BE NICE - 2019-12-17 - Mines Control
Jan 8, 2020 14:46:41 GMT
Grimes, Varis/G'Lorth/Sundilar, and 15 more like this
Post by Imp (Dan L) on Jan 8, 2020 14:46:41 GMT
Gegrun charged. This could be applicable to many situations - Gegrun was not a half-orc prone to introspection or mulling over decisions - but in this case, bolstered by a feeling of intense vigour from a Haste incantation, he charged sixty feet and attempted to magically leap toward the mind flayer standing atop the dais at the back of the cavern. A smug grin should have been precluded by the tentacles that writhed from its face, but it contrived to curl them in a way that boiled Gegrun’s blood as his Misty Step faltered and bounced off an invisible forcefield. His stomach lurched, in two different places at once, and he bit down bile as the contents of his gut sought to be anywhere else but his schizophrenic interior.
Gegrun snarled and lashed out at the two nearest Kuo Toa with quick strikes, dispatching them with ease. The blade barely pushed into his hand, but it bit into the Kuo Toa with ease. He felt an inner twinge as he always did when ending a life, but this was tempered by both the fact that the Kuo Toa were swinging with gleeful abandon at him, and also the fact that he’d never been particularly fond of fish. He’d grown up in mines like these, except the mines he’d grown up in had gruff miners and squeaky carts in place of eldritch aberrations and crazed fish cultists. None of the mines he’d grown up in had any fish in, either.
Behind him, Matthew was laying waste to hordes of the fish in his familiar giant ape form. Gegrun had seen a lot of creatures react to ape-Matthew with horror, but there was a special brand of swivel-eyed panic that could only come from fish people. A pupil dilated in fear is even more visceral when the eye takes up half the face and has two eyelids blinking in rapid succession. Stedd, whose peculiar brand of pescophilia was running rampant, sent two fish heads cartwheeling through the air to landing in a rapidly expanding pool of blood that slickened the floor and gave off a wretched smell.
A quick glance to the side revealed that a huge arthropod had climbed out of one of the bigger pools that shimmered in the firelight. Claws scraped for purchase against the stone, but its advance was cut short as Stedd began to carve into its carapace with precise strikes. He really doesn’t like the sea, Gegrun thought to himself. Or maybe he really does like the sea?
Last thoughts, like last words, so often cannot be curated. A man in his bed, surrounded by loved ones, may be able to think that he is at peace, and happy. A noble warrior on the battlefield might have screams of glory running through her head as a halberd cleaves her in twain. As the Intellect Devourer latched on to the back of his skull and probed into his mind, Gegrun’s last thought was “I suppose he really does smell of fish.”
The last word stretched into a tortured echo - issssssssh - as the sounds of the battlefield extended into infinity and stopped, all at once and not at all. The chaos of the fight continued on the material plane, but Gegrun was plucked from it like a gull snatches a surfacing fish, glinting and glistening in the sea’s waves. Grey mist wreathed Gegrun, and he found himself standing in a place that was simultaneously a busy hall and an empty desert, a thronging tavern and a lonely glade. It made him feel very small.
“Um,” he said, which felt appropriate. Nothing responded, but the mists vibrated and changed colour with his words. Occasionally, an eddy of gold or green would pick up and wind itself curiously around his fingers, an ethereal eel questing for… something.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do!” Gegrun said, calling out into the distance. “Hello?” Nothing came back except his own voice, cascading off unknown surfaces somewhere in the distance. He thought he saw a dark shape dance around in the twilight, but nobody came forward to claim the shadow as their own. He suddenly felt very alone.
It was just as well he could not see what was happening in the cavern, as faux-Gegrun - piloted by the imposter brain - vacantly and mindlessly finished off Stedd who was lying on the ground with his lifeless face partially submerged in the pool. Gegruns body was next to fall, collapsing into a shallow area of the water with a wet thud. Faye, face contorted with anguish, grabbed Stedd and vanished. Eventually, so did the mindflayer, disappearing in a flash.
Gegrun sat on his haunches as he sought a horizon in the dim light. Eventually, the mists flashed gold, and he felt a thought in his head.
“?” It asked, and a muffled peal rang out, rising at the end like an inflection.
“I… I think I died,” Gegrun said. The noise came again, this time an affirmative monotone. It listed slightly towards the end, as if mourning. Gegrun had heard similar sounds at funerals and processions. It occurred to him that he probably wouldn’t have a funeral, entombed in a cave. He’d never wanted one, nor ever thought of one, but the thought still made tears rise to the corner of his eyes. He sat like that for a good while, although time had even less meaning to Gegrun now than when he was alive.
“I never got to say goodbye to everyone,” he said, rising to face the coiled gold mists. As if on cue, a voice cut through the darkness. It was muffled and smothered, but Gegrun could make out the voice of Matthew.
“------sorry, Geg----tried-----you want to say?”
Gegrun then, who had never been all too familiar with vocabulary and whose attitude to the spoken word was one of brute force and sheer enthusiasm, was struck with extreme clarity and the instant realisation that he was being offered the opportunity to say his final words. He only had to think for a second.
“Say goodbye to everybody for me. I’ll miss everyone. Remember; be nice, be just, be kind, leave every place better than you found it. Don’t worry about me, it’s warm up here.” His voice carried into the shifting fog, and he felt it reach Matthew before the contact was severed. The golden mist smiled and gestured as much as golden mist could. Gegrun smiled back, and followed it up a gentle incline that gradually rose toward clearer skies.
“Wait,” he said, grasping at the vagueness of the mist’s corporeal form.
“?”
“There aren’t any camels where we’re going, are there?”
Gegrun snarled and lashed out at the two nearest Kuo Toa with quick strikes, dispatching them with ease. The blade barely pushed into his hand, but it bit into the Kuo Toa with ease. He felt an inner twinge as he always did when ending a life, but this was tempered by both the fact that the Kuo Toa were swinging with gleeful abandon at him, and also the fact that he’d never been particularly fond of fish. He’d grown up in mines like these, except the mines he’d grown up in had gruff miners and squeaky carts in place of eldritch aberrations and crazed fish cultists. None of the mines he’d grown up in had any fish in, either.
Behind him, Matthew was laying waste to hordes of the fish in his familiar giant ape form. Gegrun had seen a lot of creatures react to ape-Matthew with horror, but there was a special brand of swivel-eyed panic that could only come from fish people. A pupil dilated in fear is even more visceral when the eye takes up half the face and has two eyelids blinking in rapid succession. Stedd, whose peculiar brand of pescophilia was running rampant, sent two fish heads cartwheeling through the air to landing in a rapidly expanding pool of blood that slickened the floor and gave off a wretched smell.
A quick glance to the side revealed that a huge arthropod had climbed out of one of the bigger pools that shimmered in the firelight. Claws scraped for purchase against the stone, but its advance was cut short as Stedd began to carve into its carapace with precise strikes. He really doesn’t like the sea, Gegrun thought to himself. Or maybe he really does like the sea?
Last thoughts, like last words, so often cannot be curated. A man in his bed, surrounded by loved ones, may be able to think that he is at peace, and happy. A noble warrior on the battlefield might have screams of glory running through her head as a halberd cleaves her in twain. As the Intellect Devourer latched on to the back of his skull and probed into his mind, Gegrun’s last thought was “I suppose he really does smell of fish.”
The last word stretched into a tortured echo - issssssssh - as the sounds of the battlefield extended into infinity and stopped, all at once and not at all. The chaos of the fight continued on the material plane, but Gegrun was plucked from it like a gull snatches a surfacing fish, glinting and glistening in the sea’s waves. Grey mist wreathed Gegrun, and he found himself standing in a place that was simultaneously a busy hall and an empty desert, a thronging tavern and a lonely glade. It made him feel very small.
“Um,” he said, which felt appropriate. Nothing responded, but the mists vibrated and changed colour with his words. Occasionally, an eddy of gold or green would pick up and wind itself curiously around his fingers, an ethereal eel questing for… something.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do!” Gegrun said, calling out into the distance. “Hello?” Nothing came back except his own voice, cascading off unknown surfaces somewhere in the distance. He thought he saw a dark shape dance around in the twilight, but nobody came forward to claim the shadow as their own. He suddenly felt very alone.
It was just as well he could not see what was happening in the cavern, as faux-Gegrun - piloted by the imposter brain - vacantly and mindlessly finished off Stedd who was lying on the ground with his lifeless face partially submerged in the pool. Gegruns body was next to fall, collapsing into a shallow area of the water with a wet thud. Faye, face contorted with anguish, grabbed Stedd and vanished. Eventually, so did the mindflayer, disappearing in a flash.
Gegrun sat on his haunches as he sought a horizon in the dim light. Eventually, the mists flashed gold, and he felt a thought in his head.
“?” It asked, and a muffled peal rang out, rising at the end like an inflection.
“I… I think I died,” Gegrun said. The noise came again, this time an affirmative monotone. It listed slightly towards the end, as if mourning. Gegrun had heard similar sounds at funerals and processions. It occurred to him that he probably wouldn’t have a funeral, entombed in a cave. He’d never wanted one, nor ever thought of one, but the thought still made tears rise to the corner of his eyes. He sat like that for a good while, although time had even less meaning to Gegrun now than when he was alive.
“I never got to say goodbye to everyone,” he said, rising to face the coiled gold mists. As if on cue, a voice cut through the darkness. It was muffled and smothered, but Gegrun could make out the voice of Matthew.
“------sorry, Geg----tried-----you want to say?”
Gegrun then, who had never been all too familiar with vocabulary and whose attitude to the spoken word was one of brute force and sheer enthusiasm, was struck with extreme clarity and the instant realisation that he was being offered the opportunity to say his final words. He only had to think for a second.
“Say goodbye to everybody for me. I’ll miss everyone. Remember; be nice, be just, be kind, leave every place better than you found it. Don’t worry about me, it’s warm up here.” His voice carried into the shifting fog, and he felt it reach Matthew before the contact was severed. The golden mist smiled and gestured as much as golden mist could. Gegrun smiled back, and followed it up a gentle incline that gradually rose toward clearer skies.
“Wait,” he said, grasping at the vagueness of the mist’s corporeal form.
“?”
“There aren’t any camels where we’re going, are there?”
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