Tuesday, September 13, 2005

WFRP Update 31

The torturer definitely knew his business. My left arm, my livelihood, the tool of my trade was completely uninjured. My right arm did not fare so well, although the stump wasn't bleeding at all and barely hurt. Definitely a well trained thug.
I almost wish that he had not done such a good job, then I would be spared of the prattling of the devious little bastard that had sent me to this doom. He was at his usual place, sitting, watching, waiting for me to awake so that he could start his tale. His tale is at least more interesting than staring at the walls and waiting for my next session of therapy...for now.
"So, we had finished off them chaos beasts and started to realize that we were low on ammunition. Well, Rudolpho was and he was whining about it so badly that we all decided to head down the stairs and see if we could find the boat and the rest of our stuff. We followed the servant's instructions and found the door down and started down the stairs. We had to open up a few doors on the way and one of them opened into a huge wine cellar. Well, Elpham was sucking back the stuff and choking on it when this freakishly large ogre came barging down the hallway. Rudolpho must have panic, 'cause his pistol popped off...too bad he didn't have enough powder for a decent shot. The ogre didn't even seem to notice it. He just screamed at us to leave the wine alone. I stepped up and played the roll of a noble so well that the ogre even showed us to the stairs down to the water gate. He even offered to whip a bit of discipline into my servants for me. I should have taken him up on the offer.
"So we spend an eternity walking down the stairs again and finally arrive at the water gate. And there is my lovely lady, my boat, just sitting there waiting for my return. Although a trio of the lady's guard seemed to think that we were not supposed to touch her and jumped out at us almost before we got off the stairs. I let loose with the crossbow and caught one of them in the helmet. How he survived I'll never know, but I guess that chaos beasts are immune to stuff like losing eyes. The damn fools managed to lay a wicked beating on Corobath, but they were dead within a few heart beats. And then we got to see what they had done to my boat. We couldn't find any of the animals, but a bit of searching turned up most everything else. I swear that I could see vengeance burning in Corobath's eyes when he pulled that magical blade from it's hiding spot. We grabbed some arrows, strapped on some armour and went looking for the bitch of the castle.
"Dear sweet gods above....why did that damn castle have to be so tall? I should have stayed at the top and talked with the ogre. I could have saved so much wear and tear on my poor feet. Of course then those poor fools probably wouldn't be alive....hmm, a tough choice.
"We make it back upstairs, after what seems like an eternity and we find the lady's bedchamber. I have no idea in the world why she would have three corpses arranged around the room, but nothing else in that damned castle made any sense, so why should this? We dragged Magdelaine away from the perfumes and kept exploring. Eventually we find more stairs heading up into the tallest tower. When we arrive, we simply stood there, slack jawed at what we saw. The lady had constructed some sort of patchwork beast...from the pieces of the villagers. By what foul magic she managed to breath life into it I don't want to know, but she did it. We could see that this was not natural, it was something that had to be destroyed.
"Corobath was the first in the room, which was fortunate. When Elpham tried to enter the room, he stopped at the doorway and pissed in his armour with terror. Which was a slight problem for the rest of us. I don't want to touch the dwarf at the best of times, but the stench that was coming out of his britches almost made me want to run away in fear. Luckily a calm word from Corobath soothed his fears and he managed to rush in. I ducked in under the arms of the behemoth and lined up a shot on the lady. Everytime that creature swung those arms, it would hit the walls and shake the entire castle. I was sure that the castle would come tumbling around out ears any second.
"And, for once, Rudolpho managed to use his pistol properly. He caught the creature full in the face and shattered most of it....which made the fact that the creature didn't even notice even scarier.
"Elpham was trading blows with the lady, who had summoned some sort of mystical blade from the air. But for every hit that he laid on her, she would wave her hands and the wounds would magically close on her and appear on Elpham. When the creature finally caught Elpham a solid hit on the arm and his axe clattered to the floor I had visions of us dragging a rotting, shit covered dwarven corpse all the way back to the grey hills. And then the lady turned her magic on me. I could feel parts of my soul being pulled away, but I managed to resist her foul magic. Which seemed to distract her long enough for Corobath to shove that magic blade right through her ribs and out the other side. Any hope that her death would calm the creature was dashed at that point, for the creature ripped the body off of his blade and rushed out of the room. Rudolpho managed to chase after it, but the damn thing ran like it was possessed.
"We took a breather for a few minutes as Corobath patched up Elpham. The damn fool looked like he was ready to die any second, but he still insisted on leading the way down the stairs. We had fully intended to scour the castle looking for that damn beast, but as we was coming down the stairs we caught sight of something moving in the courtyard. At first I was skeptical, but after looking through the rain, it was clear; the dead were walking!! They were coming towards us. We managed to bar some of the doors, but the pounding that they were laying on them doors showed us that it was time for us to vacate the castle.
"On the way down to the boat, Elpham turns towards the wall and opens it! We do a bit of exploring and find us a blackened, charred room. In the middle is this huge, lead box, but our attention was more directed to them damned rat people that was rushing out of the room through a small tunnel.
"Know, I don't know all of dwarven history, so I have to assume that there is some intense hatred of these rat people by all dwarfs. That's the only reason that I can fathom for Elpham, bleeding from damn near everywhere, rushing after them down the hole. Corobath is at least chosen of Sigmar, so I can understand his actions in following him.
"The rest of us were a bit more cautious and waited in the room for their return. When we heard Elpham screaming about gunpowder in the mines, it was a race to see which of us could make it down those stairs the fastest. We were nowhere near the boat when bits of the ceiling and walls started crashing down and the whole mountain rumbled beneath us. We had no choice but to keep running. By the time we reached the water gate, it was as if the cave was raining rocks and dust upon us. We barely managed to get the gate open and everyone on board before the stairs collapsed. I have to assume that Sigmar told Corobath to bring the lead box with him. I can't imagine running down those stairs with a huge coffin under my arms.
"It took a fair bit of pushing and screaming, but we managed to get ourselves into the river, where we had a wonderfully sad sight. The entire mountainside, castle and all, seemed to jump a bit, slide down a hair and then fall over, crash down the hillside and fall into the forest.

"My only thought at that time was...my castle...my lovely castle.

There was a knock on the door. The wee man got up, opened the door and let the hooded man inside. He looked back just before closing the door.
"Make it easy on yourself this time...".

If only I could.

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