Dungeon Keeper

[cityship]

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!]

Comments

[cityship]

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.

[cow-abunga.livejournal.com]

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.

[coldfire-adept.livejournal.com]

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.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

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.

[cityship]

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.