All He Wants You To Do Is Tie His Laces...

ALL HE WANT YOU TO DO IS TIE HIS LACES...

"The evening was a total nose dive!" Ooma shook her head. "I thought Lords behaved better..."

The evening was a right mess. Torn sheets of vivid colour draped upturned chairs, heaps of bloodied fabric moaned in the middle of the dance floor. Amazing that a fire did not erupt with the candles being over-turned!

The one remaining wild animal, a very-full black bear placidly allows Wik to guide it out of the carnage, its tutu swinging comically.

Morgan grabs some of the cleaner scraps of cloth, table coverings and whatnot that he spies as he makes his way to the nearest moaning heap, grabbing a bleeding arm, wrapping it in the strip of tablecloth he tears, eliciting a squeal from the patient as he binds the tourniquet tightly enough to stop the blood flow entirely!

“Oh, sorry, sorry,” the bumbling Mr. Roberts fumbles with it, loosening it to where it is barely touching the arm at all. “Better?” he asks anxiously, before rushing off to his next victim...errr patient. “Not my real profession,” he mutters.

Ooma is trying to calm the three serving girls, who, now that the cheetahs have been dispatched, are anxious to get home. Ooma feels a trite bit suspicious and promises the girls that they will get them home come daylight. “I ain’t going into any damn caves,” she insists, and tiredly moves to help Morgan before the man kills the people he’s trying to help.

Adrie shakes her head, “We must get home. We have to see if mum is alive,” she tells the other two, who nod. They curtsy to the group, turn and trail up the hill around behind the bear cages, following Wik and Jhalo, who are returning the bear.

Ichabod nods and follows the ladies. She has sensed something in their motives, or plea. Only known to her, the staff she grips warms as the ladies near.

Meanwhile distant shouts and general ruckus sounds are coming from the lower half of the park where the circus has set up and, if the serving girls are to be believed, someone has released the animals down there as well. This doesn’t seem to worry our Heroes.

After placing the bear in his cage with fresh water and hay, Wik locks the cage carefully, then he, and Jahlo turn and follow the serving girls down a forested path, bursting out of the dark trail into a small clearing, a mountainous hill rising only a few metres in front of them. The ladies are approaching a dark black spot on the sheer hill, low to the ground.

As they step closer, the cave’s entrance begins to glow, and Ichabod feels the excitement stir in her again. “A back entrance?” She wonders, “or the front?” She plunges into the opening.

Jhalo smiles forcefully, believing the ladies to be leading them into a trap, when they reach the narrow opening to the tunnel systems that lead to their cavern deep under the Obsidian Forest. "Ladies first."

"Some Heroes these be," Adrie mutters as she easily pushes through the thin veil of ivy that obscures the opening. “You can come in now,” she fairly mocks. The other servants drop in first, followed hesitantly by Jhalo, Wik, and then Benji.

A quick look reveals it to be an ordinary cave. Flecked, sparkling granite walls and a muddied stone floor, about 30 metres to a bend, the ceiling appears to rise, probably following the mountain outside. There are grooves in the walls where animals or tools may have carved long ago, but it is all just scratches now. Footprints, of various type can be seen traversing the muddy floor. The light from the small opening, where the sun is just beginning to make her first rays known to the morning, dimly light the cave for about 30 metres, it is grey shadows and blackness beyond that.

The ladies are grateful for Ichabod’s enthusiasm, “Will you walk us further along please?” Ichabod nods, turning to the tunnel.

Mere metres from the cave’s exit, Jhalo again gets a prickly feeling in his neck. “Hey, will there be a reward for this?” he asks. “I mean, it’s nice and all sticking our necks out, but...” his speech fades.

The ladies look at each other, “Oh, yes. Yes. I’m sure we can arrange for some gems... something,” Fequr nods.

At the mention of the word ‘gems’ Wik moves closer. As he does so, one of the ladies looks closely at him. “You look familiar, have we met?” As Wik denies meeting her, she continues, “I never forget a face, it’ll come to me.”

Back at pandemonium headquarters the rest of the group is helping themselves to the liquor that, somehow, miraculously survived the carnage. Morgan, diligently searches for any remaining dangers and, while he’s at it, he checks the grounds for lost coins or trinkets, and discovers 2-gold coins. “Bloody stingy bunch of hob-nobbers,” he grouses.

As they are about their business, a well outfitted soldier approaches from the opposite direction, hailing the stragglers and our remaining party members. Wary at first, are pleased, they think, to make the acquaintance of Ayrowynn Bishop Fletcher, “Fletcher, please,” The tall brunette flings her long braid back over her shoulder.

“You look oddly familiar?”

“Ahh, I see you’ve met Alistar. Where is that stupid brother of mine?” She looks over the area.

“Yes, he’s right ...over,” looking around, it appears Alistar has faded into the night. “I hauled him from the jaws of death, errr... I mean the cheetah’s arms a few minutes ago.” Morgan looks around as if Alistar will suddenly appear.

“Probably heading back to the monastery where he belongs. This ain’t the place for the likes of him.”

“Pleased to meet you; Morgan. You want to give us a hand?” Morgan asks, struggling to wrap a table cloth around a rather thin person’s neck to cover a small gash.

They finish helping the stragglers, moving them to chairs, all the while Fletcher is shaking her head. “What the hell happened here?”

Ooma fills her in on the inexplicable events leading up to the insanity that pretty much ended the Twilight Supper. Fletcher shakes her head, “This is why I so despise these events. Things always end up the same. But, explain to me how that,” she points to the enormous table lined with bottles of liquor, ”is still standing?”

Morgan shrugs, "I suspect because bears don't have opposable thumbs."

“We should go check on Wik.” Ooma begins to wonder what has happened to the other party members too. “They’ve been gone a long while. I bet they went to help them Dwarf chicks,” Ooma sneers.

Morgan looks around, “Oh, where are they?” He grabs two more bottles of Meade, handing one to Fletcher. “We’re going to need this to find those Dwarf caves. Are you going to be able to find the caves?” He looks at Ooma.

“Oh no you di’n’t’,” she stares at Morgan. “I am not a cave dwelling Dwarf,” she snaps at Morgan.

Looking confused, Morgan swills back another deep drought of Meade. “Well then, how are we going to be able to find these caves, I means,” he slurs, lifting two more tankards of Meade, again handing one to Fletcher, “they’re supposed to be so well hidden.” He leans his arm on Fletcher’s shoulder. “I thought all Dwarves knew where their caves are.”

Tessalia grabs Oomas arm, stopping her punch in mid-flight.

Amaril nods to the others then heads on up to find the missing members, his keen eye-sight easily locating the path. He hollers into the opening, and, after a few seconds, hears Jahlo’s cheerful voice bellow back. He enters the cave, and within a few minutes sees them standing around in a circle, seemingly discussing their options.

Listening vigilantly they perceive unmistakable scritching sounds bouncing off the walls, evoking memories of their near death struggle with the rats a few days earlier. Jahlo tips his head to the side. “’ere now. Listen. That sounds familiar, but not, know what I mean, yah?”

Morgan, uses Fletcher as a leaning post as she begins a discourse on how Lord Triton thinks he has a contract enslaving the Dwarves and forcing them to remain underground – whether he does or not is still a mystery. “As long as anyone can remember, Triton’s ruled the town and controlled the Dwarves. Or, as long as anyone cares to remember.” She adds.

“So can you lead us to the Dwarves?”

“I do know where the cave entrances are. There are quite a few dotting the forest; as children Alistar and I, along with other brothers and sister and cousins used to wander all over the woods. We never actually went as far as the Deep, but, yeh, I know where a goodly number of the caves lie.”

Polishing off another tankard of Meade, the slightly wobbled steps of Fletcher lead the party through the under-brush and along a trail that hasn’t been used in years, popping out in a small corridor where three or four cave openings are revealed as the sun continues its upward climb.

Shouting into one after the other, they finally guess, (and check the openings to see which one has been disturbed lately), crawling through the narrow opening and warily stepping, grabbing hands and ...other body parts... in the darkness, eliciting a few curses, so as not to slip in the mud they eventually meet up with the other members, who are deep within the cave now, its soaring ceiling and vast girth surprises them, they can only guess at it true size as they are still within the large artery feeding into the room. Jahlo uses a magic spell to create a small glow of light, enabling Amaril, and the others to locate them, as well as to provide illumination to the very dark corridor.

About this time a hallucinatory dream spell floats briefly over the party, causing them to see Dragon eggs and gold coins piled high, with the letters XP waving, like a flag, above the numerical formation '3000' – a foreshadowing, perhaps...?

The airborne drugged fog passes and flows out the exit hole, leaving some pretty disappointed explorers.

A quick exchange of greetings as they return from their momentary light-headedness, introducing Fletcher to both Wik and Morgan, they then move forward, slogging through shallow water and over rocky terrain. A few metres later, certainly no more, the scratching noises grow and the party becomes concerned. “If we had a weapon, we could take care of the creatures ourselves,” Racelette grumbles.

Wik, hearing this, leans forward, handing them each a dagger which they sound puzzlingly thankful for. The group takes careful note of the unusual relief formed on one of the walls of the tunnel, before Racelette, followed by Fequr and Adrie take the lead, the darkness doesn’t seem to bother them, although they do remain within the soft glow of Jahlo’s magic light.

Suddenly one of them shrieks! “It’s got me!” and she starts slashing whatever has fastened onto her foot.

The group swiftly jumps to aid her, Morgan wrapping his arms around her, he pulls her hard and they both fly backward. The rest of the group looks back to the creature now scurrying up the wall. A collective gasp escapes as they view a hideous, near hairless monster with a round mouth, that when open shows several rows of razor sharp teeth. The many nub-shaped feet alert the party that this is a centipede, larger than any they’ve seen! Two metres long and about twenty-centimetres thick, the few hairs that do exist upon it’s body give it a grotesque naked-thumb look.

Wik charges the beast, swinging his sword just as the beast ducks, evading the blow. Ooma follows quickly behind, landing a hard-blow which causes the beast to shriek in pain, snarling, or, what passes for snarls from a centipede. Fletcher, familiar with these beasts, fires an arrow into its side, releasing a pussy-stench of yellow slime which causes the beast to rear downward while crawling higher on the wall.

It lunges for Wik, missing by mere centimetres, flopping back into the water and screaming in anger it scuttles away in the water, swiftly climbing the wall again, as Amaril fires a crossbow bolt that sails completely off target, bouncing in the darkness somewhere beyond the creature.

Jahlo intones a carefully crafted speech and a burst of light flashes in front of the creature, unknowing that the creature is blind and cannot be harmed by flashes of light, it hunts by sound, scent or vibration. However, the light flashing in the darkened area catches Ooma and Benji by surprise, causing them to become temporarily blinded.

Tessalia moves forward clapping her hands and thrusting them forward, a large blast of heat flashes against the wall, scorching it, causing the centipede to scurry back, as Morgan jumps up swinging his mighty sword grazing the blackened spot on the wall, leaving a deep scratch in the charcoal.

Wik draws his shortbow, firing into one of the creature's many feet, causing a mighty rumble from the creature as his foot drops off. Ooma, threatens everyone, as she warns if they come near her they risk being cleaved.

Fletcher released another arrow, hitting the centipede solidly, again, more shrieking, the beast crashing forward, his mighty mouth open, glancing off Morgan’s armour landing about a metre in front of Morgan. Amaril swiftly pulls his scimitar out and strikes the fallen creature, the blade cleanly slicing its head off, causing the creature to dramatically shake and quake flopping to the rocks quivering before stiffening and dying.

The three Dwarf servants hesitate only briefly before scrambling forward, daggers in hand, slicing the feet off in such a way as to seal the poisonous liquid, pouring the hundreds of feet into Adrie’s hastily removed and folded apron, tying the strings to create a makeshift bag.

A brief silence among the Heroes allows them to discern more scritching, extending their silence as they look to each other, Ooma and Benji tilting their heads to the side, “What is that?” Ooma asks. “Don’t tell me there’s more!”

The warriors turn toward the bend in the high-ceilinged tunnel, unsure whether to run, or to charge. Benji whines softly, “It’s okay boy,” Jahlo quietens him, empathetic for his friend.

They wait, weapons drawn. Fletcher scrambles forward, retrieving two arrows before skipping back, nocking one of the arrows in the ready.

Someone coughs and is hissed at, “Be quiet!”

The scratching grows, both louder and in number. “Oh crap,” Wik exclaims, his eyes widening as he sees the edge of this creature slide into view, just as the light spell fades to black...

o0o

scritching in the dark...

Fledgling Dungeon Mistress,

khrys...

*~*~*~*~*