[DitL] Eden the Bree-Man Rogue (Madmonk's challenge)
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Re: [DitL] Eden the Bree-Man Rogue (Madmonk's challenge)
More more !
[tome] joylove: You can't just release an expansion like one would release a Kraken XD
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[tome] phantomfrettchen: your ability not to tease anyone is simply stunning
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[tome] phantomfrettchen: your ability not to tease anyone is simply stunning
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Burb Lulls
- Spiderkin
- Posts: 480
- Joined: Mon Jul 26, 2004 5:20 am
- Location: Blighty
Re: [DitL] Eden the Bree-Man Rogue (Madmonk's challenge)
Your voices have been heard! After receiving so many PMs that my inbox literally wept, it's finally time for me to "lay my cards on the table". Did Eden meet his end in the Old Forest? Did he team up with Beturin, tear into the High Peak and beat the sorcerers to death with a burning guitar in a Dimwit-esque display of roguelike magic?! I now realise... that you care little for the answers to these questions, and so I shall now give you what you've all been really waiting for... a graphic, hardcore Aeryn/Grim slashfic! Enjoy!
Note: For some reason, the attachment here doesn't show the correct size of the file. It should be 5MB, not 1.47KB
Note: For some reason, the attachment here doesn't show the correct size of the file. It should be 5MB, not 1.47KB
Re: [DitL] Eden the Bree-Man Rogue (Madmonk's challenge)
That's very disturbing, Burb. God, that bit where she uses the skeleton to-- ugh, just sick, very sick :(
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Burb Lulls
- Spiderkin
- Posts: 480
- Joined: Mon Jul 26, 2004 5:20 am
- Location: Blighty
Re: [DitL] Eden the Bree-Man Rogue (Madmonk's challenge)
Sadly, my previous magnum opus has been deemed too "extreme" for these forums, so I now have to pretend that it was a silly April Fools joke. Feh. Suppose I have to... ugh... go back to actually doing a DitL, then?
Eden pressed his nose up against the shop window, eyes set on the footwear up on display. “Hello babies,” He said, “Did you miss me?” Although it seemed impossible, he had been re-united with Eden’s Guile. First worn by a capering sprite who may or may not have been the absolute creator of all existence, then stolen by a troll, then stolen by Eden, then lost and supposedly destroyed during Middle-Earth’s apocalypse – the two pieces of foot-shaped leather had certainly been through a lot.
“Interested in that artefact, are you?” Came the voice of the shopkeeper, a round and rosy-cheeked blacksmith busy wiping soot from his hands with a ragged cloth, “Had quite a few adventurers in asking about them. Quite good for sprinting in, apparently…”
“Artefact…” Eden thought to himself, “Like, the helm of the Dwarven Kings? The gauntlets of the Storm Bringer? That Ulmo ring?”
“Ulmo?”
“Vargh,” Eden corrected himself rapidly, “It’s an artefact like those?” Seeing the blacksmith nod, a glib little smile crossed Eden’s face; time for an ego massage. “I wonder what sort of figure of legend these boots once belonged to, don’t you?”
The blacksmith shrugged, “Haven’t a clue. Probably some scrub who got lucky.”
“…” Eden ellipsis’d.
“And let me tell you, they stunk when I first got them! Took me ages to get them sale-worthy! I was almost considering sending them off to be exorcised! Ha ha!”
Eden sulkily slapped a pile of coins onto the shop’s counter, “I’ll take them, if you please.”
Leaving the shop, Eden passed a grim and grizzled berserker, inspecting the plate armour on display. “Psst,” Eden hissed in his ear, “That blacksmith in there just said that berserkers are overpowered.”
“WHAT?!”
“So, to recap: Grim has apparently been kidnapped by that villainous scoundreless Elisa, but thanks to my roguish ways and my quiet intensity… and that Blood of Life I found, I have essentially bribed her into meeting me here in the Old Forest. Either she’ll tell me where Grim is and we’ll all live happily ever after, or she’ll refuse and… well, won’t live happily ever after. Got all that?”
“Yes,” Gurgled the cutpurse Eden had stabbed, shortly before slumping to the ground.
“Good.”
“With my tenth level, my bones have toughened to the point where they can handle another one of these funny temporary magic tattoos!” Eden paused, feeling the accusing eyes of the Ziguranth on him, “… I mean, these funny temporary natural tattoos.”
The Old Forest was the same as always, full to the brim with fauna hungry for adventurer-flesh. However, the number of treants Eden spotted seemed eerily low, and whenever he saw them they appeared sluggish and slow to react, as if they had only just been granted the ability to move. “Curious,” Thought Eden, “Maybe a mage has only just enchanted these things to move. An… arbormancer?” Eden was distracted from imagining what an arbormancer’s outfit would look like by a scrap of paper on the forest floor. Uncrumpling it, it read:
"The Sher'Tul. Who were they? Where did they come from? Where did they go? The mysteries surrounding this ancient race are almost infinite. What little scraps of information we have regarding them allude to a mighty and world-spanning civilisation, wielding power and magic unthinkable. Now, however, all that remains of them are forgotten, wind-swept ruins, the tiniest minutiae of their technology sealed away in the studies of reclusive sages. Does their mystery not call to your curious nature as it does mine, gentle reader?"
Eden frowned, “Ugh! What hack wrote this? The sentences don’t flow properly, the vocabulary is all over the place! And surely ‘crucible’ would’ve been a better word than ‘ancient’ there! Ugh!” He balled the paper up and threw it away in disgust.
“Still, looks like an explorer is hoping to make a name for himself, studying these… Sher’Tul. I probably won’t be hearing about them again. Their mystery does not call to my curious nature as it does yours, gentle treant-bait.”
A small copse in the forest, a natural ‘vault’ of sorts, held a group of honey trees, all bunched together. Their bows and branches heavy with bears and bees uncounted, Eden wisely chose to avoid a death from simultaneous stinging and mauling and carefully slunk away.
“I’ve no time to be messing around with trees anyway. It’s almost nightfall and… hold on.”
It wasn’t almost nightfall, it was the middle of the day. Why then, was the forest rapidly being consumed by darkness? Eden squinted, hoping to see something in the encroaching inky blackness… then he wished he didn’t.
“DÚÚÚATHLEDEN!!!” Roared the demon, its only visible feature a single, piercing red eye. Eden ducked frantically, feeling wind blow over him as… something blew over his head. The dúathedlen (as named by noted alchemist Pokk Hemhon) melded into the darkness perfectly – staying out of the darkness that would kill him instantly and in the darkness that wouldn’t seemed like sheer guesswork. All Eden could do was lash out at the only part of the darkness that he was sure was the dúathedlen – its eye. Fortunately, darkness doesn’t have eyelids, and thanks to the 360° field of vision all roguelike characters possess, Eden was able to reliably and methodically wear the dúathedlen down, until its eye closed… permanently.
“See you later… No, wait. I’ll keep an eye out for you! No, wait…”
Luckily, Eden’s awful pun brainstorm was interrupted as he noticed that there was a piece of paper resting by his feet. He took it up and read it:
"What is there to be said about a place like "the old forest"? It is a forest, and it is old. By its unimaginative moniker you can guess how important this place is to the people of Derth; the only locals who commonly venture under its boughs are novice alchemists in search of ingredients, plus the odd hunter with his sights set low. However, the story of this old forest now takes a more interesting twist... Rumours are growing of trees roaming in its depths, moving as you or I would. Some even claim that they now possess the spark of sentience. The Sher'Tul were rumoured to hold the power of animism... is this mere coincidence?"
“Hey, it might be coincidence,” Shrugged Eden, “I’ve seen plenty of treants before and I don’t think they were related to the Ter’Tul or whoever. Still, it looks like your dreams of fame and fortune came to an end within the embrace of a dúathedlen… wait.” Eden flipped the paper over; a hastily-scribbled note was written on its underside.
“Some sort of demon-thing tried to bother me, casting darkness everywhere. Didn’t pay much attention, frankly. This Summertide Phial thing is nifty!”
“Showoff.” Eden grumbled.
Two further copses full of honey trees loomed in this area of the forest. Despite the loot from fallen adventurers that was guaranteed within them, Eden chose to evade them as he had done previously.
The last of the carrion worm masses fell to the ground with a sickening squelch. “So out of all the diseases these carrion worms could’ve been carrying… they just so happened to be carrying one that effects bones!” Eden scowled, suffering from an acute bout of osteomyelitis, “Oh well, thank heavens for wild infusions. Plus, it looks like the worms were guarding yet another piece of paper. Let’s see…”
"My inquiries have paid off! It took much searching, and even more arm-twisting and cajoling once I had found my man, but a local lumberjack who plies his trade in the old forest has divulged to me an amazing secret! He speaks of ruins within the forest, a location where the living trees seem to congregate in larger numbers. He would not speak much of the place, and seemed to believe it cursed, but I did manage to squeeze out of him the appearance of the ruins. There is no longer any doubt in my mind now: They belonged to the Sher'Tul!"
Eden scratched his head, “Ruins? But I thought the only thing in the middle of this forest was a big lake…”
"Does my title not tell you enough? Disaster, and again disaster! True enough, these Sher'Tul ruins exist... several hundred feet at the bottom of a mighty lake! The lake of Nur, one of the largest in the old forest, has swallowed up the ruins in its murky depths. I am hardly a strong swimmer, gentle reader, but even if I could swim like a naga-spawned beast I could not hope to explore the ruin's sunken expanses before drowning. I fear I must abandon my present expedition... the trees are paying closer attention to me, and I do not believe it is of the pleasant sort..."
“Ah, that explains it. Looks like I’m not exploring any ancient Ter’Tul ruins today then. I’m with him on the attention-from-trees thing, too; it always seems like they’re judging you.”
Eden became aware of a tingling sensation near his ankle. Looking backwards, he realised that his foot had become caught on some poison vines, and he was now dragging along a good-sized bunch of them behind him. “Wow,” He thought, “Being a skeleton really takes the edge off these things.”
“Hey there!”
“WHAAARGH?!” *stab* *stab* *stab*
“Wait! Wait! Stop!”
“Aah! Huh?! Whuh?! Who’re you?!”
“I’m Arthedir,” The fighter, who had just experienced Eden’s Trademark Escortee Greeting #312, said, “Who are you? Another one of Elisa’s agents, I suspect? In that case, prepare thyself! Shield pummel!”
Thanks to the fighter calling his attack for some reason, Eden was able to easily avoid the blow. “Easy!” He gasped, both at the surprise of the attack and the mentioning of Elisa’s name, “I’m not one of Elisa’s agents! I’m here to meet her!”
“A likely story!” Arthedir laughed bitterly, “You cannot fool me, and neither can you defeat me! My shield pummels once defeated a telugoroth! I have literally smacked time in the face. My dearest Melinda shall be avenged!”
Dodging the fighter’s second strike, Eden scrabbled up a tree. Thanks to Arthedir’s heavy armour, he could only clank and yell angrily. “Listen!” Eden shouted down, “I’m not working for Elisa, I swear! I’m here to save somebody, too!”
“Who?!”
“She’s called Grim, she’s a necromancer and – ah!” Curses, Eden thought. His experiences with Grim had caused him to forget the dim view most of the world had of necromancy, and now he had mentioned the ‘n’ word he fully expected the fighter to attack him then and there on principle.
However, Arthedir instead lowered his weapon, his face softening. “Very well,” He spoke, “I do not believe one would lie about so sensitive a fact. Come down, we can talk.”
Climbing down from the tree, Eden stood as the fighter re-introduced himself, “As I said, I am Arthedir. Weeks ago, I met a woman in Last Hope, an angel by the name of Melinda. Her father however wouldn’t hear of me going anywhere near his beloved daughter. That alone is sad, but mere days later I heard that she had vanished, and the blame has been placed squarely on my head. I have been ordered to rescue her to prove my innocence, but even without such a command I will let nothing stop me from saving my angel. And you?”
Eden scratched his neck awkwardly, “Well, Grim’s just this… woman I know, I suppose.”
Arthedir smiled wryly, “I see you care for her deeply.”
The pair began their trek through the forest. “Incidentally,” Eden asked, “How did you figure out that it was Elisa who kidnapped Melinda?”
Arthedir shrugged, “She let it slip when I asked her to identify this battleaxe I found.”
“Ahahaheeha! It was a waraxe, silly!”
Eden and Arthedir stared about them in confusion. With realisation, they both revealed their respective orbs of scrying – Elisa’s voice rang from them simultaneously, “What sort of fighter doesn’t know the difference between a battleaxe and a waraxe?”
“Elisa, you monster!” Arthedir roared, “Where are you?! Where is Melinda?! You said you’d meet me here in the forest! Answer me!”
No response came from Elisa initially, except for some delighted tittering. Eventually, she said, “Now now, Mr. Macho! No need to fly off the deep end! Indeed, I am within this forest at the moment. However, you couldn’t expect me to come alone, could you?”
“What?!”
“Arthie,” Eden mumbled, tapping him on the shoulder, “I’ll advise you to stop looking at that orb, and start looking at that ambush.”
“I know it might be a bit of a rogue cliché,” Eden said, “But how do you feel about running away screaming right now?”
“Interesting proposal,” Arthedir responded thoughtfully, “I’ve got a better idea though, although it’s a bit of a fighter cliché. It goes something like this: BAAAAARRRGGH—”
“Y’know,” Thought Eden as Arthedir waded out of a pile of wolf corpses, “It’ll never cease to amaze me how you fighters can do that.”
“I told you,” Arthedir grinned, “I’ve smacked time in the face before. These are just hounds! Of course, if you combine the two, then you get real nightmares… Still, it doesn’t look like Elisa plans on playing fair, and I haven’t got the energy left to get into another serious fight. I’m gonna recall out of here. Will you be okay by yourself?”
Eden tapped his fingers together, “I’d feel a bit better if you taught me some of those fighter moves of yours…”
With new tutelage of weapon combat under his belt, Eden felt confident as he continued his journey into the forest. “Aside from Beturin, that Arthedir might just have been my favourite escortee. Sure, I’ve seen plenty of mindless gallivanting warrior types, but he’s the only one who’s actually managed to pull it off!”
“Oh dear,” Thought Eden as he picked up a bloodied and tattered piece of paper, “Looks like our friend Darwood Oakton met a sticky end…” Looking up, Eden was stunned by the sight of a minotaur, axe in hand and a vacant expression on its face. It was staring at him.
“You are Eden?” It rumbled with a voice unfamiliar with pleasant conversation.
“Yes…”
“Good. See, Wilberforce thought last person through here was Eden, but…” the minotaur looked at its axe, the blade dripping with blood, and trailed off slowly, “… No. I am Wilberforce, assistant to Elisa the Scryer. You meet her here, yes?”
“Yes…”
The minotaur grinned hideously, “Good! Wilberforce shall show you to Elisa! This way. Walk in front of Wilberforce. Don’t look behind you no matter what.” The minotaur raised its axe instinctively in preparation. In response, Eden sighed and delivered an almost disdainful flurry, felling the bovine beast.
“If I fell for that, I’d deserve an axe in the back.”
Eden had made his way to the centre of the Old Forest. The air was thick and unnaturally silent. Now fully expecting foul play from Elisa, Eden walked with his daggers ready, prepared for a sneak attack.
Instead of a sneak attack, Eden found a large clearing, a tree bigger than any he had ever seen at its centre. Nailed to the tree was a scrap of paper, on which was a curious poem.
“Saved from casket, coffin, urn, darkness falls, but…” Eden frowned in confusion. The poem was an oddly positive ditty about necromancers. Had it been written by Grim? If so, why was it nailed to this tree?
Eden was interrupted from thinking about this by a cackling voice emanating from his orb of scrying. “I bet you thought that your sweetheart Grim wrote that, didn’t you?”
“Elisa!” Eden exclaimed, taking the orb from his pack, “Where are you?! Don’t you want your precious Blood of Life?”
Elisa ignored Eden, instead repeating, “Bet you thought your sweetheart Grim wrote that, didn’t you?”
Frowning, Eden took another look at the necromancer poem he held, “As if. Everybody knows Grim dots her Is with little hearts. Where are you? You do realise that if this is a trap, I’m smashing the Blood of Life.”
“Smash away,” Said Elisa dismissively, “The Blood of Life is only useful if you have people out to kill you. In a few seconds, that won’t apply to me any longer! You’ve fallen straight into my trap!”
“Trap?!” Eden glanced around confusedly, “… Leading me to a big tree was your trap?”
“You could say that… Take another look at the tree.”
Eden went to look at the tree, but it had vanished. Crack! A hoary fist the size of a man struck Eden from behind, knocking him to the ground. Elisa laughed delightedly as Eden groaned.
“Wrathroot, Eden. Eden, Wrathroot. Play nice now!”
BONUS COMIC:
- DERTH
Eden pressed his nose up against the shop window, eyes set on the footwear up on display. “Hello babies,” He said, “Did you miss me?” Although it seemed impossible, he had been re-united with Eden’s Guile. First worn by a capering sprite who may or may not have been the absolute creator of all existence, then stolen by a troll, then stolen by Eden, then lost and supposedly destroyed during Middle-Earth’s apocalypse – the two pieces of foot-shaped leather had certainly been through a lot.
“Interested in that artefact, are you?” Came the voice of the shopkeeper, a round and rosy-cheeked blacksmith busy wiping soot from his hands with a ragged cloth, “Had quite a few adventurers in asking about them. Quite good for sprinting in, apparently…”
“Artefact…” Eden thought to himself, “Like, the helm of the Dwarven Kings? The gauntlets of the Storm Bringer? That Ulmo ring?”
“Ulmo?”
“Vargh,” Eden corrected himself rapidly, “It’s an artefact like those?” Seeing the blacksmith nod, a glib little smile crossed Eden’s face; time for an ego massage. “I wonder what sort of figure of legend these boots once belonged to, don’t you?”
The blacksmith shrugged, “Haven’t a clue. Probably some scrub who got lucky.”
“…” Eden ellipsis’d.
“And let me tell you, they stunk when I first got them! Took me ages to get them sale-worthy! I was almost considering sending them off to be exorcised! Ha ha!”
Eden sulkily slapped a pile of coins onto the shop’s counter, “I’ll take them, if you please.”
Leaving the shop, Eden passed a grim and grizzled berserker, inspecting the plate armour on display. “Psst,” Eden hissed in his ear, “That blacksmith in there just said that berserkers are overpowered.”
“WHAT?!”
- OLD FOREST 1
“So, to recap: Grim has apparently been kidnapped by that villainous scoundreless Elisa, but thanks to my roguish ways and my quiet intensity… and that Blood of Life I found, I have essentially bribed her into meeting me here in the Old Forest. Either she’ll tell me where Grim is and we’ll all live happily ever after, or she’ll refuse and… well, won’t live happily ever after. Got all that?”
“Yes,” Gurgled the cutpurse Eden had stabbed, shortly before slumping to the ground.
“Good.”
- Level 10! +1 Dexterity, +2 Constitution, +1 Dual Weapon Defence, +1 Flurry
“With my tenth level, my bones have toughened to the point where they can handle another one of these funny temporary magic tattoos!” Eden paused, feeling the accusing eyes of the Ziguranth on him, “… I mean, these funny temporary natural tattoos.”
The Old Forest was the same as always, full to the brim with fauna hungry for adventurer-flesh. However, the number of treants Eden spotted seemed eerily low, and whenever he saw them they appeared sluggish and slow to react, as if they had only just been granted the ability to move. “Curious,” Thought Eden, “Maybe a mage has only just enchanted these things to move. An… arbormancer?” Eden was distracted from imagining what an arbormancer’s outfit would look like by a scrap of paper on the forest floor. Uncrumpling it, it read:
"The Sher'Tul. Who were they? Where did they come from? Where did they go? The mysteries surrounding this ancient race are almost infinite. What little scraps of information we have regarding them allude to a mighty and world-spanning civilisation, wielding power and magic unthinkable. Now, however, all that remains of them are forgotten, wind-swept ruins, the tiniest minutiae of their technology sealed away in the studies of reclusive sages. Does their mystery not call to your curious nature as it does mine, gentle reader?"
Eden frowned, “Ugh! What hack wrote this? The sentences don’t flow properly, the vocabulary is all over the place! And surely ‘crucible’ would’ve been a better word than ‘ancient’ there! Ugh!” He balled the paper up and threw it away in disgust.
“Still, looks like an explorer is hoping to make a name for himself, studying these… Sher’Tul. I probably won’t be hearing about them again. Their mystery does not call to my curious nature as it does yours, gentle treant-bait.”
- OLD FOREST 2
A small copse in the forest, a natural ‘vault’ of sorts, held a group of honey trees, all bunched together. Their bows and branches heavy with bears and bees uncounted, Eden wisely chose to avoid a death from simultaneous stinging and mauling and carefully slunk away.
“I’ve no time to be messing around with trees anyway. It’s almost nightfall and… hold on.”
It wasn’t almost nightfall, it was the middle of the day. Why then, was the forest rapidly being consumed by darkness? Eden squinted, hoping to see something in the encroaching inky blackness… then he wished he didn’t.
“DÚÚÚATHLEDEN!!!” Roared the demon, its only visible feature a single, piercing red eye. Eden ducked frantically, feeling wind blow over him as… something blew over his head. The dúathedlen (as named by noted alchemist Pokk Hemhon) melded into the darkness perfectly – staying out of the darkness that would kill him instantly and in the darkness that wouldn’t seemed like sheer guesswork. All Eden could do was lash out at the only part of the darkness that he was sure was the dúathedlen – its eye. Fortunately, darkness doesn’t have eyelids, and thanks to the 360° field of vision all roguelike characters possess, Eden was able to reliably and methodically wear the dúathedlen down, until its eye closed… permanently.
“See you later… No, wait. I’ll keep an eye out for you! No, wait…”
Luckily, Eden’s awful pun brainstorm was interrupted as he noticed that there was a piece of paper resting by his feet. He took it up and read it:
"What is there to be said about a place like "the old forest"? It is a forest, and it is old. By its unimaginative moniker you can guess how important this place is to the people of Derth; the only locals who commonly venture under its boughs are novice alchemists in search of ingredients, plus the odd hunter with his sights set low. However, the story of this old forest now takes a more interesting twist... Rumours are growing of trees roaming in its depths, moving as you or I would. Some even claim that they now possess the spark of sentience. The Sher'Tul were rumoured to hold the power of animism... is this mere coincidence?"
“Hey, it might be coincidence,” Shrugged Eden, “I’ve seen plenty of treants before and I don’t think they were related to the Ter’Tul or whoever. Still, it looks like your dreams of fame and fortune came to an end within the embrace of a dúathedlen… wait.” Eden flipped the paper over; a hastily-scribbled note was written on its underside.
“Some sort of demon-thing tried to bother me, casting darkness everywhere. Didn’t pay much attention, frankly. This Summertide Phial thing is nifty!”
“Showoff.” Eden grumbled.
- OLD FOREST 3
Two further copses full of honey trees loomed in this area of the forest. Despite the loot from fallen adventurers that was guaranteed within them, Eden chose to evade them as he had done previously.
- * * *
The last of the carrion worm masses fell to the ground with a sickening squelch. “So out of all the diseases these carrion worms could’ve been carrying… they just so happened to be carrying one that effects bones!” Eden scowled, suffering from an acute bout of osteomyelitis, “Oh well, thank heavens for wild infusions. Plus, it looks like the worms were guarding yet another piece of paper. Let’s see…”
"My inquiries have paid off! It took much searching, and even more arm-twisting and cajoling once I had found my man, but a local lumberjack who plies his trade in the old forest has divulged to me an amazing secret! He speaks of ruins within the forest, a location where the living trees seem to congregate in larger numbers. He would not speak much of the place, and seemed to believe it cursed, but I did manage to squeeze out of him the appearance of the ruins. There is no longer any doubt in my mind now: They belonged to the Sher'Tul!"
Eden scratched his head, “Ruins? But I thought the only thing in the middle of this forest was a big lake…”
- OLD FOREST 4
"Does my title not tell you enough? Disaster, and again disaster! True enough, these Sher'Tul ruins exist... several hundred feet at the bottom of a mighty lake! The lake of Nur, one of the largest in the old forest, has swallowed up the ruins in its murky depths. I am hardly a strong swimmer, gentle reader, but even if I could swim like a naga-spawned beast I could not hope to explore the ruin's sunken expanses before drowning. I fear I must abandon my present expedition... the trees are paying closer attention to me, and I do not believe it is of the pleasant sort..."
“Ah, that explains it. Looks like I’m not exploring any ancient Ter’Tul ruins today then. I’m with him on the attention-from-trees thing, too; it always seems like they’re judging you.”
Eden became aware of a tingling sensation near his ankle. Looking backwards, he realised that his foot had become caught on some poison vines, and he was now dragging along a good-sized bunch of them behind him. “Wow,” He thought, “Being a skeleton really takes the edge off these things.”
- OLD FOREST 5
“Hey there!”
“WHAAARGH?!” *stab* *stab* *stab*
“Wait! Wait! Stop!”
“Aah! Huh?! Whuh?! Who’re you?!”
“I’m Arthedir,” The fighter, who had just experienced Eden’s Trademark Escortee Greeting #312, said, “Who are you? Another one of Elisa’s agents, I suspect? In that case, prepare thyself! Shield pummel!”
Thanks to the fighter calling his attack for some reason, Eden was able to easily avoid the blow. “Easy!” He gasped, both at the surprise of the attack and the mentioning of Elisa’s name, “I’m not one of Elisa’s agents! I’m here to meet her!”
“A likely story!” Arthedir laughed bitterly, “You cannot fool me, and neither can you defeat me! My shield pummels once defeated a telugoroth! I have literally smacked time in the face. My dearest Melinda shall be avenged!”
Dodging the fighter’s second strike, Eden scrabbled up a tree. Thanks to Arthedir’s heavy armour, he could only clank and yell angrily. “Listen!” Eden shouted down, “I’m not working for Elisa, I swear! I’m here to save somebody, too!”
“Who?!”
“She’s called Grim, she’s a necromancer and – ah!” Curses, Eden thought. His experiences with Grim had caused him to forget the dim view most of the world had of necromancy, and now he had mentioned the ‘n’ word he fully expected the fighter to attack him then and there on principle.
However, Arthedir instead lowered his weapon, his face softening. “Very well,” He spoke, “I do not believe one would lie about so sensitive a fact. Come down, we can talk.”
Climbing down from the tree, Eden stood as the fighter re-introduced himself, “As I said, I am Arthedir. Weeks ago, I met a woman in Last Hope, an angel by the name of Melinda. Her father however wouldn’t hear of me going anywhere near his beloved daughter. That alone is sad, but mere days later I heard that she had vanished, and the blame has been placed squarely on my head. I have been ordered to rescue her to prove my innocence, but even without such a command I will let nothing stop me from saving my angel. And you?”
Eden scratched his neck awkwardly, “Well, Grim’s just this… woman I know, I suppose.”
Arthedir smiled wryly, “I see you care for her deeply.”
The pair began their trek through the forest. “Incidentally,” Eden asked, “How did you figure out that it was Elisa who kidnapped Melinda?”
Arthedir shrugged, “She let it slip when I asked her to identify this battleaxe I found.”
“Ahahaheeha! It was a waraxe, silly!”
Eden and Arthedir stared about them in confusion. With realisation, they both revealed their respective orbs of scrying – Elisa’s voice rang from them simultaneously, “What sort of fighter doesn’t know the difference between a battleaxe and a waraxe?”
“Elisa, you monster!” Arthedir roared, “Where are you?! Where is Melinda?! You said you’d meet me here in the forest! Answer me!”
No response came from Elisa initially, except for some delighted tittering. Eventually, she said, “Now now, Mr. Macho! No need to fly off the deep end! Indeed, I am within this forest at the moment. However, you couldn’t expect me to come alone, could you?”
“What?!”
“Arthie,” Eden mumbled, tapping him on the shoulder, “I’ll advise you to stop looking at that orb, and start looking at that ambush.”
“I know it might be a bit of a rogue cliché,” Eden said, “But how do you feel about running away screaming right now?”
“Interesting proposal,” Arthedir responded thoughtfully, “I’ve got a better idea though, although it’s a bit of a fighter cliché. It goes something like this: BAAAAARRRGGH—”
“Y’know,” Thought Eden as Arthedir waded out of a pile of wolf corpses, “It’ll never cease to amaze me how you fighters can do that.”
“I told you,” Arthedir grinned, “I’ve smacked time in the face before. These are just hounds! Of course, if you combine the two, then you get real nightmares… Still, it doesn’t look like Elisa plans on playing fair, and I haven’t got the energy left to get into another serious fight. I’m gonna recall out of here. Will you be okay by yourself?”
Eden tapped his fingers together, “I’d feel a bit better if you taught me some of those fighter moves of yours…”
- * * *
With new tutelage of weapon combat under his belt, Eden felt confident as he continued his journey into the forest. “Aside from Beturin, that Arthedir might just have been my favourite escortee. Sure, I’ve seen plenty of mindless gallivanting warrior types, but he’s the only one who’s actually managed to pull it off!”
- OLD FOREST 6
“Oh dear,” Thought Eden as he picked up a bloodied and tattered piece of paper, “Looks like our friend Darwood Oakton met a sticky end…” Looking up, Eden was stunned by the sight of a minotaur, axe in hand and a vacant expression on its face. It was staring at him.
“You are Eden?” It rumbled with a voice unfamiliar with pleasant conversation.
“Yes…”
“Good. See, Wilberforce thought last person through here was Eden, but…” the minotaur looked at its axe, the blade dripping with blood, and trailed off slowly, “… No. I am Wilberforce, assistant to Elisa the Scryer. You meet her here, yes?”
“Yes…”
The minotaur grinned hideously, “Good! Wilberforce shall show you to Elisa! This way. Walk in front of Wilberforce. Don’t look behind you no matter what.” The minotaur raised its axe instinctively in preparation. In response, Eden sighed and delivered an almost disdainful flurry, felling the bovine beast.
“If I fell for that, I’d deserve an axe in the back.”
- OLD FOREST 7
Eden had made his way to the centre of the Old Forest. The air was thick and unnaturally silent. Now fully expecting foul play from Elisa, Eden walked with his daggers ready, prepared for a sneak attack.
Instead of a sneak attack, Eden found a large clearing, a tree bigger than any he had ever seen at its centre. Nailed to the tree was a scrap of paper, on which was a curious poem.
“Saved from casket, coffin, urn, darkness falls, but…” Eden frowned in confusion. The poem was an oddly positive ditty about necromancers. Had it been written by Grim? If so, why was it nailed to this tree?
Eden was interrupted from thinking about this by a cackling voice emanating from his orb of scrying. “I bet you thought that your sweetheart Grim wrote that, didn’t you?”
“Elisa!” Eden exclaimed, taking the orb from his pack, “Where are you?! Don’t you want your precious Blood of Life?”
Elisa ignored Eden, instead repeating, “Bet you thought your sweetheart Grim wrote that, didn’t you?”
Frowning, Eden took another look at the necromancer poem he held, “As if. Everybody knows Grim dots her Is with little hearts. Where are you? You do realise that if this is a trap, I’m smashing the Blood of Life.”
“Smash away,” Said Elisa dismissively, “The Blood of Life is only useful if you have people out to kill you. In a few seconds, that won’t apply to me any longer! You’ve fallen straight into my trap!”
“Trap?!” Eden glanced around confusedly, “… Leading me to a big tree was your trap?”
“You could say that… Take another look at the tree.”
Eden went to look at the tree, but it had vanished. Crack! A hoary fist the size of a man struck Eden from behind, knocking him to the ground. Elisa laughed delightedly as Eden groaned.
“Wrathroot, Eden. Eden, Wrathroot. Play nice now!”
BONUS COMIC:
Re: [DitL] Eden the Bree-Man Rogue (Madmonk's challenge)
Moaaar!!
PS: and post it on your te4.org blog
PS: and post it on your te4.org blog
[tome] joylove: You can't just release an expansion like one would release a Kraken XD
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[tome] phantomfrettchen: your ability not to tease anyone is simply stunning
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[tome] phantomfrettchen: your ability not to tease anyone is simply stunning
-
Burb Lulls
- Spiderkin
- Posts: 480
- Joined: Mon Jul 26, 2004 5:20 am
- Location: Blighty
Re: [DitL] Eden the Bree-Man Rogue (Madmonk's challenge)
Just a little bit...
Eden heaved and gasped, merely an instinctive action seeing as he was without lungs. Wrathroot had finally fallen, covering the entire clearing with splinters the size of daggers upon his destruction. Eden noticed one had lodged itself firmly between his ribs – pulling it out, he considered the inconvenience it would’ve caused him had he still been flesh-based.
Still resting from the battle, Eden became aware of a faint voice: Elisa!
“Hello? Hello…?”
Immediately up on his feet again, Eden looked this way and that for the wayward seer. Not seeing her immediately, he noticed that her voice was coming from an unusual source – beside Wrathroot’s fallen remains.
Rooting through the dry bark and branches of Wrathroot’s cadaver, Eden came across an orb strikingly similar to the orb of scrying that he possessed. Elisa’s voice rang from this new orb, sounding both cheerful and expectant, “? Oh, Wrathy-Root? ? Your master calls to yo~ou…”
Eden picked up the orb, silently considering his next action. Elisa was obviously expecting a response. “Has our little rogue friend been taken care of…?”
Ralkur’s toupee, Eden thought to himself, what in blazes is a tree meant to sound like? Finally deciding upon a deep, scratchy burr, he growled, “He is no more, master.”
No reply came from Elisa initially, causing Eden to panic, but he soon felt relief as she giggled, “Good! No trouble, I assume…?”
Having stumbled by luck upon a realistic treant’s accent, Eden chuckled and added, “I have consigned him to the void for all eternity…”
“Ah, you and your jokes, Wrathy! It’s a shame I can’t send you over to the east. Those Rak’Shor cretins only went and lost the necromancer that rogue was going on about!”
“Really?!” Eden exclaimed, momentarily dropping his tree accent, “Ha ha, yes!”
“Wrathy?”
“Oh, er,” Eden fell back into rumbling, “Ah, a woodpecker just tickled me, that’s all.”
Elisa was now all business, “Come to the labyrinth for your payment. You know, the one next to that old Angolwen sign?”
“I am familiar with it, master.”
“Oh, are you?” Elisa teased, “I’m surprised you can bear to leave your precious forest behind for a second, Wrathy!” Eden felt a distinct change in Elisa’s tone; although she remained upbeat, her voice had gained a definite edge, “Well, don’t get too settled in! Just thinking about that fortress down at the bottom of that lake… I oughta rip it apart, brick by brick, then burn the entire forest to the ground! That’ll show those accursed traitors! Aha! Haahahahahaha!”
Eden slowly let the orb fall from his hands, it having fallen silent after Elisa’s little outburst. Grim was, apparently, safe. Eden had no need to ever meet or speak to Elisa again, if he wished it. Following his delightful experiences with her, he felt it’d be nice to settle into the world of Maj’Eyal with a fresh slate, free of psychopathic seers.
However, that wasn’t going to happen.
He now knew where Elisa was; he had the element of surprise. Eden half-heartedly told himself that what he was going to do was for the good of Maj’Eyal – having someone so clearly disturbed as Elisa running free was obviously hazardous. At the end of the day though, Eden knew that he just wanted a nice, satisfying slice of revenge.
Elisa was expecting a treant – she was going to get a surprise. Two of them, in fact - hitting three times each.
“Ahahahahaha!”
Elisa carelessly threw her orb over her shoulder, the mage stood behind her having to catch it haphazardly before it shattered on the floor. He hated having to work for her, but he had no choice. Ever since his drunken brawl with Tarelion in Angolwen’s central fountain he had been cast out of the city of mages, and Elisa knew things about him that were even worse.
“Hmhm,” Elisa continued to chuckle to herself as she moved about the cramped back room of her scrying shop, preparing a pack for her journey to the maze, “Silly old Wrathy getting me to think about Yiilkgur. And I was in such a good mood, too!” Dropping her pack, she turned a wild eye on her mage underling and grinned, “I think I need to let off some steam.”
“Ah…” The mage’s eyes darted towards the dropped pack, “Shouldn’t you hurry to the maze? Your meeting with the treant, remember?”
Elisa dismissed this with a wave, “Oh, he’s just that, a treant. They live for ages, they don’t mind waiting. Even if he does complain, I’ll just burn him to ash! That’ll teach him! Hmhm!”
“What we need… is to have a little event to cover my leaving of Derth.” She turned to the mage, scowling, “Conjure a tempest over this pathetic little town. I want gwelgoroths massacring people in the streets.”
“A tempest?! But, I don’t, you can’t—”
“Do not question my orders, Urkis!” Elisa yelled, “You are in no position to. If you’re scared somebody will link it to you, Mr. Famous-Tempest, go hide up Tempest Peak once you’ve started it. Nobody will find you up there.”
At a loss for words, Urkis could only give a grimace and nod.
For the second time in his existence, Eden found himself dragging a shield-shaped hunk of sentient tree bark back to town. Why was he even carrying it? He was hardly ever going to use a shield, and the shops in Derth would only give him pittance for it. Perhaps he took it simply because it was rare, an oddity – when it comes to these… ‘artefacts’ if you will, folks’ hands usually work faster than their minds.
During his journey back through the Old Forest, clearing out monster-infested niches and cubbyholes he didn’t feel strong enough to face previously, Eden came across a wand. A wand of flame, to be precise, discarded beside an almighty scorch-mark on the forest’s floor. Perhaps it was something to do with that ‘Snubroot’ treant Eden had heard the hunters in Derth talking about. Apparently it had been getting adventurous, even attacking those who didn’t enter the Old Forest at all. As he understood it, a group of Derth’s hunters had found the treant, held it down, and blasted it with wands of flame until it lay perfectly still, burnt perfectly black. “There’s no way it could’ve survived that!” One of the hunters was heard to say, before dusting his hands, resting them on his hips, and then looking very pleased with himself.
Eden waved the wand around, thinking. While using such a thing would probably make combat a far easier affair, it was almost certain to offend the Ziguranth, who Eden was still entertaining notions of receiving training from. He had heard first-hand the arguments between the pro-magical and anti-magical. “Magic doesn’t kill people, people kill people.” “Magic does kill people, you fey nitwit. Look at elementals.” “Pifflescratch. That’s not magic.” “Shut up.” “You shut up.” … and so forth.
Looking at the wand further, all Eden could think was, “In a sense, I’d prefer that it was another wand of haircare. I’ve been meaning to give myself one of those little ponytails… All flippant, snarky rogue characters have those, right?”
By staring at the wand, Eden failed to notice the ominous black clouds brewing over Derth…
“It’s done.”
Letting his staff fall to the ground with a clatter, Urkis sighed. He would be known as a villain for the rest of his life for this action. Still, he thought, if he didn’t do this, the rest of his life wouldn’t be that much longer.
When had Elisa become so deranged? At one point, they had almost been an item. Thinking about it closely, Urkis seemed to recall that it began when she first starting scrying the Sher’Tul artefacts brought to her shop by particularly skilled/lucky adventurers. It seemed to change her personality completely; she was fascinated by each mystery that the study of the Sher’Tul brought up.
In her own words, “Until they’re all gone, I cannot claim true victory.”
Jokingly, Urkis wondered whether she was talking about the mysteries of the Sher’Tul, or the Sher’Tul themselves.
“GAAAAAAAAK!”
“WAARGH!”
Eden recoiled as the farmer, who had ran towards him screaming, blazed with a brilliant blue light, then collapsed as a pile of steaming bones. Lost in his own thoughts, and without the luxury of true skin to feel the rain, Eden had only noticed the crashing torrential downpour, bolts of lightning, and ever-present rumble of thunder as he neared Derth’s centre.
This was no ordinary storm. As lightning forked towards the ground, it did not disappear. Instead, it formed towering, crackling vertices of energy, still brimming with the fury of the lightning’s initial strike. Gwelgoroths.
Eden watched as living lightning pursued the panicking throngs of Derth’s citizenry, every now and then incinerating one as their forking beams of energy found their marks. The townsfolk were screaming for help; not at Eden imparticular, but at anybody listening.
“Conscience versus survival instinct, round 5,424. Fight!” Eden muttered under his breath. Even before he finished his sentence, he knew what was coming next.
“Survival instinct wins. Flawless victory. … Fatality.”
Eden turned and began to slink away, when he saw something that made him stop dead in his tracks. Among one of the panicking crowds of people fleeing the gwelgoroths he could see a head of blonde hair, and a scythe.
His mind raced. Was it Grim? Could he be sure? Derth was a farming town and many farmers have scythes, and obviously many people are blonde, but… if there was a chance…? If their positions were reversed, would Grim come to his rescue? Regardless of how gutless it made him feel, Eden found himself rooted to the spot, unable to muster up the bravery to face the gwelgoroths.
“Yes, magic never causes any strife, does it? Hmph.”
Broken out of his fugue by the hissing voice behind him, Eden turned to see an elven wilder, mace in hand and a snarl on his face. “Who are you?” Eden asked.
“One of the Ziguranth.” The wilder growled in reply, his eyes fixed on the rampaging gwelgoroths, “One of the many tasked with following you.”
“Me?!”
“We have seen that you’ve had many opportunities to use magic in your travels, but you’ve yet to. It’s not often we see one with the willpower to resist the beguiling depravities of the arcane…!”
Eden blinked in mild surprise. He knew the Ziguranth hated magic, but seeing it first-hand… He could actually see the wilder’s knuckles whitening as he gripped his mace, and a vein throbbed visibly on his forehead. Even talking about magic was driving him into a rage.
“If you do not feel ready to battle these elementals, I will remain to do so. Do you wish this?”
“Yes! Yes!” Eden nodded eagerly, happy that his moral dilemma was rendered moot, “Also, be on the lookout for my friend, Grim, she’s a—”
Crack! One of the gwelgoroths had noticed Eden and the wilder, and now sent a vicious, sparking bolt of energy at the wilder’s back. To Eden’s amazement, the wilder merely flinched, snapping forward slightly as a hole was burnt through the back of his leather armour.
That was it, as far as the wilder was concerned. To actually be struck by magic… he shook as resolve flooded through his body, accompanied by a good dose of hatred. Practically forgetting Eden’s existence, the wilder gave an ear-rupturing scream and leapt into the fray, yelling obscenities that would make an orc blush.
Eden was down, no doubt about it. For some funny reason, potentially leaving the safety of his only friend in Maj’Eyal in the hands of a half-mad wilder hadn’t filled him with confidence. It was lucky that gwelgoroth had interrupted him, too; had he told the wilder that Grim was a necromancer, chances are he would’ve stoved her head in along with the elementals. Not that Grim wouldn’t be a match for him… it’s just that she has a habit of attempting a friendly hello and a handshake even when the person thundering towards her is foaming at the mouth and screaming ‘kill the nature defiler’.
Why hadn’t he fought the gwelgoroths, anyway? Eden was becoming more angry with himself with each step he took from Derth. Wasn’t he the guy who ploughed through an army of snow giants and cold drakes up Carn D?m? The guy who slew the Master, took his head, and performed a disrespectful marionette show with his body? It was almost as it all his skill and fighting prowess had disappeared along with Middle-Earth.
“First Beturin in Ardhungol, and now Grim in Derth. I seem to have a real knack for finding damsels in distress, then leaving them in distress. Honestly…” He knew that many rogues prided themselves on their cool, detatched, I-just-care-about-myself mentality, but in all honesty it just made him feel like a coward, not to mention a jerk.
“Caldizar’s closet, I’m down. Maybe I should start writing awful poetr—whargh!”
Following a spectacular face-first meeting with the ground, Eden stumbled to his feet and turned around. He had instinctively made his way to the rogue hideout on the outskirts of Derth, and had unceremoniously tripped over the concealed hatch covering its entrance.
Rubbing his chin, Eden wondered – Novan and Melna no longer existed. As strange as it seemed, they were tied to Middle-Earth: Novan used to be one of Bill Ferny’s cronies, and Melna had gained notoriety for biting Radagast the Brown when they crossed paths.
With Novan and Melna’s absence, and Eden’s knowledge of the rogue hideout’s tricks and traps, he had the opportunity to confront the Assassin Lord practically unopposed. This was fortunate, for Eden had an offer to discuss with him… at knife-point.
Comic thyme! Staff of absorption? Good equipment? Experience? Eden knows the real way to gain power.
- OLD FOREST 7
- Level 11! +2 Dexterity, +1 Cunning, +1 Health, +1 Dirty Fighting
- Level 12! +1 Dexterity, +2 Cunning, +1 Knife Mastery, +1 Backstab
Eden heaved and gasped, merely an instinctive action seeing as he was without lungs. Wrathroot had finally fallen, covering the entire clearing with splinters the size of daggers upon his destruction. Eden noticed one had lodged itself firmly between his ribs – pulling it out, he considered the inconvenience it would’ve caused him had he still been flesh-based.
Still resting from the battle, Eden became aware of a faint voice: Elisa!
“Hello? Hello…?”
Immediately up on his feet again, Eden looked this way and that for the wayward seer. Not seeing her immediately, he noticed that her voice was coming from an unusual source – beside Wrathroot’s fallen remains.
Rooting through the dry bark and branches of Wrathroot’s cadaver, Eden came across an orb strikingly similar to the orb of scrying that he possessed. Elisa’s voice rang from this new orb, sounding both cheerful and expectant, “? Oh, Wrathy-Root? ? Your master calls to yo~ou…”
Eden picked up the orb, silently considering his next action. Elisa was obviously expecting a response. “Has our little rogue friend been taken care of…?”
Ralkur’s toupee, Eden thought to himself, what in blazes is a tree meant to sound like? Finally deciding upon a deep, scratchy burr, he growled, “He is no more, master.”
No reply came from Elisa initially, causing Eden to panic, but he soon felt relief as she giggled, “Good! No trouble, I assume…?”
Having stumbled by luck upon a realistic treant’s accent, Eden chuckled and added, “I have consigned him to the void for all eternity…”
“Ah, you and your jokes, Wrathy! It’s a shame I can’t send you over to the east. Those Rak’Shor cretins only went and lost the necromancer that rogue was going on about!”
“Really?!” Eden exclaimed, momentarily dropping his tree accent, “Ha ha, yes!”
“Wrathy?”
“Oh, er,” Eden fell back into rumbling, “Ah, a woodpecker just tickled me, that’s all.”
Elisa was now all business, “Come to the labyrinth for your payment. You know, the one next to that old Angolwen sign?”
“I am familiar with it, master.”
“Oh, are you?” Elisa teased, “I’m surprised you can bear to leave your precious forest behind for a second, Wrathy!” Eden felt a distinct change in Elisa’s tone; although she remained upbeat, her voice had gained a definite edge, “Well, don’t get too settled in! Just thinking about that fortress down at the bottom of that lake… I oughta rip it apart, brick by brick, then burn the entire forest to the ground! That’ll show those accursed traitors! Aha! Haahahahahaha!”
Eden slowly let the orb fall from his hands, it having fallen silent after Elisa’s little outburst. Grim was, apparently, safe. Eden had no need to ever meet or speak to Elisa again, if he wished it. Following his delightful experiences with her, he felt it’d be nice to settle into the world of Maj’Eyal with a fresh slate, free of psychopathic seers.
However, that wasn’t going to happen.
He now knew where Elisa was; he had the element of surprise. Eden half-heartedly told himself that what he was going to do was for the good of Maj’Eyal – having someone so clearly disturbed as Elisa running free was obviously hazardous. At the end of the day though, Eden knew that he just wanted a nice, satisfying slice of revenge.
Elisa was expecting a treant – she was going to get a surprise. Two of them, in fact - hitting three times each.
- DERTH
“Ahahahahaha!”
Elisa carelessly threw her orb over her shoulder, the mage stood behind her having to catch it haphazardly before it shattered on the floor. He hated having to work for her, but he had no choice. Ever since his drunken brawl with Tarelion in Angolwen’s central fountain he had been cast out of the city of mages, and Elisa knew things about him that were even worse.
“Hmhm,” Elisa continued to chuckle to herself as she moved about the cramped back room of her scrying shop, preparing a pack for her journey to the maze, “Silly old Wrathy getting me to think about Yiilkgur. And I was in such a good mood, too!” Dropping her pack, she turned a wild eye on her mage underling and grinned, “I think I need to let off some steam.”
“Ah…” The mage’s eyes darted towards the dropped pack, “Shouldn’t you hurry to the maze? Your meeting with the treant, remember?”
Elisa dismissed this with a wave, “Oh, he’s just that, a treant. They live for ages, they don’t mind waiting. Even if he does complain, I’ll just burn him to ash! That’ll teach him! Hmhm!”
“What we need… is to have a little event to cover my leaving of Derth.” She turned to the mage, scowling, “Conjure a tempest over this pathetic little town. I want gwelgoroths massacring people in the streets.”
“A tempest?! But, I don’t, you can’t—”
“Do not question my orders, Urkis!” Elisa yelled, “You are in no position to. If you’re scared somebody will link it to you, Mr. Famous-Tempest, go hide up Tempest Peak once you’ve started it. Nobody will find you up there.”
At a loss for words, Urkis could only give a grimace and nod.
- WILDERNESS
For the second time in his existence, Eden found himself dragging a shield-shaped hunk of sentient tree bark back to town. Why was he even carrying it? He was hardly ever going to use a shield, and the shops in Derth would only give him pittance for it. Perhaps he took it simply because it was rare, an oddity – when it comes to these… ‘artefacts’ if you will, folks’ hands usually work faster than their minds.
During his journey back through the Old Forest, clearing out monster-infested niches and cubbyholes he didn’t feel strong enough to face previously, Eden came across a wand. A wand of flame, to be precise, discarded beside an almighty scorch-mark on the forest’s floor. Perhaps it was something to do with that ‘Snubroot’ treant Eden had heard the hunters in Derth talking about. Apparently it had been getting adventurous, even attacking those who didn’t enter the Old Forest at all. As he understood it, a group of Derth’s hunters had found the treant, held it down, and blasted it with wands of flame until it lay perfectly still, burnt perfectly black. “There’s no way it could’ve survived that!” One of the hunters was heard to say, before dusting his hands, resting them on his hips, and then looking very pleased with himself.
Eden waved the wand around, thinking. While using such a thing would probably make combat a far easier affair, it was almost certain to offend the Ziguranth, who Eden was still entertaining notions of receiving training from. He had heard first-hand the arguments between the pro-magical and anti-magical. “Magic doesn’t kill people, people kill people.” “Magic does kill people, you fey nitwit. Look at elementals.” “Pifflescratch. That’s not magic.” “Shut up.” “You shut up.” … and so forth.
Looking at the wand further, all Eden could think was, “In a sense, I’d prefer that it was another wand of haircare. I’ve been meaning to give myself one of those little ponytails… All flippant, snarky rogue characters have those, right?”
By staring at the wand, Eden failed to notice the ominous black clouds brewing over Derth…
- TEMPEST PEAK
“It’s done.”
Letting his staff fall to the ground with a clatter, Urkis sighed. He would be known as a villain for the rest of his life for this action. Still, he thought, if he didn’t do this, the rest of his life wouldn’t be that much longer.
When had Elisa become so deranged? At one point, they had almost been an item. Thinking about it closely, Urkis seemed to recall that it began when she first starting scrying the Sher’Tul artefacts brought to her shop by particularly skilled/lucky adventurers. It seemed to change her personality completely; she was fascinated by each mystery that the study of the Sher’Tul brought up.
In her own words, “Until they’re all gone, I cannot claim true victory.”
Jokingly, Urkis wondered whether she was talking about the mysteries of the Sher’Tul, or the Sher’Tul themselves.
- DERTH
“GAAAAAAAAK!”
“WAARGH!”
Eden recoiled as the farmer, who had ran towards him screaming, blazed with a brilliant blue light, then collapsed as a pile of steaming bones. Lost in his own thoughts, and without the luxury of true skin to feel the rain, Eden had only noticed the crashing torrential downpour, bolts of lightning, and ever-present rumble of thunder as he neared Derth’s centre.
This was no ordinary storm. As lightning forked towards the ground, it did not disappear. Instead, it formed towering, crackling vertices of energy, still brimming with the fury of the lightning’s initial strike. Gwelgoroths.
Eden watched as living lightning pursued the panicking throngs of Derth’s citizenry, every now and then incinerating one as their forking beams of energy found their marks. The townsfolk were screaming for help; not at Eden imparticular, but at anybody listening.
“Conscience versus survival instinct, round 5,424. Fight!” Eden muttered under his breath. Even before he finished his sentence, he knew what was coming next.
“Survival instinct wins. Flawless victory. … Fatality.”
Eden turned and began to slink away, when he saw something that made him stop dead in his tracks. Among one of the panicking crowds of people fleeing the gwelgoroths he could see a head of blonde hair, and a scythe.
His mind raced. Was it Grim? Could he be sure? Derth was a farming town and many farmers have scythes, and obviously many people are blonde, but… if there was a chance…? If their positions were reversed, would Grim come to his rescue? Regardless of how gutless it made him feel, Eden found himself rooted to the spot, unable to muster up the bravery to face the gwelgoroths.
“Yes, magic never causes any strife, does it? Hmph.”
Broken out of his fugue by the hissing voice behind him, Eden turned to see an elven wilder, mace in hand and a snarl on his face. “Who are you?” Eden asked.
“One of the Ziguranth.” The wilder growled in reply, his eyes fixed on the rampaging gwelgoroths, “One of the many tasked with following you.”
“Me?!”
“We have seen that you’ve had many opportunities to use magic in your travels, but you’ve yet to. It’s not often we see one with the willpower to resist the beguiling depravities of the arcane…!”
Eden blinked in mild surprise. He knew the Ziguranth hated magic, but seeing it first-hand… He could actually see the wilder’s knuckles whitening as he gripped his mace, and a vein throbbed visibly on his forehead. Even talking about magic was driving him into a rage.
“If you do not feel ready to battle these elementals, I will remain to do so. Do you wish this?”
“Yes! Yes!” Eden nodded eagerly, happy that his moral dilemma was rendered moot, “Also, be on the lookout for my friend, Grim, she’s a—”
Crack! One of the gwelgoroths had noticed Eden and the wilder, and now sent a vicious, sparking bolt of energy at the wilder’s back. To Eden’s amazement, the wilder merely flinched, snapping forward slightly as a hole was burnt through the back of his leather armour.
That was it, as far as the wilder was concerned. To actually be struck by magic… he shook as resolve flooded through his body, accompanied by a good dose of hatred. Practically forgetting Eden’s existence, the wilder gave an ear-rupturing scream and leapt into the fray, yelling obscenities that would make an orc blush.
- WILDERNESS
Eden was down, no doubt about it. For some funny reason, potentially leaving the safety of his only friend in Maj’Eyal in the hands of a half-mad wilder hadn’t filled him with confidence. It was lucky that gwelgoroth had interrupted him, too; had he told the wilder that Grim was a necromancer, chances are he would’ve stoved her head in along with the elementals. Not that Grim wouldn’t be a match for him… it’s just that she has a habit of attempting a friendly hello and a handshake even when the person thundering towards her is foaming at the mouth and screaming ‘kill the nature defiler’.
Why hadn’t he fought the gwelgoroths, anyway? Eden was becoming more angry with himself with each step he took from Derth. Wasn’t he the guy who ploughed through an army of snow giants and cold drakes up Carn D?m? The guy who slew the Master, took his head, and performed a disrespectful marionette show with his body? It was almost as it all his skill and fighting prowess had disappeared along with Middle-Earth.
“First Beturin in Ardhungol, and now Grim in Derth. I seem to have a real knack for finding damsels in distress, then leaving them in distress. Honestly…” He knew that many rogues prided themselves on their cool, detatched, I-just-care-about-myself mentality, but in all honesty it just made him feel like a coward, not to mention a jerk.
“Caldizar’s closet, I’m down. Maybe I should start writing awful poetr—whargh!”
Following a spectacular face-first meeting with the ground, Eden stumbled to his feet and turned around. He had instinctively made his way to the rogue hideout on the outskirts of Derth, and had unceremoniously tripped over the concealed hatch covering its entrance.
Rubbing his chin, Eden wondered – Novan and Melna no longer existed. As strange as it seemed, they were tied to Middle-Earth: Novan used to be one of Bill Ferny’s cronies, and Melna had gained notoriety for biting Radagast the Brown when they crossed paths.
With Novan and Melna’s absence, and Eden’s knowledge of the rogue hideout’s tricks and traps, he had the opportunity to confront the Assassin Lord practically unopposed. This was fortunate, for Eden had an offer to discuss with him… at knife-point.
- * * *
Comic thyme! Staff of absorption? Good equipment? Experience? Eden knows the real way to gain power.
- ToToME - Fiendish!.png (52.09 KiB) Viewed 4214 times
Re: [DitL] Eden the Bree-Man Rogue (Madmonk's challenge)
Too bad this story stopped brutally... any chance to have moar?
Re: [DitL] Eden the Bree-Man Rogue (Madmonk's challenge)
Hearken to the wisdom of PowerWyrm! This story is a thing of awesome, and deserves, nay needs continuation.