22/02/2025 - ***Oh, Hi, Mark!***

[[Squelch]] “Wielder of the Whack-Splat” was a small and particularly ugly beast, green of skin, long of nose, possessor of several shinies; all things goblins usually aspire to. More so, he was a respected hero of the tribe, member of a prominent family, and he’d recently inherited the honour of wielding said family’s magical war hammer “Whack-Splat” (hence his title). Upon first grasping this potent contrivance of wood and gemstone, he felt his body surge with power, he was harder, better, faster and stronger. He’d found himself in a new nest within underground ruins, in a cave system beneath the Qumdrop Swamp.

The change of scenery was eagerly anticipated as his chieftain had promised them he’d been in negotiations with a new god that they could worship within this very cave network. Until recently, his clan had made their home in a mountain range, in a cave at the base of Steep Run, greatest among equals of the peaks. Steep Run was a talon grazing the heavens, capped with snow, banded with trees and characteristically, steep. The previous occupants of the ruins had been found slaughtered when they arrived, a band of kobolds that seemed to have been felled mercilessly to a one.  Shortly after their arrival in this new land, the two bugbears that originally directed their tribe had been mysteriously killed, their bodies strangely melted, but seemingly not burned. No matter, this was obviously their new god-queen’s will and it should not be questioned. Squelch was approached one day by the Chieftain and given a sacred task from the queen herself, to acquire new “subjects” from the nearby town and return them to her, alive, for her to have words with; This should be completed as quickly as possible or risk earning her disfavour. Packing his bags with rope, manacles, nets and all manner of other supplies, he set out through the swamp and then started the long trek up the Outlet, across the salt flats, towards reality.  Arriving on the border of the town, he came across a strange old man sitting on a rock, with eyes closed, lost in meditation. A large bird was perched on either of his shoulders; sizing him up, Squelch deemed this wizened old prune disinteresting and moved on.

——

In the months since their previous ordeal, our intrepid hero and accompanying plebeians have experienced much. Bubba the “Race Traitor”, now shorter and less attractive, with hairy feet, has found himself in prison after making inappropriate Tiefling signs and speaking racial epithets that no longer suit someone of his... small stature. Initially he’d been only shunned, the good people of Seeg-Hell don’t take kindly to those of other races illegally entering their territory on the best of days.

Before his incarceration, he had been wiling away his days fishing and repairing hand carts he’d taken from the local market. Autismus drank approximately five hundred beers, and when not inebriated, spent his days studying the many message boards scattered throughout Seeg-Hell, despite the upset they always seemed to cause him. It would become apparent he’d been reading too many messages when he’d occasionally become angry, accusing others of partaking in his hobby.

Regardless of this, Joffrey was more than happy to furnish them with alcohol, at a generous discount of 5% off, as the most frequent patron of his new establishment, Sheep-Bone Brewery. This tap house seemed to spring from the ether, and although, new to brewing, Joffrey seemed to be a prodigy; everything he made turned to gold, no matter how dubious the ingredients. How peculiar…   Despite the tumultuous distraction of their daily lives, the trio held a sense of unease they were hesitant to discuss. Casting in the depths of their minds, they were unable to determine its source. Between periods of fervent alcoholism, even Autismus was dimly aware of his surroundings and fellow townsfolk having a flavour of unreality, it was as stark as shattered glass, a sudden change of perspective. Something was wrong with Seeg-Hell and its people, they were possessed of a vacancy that was akin to over-indulging in dental hygiene products, and Joffrey was resolved to unravel the mystery.

——

On a particularly ordinary morning, while waiting for the local fried chicken stand to open for breakfast, Autismus was already several pints deep at his usual table in Sheep-Bone. He wiled away the time ranting and raving about strange entities from the sky, perhaps another plane, and dragon chemtrails turning the local amphibians homosexual; until a stubby green fellow entered.

The filthy creature had been meandering around the town aimlessly until it had seen Sheep-Bone, the one venue that felt… real; there was a sense of life about it when everything else felt off. Joffrey saw the interloper’s beady eyes scanning his patrons and hurried over to have a word with him. Leaning down he enquired if the lower life form was lost and looking for its master, why else would a goblin be in Seeg-Hell ? (edited)   Autismus was far more charitable, simply happy to have an enthusiastic audience for his ramblings and dragged him over to his table. The grubby goblin proclaimed to know all about beings from the skies and encouraged him to follow him back to his tribe to meet them and his queen, a goddess. At this moment, a guard interrupted this meeting of minds with a loud hammering, fixing a new notice to the bar’s message board in the entryway.

Reading this, Joffrey’s brow knit in concentration and a calculating look passed over his face as he glanced wistfully at the other pair. Shaking his head after a moment of introspection, he presented the scroll to Autismus and explained that Bubba was in prison and they should try and free him. He omitted the paragraph about a reward from the city watch for surrendering co-conspirators, his consideration of Bubba’s imperilled bar tab, as well as his long-term income from their continued patronage.

Without further delay, they made their way over to the prison, arguing as they went about whether they would bust him out or, if Joffrey would represent him on trial and legally recover their friend. —— Bubba had felt better, he was in a cramped cell awaiting a trial that might result in his execution, but he hadn’t given up. Being experienced with somewhat extralegal activities, he was able to open the simple lock on the cell door with relative ease.   Sneakily skulking down the corridor, he came to a pair of rooms that held the guards equipment. In one, he found a full suit of guard’s armour and in the other, confusingly, a leather gimp suit complete with gag and mask. Equally enthused by either option, he was quickly disappointed that with his newfound squatness, he was unable to wear either garb. Strapping on the guard’s helmet as a compromise, he made his way to the entrance of the cellblock, just as he noticed a guard standing outside in discussion with Joffrey.

Joffrey was wearing his friendliest smile and greeted the guard like an old friend, offering him a drink of ale from a flask and attempting to hold his attention. To his dismay, the barely sentient, green menace slipped around the side of the guard and attempted to whack and splat his head. Barely maintaining his composure as the hammer missed while the guard bent down to take a drink, he noticed Bubba pausing inside the entryway apparently having freed himself.  He didn’t have time to act and call off the rescue before wood met skull and the guard dropped to the ground with a wet thud. Bubba casually searched his pockets and lifted his change, seemingly unperturbed by the assault of a city official. Squelch insisted that they take the guard with them, and delivered him to his tribe. Joffrey took the helmet from the unconscious man and went inside the cell block to retrieve the rest of the remaining suit to help mask their exit. On their way out of town, they headed back to Bubba’s shack to recover his valuables that he had hidden and grabbed a hand cart to move the guard while they were there. Joffrey was awarded six “red sapphires” to cover Bubba’s drinks tab and further invest in his business; his eyes almost fell out of their sockets as he cooly accepted the gems. Bless Bubba and his lack of understanding of finance, all it took was a sagely nod and a promise to keep an eye out for any alchemical supplies on their travels, to seal the deal.  The businessman suddenly noticed the goblin’s hammer’s distinctive glowing gem and wanted to take a closer look. Try as he might however, between the primitive continually snatching it away and the poor light, he was unable to make any determinations but his interest was piqued. Short, angry and putrid noticed his interest and deftly suggested that if the nice man accompanied him back to his cave, that there would be shinies; that was all it took.

——

Leaving town, the natives noticed that the Ivory Tower had gotten approximately 2 feet taller but paid no heed to it, and after an uneventful trip up the outlet and through the swamp, they arrived at their destination.  Delving through a cave, not so far from the location that they had the altercation with the strange sheep, they arrived at some under ground ruins and made note of the significant number of fresh kobold corpses. The chieftain met with Squelch, applauded his efforts and encouraged him to seek an immediate audience with the God Queen in her chamber deeper in the complex. Remembering the guard in the wheelbarrow, the team found him near death after his traumatic injury and rough journey, but Squelch revealed his calling as a Paladin and was able to yank him back from death’s jaws.   Making their way into a natural chamber at the rear of the ruins, they passed mounds of dead kobolds with unusual injuries and this was quite unsettling until Joffrey saw the other contents. There was an absolutely massive pile of gold, trinkets and other valuables, he could barely process this, then he looked up, saw the giant black dragon sitting on top of the treasure, and was immediately sobered. The God-Queen of the tribe of rock lickers was a fucking dragon, absentmindedly drooling acid that was visibly melting items under it.

Wasting no time, the queen demanded a tribute from each person present. Squelch pulled a dirty shape from his pockets and gave it a quick wipe revealing a gold nugget. Joffrey retrieved 2 of the 6 “red sapphires” from his bag and offered that they matched the dragon’s beautiful eyes. Bubba was somewhat overwhelmed and not the brightest spark, he attempted to push his luck and bargain with the dragon; this saw him lose his malachites, gimp suit and various other items covering his faux pas. Autismus fished out a large gem the size of a fist and handed it over, the dragon tried to cover her mild shock at such a significant offering and pledged her favour to this odd little creature.

After this formality, she told the group that she was having her new worshippers collect locals to send on an errand to recover a powerful relic. Somehow this artefact was being hidden from even a being as powerful as herself and she only had a vague idea of where it was, inside a cave on a cliff face, overlooking the Vitamin Sea. The queen pointed a claw at a scroll on the floor nearby and advised that this was the map; Bubba moved to retrieve it, momentarily entertained stealing from the dragon, then rapidly realised the enormity of that mistake and halted. (edited)  The parchment was a strange advertisement enticing the reader to seek a powerful artefact within the "Gauntlet of Doom". The dragon mentioned this was an obvious trap designed to lure in the gullible, but regardless this group was going, or being destroyed. Her majesty also confronted them about their memories, asking them if they could remember anything before recent times; They couldn’t and it was alluded to that this was related to the other strange occurrences in Seeg-Hell.

Squelch basked in his Queen’s attention and requested a symbol from his god before his quest, she graciously agreed and extended a claw to touch his forehead. Searing agony encompassed him as acid burned away the flesh of his face, leaving a cauterised teardrop scar on his forehead that would serve as her sigil. Deciding not to anger numerous tonnes of muscle and hazardous materials, the group rapidly paid their respects and made to leave, noticing the guardsman being shoved towards the goblin prison. Shrugging, they gathered some meagre supplies off the dirt-dwellers and struck out towards the Vitamin Sea, although Squelch was incensed that he was unable to go back for the old man he’d met earlier in the other direction. —— Arriving at the cliff, Squelch expertly set a climbing piton and dropped a rope over the side - before promptly falling and barely catching himself in time to make it onto the ledge below. Autismus made a show of navigating the rope like a trapeze artist and the others made it down without issue. The cave was pitch-dark but the Tieflings had no issue seeing in the dark and Joffrey was able to magically illuminate the race traitors fishing rod to make up for his newly inferior eyes. They hadn’t gone far when a giant spider dropped from the ceiling in front of Squelch and the hardier, more expendable members struck it down. Hitting it, they realised it wasn’t actually real and it split open, enveloping them in laughing dust/gas that Bubba was unable to collect. (edited)  Proceding down the corridor, they encountered a noose hanging form the ceiling with a puzzling note attached that said “put fut her”. They dwelled on this for a time, Bubba tried tossing a coin through, then Joffrey convinced Autismus to put his foot in it after Squelch refused. Fortunately nothing happened and the rope simply dropped from the ceiling, onto the floor. The rope was made from human hair, but they gathered this up and while doing so, their greenest member heard sniggering, ratlike laughter from the darkness above. After encountering several pranks, Bubba assumes the way should be clear and strides forth, before the floor falls away beneath him and he barely catches himself to prevent being impaled on spikes below. Fortunately the gap isn’t too wide and the troupe are all able to make it across in short order. As the tunnel widens into a new cavern, the group are suddenly assailed by spears from rat-men that laugh and hastily leap out of sight off a cliff at the opposite end. Bubba gives chase and immediately becomes painfully tangled in a mass of fishing hooks, that he finds hanging from the ceiling all throughout the area; they’ve been tricked again. The rest of the group poke fun at Bubba as the irony of him being caught in fishing hooks when fishing is his main hobby, before Joffrey cuts him down. They find that the rat-men have fled down some zip lines that extend across a narrow chasm, half of which end in small tunnels in the rock face. Squelch wastes no time crossing but Bubba is distracted by the underground river at the bottom of the chasm and decides to cast his line in and see if there are any fish. The line goes taut and he ironically accurately remarks he’s caught a monster, as a large Ogre-like creature breaks the surface, furiously looking up at who has punctured it. Realising they can’t reach their prey, the aquatic abomination tears the line in half and returns to the depths.  After a second fishing related embarrassment within 5 minutes, the team crosses the chasm and pass through the tunnel on the other side. They arrive at an approximately ten foot high wall that blocks their path, but there are ladders moulded into the stone work on their side and they climb up to see what is on the other side. They spy a seemingly empty room with a door on the other side that is covered in runes and dials that they can’t make out from the distance. Without much thought they hop down and approach the door, quickly ascertaining it is covered in a riddle: “Spelled forwards its a name, spelled backwards is what you do with curtains, a blank page or bow.”. At the briefest glance, Joffrey immediately proclaims the answer is Ward/Draw, praises his own towering intellect and rotates the dials into position, opening the door. It’s at this moment that Squelch looks back and notices that on this side on the wall, under a wooden overhang, are two brownish, perhaps rust coloured monsters…. PTSD grips Joffrey as he remembers his near-death experience with rust monsters and he scrambles through the portal, beckoning through the others as he scrambles the dials. They charge through and slam the door behind them, but as it’s closing, Squelch looks back and notices that the monsters haven’t moved, they seem to be dead or similar to the spider, not real. Moving on in search of the rat men, they come to a worked stone chamber with a tiled floor; the tiles seem to be coloured in an alternating pattern like a chess board. Suspicious of traps, Squelch bangs several tiles with the Whack-Splat while Joffrey caresses the entire floor with his mage hand, but nothing happens. Bubba experimentally moves forwards, a strange voice enters his mind and states “1”, confused he takes another step and is promptly electrocuted, causing himself some minor grievance.  Joffrey attempts to move to the same initial square, hears the voice as well, then moves diagonally; he chuckles at his own genius as he hears the voice again, this time state “4” but otherwise nothing happens. His genius may generally be so tremendous that it creates its own gravity, but today on his next step, it ended in him being far more violently electrocuted than bubba. Pausing, they took stock of the situation and Joffrey concluded that it was best for a single person to strike a path through the puzzle and for the others to follow, to minimise their injuries.

In agreeance, Squelch spends a not insignificant amount of time being electrocuted before determining the pattern and making it near the exit before succumbing. Bubba is able to get him back on his feet with a potion and they all make their way through the doorway. They come to a staircase leading upwards and the surroundings are becoming increasingly refined, with more worked stone and elaborate embellishments. On the face of each stair are words, in sequence, going up the stairs; the passage reads: “it seems every second or third step I take away, fate is there without a doubt to trap my course”  Bubba tests the stairs and sure enough, is electrocuted in the process of determining the correct sequence of safe steps. At the top of the stairs is a room containing 3 weapons hanging on different walls with a plaque below them and a strange looking door. Looking at the weapons, the plaques read: Pa’s Spear “Gutsticker” Pa’s Gauntlet “Fist of Pain” Pa’s Sword “Islet’s Laughter” (edited)  Attempts to open the door are met with a psychic message “not without the password” and the door cannot be opened by mundane means. After some deliberation, they realise that Pa’s Sword is “password”, the correct phrase is “let’s slaughter” and the door opens. On the other side of this barrier is an elaborate room containing 4 magical fires, one in each corner, with an inanimate skeleton standing in front of them. In the centre of the room is a large, ornate mirror approximately 8 feet high. Looking at the skeletons, it’s noted that they have no eyes, the lower half of their faces have features that dissolve into a smooth head. Squelch cast’s divine sense on the undead but doesn’t sense any evil presences or signs of life. Bubba perceives some slits around the doorway and theorises that if they enter the room, it will seal shut behind them. After some fussing with the mechanism, there is a clunk, he thinks he’s disabled it and ushers the group through. Entering the room, they brace themselves but nothing happens and the door remains open. Being connoisseurs of shiny objects, Squelch and Joffrey study the mirror and see that the reflection does not match reality, it features mounds of gold and riches that don’t exist in the real world. Joffrey believes this might be some kind of portal and attempts to step through, running into the glass with a thud and then hearing a strange rustling sound around the room. (edited)   The skeletons awaken and attack the party, Autismus can’t remember any of his spells and flails wildly with a sword, managing to somehow destroy 2 of them single handedly. Joffrey blasts another apart with a couple thunder waves, scattering bones and debris around the room and Squelch goes down after defeating the third. Autismus and Bubba flank the remaining skeleton whilst Joffrey rushes to help the stunted cucumber back to his feet; however, as he arrives, he notices the Whack-Splat undefended on the ground next to him.  His eyes fill with desire and a shadow passes behind them as he places his hands around Squelch’s throat and begins to squeeze, but he remembers himself and casts a healing spell without anyone noticing his lapse.

*To be continued.*