Ironworks Gaming Forum - Solo Warrior 23: Pirates Pen Dance

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Missy Hissy left Brimloch Roon late in the afternoon with a foul taste on her lips. It wasn’t the ale at the inn that bothered her, but the thought that even with Scanthril dead, there was someone out there still who wanted her dead. Someone who opened the contract to kill her father, and who was still willing to pay for her death. Someone that she really wanted to kill first, just on general principles, but who?

While she muddled on that, she decided to track down the pirate for Miruth’s delivery. Along the western edge of the sea she saw a great ship beached on a low sandbar, and soon found the very pirate in question.

“Ar, I’ve always been wanting one of these,” he said when she gave him the hook.

She shrugged her head. It was his to begin with, if Miruth was to be believed, and the fact that he didn’t recognize it just reinforced his insanity.

On a lark, she asked him about treasure, since all pirates had buried treasure, according to popular rumors, and he might be insane enough to tell her where his was. To her surprise, he promised her a treasure map if she could just get him a longtooth hide from Skull Island, something else he’d always wanted.

Great. Now to find Skull Island… but wait! As Missy talked with Talrik, she was accosted by a pack of longtooths! Swinging her sword gently so as to avoid removing Talrik’s other hand, she dispatched them one at a time, smiling when she recognized that one of the pelts would be salvageable. Dispatching the last of the longtooths, she skinned one of the decaying corpses and presented Talrik with the still-warm hide.

In gratitude, and apparently without realizing all that had transpired in front of him, he accepted the hide “all the way from Skull Island” and gave her a map to buried treasure. Pity she wouldn’t be able to hunt for it immediately…

Heading off, she soon came across the fabled Skull Island and entered the gloomy structure, walking through the giant mouth underneath the cracked marble teeth, each as tall as her and then some. As she passed into the eerie demesne, she felt a shudder as if life and death had suddenly changed places.

In the bowels of the Castle she found a number of strange beasts and dispatched them, one after another, without much thought. Specters, werewolves, skeletons, zombies… all manner of unspeakable creatures thrived in the dark depths of the dismal dungeon. And all fell before her blade with equal abandon.

She soon came across a lich, G’ezzered Ra, who spoke of the cursed life he lived, after sacrificing all his family for immortal life. She thought again of her father, felled by the now-dead Scanthril, and a lump came to her throat. She’d find the mysterious person who held the contract on her father, and now her.

The lich sent her to look for an artifact in the depths of the dungeons. In her quest for that, she also found the two-headed giant that Damosh was looking for, a vampiress with an attitude, and a locked vault in a library that held promise. Unfortunately, it held little else, for once it was opened, it provided a very nice wizard’s robe, a handful of ankhs, and some small trinkets.

Not much, considering the protection that the lock offered. It was one of the most intricate ones she had ever seen, but for the treasure inside… it was like killing roaches with a blessed dragon arrow. Sure, it worked, but a simple club would do the trick and offer less chance of something going wrong.

“Perhaps someone else got here first and grabbed the good stuff,” she grumbled as she went back into the dungeon. Still, why would someone leave the ankhs? Small items with a high resale value were important for every thief and merchant. For the space and weight needed to carry a piece of leather armor, she could carry a dozen or more ankhs or gems, and easily reap ten times the profits.

Whistling gently, Missy continued her journey through Skull Castle, dispatching sharks and skeletons with equal abandon. Soon she found the relic that the lich had asked for and headed back to his chamber, to listen again to his words and the unholy orchestra that played for him.

The lich screeched in delight when she handed him the relic. “You’ve found it! Oh, may it contain enough energy to replenish me…” As she stepped back, the lich began a brief ritual, extracting the energy from the relic and channeling it into his staff. As she watched, a swirling mass began to form behind him, and an unholy head began to form.

“Did you think you were beyond my control?” bellowed the head. “There is no rest for you!”

The lich screamed and pleaded with his master. “But Lord Cet…”

Cet! This was the creature she’d heard about, half god and more, and rotten to the core. He seemed powerful enough, and to prove the point, he summoned a pair of demons to do his bidding while he took care of the recalcitrant lich.

In a flash of fire and smoke, Cet magically pulled the lich’s heart from his bony body. As he screamed in agony, G’ezzered Ra looked toward Missy. “Take this,” he cried. “It may yet help you, though it has not helped meeeeeee…..”

Cet and the broken lich faded away to nothing, while the demons began to advance.

Missy dispatched them both quickly. Amazing what a few well-placed dagger strokes could do…

Picking up the staff, she recognized it from a tale she had heard in a tavern once. It was a staff of death, a thing of terror that carried the power of a lich and more. Perhaps it would come in useful…

On to Chapter 24

Link added by Bungleau's request ;)

[ 04-27-2003, 01:16 PM: Message edited by: Wyvern ]