trans_9 | Dungeon Keeper

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The Tapestry had spoken. Not in words, but in ideas and images, ciphers and cryptic nonsense that had been laboriously deciphered, interrogated with spells and technology, pieced together from scrap. They had led here.

Planet Designation: AST994-III Status: Terrestrial, K-class. Non-sentient life: None. Semi-Sentient Life: None. Sentient Life: None. Water: None. Climate: Desert/barren. Landscape: Rocky crags. Air: Normoxic concentration: 29% oxygen, 60% nitrogen, 3% xenon, 6% trace gases, such as hydrogen, krypton, and argon. Air Pressure: 14.352 pounds per square inch. Sky: Red. Cloudless. Sun: Class A star. Warnings: Information from Tapestry indicates significant underground population. Subsurface information not available. Use caution. Mission: ?

Somewhere down there, an object valuable and vital to the mission lay in wait, something so important that its existence was encoded into the Tapestry itself. Whatever it was, they needed to get it.

The only problem was, how to get in? The subterranean world had no access to the surface, and to physically breach it would not only be prohibitive, but catastrophic to the point of apocalypse to that underground world. Science could not solve this problem; thus, the crew turned to magic. The Tapestry had provided what were, after some analysis, unquestionably teleport coordinates. Five of them, for three people each.

To ensure the crew members were not lost, nor left behind without help, contingent spells were laid upon them, to return them to safety and help should they become injured, or should they find the item.

Without further ado -- with no natives to meet and negotiate with, no further preliminaries to make or plans to be made -- each of the five groups, with their supplies and equipment, were taken to the start.

[OOC: Don't worry too much about posting order. I will jump in where a response from the mysterious sky narrator is needed! Going with this, if you feel you're getting lost or outraced in posting, let me or the group know and we'll slow it down. The explicit purpose of this plot is for everyone to have fun, so please speak up if there's anything anyone can do to make that happen better!]

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The teleport took them to an immense and mighty cavern, shrouded almost completely in darkness save for whatever lights they had chosen to bring (though in Tarrant's case, none were necessary; both earth and dark fae flowed with intense strength and power here). The cavern itself was unworked, unshaped by any intelligent hand, but to say it had been ignored by the denizens of the underworld would be a lie. Creatures of some sort had clearly been here; they had left behind bones. Countless bones, in fact, that littered the floor almost to the point of covering it. Strewn in between them all were arrow points, sword blades, scraps of armor, frames that had once supported shields. The walls of this cavern bore countless scars from violent assaults by lightning or fire.

This was a killing field.

On one side of the cavern, an immense portcullis blocked off further passage, its graceful metal bars rising from the ground as if they had been sung out of the rock and shaped by light and laughter. On the other side, massive metal doors bristled with spikes and menace. Approach them and writing on the doors began to shine with magical light, in a tongue that Cowabunga might recognize as something close to Goblin.

Which way? And how?

A flashlight clicked on, and Cowabunga swung it about to get a better bearing on their current location.

The Tauren walked up to the metal doors, studying the writing "Goblin. Well, Goblin-ish. Don't suppose either of you can read it?"

Tarrant didn't answer; now that they were actually on the ground, he was busy studying the currents of the earth fae for information. About whatever enemies they might be facing, about what they might be searching for, about who had left these bones here... and about the earth itself.

The portcullis and doors came last in his investigation. For now, he kept his weapons at his side.

Howard's busier studying his comrades than the surroundings (he's already got a first impression about all the bones: BAD NEWS TURN BACK NOW). "Goblin? Heck no. I didn't even know they had a language."

Somehow, while the portcullis looks all pretty, every instinct in Howard's body suggests that it's a trap. It's too pretty. Too obvious.

The earth fae flowed from the portcullis towards the gates, and past. Thus it was simplicity itself to Divine the nature of what dwelt beyond that liquid metal barrier: elves. Dark elves, at that, whose magical aptitudes showed clearly in their effect on the currents.

Downstream, of course, was much harder to read. Goblinoids, just as the group had surmised.

Tarrant motioned to the metal door, rather than the one through which they might expect to find dark elves. "I cannot. However, I think it's likely that we'll run into some armed resistance behind either door. No doubt whoever caused this damage."

"If you're familiar with these Goblins, then I'd prefer facing them rather than an unknown quantity."

"Works for me. Was kinda hopin' one of you knew how to read this, since it'd probably tell us how to open it. But I do have an educated guess on what we're supposed to do." Cowabunga pulled a brick of some clay-like substance out of his pack, and started pushing it in between the doors and into the archway around them.

"You guys may wanna back up for this." The Tauren said, inserting the blasting caps as Humar ran towards the other side and put his paws over his head.

"Oh my god, are you fricking kidding me?" Howard does indeed take cover, but if his day was about to get weirder than 'go find subterranean magic MacGuffin with weird new blonde guy and a talking cow' could possibly be more eventful, he doesn't want it to be with explosions.

"We've been here all of thirty seconds and you're already going to blow stuff up? Really? Really?" Even Zouichi doesn't love explosions that much.

"Has it occurred to you that um, there's a lot of dead people here but that doesn't necessarily mean there aren't more living people hanging out ready to add us to the pile after we announce our arrival to the entire world?"

Tarrant's expression turned distinctly disapproving. "I agree. We haven't even examined it to see if there are any less... overt ways of gaining access. If we destroy it now, we may lose any clues that writing contains. And as the young man points out, we currently enjoy the benefits of a quiet entrance; our enemies may not know precisely where we are. We shouldn't waste that advantage unless we must."

In fact, he was going to work a Knowing on that door. While he might not be able to find out more information on what lay in wait far beyond it, the door itself was close at hand. Perhaps he could unravel some details of the Workings -- magic, he corrected himself -- that had brought those words into being. And with it, perhaps some mechanism for quietly opening it.

The doors were not perfectly constructed; they were a barrier, to be sure, but as the cave floor showed, whatever lay behind them appeared to prove that violence was the preferred means of preventing egress.

That being said, the denizens were not inclined to allow their fellow creatures to simply walk in. Gerald couldn't be blamed for this, because magic of the sort that lay over the door had literally nothing in common with the fae or manipulation of it. A simple Knowing, worked skillfully, shouldn't trip any wards or barriers as he understood them under normal circumstances -- but the enchantments laid on this door were divine in nature, laid by shamans rather than sorcerers, and they interpreted the Knowing as a hostile divination.

Something triggered. Something on the other side clanged loudly.

"It's a GOBLIN door. They invented using explosives as keys." Cowabunga answered.

"And apparently your plan didn't work either."

"Which is to say nothing of the noise." Howard covers his face and hangs back - ultimately, he figures Cowabunga's safer to cower behind than Tarrant, penchant for things-that-go-boom aside.

This is a disaster. They aren't even two minutes in and they already get along like water, oil and a rock snake.

Are you surprised, Howard?

Tarrant didn't bother sparing the others a glance, or responding to them. It wasn't like the Sightless could see the fae, or even most of his Workings. And it was, of course, not the right time to explain.

He merely placed a slender hand on his pistol and waited.

Given that the consequences of that clanging were not immediate... the question was, did Cowabunga choose to wait? He did, after all, have that door rigged...

"Y'know what? Somethin's comin' anyways. Might as well let it be on our terms."

Cowabunga drew his rifle and blew the Seaforium.

Brave souls.

The door practically disintegrated into a hail of shrapnel that probably would have been a disaster for Howard if he hadn't been using the Tauren as a human shield. To his tougher or less-strictly-alive companions it was a hail of stings and scratches, nothing particularly troublesome. The corridor beyond stretched out into the distance past easy sight, silent and empty.

For just a precious second.

Then, with screams of rage and battlecries scored through with bloodlust, goblins poured down the tunnel like a liquid sea of flesh, barbed swords raised and slavering madness in their eyes.

Two sharp cracks of the pistol announced that Tarrant had fired into the crowd. He had already begun forming a partial Shielding around his erstwhile allies as the large bovine aimed his firearm at the explosives.

His gun would be of much less use in a crowd pressing in on all sides, so Tarrant drew his sword instead. Brilliant silver-blue light filled the chamber, likely temporarily blinding the goblins if they were caught unprepared. A wintery chill filled the room, originating from the earth fae bound to its blade. Its hunger was almost palpable. No doubt it would be answered.

Howard is very, very keenly aware of how he almost got turned into ground beef by the shrapnel. He's also very aware how little use he is against a goblin horde.

Time for plan B.

Plan B is, apparently, according to the schematics Howard just mad up, hiding under the corpse of one of the goblins Tarrant's downed.

As soon as the door was open, Cowabunga tossed an Explosive Trap into the hallway, and then started shooting.

"Try to keep 'em in the tunnel! We'll be able to pick 'em off better' The Tauren shouted as he switched to melee, slicing several goblins in twain with his flaming chainsaw while his pet lion disemboweled another.

The explosive trap did its job magnificently, engulfing the front of the wave in its detonation. Between that, the hungering cold of Tarrant's blade, and the fact that one of their enemies was a GIANT BULL PERSON, the goblins had begun to grasp that their opponent was not an infiltrating group of drow.

Cowabunga's chainsaw was met by the point of a long glaive, as a heavily-armored goblin stepped forward. The weapon swiftly shot down and past, shimmering with an unearthly light, as the goblin sought to hook the Tauren's legs and bring him to the ground. From behind the mob a pair of brilliant orange-red rays shot at Tarrant, fire to oppose his cold.

Meanwhile Howard was about to get an unpleasant surprise; the goblin under which he'd elected to hide was down, but not out. It had enough strength left in its bleeding body for its long fingers to seek out his throat as it hissed epithets in its harsh tongue.

Cowabunag deftly avoided the attack. Just because he was large didn't mean he wasn't agile, and this wasn't his first fight.

He whistled, and Humar pounced on the armored goblin, roaring in order to make himself look like the bigger threat to it.

Tarrant had forewarning of the attack, but he still looked grim as he moved out of range of the fiery attack. This was not how he preferred to handle things.

He reached out with the dark fae to find his hidden assailant, willing blood vessels to burst, cell membranes to rupture. Whoever had attacked him would not die in pleasant fashion, but choking on his own blood.

Howard hadn't proved himself especially useful here, but Tarrant did spare a stray sword-strike for the goblin trying to choke the boy to death, carving a frozen furrow across the side of its face and down along its shoulder and back.

Oh, good, that gives Howard enough time to kick the goblin off him and run, although this time he does the less instinctive thing and runs in the opposite direction of the goblins. He hopes very much that they're distracted enough with the talking cow and the guy with the sword and gun to notice a teenager breaking through their ranks like a salmon going upstream, but he also speculates that they won't much be looking behind them if he can get past them.

Both Howard and Humar had failed to reckon with the skill, speed, and reach of the armored goblin, whose glaive lashed out at the two in turn as they advanced on or past him, seeking to trip them just as he had sought to trip Cowabunga. The grim set of the goblin's jaw as he howled challenges at them never wavered, nor did he even take his eyes off the tauren for more than a moment as he struck. The bastard has class levels! Perhaps some small consolation was that his actions were nigh-reflexive. He viewed Howard as no threat.

One of the two sorcerers choked horribly as Tarrant's magic insinuated itself into his veins, but the shaman who stood between the casters and the melee immediately turned, chanting supplication to whatever dark goblin god he worshipped. Positive energy flowed into the gurgling sorcerer to heal wounds. Tarrant had the advantage of skill and output, if he chose to force a confrontation... though this was divine energy.

In the meantime, the other sorcerer shrieked a few angry words that summoned a large sphere of flame almost directly atop Tarrant, which then rolled directly at him.

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Dungeon Keeper

Group 1: Howard, Tarrant, and Cowabunga

Re: Group 1: Howard, Tarrant, and Cowabunga

Re: Group 1: Howard, Tarrant, and Cowabunga

Re: Group 1: Howard, Tarrant, and Cowabunga

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