.”

“Will you?”

“A good question. I am uncertain. There isn't a lot to work with in your current condition--”

“Monster. I monster...” Lemuel held out his hands, turned them over and back again, tracing the stitches in the wermhide that formed his new skin. His translucent flesh glistened wetly through gaps in the hide where his movements had loosened the seams. He was mostly gelatinous now; a shapeless, formless thing that only had a manshape because of Hedrard's hard work and clever stitchery.

“What do you know of monsters boy?” Zirl shook his head; “You are not a monster because of your recent physical transformation. You are not even a monster because of your upbringing. Yet.”

“Not Monster?"

"Not hardly. The one who gave you that knife was a true monster, but you already knew that, didn't you?"


Another spider-limb flew over his left shoulder. He brought his elbows back into the other one's eyes, rupturing them into a wet greenish mess. They'd given up biting him after the sixth time. He'd twisted off the front half of the last one's face or whatever you called their front-parts as it tried to withdraw its fangs. The poison coursed through his flesh, mingling with his fluids and becoming a part of him. It felt good. Warm. Comfortable. It made the Baby Teeth Hedrard had set into his jaw ache with the need to bite back...so he lunged toward a spider, clambered on top and sunk his teeth into it right behind its cluster of eyes. It tasted salty.

CHAK! A spider knocked him to the floor. They knew better than to try to impale him again.

Three more spiders swarmed over him. Biting, stabbing, rending, doing everything they could to hurt him, to kill him.

He snapped a spider's leg. Punched another in the fangs. Stabbed the third one in its belly and dragged the knife back out through its face in a spluttering gush of innards and fluids.


"She wanted you to surrender the knife, didn't she?"

 "Yes. Won't."

 "It's bonded to you. Strongly. Culver had a gift for such things."

 "You Knew ... gr ... grandfath--"

 "Octravius Culver was many tings, but he was not your Grandfather. Not by blood. That would be impossible. His parents had kept him down on their farmstead well past the point when all children need to leave. He was rendered sterile. The other...deformities...were not obvious ones, so he managed to pass as nearly normal, most of the time."

 "No. General was my..."

 "General? Culver was a corporal when he deserted his unit during the Greensward fiasco. He managed to keep a very thorough journal and to make very detailed maps of his route through one of the Greenhells and tried to barter those for a position on the faculty. It wasn't until later that we discovered that he had been copying from the work of a Pruztian Military Cartography unit that had been wiped-out by disease, poison or something else. He was summarily exiled and went back to the Low-Land swamps. To your people. He probably bought you from your relatives."

 Lemuel sank back into himself. He had been bought by his...by Culver...but he had thought that was the way it was done. What else was there to do with an orphan? The Mills had been bombed into rubble. The Labs were burned-out shells. The mines were flooded or filled with poison gasses. There wasn't much point in investing too many resources in a kid who would either run off in the Spring or turn into some sort of freak if they stayed too long past the onset of puberty.

 "The knife is a Pruztian General's ceremonial dress dagger. The blade is forged from meteoric iron and it is heavily imprinted with Culver's hatred and insane lust for revenge. You can keep the thing, if you choose to do so; just be aware that it is a toxic influence on you and that it will continually try to subvert your will. I suspect that Culver did a great deal more than just hand you this knife. He raised you, didn't he?"

 "Gave roof. Food. Clothes. Beat weakness out."

 "You were trained to be a weapon, not a human being. That my boy is the work of a monster."


Twelve spiders, each larger than a pregnant cow, wriggled and writhed in a gore-splattered heap at Lemuel's feet. He'd hacked-off the legs of the ones he hadn't had a chance to kill yet. He walked from one to the other of the dismembered things and used the knife...Culver's hateful knife...to end each spider.

When he was finished, Lemuel surveyed his handiwork and felt conflicted. It had been a glorious fight, if a bit one-sided. The spiders couldn't really hurt him; not with poison, or fangs, or stabby-claws. He reveled in the languid, lingering heat of the spider-venom flowing through his body. It felt good. More than good. He looked down on the ruptured chitinous thorax of a spider, examined the contours of the exposed organs and tissues. There was something beautiful in it that he had never been able to see before. He felt as if his eyes were opening for the first time. It felt good. He reached down into the remains of the spider and pulled forth a dripping gobbet of flesh and swallowed it. The taste was like nothing he had ever experienced before. He took another piece. And another.


"If you would be more than a cat's paw for some sick-sad-dead failure with delusions of being a war criminal, I may have a job for you...if you are interested."

 Lemuel stared at Zirl. He knew the man was being truthful--he could taste it in the air, see it in the overlapping swaths of color that shimmered around him. His body had been drastically reorganized, something to which he was becoming adjusted, but now his past, his sense of history, his sense of self were having to adjust as well, and it left him feeling disoriented, vulnerable, and very much alone.

 But he wasn't alone. Deep down he could feel the glowing golden kernel of something that Bujilli had left behind. A gift. It was supposed to reside inside his bones, like it did inside Bujilli, so he made sure that he had at least a few bones, especially a jaw, so he could anchor his tongue and talk better.


Lemuel gulped down the last of the sweet meat from his seventh spider-leg. It wasn't quite the same as bog-crab, but it was pretty good, once he got past the saltiness. He could feel his body breaking-down the spider-flesh, some portion of him studying the stuff, learning from it, incorporating it into his own flesh. His body was learning the spider's tricks. Already smooth chitinous plates were growing over the wrecked parts of his wermhide skin-sheath. He wanted to free himself of the truss that Hedrard had fitted him with, but he was not ready to do that just yet. He needed to learn more things, and not just spider-things. He smiled then tore off some shreds of wermhide and swallowed them as well. His body could learn the secrets of the werm-things to reshape and rebuild the hide sheathing his gellid form.

He looked at the knife in his hand. It radiated black, inky strands of festering hatred that coiled and curled like fetid smoke. Spider-flesh sizzled along the blade. It reeked like an old man's twisted ambitions and dead dreams. It made him sick. Then he realized that it was literally making him sick. The longer he held on to it, the more twisted and deranged he would become. He looked at the knife again. It wasn't his. It never was his, never would be. There was no reason to keep carrying it around.

Lemuel left the old man's knife stuck in the brain of the largest spider. It didn't stop calling to him until he was more than a mile away on his way down into the depths of the Gormenstille. The others wanted to leave this place, and he appreciated that, understood it, but he had a job to do. Besides, he felt like a kid in a candy store...
On a Mission for Zirl...
Lemuel is descending into the depths of the Gormenstille in order to carry out some errand on behalf of his mentor Zirl. But what sort of business would the Keeper and Curator of Atrocities have within this place? Lemuel's adventure is only beginning...

Series Indexes
One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six
About Bujilli (What is This?) | Who is Bujilli? | How to Play
Bujilli's Spells | Little Brown Journals | Loot Tally | House Rules
Episode Guides
Series One (Episodes 1-19)
Series Two (Episode 20-36)
Series Three (Episodes 37-49)
Series Four (Episodes 50-68)
Series Five (Episodes 69-99)
Series Six(Episodes 100-ongoing)
Labyrinth Lord   |   Advanced Edition Companion
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