Chapter 5 : Missing!
After weeks of training with the necromancer in his lair, he believes the group is ready.
“Ready for what?”
“Ready to use your newfound abilities.”
But as they walk out of the lair, all of a sudden: Bang!
The heroes wake up in a small, dark, cell with a big metal door which they can’t get out of.
They hear talking, mumbling. Li listens and hears a conversation;
“How long are they going to be in there?”
“Dunno. Boss says maybe a few weeks, maybe less maybe more.”
“ i’m starting to get a bit uneasy down here. I don’t like the smell of stale air.”
“Me too. We’ll be out of here in a few weeks though. So the boss says.”
“What are these presents here for anyway?”
“Don’t know. That bits confidential.”
“All I know is that the boss has some guys down here and we can’t let them escape.”
“Right. Anyway what time is it I’m getting a little hungry.”
Ursula looks round for rat bones or anything she can pick locks with.
But, there’s nothing, this place is squeaky clean, or as clean as what seems to be a dungeon can be.
By the seem of it they are deep underground. The smell of the air is stale.
Brantus looks for loose slabs on the floor. Again, nothing.
Archer searches the walls for loose bricks. There are a couple which bulge out. Archer asks Li to pull them out.
A big bit of the wall crumples. There is a small area of stone.
“Seems there were people trying to escape from here before. Seems they didn’t get very far.”
Li tries to pull the metal bars out.
The voice of one of the guards shouts down; “what are you doing down there?”
Li shouts back: “We are efficiently escaping this dismal pit.” and continues trying to pul the metal bars down.
“You’re not in position to do that. We have a lot of armed men, there are four of you and tens of us.”
“Who are you and why are we here?” Screams Archer.
“You’ll find out soon enough.”
They wait. They hatch a plan.
“As soon as someone comes down here open the door, we jump them take their weapons and escape.”
“Is that seriously the best plan we can come up with?”
“Yes.”
A few hours later, they hear the same guards voice. “Dinner’s ready.” As a little hatch in the door pops out and they are handed a plate of some sort of suspicious stew to share between them.
I’m not eating that crap, I demand to see the governor post haste and forth with.” Say Brantus in disgust.
“What does that even mean?” Ask Ursula.
“He means, immediately!” Explains Li.
Archer starts banging the wooden bowl against the metal bars as noisily as possible and does not stop.
“Shut up back there or I might be tempted to put one of you on the rack!”
“Bastards!” Screams Li and treats it again and again and again non-stop.
The others join in the noise. Brantus bellows with rage while Yrsula screams loudly.
“Shut up right now or I swear I will have every man and women in this place...” his voice trails off.
The group do not stop making a hell of a noise.
Nothing happens. 12 hours pass. Brantus bangs on the door and shouts “None of us will eat that filth. Bring us some pickled ducks eggs!!!”
Haygard open the latch and throws a dead rat at the party, snickering to himself at his cunning joke.
“If you’re really hungry find a way to make them at safe to eat. I don’t want the lurgy tonight.”
look at each other. Finally, Ursula says; “will you do it or should I?”
Li takes the dead rat and removes the appropriate lock picking bones from it.
Everybody takes turns trying to pick the lock which is significantly less easy than you would think. Ursula does it.
The door creaks open.
“We need to find our weapons.” Says Li.
Brantus takes a lantern hanging from the outside of the cell.
They see a tunnel bend to the left. There is a sleeping bandit looking guard outside the door. Li casually snapped his neck for him and take his weapons.
He has a crossbow and four bolts. A pouch of 14 gold coins which Li gives to Brantus. He has some cooked unusual exotic meat, which Li gives to Ursula, who takes a bite and passes it around.
The tunnel continues and bends around to the left again. There is the most horrifying sight of their life! They see dead bodies hanging from the ceiling. They see a cooking pot with a peculiar smell of cooking meat coming from it. There is somebody there cooking the meat.
Ursula looks at this and vomits.
Li looks at this and pushes the chefs face into the boiling pot while saying the words: “You disgusting little man taste some of your own medicine before I disembowel you to teach you a lesson. Civilise people do not behave in such a hideous I’m inhuman way.”
The dudes face burns in the bubbling broth. He screams in pain until Li drowns him. The noise alerts more bandits.
Archer checks if any of the prisoners are alive. None of them are.
Brantus takes the hot pot of bubbling broth to use as a weapon. Archer takes a butchers blade from the kitchen. Ursula takes two small kitchen knives.
Two bandits approach from the next room.
Li’s crossbow completely misses.
Archer swings the cleaver and beheads the bandit who was dual wielding swords. Archer picks up the swords ready to pass them around.
Bandit smacks Li square in the face with a crossbow.
Archer gives Brantus a sword.
Li grabs the bandits head and attempts to... it’s not actually easy to explain exactly what Leah is trying to do to the band its head. Something between crushing it with her bare hands and ripping it from his shoulders probably both at the same time. At any rate, the bandit dies. Archer takes his crossbow and gives Li the other sword. Archer gives the crossbow to Brantus. Brantus throws the pot of hot broth in a corner.
The group raid the dead bandits pockets. They find four gold coins and a letter. I swear to God Kyle if you don’t stop watching me and Vex bathe in the lake lake I will rip your head off your shoulders and shove it up your arse.”
“Oh I can see these fair folk put the blessing of literacy to good use.” says Brantus.
The group leave the cells and kitchen area to continue exploring the dungeon.
Tunnel bends to the right.
A bandit who lurked around the corner gets the jump on Li. The party dispatch of him quickly.
Around the corner are two tough looking muscly Barbarians brothers. Ursula attempts to hire them however the sarcastic barbarians are not willing to do that for escaped prisoners so they fight and banter as they fight. Eventually the party kill both the barbarians.
The large room is a dead end. A thorough search reveals a hatch in the floor which leads to a small room where the Captain of the Guard and another guard, who both put up a useless fight and are killed.
Li kicks open a double wooden door into a much larger room containing three huge werewolves and a bound female prisoner. It also contains a weapon rack which has been dragged across the far doorway as a blockade.
Ursula attempts to cast a peace spell at the werewolves, which fails. It also drains most of her remaining magic. Paragraph
Brantus, being an old sailor used to navigating all sorts of conditions, says: “hold back! They can only fit through this door one at a time! Take positions!”
Two werewolves charge. The body size blocks each other from entering the door, they can only fit their arms through. So which is saying much because their arms end in five razor sharp claws.
The werewolves get the first attack because they were charging while the party were putting themselves into position.
The werewolf on the left reaches with its long arm for Brantus attempting to scram him across the face or if it can reach, pull his head off or drag him through the door to bite his head off.
The werewolf grabs Brantus and drags in deep into the room by which time the other werewolf manages to fit through the doorway and attacks Li.
She is pushed against the wall and mawled. She is now on the floor covered in blood.
Archer and Ursula simultaneously say “oh crap.”
This point the third wolf charging is charging but suddenly, out of nowhere, a small blue sea dragon swoops in and rips the third werewolf’s eyes out with its talons.
Archer shoots an arrow at the nearest werewolf and misses entirely however the werewolf stops mauling Li and instead turns it’s attention to Archer.
Ursula decides to make a run for the hatch into the previous room but first she uses the last of her magic to try the pacify spell again, this time her focus on the closest werewolf instead of the whole group.
Werewolf completely goes all soft and puppy-like, much to her own shock and archer. The werewolf still has some primal hunger, so it begins to eat one of the guards in the room whilst Ursula and archer cautiously approach and stroke the werewolf in hope of petting it while it is distracted.
Meanwhile…
Brantus has dropped his sword but he has managed to pull out one of the chefs knives which he uses to stab the werewolf repeatedly as quickly as he can from his unfortunate position of laying beneath the beast as it pins him the ground ready to sink it’s fangs into his body.
Without looking, Brent is manages to stop the werewolf in one of its eyes and then through its mouth. The werewolf slithers off and dies against the wall.
By this time the sea dragon has killed the other werewolf.
Brantus, in great pain and with much trouble, stands up and sees the sea dragon. “Hallo old friend.”
Archer goes to tend to Lee what Ursula continues to pet the not-so-savage werewolf. Li is groaning and coughing up blood. Ursula watches and cries. “I have no more magic left to heal her.”
Li is conscious. “Take me to the inn in the village. Ask if we can rent the attic room. They will know what it means.” She falls unconscious.
“Help! Get over here and help me! Screams the bound and naked girl in the corner.”
Brantus lurches over to her while Archer carries Li.
The sea Dragon is flapping around and catching up to Ursula. The friendly werewolf is starting to snark and is shaking its head frantically. The spell is wearing off!
Ursula shuts the werewolf into the smaller of the two rooms this side of the trapdoor hatch. Fortunately the door bolt is on the other side with the werewolf. When it realises what happens, it charges through the door which is no obstacle and attacks the sea dragon.
The Sea Dragon cannot breathe fire, it can only cough out water, as it is still a baby.
The werewolf manages to get a good scratch at one of its wings.
Archer fires a arrow at the werewolf taking care in her aim not to hit the bay sea dragon. She misses entirely because werewolf’s are very fast.
Sea Dragon throws the werewolf off of her, coughs up water into its face to temporarily blind it and starts biting frantically at the werewolf’s neck. The werewolf bleeds out.
“Fur coats for all.” Says Brantus gritting his teeth in pain.
All of a sudden the dead werewolves start changing into Human forms. They are still living, although barely. One of them is a druid. Another another a female warrior. The largest werewolf seems to have changed has changed into some sort of monster some sort of almost non-human monster.
The last of them crawls up to Brantus and says “You stupid old fool! You have done nothing but prolong your death. We will be back!” It evaporates into nothingness.
“Kill the others, quick!” Says Archer.
The others exclaim “No! Don’t kill us, we are not like him. He did this to us!”
All their original equipment is on the weapon rack but no rope.
Ursula decides to take a risk of untying the bound naked female prisoner’s wrists and ankles so she can use the two bits of rope to tie up the druid and the female warrior arms behind their backs.
She instantly exclaims; “where are my goddamn clothes?!”
The sea dragon is set to work guarding the two new prisoners until they can be interrogated.
Immediate problem is getting all the injured party members to a place of healing. Li’s last words before she fell unconscious, was to go to the inn and ask if they can rent out the attic to for the night.
This is what they do.
End of Chapter.
