Stackman's Adventures (Chapter thirty-seven)

[bsftcs]

Fire in the Hole

Being the thirty-seventh chapter of Stackman’s Adventures

In which the adventurers have a pool party and in which the valkyrie relives an old fear.

The party went a short way down a corridor and peered into the first room on their right. Apparently that was the library. Disposing of the vampiric and heavily oversized bookworm that greeted them they spent some time looking around. In the treasure chests situated in the room the bard found some books which, apart from their binding, were fairly uninteresting to the already skilled party. In an adjoining room the barbarian found a pool. A library with a spa. Of course... why not? The barbarian put on his bermuda shorts, and they all had a good pool party.

Eventually they got tired of the pool party, but they could not find a sauna, so they went on. They left the library and went further down the hallway. There they came to a room (room F on the pyramid map at Xignal’s Site) eerily aglow with something otherworldly. It was the black fire. On the other side of the fire stood a shackled and manacled figure... G’ezzered Ra. But the vengefulness had subsided from the once so spiteful lich, and he did not even ask to be freed from his chains. In fact he was not seeking physical freedom anymore. His heart (for those who doubted he ever had one) had been ripped from him and was kept somewhere safe. But he did not want that either. In fact he just wanted out. He wanted to have what kept him alive as a a figure in the Gael Serran – his heart – burnt to set him free. Convert his existence in the binary system of notation from one to zero.

The bard who never let a chance go by to jest stepped forward and told the lich that he could make that happen even faster by asking Stackman to do his fabled ”format:C” trick. ”Do not tempt him”, said the valkyrie, and stepped between the bard and the lich. ”Your heart will be retrieved”, the valkyrie continued, ”and burned”. A glimmer of hope flashed across the lich’s face. The party then turned to the black fire, and the valkyrie charged the Mavin sword in the fire by selecting it from the ”use” menu. The warlock did the same to the Staff of Death.

The party then walked on through the next corridor where the zenmaster was nearly cut in halves by two blades jutting from the walls, but he paid no real attention to it. since that happened to him so often. Flipping a jackal lever turned the blades off. In the next room (room G) were several potions on display. (And a small group of naughty imps). The potions were still there when the party left the room. The imps were not. The party walked through the next room and were suddenly sealed off from where they had just come by a moving wall. Examining the rooms and hallways further revealed that the moving wall had just opened another passage back instead. They were not cut off from the black fire.

From a room with a small statue (room I) the party went down a descending hallway and eventually wound up in a room (room J) with three doors leading to very crucial places inside the pyramid. The party took the door to the east and were greeted by four pit fiends who did not respond very well to the hailstorms coming right at them. Right in front of the party was a massive wall of rock. It was a giant square pillar of rock extending from the bottom of the pyramid almost to the top. The platform that the party was standing on was part of a walkway spiralling its way all the way to the top.

But the walkway also extended into a room (room N) to their right. There they went first. Up a ramp there were two more corridors. As the party came up the ramp the hieroglyph-adorned stone slab in front of them slided open revealing a third passage. The party explored the room to the right and the one behind the stone slab and looted the treasures within. Then they took the left path. Leading through a series of corridors this path eventually led them to a small chamber (room O). There they encountered one of Cet’s two senior henchmen – the champion Sathius – the demon that so long ago almost had burned Oakenmir to a cinder and eventually forced him to give up his position as the third watcher of the Mavin. Here he stood and was no match, really, for the heavily superior force of Stackman’s party. As the giant drew his last breath he dropped a key, a champion’s key. The warlock picked it up.

The party went on and came through a door completely concealed in the wall. They were now on the bottom floor of the pyramid. They went about the giant square rock pillar for the sake of exploration and found two ramps apart from the one leading to the first floor landing. One to the southeast and one to the northeast. They took the latter and came to a room filled with lava. On a slab in the centre was a treasure chest of no particular interest. At the end of the southeast ramp was a winding staircase that led them to a room on the second floor and yet more succubi. The vampires were quickly dispatched. A walkway spanning the lava pit would connect this room to yet another room to the north. Both rooms had exits to the second floor landing.

Via this the party the party walked up the last ram to the third and uppermost floor (room M). There was a hallway with three rooms there. Sarcophagi and adorned slabs lined the walls of these rooms. And mummies and rotted corpses lined the slabs. Not that all of them were totally dead, though, but all in all nothing that the zemaster’s firestorm spell could not handle. This was where Cet kept his favourites. The dead and undead pets of the pharaoh would lie here and wait for the great ressurection. Very cosy... And very unhygienic. Hurrah for fumitigation... and storm spells.

Back on the second floor landing there was a small indentation in the middle of the rock pillar. The party walked closer and a door slided open. Another small chamber... (room K) And another champion. Sathius’s playmate Almanon. And he was just as little fun as Sathius. Just one icestorm spell was all it took for the warlock to wrench the champion’s key from him. In the back of the chamber a stone slab slided to the side revealing a hole in the floor as Almanon died. The party jumped down and walked through a small passage inside the rock pillar.

It ended abruptly and the party jumped further down and unto the other side of the open space surrounding the rock pillar. Here they landed on a platform. Not far from them an elevator jutted upwards. This would lead them to yet two more platforms and two more elevators. Eventually they were taken a long way up to a room right in the absolute top portion of the pyramid. From this room they walked over a small walkway to the top of the rock pillar. Four small flights of stairs led to a sacrificial altar in the middle. On that altar stood a tray with a spike. Pierced on the spike was the lich’s heart.

The valkyrie grabbed the heart. It was cold to the touch but still beating. As she stood there she remembered the time when she became a valkyrie. That was long ago and the fabled ”Reset Adventure” button had been pressed many times since then, but she would still get a very solemn feeling when holding G’ezzered Ra’s heart in her hand. Only female characters could become valkyries, and only by placing the heart in the black fire (as elaborately explained by Sazerac on Page One of the Best Tips). Then she thought about the other forces that might be at work trying to get the heart. She got a flashback thinking about the lobby groups who had tried to daunt her earlier (the time of the valkyrie’s ascension is recollected in an ascension story). But this time she had a feeling that there was yet another factor to take into account. And at the whole time the people at Ironworks were watching their moves. Perhaps that was what made her more edgy this time. Perhaps there was nothing to worry about.

She looked at the barbarian, nodding as a sign that she was ready to lead the party back, when all of a sudden a grating sound almost like a rumble was heard. The elevator. The valkyrie was alarmed. This had to be an agent from one of the groups that she had previously feared. Her heart was throbbing more frantically than that of the lich as she shouted out her orders.. The party assumed attack stances around the hole in the floor ready to fry whatever came through.

[Bungleau]

Nice stuff! I especially like "Stackman's format C: trick" [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

Wonder who's coming up through the elevator... [img]graemlins/1ponder.gif[/img]

[Wyvern]

Excellent!!!

I like the feeling of the characters being "watched by the people of Ironworks" Makes me chuckle. Also reminds me of a book (the name escapes me in which the characters are RPG characters that become aware of the fact that they are being run by outside forces - and some of those outside forces are really messed up!

Wyv