Zilo and his companions sit in the tavern the night after Zilo's performance. Maldrek speaks up
"Okay well now that we are stuck here, all we can do is wait for a ship that can sail back to the mainland. Alaroc said that the next boat will be heading back to the capital about a week from now."
Alaroc gives a thumbs up as the rest of the group got back to business.
"So with that, all we need to do is wait for the ship to come in" said the horned man with a jaunty lean back on his chair.
Alaroc rose and marched over to the bar, yelling, "This calls for a drink!" but before he could plant his butt in a stool he wobbled a bit and needed to use the wall for support. Zigger hoped up and looked back to the table, saying, "I'll make sure he's alright."
Maldrek stood and stretched his arms before looking back to the rest and saying," i'm going to go see if this city has any wizards to trade spells with."
Then the mighty Paladin Cruxis turned to Zilo and May and said, "I think I'll go to the Farm."
On another Plane of exsistance a man stares squinting at another man who has a scrap of paper in front of him. The paper in question has all the details of the being known as Cruxis Vailor.
"Dave, What the hell do you mean, I'm going to go to the farm?" Asks the squinting man called Jones while four other people, including the token girl either giggle or join the man, staring dumbfounded at the man called Dave.
"I go to the farm, to gather information."
"ABOUT WHAT!?" Shouts a hat wearing man with a parchment entitled Zilo Realms, with 'The Master of Strings' written above the name.
"Just let him go," Says the spiked haired and tattooed man next to the man in the hat.
"With him gone, maybe I won't be dead by the end of this campaign with the paladin off my case and lost somewhere."
A tall, but polite, man across the table next to Dave wears a novelty helmet from dark souls and stops making a drinking noise echo in the helm looks to the inked up man and says, "To be fair you are the only evil character, on top of necromancy."
"I'll give you that I'm evil, but I'm not a real necromancer, Jones wont let me use the only good spells."
The Man called Jones stand briefly and says, "Oh please, you and me both know that Animate Dead gets broken late levels."
The only woman at the table speaks up and says," Shut up, it doesn't matter. Dave Why do you want to go to the farm?"
"Cause it's where he went last time we came to this city." Says the man in the hat resting his head in his hands.
The man in the helm says, "Oh yeah, then came the genocide."
"Genocide!?" says the woman in shock.
The tattooed man leans toward the woman and says, "Yeah we ran another party in this Jone's world before and we killed every dwarf in this city with an elven army at our back. It was before you gamed with us."
"Jeez," says the woman.
"Yeah, those guys in the bar were the other us, they'll be along sooner or later, so we better get that boat, cause as I recall we took no prisoners." Says the man in the hat.
Jones looks back to the end of the table and says, "Right then so what about you two?"
Back in the Material Plane the Paladin sets forth on his journey to the farm and May says, "I think i'll go to the church. I haven't prayed to the Gods since we got shanghaied. and it should be quiet, rumor has it the clerics are on some missionary journey."
Zilo takes a minute and lays back relaxing, but the evil grin that the man called Jones has Tempts the man in the hat to tempt Zilo to go wandering around the city.
Then after that meta wall break, comes a 4th wall break. In case you didn't know the author of these stories was the man in the hat, and I wanted to talk you you real quick about something before it happens.
I broke the meta wall there because Dave going to the farm is still a mystery that haunts our party to this very day, but maybe you noticed that there was no player for Zigger. go ahead and take a guess at what Zigger is, cause i'll tell you right now, he isn't a product of the dungeon master Jones, or a player character.
If you guess the answer then I owe you a cookie. None of the players from this game better let the answer slip though.
Zilo wanders around the dwarven capital playing some music to fill his pockets since he was kinda broke after he bought his new instruments. Luckily his music seems to have only improved thanks to the fine craftsmanship his new violin.
"WELL SCREW THEN YOU CHEATING BASTARD!!!" Yelled a rather shrill woman from a nearby second story. suddenly Zilo was struck by a small metal object right in the temple.
After a quick Wince he looked down to notice that there was a shining engagement ring on the ground near the rest of the coins Zilo got from playing. He looked up to the window it came flying from to see two angry dwarf men arguing, although upon recent lessons of dwarven females, it was possible that one was a woman.
"TETRA!? Do you know how much that cost me!?" Yelled the man. Zilo looked to the ring in amazement and said, "A fine gift from a fantastic fan, I will treasure it always... Wait what's this?"
Zilo examined the ring to see through it's reflective glass like a telescope in the corner of his eye and saw a large, what looked to be armada marching in from the end of the huge cavernous metropolis.
Zilo noted that marching armys that lack beards are likely not dwarven heroes returning from war, and so he took off. Zilo ran back to the bar immediately and found Alaroc passed out with Zigger fanning him off with a tissue.
"Zigger, there's an army!?"
"An army!?"
"It's that-a-way, get Alaroc up and ready to fight!" Shouted the bard as he took off running again to find the rest of his friends. luckily the church and the bar were right next door for convenience of taking in then purging out the vices in an efficient manner.
Zilo kicks open the church doors and shouts at the top of his lungs, "RING THE BELLS, GATHER THE ARMIES! A WAR HAS BEGUN!!!!!"
As quickly as he appeared the bard ran off as the few dwarfs in the chapel panicked and did as they were bade. May stood there looking at the open doors where Zilo had proclaimed and she with grinding teeth says, "Just when I get a moment of quiet."
Maldrek sits quietly reading a book on the history of the tangled web of dwarven necromancy, when he finally turns the page and sees it.
"...Is this...? No... Right here? Under the mountain? Animate Dead?" The wizard looks toward the page astonished before turning to his bag and retrieving his spell book along with an pen and his well of magical ink. As he writes the title of the spell suddenly a loud crash resounds to his side.
Zilo bursts headlong through the giant stain glass windows of the library hurtling forward. He lands planting his feet on the book containing Maldrek's new spell to be. Zilo rides the book with his momentum across the extremely long table in the library all the way to the other end shouting
"Wizards, Warlocks, and Witches, man your wands incoming army, come on Maldrek! Get a move on bef-" and with that Zilo plummeted out of the other side of the building. Maldrek looked to the foot marked and ruined spell he was about to finally get for a second. He lets out a solemn sigh then proceeds to leave the Library.
Zilo meets with his companions looking out to the approaching army, luckily for some reason they seem to be rather slow, that said they had already overran the farm.
Maldrek Chimes in with, "I wonder if the paladi-?" he is interrupted as a cart comes zooming in from the farm at break neck speed and the paladin comes flying out of the cart hoisting a horse over his shoulders.
The weight of the beast gives precedence and the paladin spirals around before losing his grip and impacting the wall. Incredible the horse lands on its feet and having been rescued runs off. Cruxis rises, a bit frazzled and says,
"Maldrek, May, thank Arete, you need to help, that army".
Maldrek cuts him off, "Yes we know Zilo warned us, but as long as the dwarves back us up then we-."
"The dwarfs can't win, that is an army of the dead, and like May said at the tavern, none of these dwarves are holy men."
The group all look back to the army, and look closer. indeed the lack of flesh on bone should have been a red flag.
"Not only that, but when they overran the farm, I saw their Leader, its not just a Lich, but he wears armor I studied in the Chantry, I believe him to be the ancient King of the Liches."
At that Alaroc uncorks his wine skin.
*Gulp* *Gulp* *Gulp* *Gulp* *Squeeeeelch* *Shake* *Shake* *plop*
"Nice last drink, aye friends?"
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