Part 12: Now You're Thinking With Portals

Update 9: Now You're Thinking With Portals



"I am the holy warrior Cookie, and this is my protege Zrrgin!"



"It's pronounced 'zrrgin'."
"I never could get that right. Anyway, as I was saying, we are here to rescue you from the clutches of the innkeeper!"
"That's right! And then to messily extract justice from his fleshy innards! He shall pay for his crimes in blood, and pain, and also in whatever that greenish stuff is that sometimes comes out of people when you cut them open!"
"zrrgin, what have I told you about attacking unarmed townspeople?"
"Oh, fine. Can we at least beat him senseless?"
"Only if he offers resistance."
"I can't decide if you two are the best or worst paladins ever."
"Ah, that's right! We were supposed to be rescuing you, weren't we? Well, come on, then! Let us go before the innkeeper returns."
"I've actually been standin' outside for the last two minutes, but you're too damned crazy for me to mess with, and those workers were all useless anyway. Get out of here and don't come back."
"I'd really rather see the paladins beat you senseless first."
"Has your love of conflict not caused enough trouble? If you won't take the chance you've been given and escape from this place, I will."
"I agree with the wizard. I wanna see someone beat the stuffin' outta that old bastard of an innkeeper as much as the rest of ye, but we got more important things to do. We gotta find the Inner Sanctum, before that other party with the crazy sorceress an' the stuck-up priestess gets in there an' takes all the treasure!"
"Ah, the Inner Sanctum! I had almost forgotten! Let us make haste, then, and seek out such untold riches as may await us!"

Meanwhile, in the caverns under Sorpigal...



Preacher's party has just run into one of the worst encounters possible: a band of savage bird-men leading tamed acid-spraying abominations. The party decides unanimously that discretion is the better part of valor.



Sadly, they are already surrounded. If the battle goes poorly, the party could be annihilated in the space of a single combat round.



Luckily, only one of the blobs chose to use its special attack, dousing the party with a painful but not lethal dose of acid. Two harpies attempted to cast paralysis spells, but the party was experienced and lucky enough to resist the effects.



By focusing on the blobs first, and with the assistance of Jostiband's powerful Fireball and Lightning Bolt spells, the party was able to neutralise the blobs' threat before they had a chance to spray acid again. With the blobs vanquished, the harpies soon followed.



After a quick trip back to the temple to cure everyone who had been poisoned, the party returned to the caverns and found the portal.

"Yay! It's portal time!"
"Are you sure this is wise? We have no idea where this portal might lead."
"C'mon, we've already come this far. We'll never find the Inner Sanctum by staying in Sorpigal!"



"Well, it didn't teleport us into solid rock. That's a plus. Jostiband, can you tell us where we are?"



"We're in a cave in the mountains, not far to the northeast of Sorpigal. But enough talk. Let's explore!"



"We arrived right by the cave mouth. If things turn bad, we can easily find our way back here and walk back to Sorpigal."

The party headed due north, through the door in front of them. After unlocking a series of grates, they found themselves at the entrance to a large room, and face-to-face with...



"Is that a human head it's holding? Eww."
"Technically, it looks like it's only about nine-tenths of a human head."



The ogres proved to be worthy opponents, but Preacher's healing, Jostiband's lightning bolts and the rest of the group's powerful weapons and armour won the day for the party.



In the corner of the same room where the Ogres were, the party was attacked a band of cyclopes, which they defeated somewhat more easily than the ogres.

"I think we've seen all there is to see in this room. Let's backtrack a little and try another door."



"A slide! Wheeeeeeeowowow acid get it off me get it off me!"



"Looks like I've got some new scars to add to my collection. Could be worse. What do we do now?"
"There's no climbing back up that slide, that's for sure. Nothing for it but to search this room and see if we can find a way out. Now what's this thing over here...?"



"Well, that worked. Where are we now?"



"Uh-oh."

The party ran for their lives, ending up back at the cavern entrance -- which is where they were trying to return to anyway.

"So the middle door leads to a dead end, and the left door leads to a horrible death slide. I guess that only leaves the right door. How about it, guys? Ready to do some more exploring?"



After walking fifty feet or so down the eastern corridor, the party encountered some extremely dapper-looking giant spiders. I'm sure those things on its face are supposed to be pedipalps and extra eyes, but to me they've always looked like eyebrows and a moustache. At any rate, the spiders were a non-venomous variety, and were dispatched easily enough. Continuing on, the party came to a locked grate in the east wall.

"This looks like a job for my successful fingers!"



"Get your successful fingers out of your successful ass and open a door without setting off a trap for once, will you?"



"Oh, stop your whining. Door traps are never anywhere near as deadly as chest traps. That was hardly worse than a bad sunburn."
"Well, there's nothing to be gained by arguing. Shall we go through the grate, now that it's unlocked?"



"More statues? Bah! We could break these back when we were greenhorns."



"Hmm. It appears the statues were guarding a button. Do you think we should press it? Jostiband, wait--"
"Yay! A button!"
"Well, for better or worse, it's been pressed now. I wonder what it did?"
"Aww, I was hoping it'd be a candy dispenser."



"Endless encounters? Well, that's obviously an exaggeration. How long can this corridor possibly be?"



"These aren't even very hard encounters. At this rate, we'll be at the other end of this corridor in no time!"



"Maybe this fight will be worthy of our skills."

Magicians can cast Lightning Bolt for about 20 damage, but unlike Jostiband's version, it only hits a single character at a time. They're a significant threat, but our heroes are competent enough to handle them.

"What's a wight, anyway?"
"You were never taught that during your training? You poor thing. I'd heard there was an anti-intellectual streak in the Church of Talcron, but I never realised it was this bad. A wight is a foul undead creature, spawned from the corpse of one who has committed at least three infamous acts of evil."
"At least three, you say? So... two wrongs don't make a wight?"




"Are a few werewolves going to stop us? Hmph. Pathetic."

True to Tarquinn's word, the enemies were swiftly dealt with.

"I can't help but observe that after walking down this corridor for several minutes and fighting a number of battles along the way, the wall behind us is still only a few steps away. The Corridor of Endless Encounters seems to be living up to its name."
"There must be teleportation traps around. Let's see if I can't help us get past them, shall we? Jump!"



"See? Easy! Jumping over all the triggers for the traps got us to the end of the corridor in no time. Now, what's behind this door? I bet it's a prize!"



"Told you so."
"Thirteen? Thirteen what?"
"Monster encounters, perhaps? We've run into a few already, after all. This wizard must have populated this cavern with monsters and set up traps for his own twisted amusement."
"Can't we just kill him and take whatever he's offering us? He's caused us enough trouble."
"Absolutely not! We did intrude upon this wizard's home, even if unknowingly. I will not allow you to compound our crime with murder."
"Besides, this gives us an excuse to explore more of the cavern!"



In a room in the southeast corner of the cavern, the party was confronted by a group of filthy but heavily-muscled men, dressed in furs and armed with crude wooden clubs and spears. They attacked the party and fought fiercely, but no more so than any of the other opponents the party had already defeated.

"Seven more notches on my blade. What's this wizard got in store for us next?"



"Why'd I have to go and ask? Fucking centaurs."

Thanks to a combination of the protection afforded by their silver shields, mental fortitude, and simple good fortune, the party defeated the centaurs without spending too much time dozing.



"You druids like trees, don't you? Well, my bow is crafted of the finest yew, and these arrow shafts are pure cedar wood. See how you feel about them!"



As it turned out, the druids had sleep spells, and were significantly more effective with them than the centaurs. The battle was long, with many party members spending most of it asleep, but the party emerged victorious.

"It looks like we've seen all there is to see on the east side of the cavern. Not counting all those fights in the endless corridor, I don't think we've fought 13 groups of monsters yet, and that damn slide stops us from exploring the west side."
"Let's try the west side again! Maybe the wizard turned the slide off after we reached him?"
"I'll try it, but if we get dumped in the acid again I'm going to hold your head under it until you stop struggling."

Sure enough, when the party returned to the western side of the cavern, they found that the slide was inactive.

"See? What a helpful wizard."
"I think it's more likely that the slide was deactivated by that button Jostiband pressed."
"Well, either way, a crazy wizard turned the slide off. Let's not look a gift horse in the mouth."



"Hey, another portal! Maybe it'll take us somewhere even more exciting!"
"Jostiband, don't you think we should at least finish what we're doing here and collect the wizard's prize before taking any other portals?"
"Oh, alright. But only because of the prize."

After exploring the rest of the cavern and winning a few more easy battles, the party returned to where they had met the wizard, in hopes of a reward.



"Hey, where'd the wizard go? I guess he must have left this sack here for us."
"I bet there's a trap in it."



"Now that's a lot of treasure. I wonder what lock this key opens. I believe I'll hang on to it for now, just in case it comes in handy."

The Sundial is just a magic item that can be used to cast Location. It has 50 charges, but using an inventory slot just to save one spell point every now and then seems a bit wasteful.

"I think we've done all we can here. Time to go."
"Oh boy! That means we get to use the portal, right?"
"... maybe later."



"Fine. I guess we'll have to go all the way back on foot, then."



And so our heroes began their long trek through the mountains of the Northern Barrier and back to Sorpigal.



Before long, however, they ran into monsters. Strangling Vines posed no real threat to the party...



...but running away from them was a convenient way to get back to Sorpigal.



"We've explored another cavern, doubled our net worth and found a key. All in all, this has been a good day."



"And I found a new, magical bow in the cavern. It does about as much damage as my old bow, but it should be more accurate."

Well, it seems that about wraps up today's update.

"Wait! There's one very important thing you forgot to show!"



"Behold: the reason why you probably shouldn't cast Fireball on enemies in hand-to-hand combat."





Well, there you go. Now that Jostiband has set her own party on fire by unwisely launching a fireball into melee, this update is over. Next update, our brave adventurers will probably go and see where that portal leads, unless you'd rather they did something else. And as for the fate of Sylphosaurus and his ragtag band of outcasts and paladins, well, who knows what the future will bring...?