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1991-03-08
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From lwl@eniac.seas.upenn.edu Wed Dec 5 13:50:51 1990
From: lwl@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Lydia Leong)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp
Subject: STORY: Dungeon Crawl - Part IV
Summary: continuation, long, chapter 4
Date: 5 Dec 90 18:39:15 GMT
Reply-To: lwl@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Lydia Leong)
Organization: University of Pennsylvania
The story so far: The party has been reunited inside the cavern, and they have,
after a bit of trouble, managed to open the secret door leading into the
underground fortress. Unfortunately, something was waiting for them...
CHAPTER 4: Death From Below
Jarvik stumbled back in horror as four black, rubbery-looking tentacles
shot from the opening in the wall, wrapped around the astonished half-orc,
and yanked him through, oblivious to the half-orc's yelling and wild
flailing about.
"Fight time!" yelled Drek happily, rushing across the room, bastard
sword drawn. He barrelled through the opening in the wall, swinging the
secret door open all the way, shouting a war cry, which was abruptly choked
off as several tentacles wrapped themselves tightly around his chest.
There was a circular opening in the floor of the chamber; a thick black
stalk protruded from the it. Attached to the stalk were dozens of black
tentacles, covered with a mixture of coarse, needle-like hairs and
suction cups. Each tentacle seemed to have a will of its own. Four tentacles
were wrapped about Yorl, binding his arms tightly to his body; twice that
many were wrapped about Drek, as if the thing was intelligent enough to
realize that many more tentacles would be required to hold the big warrior.
"Help, dammit!" Yorl shouted. He was feeling oddly light-headed; he knew
his struggles were becoming feebler. The tentacles weren't wrapped so tightly
about him that it was difficult to breathe, so he wasn't growing faint from
lack of oxygen; it was something else.
"Drek would like to help," the warrior gasped, "but Drek rather busy
at moment." The warrior's muscles bulged as he tried to free himself from
the constricting tentacles; clearly, the tentacles were having a difficult
time overcoming Drek's exertions, but they bound him tightly still.
In the adjoining room, Trevor stood back away from the opening, out of the
reach of the grasping tentacles. "What by Do'Arr is that thing?" he demanded
of Jarvik.
"The Universitas Magica doesn't offer Tentacled Horrors 101," snapped
Jarvik. The mage could clearly see the struggles of the warrior and cleric,
but to help them would be to come into the range of the tentacles, and Jarvik
had no desire to end his short life by being squeezed to death by
something he couldn't even identify.
"Fire?" Furball queried. "If you cast fire at the tentacles, they'll
burn up, and we can have fun again! I wonder if there are any more secret
doors around here..."
Trevor shrugged helplessly. "You can't risk a spell and I can't risk
shooting arrows at the thing. We might hit Drek or Yorl instead. We can't
go into that room, or the thing'll grab us."
"Fight not talk!" gasped Drek from the next room. Drawing as deep a
breath as he could, he tried once again to break free, his face reddening
>from the exertion, the veins on his arms popping out as he applied all
of his massive strength towards snapping the tentacles.
Yorl was feeling quite dizzy, now, doing no more than wriggling feebly
in the thing's grasp. "So sleepy," mumbled the half-orc dreamily, slumping
forward. The tentacles contracted, pulling the half-orc towards the floor
opening in the center of the room.
"You no do that!" Drek bellowed. With a sickening shlurp and rubbery
snap, the tentacles came apart. The warrior swung his sword in wild
sweeps, hacking frantically at everything, diving forward to whack at the
tentacles holding Yorl.
"Hooray for Drek!" Furball cheered from the next room.
"Shut up," snarled Jarvik. The mage pulled on a pair of leather gloves
and withdrew a small jar from one of his pouches.
Trevor hesitated, then entered the room which housed the thing, swinging
his longsword in a circle, trying to cut off the tentacles before they
entrapped him. Drek was half-sitting on Yorl's legs, pinning the half-orc
to the ground and preventing the tentacles from dragging the cleric into
the hole. The warrior was hacking at the stalk from which the tentacles
grew. His blows bounced off the thick, rubbery stalk; he was doing very
little damage.
Jarvik carefully opened the jar and smeared some sort of pale blue ointment
on his left glove. The thick leather blackened slightly; the pasty ointment was
rather caustic. Jarvik drew his dagger and daubed a generous portion of the
ointment on it. The mage then entered the room, waving both the dagger and
his gloved left hand. The tentacles that touched the ointment fell limp and
began to smoke, giving off an acrid smell.
"What IS that stuff?" Trevor demanded, whacking at a tentacle that was
trying to encircle his ankle.
"Ormick's Unguent," Jarvik replied, working his way through the maze of
tentacles towards the stalk. "It's rather caustic, and it has special potency
against certain creatures. I remember what this thing is - it's a Black
Flail. I think I slept through the discussion of it in the Ancient Horrors
Senior Seminar, so I don't really remember what all its properties are, but
unless we burn it using this stuff, it'll regenerate - it can grow new
tentacles unless we completely sever the stalk and cauterize both ends."
Jarvik stabbed deep into the stalk with his unguent-treated dagger,
the ointment burning the stalk, allowing the dagger to penetrate, and the
Flail writhed. "Got it!" he declared with satisfaction.
Furball bounced into the room. "Good for you, Jarvik!" he said happily,
bounding over to the mage, brushing aside the tentacles with his two-headed
mace.
Behind him, the secret door swung slowly closed. None of the busy
party members noticed it until the grating of stone signaled the final close
of the door.
Furball whirled. "Hey! Look at the door!"
Unfortunately, at that point, the room dropped rapidly...
--
============================================================================
Lydia Leong | If there is anyone here that I have not
lwl@eniac.seas.upenn.edu | offended, I deeply apologize. -- J. Brahms
============================================================================