INTERACTIVE STORY #2
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"Don't hurt them!" Screeched Kully. "They won't hurt you!"
"You should never have brought them into the castle," Glowered Treguard. "Let alone opened the cage!"
They all ducked as a particularly larger one of the small winged creatures swooped down. Majida squealed as she felt its scales brush her face.
"Ees 'orrible, slimee...not genie-like..."
-
"Eet's ridiculous, I mean can't you do spellcast or something to get rid of them?" queried Majida.
"No suitable spells" replied Kully.
"What do you mean, no suitable spells?! There's DISMISS, RID, BEGONE, BOGOFF...."
"But where would it take them? We can't take the risk of them causing all sorts of havoc in another place!" sighed Kully, interrupting Pickle.
"We can't sit here for ever, huh? Someone going to think of sometheeng one day, then maybee - Oh no, there's another!"
Once again, everyone ducked. This one, small compared to most of the creatures flew rather ankwardly over everyone before hitting a nearby wall, in which it proceeded to fly back to where it was.
"Is it me, or are they tiring?" said Treguard as he straightened himself up. "It gives me an idea..."
-
majida looked at Pickle and scratched her head. An idea? Treguard's ideas were never anything short of boring. It probably meant he was going to call in Merlin.
Majida was about to put this to Kully, who was nursing the little buggy thing that had flown into the wall, but froze when she saw what Treguard had pulled out of a dusty old cupboard.
-
They resembled some bellows, the sort used when stoking a fire. Treguard set them down on the table and started rooting around inside the large chest next to it. After a bit of searching, he found what he was looking for. Treguard dusted off the large jar, decorated only by a yellowing label containing the legend "SLEEPY", unscrewed the top and poured some of the liquid into the bellows.
"You'd better clear the room," he called to Pickle, Majida and Kully. They did so, anticipating what was to follow.
Putting on the metal Helm of Justice and Majida's first choice of last line of defence of all the dungeoneers she had helped Treguard to equip over the last few years, Treguard proceeded to fumigate the entire antichamber. The creatures coughed and spluttered before finally landing on the cold, stone floor, completely out for the count.
Treguard set the bellows down and removed the helmet.
"You can come in now," he called. As his assistants cautiously entered the room, gazing fascinated at the floor, Treguard picked one of the unconscious creatures up.
"Pickle," he barked, "fetch me that book on Paradox In Anatoma. We need to find out exactly what these things are and why they are here."
Meanwhile, Lord Fear was in a very bad mood. Granted, he was always in a bad mood of some kind but today he was in a particularly bad mood - thanks to yet more blundering by Lissard.
"How could you let them escape?!" he screamed. The huge monster in the cage roared. Lord Fear pointed to it.
"Now what are we supposed to feed that thing with?!"
-
Treguard slapped open the book that lay across his knees, whilst Majida swept the creatures back into the cage, grumbling to herself in broken English. Pickle knelt at Treguard's side and nosied at the book.
The dungeon master turned page after page after page, but found nothing.
"Isn't there an index?" asked Pickle.
"An index is no use unless you know the name of the creature you have, ridiculous elf." Muttered Treguard, shaking his head in despair and still turning the pages.
"There it is!" Cried Kully, leaning over Treguard's shoulder and stabbing a slim finger at the top left hand corner. "They're..."
"Mally-bous." Murmured Treguard in wonder. "I thought they were all dead..."
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[Mally-bous, eh? No prizes for guessing what you were drinking at the time of writing, Emii!!!
Btw, people, please contribute to this one - I don't want to have to hijack ANOTHER interactive story!
]"What does it say, Master?" asked Pickle.
"These creatures were once quite prolific but that was a very long time ago, when the Dungeon was in its infancy," read Treguard. "Then for no apparant reason their numbers started to fall. Before long they had completely vanished without trace. Not even any remains were left."
"That ees very strange," murmered Majida. "Why would theese Mally-bous suddenly disappear like that?"
"I don't know, Majida," replied Treguard quietly.
"Do we have any of these infernal creatures still in captivity?" spat Lord Fear.
"We have some, Lordness," replied Lissard weakly. "Enough for a couple of days."
The creature in the cage let out another hideous roar and the cage shook violently.
"Well, you'd better hope I can reopen the Portal to get this thing some more - or else you'll be feeding it PERSONALLY, if you get my meaning, tuna-breath!" screamed Fear. With a flick of his wrist, he whisked himself and Lissard away into another section of the castle. They appeared in a huge stone chamber with a very high ceiling. The entire room didn't seem to make any kind of architectural sense at all. In a normal world it would instantly collapse. It was clearly being held together by magic.
Fear approached the apparatus in the centre of the room. He reached inside but didn't touch anything. Instead, it seemed to manipulate itself. The machine was a very strange thing to behold. It seemed to be half-substance, half-light. From some angles it didn't seem to exist at all.
As the machine continued to distort around Fear's hand it began to radiate all sorts of colours. They reflected off the wet stone walls in such a way to make the room itself appear to distort.
"It's working," said Fear softly. "Did you bring a new BAG, Lissard?"
"Yes, Lordness," replied Lissard, gazing at the incredible light show taking place.
A few moments later and the room no longer appeared to be something else; it was something else, and in another time altogether.
-
[Teehee. I had to do this.]
"Ssoo it'sss a time machine then, Lordness?"
Fear sighed. "No, as I've said a hundred times, it's not." A glint came into his eye. "It's much more than that, my old trout-guzzler. With this contraption I can travel through technospace and technotime, and "borrow" a few things from the Dungeons of other technosorcerers. And the technospatial dynamic and intertemporal technoscopy means they can't infiltrate my own Dungeon designs." Lissard was trying not to look confused, eventually managing a "Such devilishness, Lordness," in response.
Using his honed sharp reflexes to grab a few of the small airborne creatures, Lissard still couldn't ease his curiosity. "Sssso this is where the big biting thing wittth all the teetthnesss and the loudnesss came from?" Fear was losing patience. "No, old fruit, it's not." It was so hard to get good henchmen, he thought. Perhaps on another of these scavenging trips in future he might look for a new and less fishy senechal for a start. "The big biting thing, as you so aptly describe it, has been skulking around in our Dungeon- what am I saying?- My Dungeon- all the time. I don't really know where it came from, or where it was hiding in the Dungeon before now, but it's the most vicious beast around, and with it I can...". He cut himself short. "Well, let's just say we might have one less know-it-all Dungeon Master to worry about, for a start."
Back in Mount Fear the creature was shaking the technocage with all its force. Fear's will wouldn't hold it for long. Already the magic was starting to weaken, and the beast could feel it wouldn't take long to break free. Both its heads were writhing around, a horrific barking roar came from both mouths, and its tails were fiercely wagging- all five of them.
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[[I would guess I'm implying what you imply I'm implying. But it all depends if what I think you're implying I'm implying is really what I'm implying, or what I think I'm implying, at least.]]
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Treguard awoke the next morning and even after troubled sleep, felt the rush of excitement a new season of "play" always brought and with a little smirk he reached for his staff but before he could grasp it majida had wisked it away
"Ee's my joab! ENTER STRANGER!!"
???
"ENTER STRANGER!!!"
???
"Es's note working" sulked majida
"that would be for two reason you silly sprite-"geanie"-whatever"
"firstly while you may have been sleeping for nine years i've at least made some changes even if those do only prevent troublesome so called help from doing things they shouldn't"
"secondly we can't create a challenger, one must be at the door first and since it is only 6AM KCT (knightmare castle time) i'd imagine any sesible challenger is still resting for the job ahead"
"but why you reach for staff then??"
"well" said treguard looking a bit sheepish "i think i look quite majestic walking with it, dont you?"
"oh"
treguard walked, unaided, towards the slleping forms of pickle and kully and aimed a light kick at pickle.
"omphh!" mumble pickle through his pillow
"up you half-wit elf and wake kully too, we've still gotta get this place presentable before we begin, i'd hate to think of lord fear threating me while my abode was a mess"
so pickle got up and being slightly annoyed at his awakening aimed a slightly heavier kick at kully
"ooooo0o0o0ooooo0000000ow" raged pickle as he hopped about the ante-chamber
kully's laughing was cut short as treguard started a lecture on illegal "protect" spells which nearly sent kully to sleep again.
"ANYWAY! to work!" finished treguard
-
Lord Fear watched with amusement as Lissard desparately tried to guide the BAG towards the little creatures. The BAG itself, of course, was blind.
"No, up a bit! No, down! UP!" Lissard cried desparately.
"Cover your eyes, Lissard," ordered Fear. Lissard looked at him, confused.
"Lordness?"
"Do as I say!" Fear barked. Lissard duly obeyed.
Lord Fear's eyes glowed a fierce red. The creatures, looking to see where the light was coming from, immediately froze to the spot.
"I make your life far too easy, Lissard," sighed Fear.
"Oh, thankyou, Lordness!" breathed Lissard who had gingerly uncovered his scaly eyes to survey the newly-petrified creatures.
Unknown to them, however, something was watching them. And they were oblivious - even Fear. The ancient evil, which had never directly manifested itself in the Dungeon before, looked on as the creatures were BAGged. It sensed the growing distortion in time, the growing strain on causality. The meddlers must not be allowed to continue, or else the very existence of the Dungeon would unravel.
The Evil began thinking of a way to stop them. Accordingly, the Dungeon began to shift to accomodate its thoughts. Old rooms morphed into new ones. Some of them could not possibly exist in any reasonable reality. They were abandoned quickly as the Evil's line of thought progressed. Before long, the changes reached the room Fear and Lissard were hunting Mally-bous in.
Back in Treguard's antechamber, the shifting timeline began to cascade through. Totally unaware of any of the changes, Treguard began to change. His tunic morphed this way and that. Brief flickers of causality leaked through where Pickle, Majida or Kully were not present, and very occassionally a flicker where there was no antechamber at all.
Whereas Treguard and his assistants were unable to notice the changes, Hordriss had sensed them filtering through and had been able to create a Causality Shield to protect himself. He looked on in horror as his study scrolled through all manner of stylistic and architectural probabilities.
"Caras carum!" he gasped. "Anything but that!"
-
In the Place of Choice, two other dungeon inhabitants emerged for an unlikely meeting.
"Hmm...where's this then? Anything to loot? Eh, guess not..." Fatilla the Hun stood on the left platform, the door behind him bearing the symbol of the Cup that Heals.
"Lootings? Any looting will be done by me! I'll have to kill you first, though - sorry, but ze orders are ze orders..." Olaf the Viking stood on the opposite path, next to the door with the Crowning Glory above it.
"You? Kill me? Well that's not very nice now, is it? Come anywhere near me, and I'll blip ya, then I'll blop ya!
"It is I who will be doing ze blipping and ze blopping around here!"
Fatilla rushed forward, but forgot to account for the spinning disc in the center of the chamber. Olaf took the opportunity to shove Fatilla off the edge and into the void below. Olaf looked down, to see where Fatilla landed - but turned his head abruptly as a lisping, almost...posh...accent cut through the air.
"All right you Viking sack of filth, this chamber and all the treasure in it belongs to Gundwada!"
"Gundrada?" the Viking pondered.
"Yes, Gundwada! The mighiest warrior maiden in the dungeon!" Gundrada swung her sword around, and Olaf backed away to the edge of the spinning disc. Just then, a winged, bat-like creature swooped in from the southern path, knocking into Olaf and causing him to share Fatilla's fate. Gundrada tried to bat it away with her sword, but the creature retreated back towards
the south.
"Oi you, nobody escapes Gundwada!" the warrior yelled, as she gave chase to the creature, dashing straight through the southern door and into Treguard's antechamber.
-
gundrada came to an abrupt halt "Oh, jolly nice to see you all again. I expect you'll be glad of my powewful muscles here wight?"
In the split second of her entrance the rooms occupants had both groaned and seen their salvation....the bat
kully spoke up first "wow, what a tiny bat. I wonder why it came in here"
"well it twied to escape gundwada and i couldn-"
"It really shouldn't be kept here kully perhaps we could put it in your bottle majida?" mused treguard acting as though he hadn't heard gundrada
"Don't wowwy, i'll dice it fo-"
"NEEEEEW!" squealed majida without the faintest idea why they weren't speaking to the sword weilding weirdo but damn sure no bat was going to live in her bottle "EET's A NASTY SMEALLY THING!"
"I say, can any of you see me?"
Pickle started doing a little jig
"young man? can you see me?"
"why are you jigging picks?" asked kully
"bored i spose" replied pickle " i want a new team to arrive, the bat could leave with them"
"blimey I'm invisable! Just think of all the things i could kill now...just let me at that wizard" muttering to herself gundrada jogged out of the antechamber toward the room of choice again.
as one pickle, kully & treguard all fell about laughing.
"What Eee's so funny?"
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[And what's wrong with the old characters? Fatilla, Olaf and Gundrara are three of my favourites - so long as we don't keep introducing them, and going off at tangents, we should be ok. Plus, Treguard and co have been dealing with the creatures for quite some time now - I introduced Gundrada to speed it up a little.]
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[Oh, there's nothing wrong at all with the old characters. All I'm saying is that if they are all resurrected then it might start to mirror what went on in the previous story. Regarding speeding the proceedings up a bit, well, it takes time to build a story up. If things proceed too quickly then the story will appear rushed and disjointed. It may even stop making sense. I'd hate to see that happen - this story looks very promising so far. Everyone has made some very good contributions.]
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Hordriss looked on in horror as his room phased back and forth between probabilities. He daren't teleport. Instead, he moved carefully to the door. However, just as he was about to be whisked away by the darkness of it, the door was gone, as was the room. Hordriss was left floating in a black void. There was no light at all. He cursed loudly, but the words could only be heard inside his causality shield. How was going to be able to get back to the Dungeon, now?
Lord Fear had bristled and stood up quickly, leaving Lissard to BAG the Mally-bous on his own. He looked around, squinting at the stone wall. It began to change - very slightly at first but with increasing speed and eccentricity.
"What the..." he began but he was cut off by an ear-splitting scream from Lissard. Looking down, Fear saw Lissard falling through a large hole in the floor that seemed to be bottomless - a sickening black void. Fear snapped his fingers and Lissard floated back up into the room.
"Time to go, me old newt," he muttered. He grabbed hold of an amulet that was hung around his neck. Muttering something in a strange tongue, light began to emanate from it, bouncing off the walls in a myriad of colours. Grabbing hold of Lissard, the two stood in the middle of the room as more and more pieces of the floor began to fall away. Parts of the wall began to move, now, sliding across the room with no regard for anything that might be it their way. One of the blocks headed straight for Lissard and Fear but they had vanished by the time it got to their floor space.
A once orangey stone room had changed into something quite different. To some it would become known as the Block And Tackle.
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[trust me Malifact I'd write IF I had some idea...., but I dont know about the other people...]
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