A Tunnels and Trolls® play-by-post adventure run by shindorim7
Remember how you felt after the operation? Woozy right? Well, now you feel even woozier as angles melt into abstract plains [sic] and the dates of bygone years intercept broken clocks on the way to nowhere. A light, a tunnel, a rushing of wind, a sinking feeling, a falling anvil, an insurmountable dilemma. Sleep.
You wake up next to a narrow winding river among the reeds and cattails of the bank. It's sunny, with a few formations of spiral shaped clouds drifting through a fairly pleasant late afternoon. Around you patches of decidedly deciduous trees accent a grassy rolling meadow. Beyond this, there is a forest in the distance, and in the extreme distance, what appears to be an incalculably high mountain range rising like a wall and binding the entire horizon like a ribbon. Upstream on the opposite side of the river you see a little grass hut with smoke rising from a chimney vent in the roof.
What do you do?
Kansas? I was in Kansas?
The sight of the little grass hut reminds me that we haven't eaten since the Tea and Bickies in Grippenweld's office so long ago. Shipy was begining to metamorphose into a walking roast duck before my eyes (as only a Hobbit can).
"Where's Kansas?"
A light, a tunnel, a rushing of wind, a sinking feeling, a falling anvil, an insurmountable dilemma.
"Cool... just like being drunk!"
Waking up, I look around and notice Blaen looking at me with his spiked hair, tattoos, filed teeth and "Wild-elf-insane-gleam-in-the-eyes" (pat. pend.). He feels nervous. "Now if I only had my old job back as a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman!" he thinks. [A reference to an early Blaen post --ed.]
"As party leader, I say we should go to the hut."
Jax picks himself up off the grass and quickly inventories his possessions. Then he helps his brother up too. He looks around and breathes in the idyllic view, before realizing something is missing. "Hey, what happened to Blodwydd, Freya and Restu?"
Shrugging, he approaches the Hobbit and ruffles his head with a meaty hand. "The hut sounds good to me, Shipy. Let's go."
...you all undergo a disconcerting, yet somehow inebriatedly blissful experience....
Har har! And I got two of 'em!
...with glasses of champagne....
"None for me, thanks. I had a bit too much last night as it is."
...to celebrate your first day as fully functional, fully recovered dimensional raiders.
I immediately start referring to us as, "Vulture Warriors of Dimension X."
...with the exception of MMM who complains of some extra swelling around his Adam's apple.
That's the thing that keeps us from being funny [Yet Another Reference To Tara's Interlude (YARTTI) --ed.]. It eats the humour welling up and out, leaving naught but painful quips to be expelled. (Still, I'm laughing on the inside.)
You're washed up, dressed, and perfumed like the lillies you all are.
I'm all for Flower Power. Tune in, turn on, and drop out, man.
Larf warns you about green cheese and baboons.
"Yeah right, as if we didn't already know that!"
...with a domed ceiling through which you can see stars.
"I wish I were a crocus instead of a lily!"
...Mr. Grippenweld, smoking as always....
"Don't you know how bad that is for your health? Have another."
...grinning starmen and Grandma Withers.
"See, they appreciate nasty comments at your expense Grippo."
"...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."
"You're afraid and don't know much. Why does this not surprise me?"
"We were at our wits' end...."
No comment necessary here. I'm sure you're all thinking the same thing I am.
"As to the general lay of the land, well, who knows?"
"Obviously, not you."
"That's why we hired you plebs."
"In other words, you need us, you worthless, pathetic, miserable, grotesque little toad."
The starmen and Grandma snicker obsequiously.
"Even your compatriots agree with me! Hoody Hoo!"
"Bear in mind that if you don't find Grolp, there'll be no way back here...."
"Gee, and I sooo wanted to find myself here again. A tragic loss that'd be."
"...or to anywhere else for that matter, so go about your business expeditiously...."
"Your business, you mean. We've only been given the business. Try to get it right."
"Click those ruby slippers...."
"Must come from the same place you get rivers of gold. Still, sounds neat. I'll take a pair."
"Don't look like Kansas anymore, does it?"
"Never been there. Thanks for asking. Is that near the Dungeon of the Bear?"
Remember how you felt after the operation?
Not especially, but let me scroll back a few messages.... Okay, I remember now.
Woozy right?
Well, Taran was, but I thought "ever woozy" referred to his usual mode of existence. As for me, I was merely going through a "disconcerting yet somehow inebriatedly blissful experience."
Well, now you feel even woozier....
Oh, fine. It seems you're fixated on me being woozy....
...as angles melt into abstract plains [sic]....
We are in Kansas!
...on the way to nowhere.
Isn't the road to nowhere a euphemism for the road to H-E-double hockey sticks? "Okay, now I'm worried...."
A light, a tunnel, a rushing of wind, a sinking feeling, a falling anvil....
Can I keep the anvil? It's a great material component for the Shatterstaffordinaire spell.
...an insurmountable dilemma.
"Cool... just like being drunk!"
"Maybe we shouldn't go back to the tavern right away. We've already had more than enough to cause irreversible liver and/or brain damage."
Sleep.
Well, that solved that dilemma.
You wake up next to a narrow winding river among the reeds and cat-tails of the bank....
"Yep, fellow Vulture Warriors of Dimension X, we were definitely on the road to nowhere; I'd recognize this place anywhere. Any hour now, the whole thing will turn horribly twisted and horrific, and Rod Serling will come out to talk, but---get this---we can't interact with him in any way. Not even by hitting him with material components."
The sight of the little grass hut reminds me that we haven't eaten since the Tea and Bickies in Grippenweld's office so long ago.
"Hey, if you didn't want to eat the mush we were provided, that's your problem. The blue stuff was particularly good, and I believe the chef when he claimed the other stuff was only dyed green from being in the container too long."
Shipy was begining to metamorphose into a walking roast duck before my eyes (as only a Hobbit can).
Obviously, Blaen has learned the Mutatum Mutandorum spell without my assistance.
Jax picks himself up off the grass and quickly inventories his possessions.
"You keep doing that. One might call you paranoid. Or perhaps both of us will."
"Hey, what happened to Blodwydd, Freya and Restu?"
"Who? Are any of those aliases for Jean-Clod?" [A reference to Goblins in the Mist --ed.]
"Where's Kansas?"
"Your attention span equals your height, lackey. Kansas is near the Dungeon of the Bear."
"Now if I only had my old job back as a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman!"
"Is that what you wound up doing after I fired you?" [Another reference to Goblins in the Mist --ed.]
"As party leader, I say we should go to the hut."
"Took the words right out of my mouth, especially the part about party leader. Ever onwards, ever upwards, Vulture Warriors of Dimension X."
I head towards the hut.
"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."
"Too much fancy living makes a girl soft. That's why I haven't completely settled down, yet."
"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.... Zo, who's next?"
"Doc, you may be a jerk but at least you're a straight shooter. I'll go next.
"By the way, who's Spartacus?"
Dr. Falkenbrim Operates as before. Everyone is cleaned up and fed. Jax and Taran have had so many baths that they've lost fifteen kilos.... Ruth examines her stitches, hoping that they don't leave a scar.
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.
"None for me, thanks. I had a bit too much last night as it is."
Since Michael avoids the alcohol, Ruth does, too.
"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.
Ruth stares up at the ceiling while thinking of ways to squish those snickerers.
"You're afraid and don't know much. Why does this not surprise me?"
Ruth does some snickering of her own. "Why do I suddenly have a craving for peanuts, caramel, and chocolate?" she wonders.
"Don't look like Kansas anymore does it? Hehehehehe...."
Kansas? I was in Kansas?
"Where's Kansas?"
Grip's obscure Kansas references fall flat with Ruth. "I think he meant Khazan, Blaen."
Remember how you felt after the operation? Woozy right? Well, now you feel even woozier as angles melt into abstract plains [sic] and the dates of bygone years intercept broken clocks on the way to nowhere. A light, a tunnel, a rushing of wind, a sinking feeling, a falling anvil, an insurmountable dilemma.
And I thought Taran's smell made me woozy.
Larf warns you about green cheese and baboons.
You wake up next to a narrow winding river among the reeds and cattails of the bank. It's sunny, with a few formations of spiral shaped clouds drifting through a fairly pleasant late afternoon. Around you patches of decidedly deciduous trees accent a grassy rolling meadow. Beyond this, there is a forest in the distance, and in the extreme distance, what appears to be an incalculably high mountain range rising like a wall and binding the entire horizon like a ribbon. Upstream on the opposite side of the river you see a little grass hut with smoke rising from a chimney vent in the roof.
Ruth scans the woods for signs of signs of baboons and sniffs the air, finding no hint of cheese in it. I never knew trees decided whether or not to be deciduous, she thinks as she considers the forest. Looking at the walled horizon, she wonders if this is Narnia. "This is nice. Makes me not want to hurry." Ruth traces the smoke down to the small building in the distance. "Well, so far this isn't such a bad job. Uh, the hut looks like a good place to start," she says with a nod to Shipy. "Okay, lilies, let's move before we lilt."
"Ever onwards, ever upwards, Vulture Warriors of Dimension X."
"Mike, does being a Vulture Warrior mean we're supposed to fight only dead people? I really hate fighting the undead. Maybe I should have brought the rapier instead---it kills Vampires."
The sight of the little grass hut reminds me that we haven't eaten since the Tea and Bickies in Grippenweld's office so long ago. Shipy was begining to metamorphose into a walking roast duck before my eyes (as only a Hobbit can).
"Blaen, snap out of it. Maybe they've got some green cheese for you."
Jax and Taran have had so many baths that they've lost fifteen kilos....
Actually, all that weight loss is probably from the excess gold Shippo [sic] has been appropriating from them.
Since Michael avoids the alcohol, Ruth does, too.
You're following MMM's example? What did that monstrous doctor do to you?!?!?
"Okay, lilies, let's move before we lilt."
"Crocus."
"Mike, does being a Vulture Warrior mean we're supposed to fight only dead people? I really hate fighting the undead. Maybe I should have brought the rapier instead---it kills Vampires."
"Rapiers don't kill Vampires. Dimension X Warrior Vultures with rapiers kill Vampires."
Having been pulled to his feet by his older, wiser, stronger, and most of the time, stinkier brother, Taran dusts himself off with his chunky palms and also does a VSE (Visual Surveillance of Equipment, to borrow and modify an acronym of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever). He follows Jax and ultimately, the party leader, Shipy the Cunning, toward the hut.
He agrees with Ruth---he hates fighting the undead too. At least he would hate it if he ever fought them. "Remind me," he speaks to Jax calmly, "why exactly we're here? I feel like I just got kicked out of a time warp where I impale myself over and over." [A reference to Taran's previous adventure, Lizardmen in Red Water Bay --ed.] Taran shakes his head, but not too hard: he isn't sure how firmly attached it currently is.
"Yeah, as if he's ever been in one of those to know what it feels like," Ruth speaks to herself mostly. "Yah, that's a good one, Taran!"
"He's not kidding. Unfortunately."
"Ughhgnn-nughghgnn! Ok, on to the hut!"
The Elf's ears perk up at Ruth's mention of the possibility of green cheese in the hut. He wonders if they will have blue to go with it.
Deciding to follow his esteemed leader before any more of his companions drop out of the sky---possibly landing on a certain Elf this time---Blaen sets off after the rest, singing an old Woodelf song, the refrain of which can be translated loosely as, "It's raining men, halleluia, it's raining Orcs and Hobbits, it's raining men...." Unfortunately, although Elves are generally considered to be blessed with exceptional singing voices, Blaen's is exceptionally bad.
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