A Tunnels and Trolls® play-by-post adventure run by shindorim7
Grippenweld snorts approval at your groveling acquiescence, hauls on his big fat cigar and gives Grandma Withers a high five. "I'm glad to see you're all willing to be reasonable. If you'll follow these gentlemen we'll get you to the operating table post haste. By the way, missy," he says nodding to Ruth, "fail me and I'll teach you the true meaning of duress. We'll see how I bind you then. Hehehe."
With a wave of his meaty hand, the guards march you out the pressure doors and down to the end of a short circular metal hallway. There, they usher you onto a glowing platform surrounded by complicated looking machinery and attended by one of the ubiquitous mechanical men of the SUUI office.
"Where to Master?"
"Section F8, Kismet Medical Center," says the Captain, stepping forward.
"A-OK, Master."
The guards follow you on, three on either side of you, while the mechanical man pops and whirrs getting busy flipping switches and pulling levers on the board in front of him. You feel a tingling sensation, you see stars and birds, your life flashes before your eyes, Taran and Jax cry over missed opportunities and lost loves, and POOF!
You're somewhere else! Looks pretty similar to where you just came from actually: You're on a platform to match the one you just came from, and a mechanical man wiggles and toggles at a machine board. The guards prod you down and escorts you up an adjoining passageway to a set of doors. Above them an illuminated sign reads:
F8: KISMET MEDICAL CTR. "Everyone pays their pound of flesh sometime."
You're taken inside to an all-white room where a rather attractive young nurse sits behind a reception desk filing her nails. There's a door off to your left. The nurse notices your arrival, smiles at you bashfully, and leans over a little black box in front of her. "Dr. Falkenbrim, the transplant subjects have arrived. "If you'll all just wait a moment, the Doctor will be right with you."
Five minutes later the door to your left swooshes open and a man in a horribly blood stained white gown and mask emerges, followed by a chorus of agonizing screams and pleas for mercy. He removes the mask revealing bleary eyes and a big red nose underscored by a substantial moustache.
"Whew! Long day, ja? Damn shame the anaesthetist couldn't show up this afternoon! Gott in Himmel, I need another Schnapps! Vell, mein Herren, I am Doktor Falkenbrim, and I zuppose we ought to get you all scrubbed up as soon as possible, ja? Ze nurse will direct you to your ward and make sure zat your needs are attended to. And which vun of you vould be first on the chopping block today?"
In your court.... :)
Before Shipy has a chance to volunteer one or the other of the Dracon brothers, Taran steps forward. "I'm first." He thinks it pointless to delay the inevitable. The sooner they find Grolp, the sooner they can get out and maybe, just maybe, Grippenweld will make good on his promise of reward: "whatever your heart desires." Taran thinks of a few things, not the least of which has something to do with his first foray into the life of an adventurer as an Agent of Lerotra'hh [see the Agents archive --ed.].
I smile at the nurse and jab Tarank [sic] with one finger when he almost stumbles over me, not watching where he is going much like most Orcish brothers. "Transplant subjects... uhmm I don't like the sound of that!" <Gulp> I cover my eyes when I see the doctor and hide behind Tarank [sic]. I point to Michael of the Eleven O'clock Magiks [sic], "Take him first---what? Tarank [sic], you're going first?"
"Don't worry, Shipy, T knows what he's doing. I think," Jax tries to assuage the Hobbit's fears, as well as his own. He offers his hand in a friendly gesture toward Dr. Falkenbrim and says, "No pressure Doc, but you botch the job on my brother, and I'll have to kill you." Jax's deadpan breaks into a wide tusky grin.
Ruth looks at Jax with raised eyebrow. "Dracon honor kinda thing," he whispers to her in explanation. Turning to Taran, he says, "Today is not a good day to die, dude."
Before the Doc leaves them, he asks, "By the way, precisely where is this plane-warping gland gonna go?"
Grippenweld snorts approval at your groveling acquiescence....
"Gott in Himmel, I need another Schnapps! Vell, mein Herren, I am Doktor Falkenbrim...."
You know, when MMM took German as a language, I never thought he'd have the opportunity to actually use it.
"Gruß Gott, Herr Doktor. Ich heiße Michael, und ich möchte zwei Druesen, bitte. Sie müssen rein sein, und Sie müssen der Beschreibung entsprechen. Macht schnell!"
...point to Michael of the Eleven O'clock Magiks [sic]...
I always forget when Daylight Saving Time comes into effect.
I have been away for a week or so, and thus am totally lost....
Watching the doctor prepare to implant the glands in his companions, the wild elf wishes that he had actually bothered to open the box within which his Mail-order DIY Brain Surgery Kit had arrived. But at least this promises an interesting scar to add to his collection. Perhaps he can get the doc to put it here and slice up over this way a bit: he never much liked that tattoo anyway.
No problem blaen_495, so are the rest of us. Glad to have you back on board.
"Gruß Gott, Herr Doktor. Ich heiße Michael, und ich möchte zwei Druesen, bitte. Sie müssen rein sein, und Sie müssen der Beschreibung entsprechen. Macht schnell!"
"You vish the two glandtz do you? Hehehe... you are, how do you say? Zo cheeky! I imagine ve could give it a try provided there is time enough. Complicated though. Ze nurse will have you fill out a waver pertaining to exzperimental procedures and liability and zo forth."
Before the Doc leaves them, he asks, "By the way, precisely where is this plane-warping gland gonna go?"
"In ze neck my dear boy, just below your Adam's apfel. And don't worry about your brother. I am a consummate professional. Haven't botched anything since, vell... since last week, but that was within reason. Ze subject wouldn't stop squirming on ze table and Oopz! before you know, I'd cut off his.... Anyvay it should be fine today. Now if you and your companions vill follow the nurse, I'll attend to our fine little patient here."
The nurse comes to your side and leads you (Jax) by the arm down the hall to the ward, Shipy, Ruth, Blaen and Triple M following behind. There are twelve beds, six of which are already occupied by patients in various states of disrepair hooked up to elaborate machinery and moaning. The nurse opens a cabinet on the wall, produces an armful of Johnny shirts and hands one to each of you. A little sheepishly, she asks you all to strip and put the shirts on and wait for a sponge bath to follow. "I'll be right back with those forms for your friend," she says, "so be good while I'm gone. Teehee."
Before Shipy has a chance to volunteer one or the other of the Dracon brothers, Taran steps forward. "I'm first." He thinks it pointless to delay the inevitable.
"Wunderbar! A true hero in our midst! Come with me Herr Ork, ze table avaits your neck as does my scalpel. Follow me," he says smiling and beckons you to follow him through the door into the operating chamber.
Jax frowns at the nurse's mention of the words "sponge" and "bath" in the same sentence. He takes off his cloak, pack and dragon scales, and doffs his leather duds all in a pile by one of the beds. Several agonizing seconds later, the shirt is on and he sits heavily on the bed. "Frak, let's get this over with before I regret it," he grumbles darkly.
Shipy is unsure if he's referring to the bath or the operation.
I drag my feet somewhat as the nurse leads me by the arm down the hall to the ward. "I don't like this place very much. It's scary, and I don't like places that are scary." I wonder where my identical twin brother also named Shipy is at this moment. [A reference to Shipy's involvement in the concurrent Goblin Lake, Part Deux PBP game at the BFT --ed.]
"Don't worry Jax, bathing is not like falling in a lake...." [A reference to Jax's last immersion in Lizardmen in Red Water Bay --ed.]
"Doctor Falkenbrim, I have every confidence that you will do better work here than you ever have," Ruth says with a nod to the protective Jax, then follows the nurse.
With a nervous shake of her head, she tosses her hair over her shoulder then takes the negligible garment from the nurse. "Clearly designed by a man," she says. She steps behind the curtain to change. A few minutes later she returns from behind the curtain dressed in the blue hospital shirt/gown, gear in tow. She has put her hair up in a French bun (don't want the Doctor to mess that up). A closer look reveals that she is also wearing a dagger in a leather holder strapped to her right thigh. The outfit looks better on her than should be possible.
MMM picks up a hospital gown.
"You must be joking. I'm a guy!" (Hence the total lack of humour. [A reference to Tara's interlude --ed.]) "Only a pervert would wear a gown!" he sputters, as his robes swirl angrily.
"And where's that liability waiver?"
The Nurse scoots out the door leaving MMM with a "tsk-tsk, don't you be so saucy with me or I might check your prostate" look. You all, on the other hand, are busy checking out your new threads and trying hard to be discreet about looking at each other's bare behinds, or whatever it is that adventurers do when they're waiting.
On the opposite row of beds, your roommates are resting fairly peacefully, with the exception of the one on the last bed against the wall. He tosses, turns and then sits up suddenly screaming and tearing at the jungle of tubes and wires attached to his head and torso. He turns wildly, notices you and shouts, "Out! Get out! If security discovers you, we're ruined! Everthing we've planned will be up in smoke! Run damnnit! They'll take your mind!!!!"
The operating room itself looks like the innards of some giant metal insect turned inside out. The black work surfaces join together and warp off each other at seemingly impossible angles, clusters of mirrors arch overhead reflecting the harsh light of the glow blubs into leafy patterns. Weird, barbarous-looking instruments attached to steel rods stick up out of the floor and loom over a central white sheeted table, while monolithic machines whirr contendedly against the walls. Dr. Falkenbrim directs you to sit on the edge of the bed and fetches a bottle from one of the side bars.
"Vhiskey, I zuppose you vould call this on your plane. Quite a formidable zpirit, actually. Drink it down, mein Herr, as I said before, no anaesthetic today...."
Reluctantly, you take the bottle and find that it's actually much to your taste. It goes down warm, with nothing but mellow in the kick, and a sparkle in your peripheral vision. While the doctor putters around, you start to forget the passage of time, and your head swims paisleys around a teak-wood aphorism. You lie down on the cool, green grass of dawn, after an aeon has passed and wait for the white-robed angel in the corner of the glade who comes to you with a shining silver wand, and a shining silver dish.
You smile, and she caresses your throat and feeds you pudding and sweet-meats while ten choirs of dryads sing from the sinewy roots at the base of your skull and stretch forward to an acutely fallen apple. The angel laughs and sits at your feet to play at embroidery for the remainder of the decade, until the doctor returns under the lamps, and the machines whirr quizically at your condition, fretful---oh! now pleased that you're sutured. Falkenbrim leers at you through a pair of green-tinted goggles. Your throat is sore and you can feel stitches running the full circumference of your neck.
"It would appear that ve're finished, mein Herr. How are you feeling?"
"Har, har, har... look everyone, Jax has a dragon tattooed on his ass!" When Jax turns to look at me harshly, I flee to one of the beds as only a Hobbit can, holding my robe closed in front, since I put mine on backwards. Hobbits never bare their assets willing! Climbing onto the bed, I begin bouncing and singing:
Sixteen years... Sixteen years,
Adventures united over the golden Khazani fields,
Why the good shepherds grieve over
Desperate creatures, desperate creatures....
While the dragons are spreading their wings
And hearts ache
As fortune comes... fortune comes
And from the shadows to the
Market place... market place, Merchants and thieves hungry for power
And cold steel having been used around.
She smelled sweet like the sweet Khazan meadows
Where she was born... where she was born,
On a mid summers even,
Me and the little lady.
The cold blooded moon... cold blooded moon.There they caught her down near the fountain,
I stumbled to my feet and I screamed,
Treasonous witches did their bidding
As the cold steel rang out.
Now only her memory is protected.
She once told me she was torn between Jupiter and Apollo
And now the messenger arrived.
I seen him on the stairs,
Black as a raven he stood there,
Handing out death like the palace of a muse,
Handing out death to those as he had been told.
Some day peace will come
Pulled on the wheels of fire
With the death goddess's swords soon to follow.Gentlemen I said, I don't need any of you when we
Hobbits are gods... Hobbits are gods,
Hobbits are protected to endless timeeeeeeeee.
As I stop singing and bouncing on the bed I look around. "That was a Hobbit song! Good huh, guys? Ya think Lilac will like it?"
The Nurse scoots out the door leaving MMM with a "tsk-tsk, don't you be so saucy with me or I might check your prostate" look.
She's cute, but a real pill.
You all, on the other hand, are busy checking out your new threads....
Forget that, I'm not wearing it. They need to implant something in my neck, not my bum. Besides, who knows who'd rifle through my pockets if I left it here. Bad enough the Burrahobbit keeps trying while I'm around.
"Out! Get out! If security discovers you, we're ruined! Everthing we've planned will be up in smoke! Run damnnit!"
Can you repeat that in German?
"They'll take your mind!!!!"
And my Beanie Buddy, no doubt. I knew I was right to refuse to change into that gown!
"That was a Hobbit song!"
At this point, 43 snide comments come to mind, but my mouth doesn't work that fast, so I'll just mumble something incomprehensible, like "etamagrufalbitz." Close enough.
"Ya think Lilac will like it?"
Who's Lilac?
Jax flushes tomato-red at Shipy's mention of his clan tattoo. "C'mere, ya pesky runt," he feigns a lunge that sends the Hobbit bowling into one of the beds. But the outburst of the patient in the corner wrests the burly Orc away from his intent on giving the Hobbit a tattoo of his own design. He rushes over to the stranger.
"Where would we run? What have you planned? And why would they want our minds?" He tries to calm the patient.
"And why would they want our minds?"
Are you guys intentionally feeding me straight lines?
"I feel like somebody cut my head off and put it back on with a rusty needle and thread! Can I get a mirror? ERRRrrrr." Shaking off the effects of the whiskey, Taran looks down at his bare nakedness to make sure the bottom half of him is the one to which he remembered being attached all his life. Well, most of his life anyway. That stint as a lizard back in the good ol' days had made him quite paranoid about head and body discrepancies. He prods his neck trying to find the gland, and waits quite impatiently to be discharged.
Sorry for the delay, true believers. It's been a hell of a week. Now where were we? :)
Jax takes the screaming patient by the shoulders and tries to calm him down but to little avail. He's a fairly well built fellow with a bluish tint to his skin. His eyes are bloodshot and he's shivering as if overcome with fever.
"What do you mean what am I talking about!?! Slave's rebellion ring any bells? Get out or they'll lobotomize all of us! We'll be finished!" he replies to Jax.
Just then the door opens and in walks Dr. Falkenbrim with a woozy looking Taran. Just behind them are the nurse, clipboard in hand, and a beastly looking orderly with long shiny tusks and huge hands which drag along the floor. The blue-skinned patient screeches, throws himself out of bed and scrambles into the corner of the room hooting and waving an arm in defiance of the Doctor.
Dr. Falkenbrim smiles and pulls a metal tube from his breast pocket. "Hehehe, vell it seems that ve've got a live vire on our hands today." He motions to the orderly to apprehend the cowering lunatic. "Get him back into bed, Grunt. Tut-tut, Mr. Larf, you've got to be a good boy for the Doktor, or there'll be no ice cream today!"
watches the woozy looking Taran---woozy, is he? While he is woozy, I search through Taran's stuff as only a true Hobbit can, notably looking for my ABC gum.
"Get out or they'll lobotomize all of us!"
"Ha ha! Been there, done that!"
Just behind them are the nurse, clipboard in hand, and a beastly looking orderly with long shiny tusks and huge hands which drag along the floor.
"Aaargh! Death to the Macedonians!" I stomp on his knuckles.
"And where are those glands?"
The blue-skinned patient screeches, throws himself out of bed and scrambles into the corner of the room hooting....
He's muh fav'rite.
You (Shipy) go through Taran's pile of tattered rags as nimbly as possible for a guy with stubby fingers. No dice with the ABC gum but you do come up with one well fermented bag lunch. (IQ SR, level 2: rolled a 4 and a 2 = 6 + 14 INT. You're 5 short!) You're not sure what culinary delight it used to be.
You (Michael) attempt with all the agility the gods granted you to stomp on all ten knuckles at once---no easy task---and fall on your butt as Grunt the orderly sidesteps you (DEX contest roll, your DEX 11+9=20, Grunt's 16+7=23). He picks you up by the neck, shakes you around a little and gives you a solid kick to the crotch (minus 1 to your CON). Now you tell us where the "glands" are.... The nurse drops a copy of the requested release forms on your chest.
Jax notes that his brother has survived the surgery, but Mr. Larf's vociferous conspiratorial claims make him balk with uncertainty regarding whether his brother is altogether the same ever-stinkin' gut-skewering (mostly his own gut) party-hard Taran. He rubs a hand over his throat. Before Grunt is finished giving Michael a good ol' fashioned thwapping, Jax, weaponless and clad in but a hosptial gown, stands his ground between the terrified man and the Doktor. "Uh, Doc, your Mr. Larf here wouldn't happen to have had the same surgery you just gave my brother, eh mon?"
You attempt with all the agility the gods granted you to stomp on all ten knuckles at once---no easy task---and fall on your butt...
"Aaargh! Hoisted by my own petard!"
... as Grunt the orderly sidesteps you.
"Aaargh! He fears me! Run not, coward!"
He picks you up by the neck, shakes you around a little...
"Aaargh! Aaackk! Aaaugh!"
... and gives you a solid kick to the crotch...
"Aaargh! I wish I was funnier!"
(minus 1 to your CON).
"Aaargh! If only there were a doctor present!"
Before Grunt is finished giving Michael a good ol' fashioned thwapping....
"Aaargh! I still have 13 Con left!"
Now you tell us where the "glands" are....
"Aaargh! Triple M, secretive, Lucky Charms, and about 3 decades ago!"
The nurse drops a copy of the requested release forms on your chest.
"Aaargh! I knew they'd break eventually!"
Ruth applauds at Shipy's song. "Great, and you didn't even fall off the table and disappear when you finished! I don't know why, but Hobbits have a tendency to do that."
Ruth goes to Jax's side when the patient acts up again, concerned about what he means. "Jax, I don't think he's talking about the surgery your brother is getting." Turning to the patient, she tries to calm him down. When he settles down enough to speak coherently, she asks, "How long have you been a slave?"
Turning his attention from a presently dispatched Triple M, Grunt walks over to the cowering Larf, picks him up under one arm and presents him to Dr. Falkenbrim. The doktor presses the metal tube from his pocket to Larf's temple, and with a hiss, the patient calms himself into a languid frowning funk, lolling his blood shot eyes in long orbits around the room. He turns to Ruth.
"Hehehe, it seems Frauline that our friend here vas the chief instigator of a Spartacus-like slave's rebelion in one of SUUI's pleasure dimensions, by name 'Lovetopia.' In spite of his rather ragged appearance now, this one used to be quite a looker, ja? They apparantly tired of their lot of sitting on the laps of the wealthy, pouring their drinks and popping grapes into their over-gorged decadent mouths. Who's to blame them, I suppose? Anyway, they, Grippenwald et al., sent a batallion of goons there, quashed what little resistance the little fop-lings could muster up, and brought this one here for a some creative 're-adjustment.' This included a little cosmetic mangling, an undermining of the intellect, and enough phobias and bizarre idiosyncracies to make him pretty much useless as a demagogue or as a martyr figure. Hehehe... rather cute now, in my opinion. I figure I might chain him up later and have him dance for coins while I grind an organ or something, ja? Dirty business mine is, but vat the heck, it's a living."
Grunt carries Mr. Larf back to bed and re-attaches him to his attending machinery.
Stroking his chin, The Doktor inspects his work on Taran's neck. "Seems like a fair effort, ja? Zo, who's next? And by the way, Herr Magical Midnights, when you manage to dislodge your gonads from your chest cavity, you'll have to sign those forms for ze second gland."
"Fair effort indeed, Doc," Jax grumbles disapprovingly. "For a madman," he mutters to Ruth, but obfuscates it with a cough. "I'll go next. Mess me up, and Taran will---" Jax looks over at his hopelessly woozy brother, "er, uh Shipy will---" Jax looks at Shipy rooting through Taran's stuff, "er, uh Michael will---" Jax looks at Michael doubled over on the floor, "er, uh, what am I thinking? Frak! Ruth?" She frowns. Jax sighs defiantly. "Let's just get it over with, Doc."
Taran attempts to clap his brother on the back as he walks forward to offer his neck for incising. He intended it as a show of support. But, in his droggy state, his aim is short and he only manages to clip the tie of Jax's robe, untying the loose knot. Jax's green muscular posterior adorned with the mightiest of dragon (tattoos) suddenly comes into view and makes Taran emit grunts of Orcish laughter. "Hey Jaxth, your drac is sthowing!" he manages to slur out from between his smirking OrcLips™.
"Uuughgngnn nugghhgnnn. I'd thwap you, dear bro, but I'd be afraid your head would fall off!" Jax sarcastically scolds his younger brother, reaching behind his neck to retie his meager flesh covering.
The younger Dracon collapses on one of the cots and tries to relax before he's shipped off to some oblique dimension.
Seeing Jax's mightiest of Dragon (tattoos), I stop digging through Tarank's [sic] things, cackle with Hobbit glee and point to it as only a Hobbit can. "Hahaaha... Jax'sasska'pose™ is showing." Hearing Jax's words "I'd thwap you," I flee from arm's reach before becoming a BackSlapHobbit™.
I'm just going to lie here for a while...
Someone give me a pen for the forms.
...
...
How many P's are there in Shippo?
"Zo dat's dat..."
One by one, Dr. Falkenbrim leads you off to the operating room where you all undergo a disconcerting, yet somehow inebriatedly blissful experience, similar to that of the ever woozy Taran. You all come through in more or less one piece and are led back to the ward where you're left to sleep peacefully for the night while Mr. Larf whispers paranoid nothings (perhaps somethings?) in your ears as you drift off to slumberville. You wake up well rested in what you assume to be the next morning (no windows, you see...). Dr. Falkenbrim, Grunt, and the nurse serve you a hearty breakfast of green and blue mush with glasses of champagne and orange juice to celebrate your first day as fully functional, fully recovered dimensional raiders. Though the stitching around your necks itches a little, you feel quite alright with the exception of MMM who complains of some extra swelling around his Adam's apple.
Eventually a contingent of well-armed, tusky goons arrive to take you back into proper custody. You're washed up, dressed, and perfumed like the lillies you all are. The three medics see you off at the door, and even Mr. Larf is let out of bed (on a chain naturally) to wave bye-bye. Dr. Falkenbrim says Larf seemed to like you all a lot. Larf warns you about green cheese and baboons.
Down through the maze of servo tubes and elevators you're taken until you're finally led into an open circular room with a domed ceiling through which you can see stars. Directly under the cupola is a raised dias in front of which stands Mr. Grippenweld, smoking as always, accompanied by his grinning starmen and Grandma Withers.
"Welcome back," he says, "Hope you're all feeling nicky-nacky."
"Today is the big day, lady and gents, though I'm afraid there's not much that I can give you by way of advice about the district of the Streams to which you're being sent. We were at our wits' end in just finding the approximate location of Agent Grolp. As to the general lay of the land, well, who knows? That's why we hired you plebs."
The starmen and Grandma snicker obsequiously.
"Anyway, let's get on it, heroes. Bear in mind that if you don't find Grolp, there'll be no way back here, or to anywhere else for that matter, so go about your business expeditiously for your own sakes. Click those ruby slippers together and we'll see where it gets you! Don't look like Kansas anymore, does it? Hehehehehe...."
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