“You do know what comes next, right?” Gerry asked through a mouthful of pizza and Dr Pepper.
“Ugh… Yeah. Is there someone in charge here?” I asked begrudgingly.
The gnome nodded, “I’ll go get Kilp, he’s the foreman.”
I rubbed my eyes as the gnome plodded away, the knowledge of what was coming irritating me beyond belief, “Monster hunt?”
Gerry smiled broadly and nodded, “Monster hunt. But hey, at least it’ll be something worthwhile, and bare minimum we’re gonna get a look at some pretty awesome construction when we’re done. I always loved them, you?”
I nodded and dismounted, the view from atop Shadow-Stal only making the already small gnomes look like they were the size of sparrows, “You ever do one of those ones where you’ve just gotta throw a bunch of gold at it until all the renovations are completed?”
“Oh my Gods, yes! Always confused me why you couldn’t bulk-buy them though, bit of an oversight, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, just a bit.” I replied as I spotted the foreman trudging toward us, his name, Kilp the Foreman, appearing above his disproportionately large head.
“So I hear you two want passage over this ‘ere bridge, eh?” he boomed with his thick accent, “‘Fraid that won’t be possible on account o’ the fact that we seem to be havin’ a bit of problem keepin’ the damn thing up, ha-ha!”
“Ah, weather trouble?”
The gnome shook his head, “Nah, just a big snake.”
I felt a confused look from Gerry land on the back of my head and decided to push the question before convening with him, “A big snake?”
“Aye, big snake.” the foreman said as if it was helpful.
“Do you know what he’s talking about?” I asked Gerry without turning around.
“No idea, a grand serpent maybe?”
I shook my head both to answer Gerry and to try and get some memory or another loose, “Normally they’d just tell us it was a grand serpent, this guy seems pretty set on ‘big snake’. Is there anything you can tell me about the big snake?”
“Only that it ate three o’ me workers and injured half-a-dozen others. Hey, you two look like you’ve seen a fight, you think you could help us out?”
I didn’t quite like how the mission was being pawned off onto us, the lack of information and disturbing disappearance of half the gnomes during our conversation creating a very real sense of dread.
Then again, I could use the practice.
“Always happy to lend a hand. Where should we start?”
“Glad to ‘ear it!” Kilp exclaimed just a little too loudly for my taste, “Well, if I were you I’d start under the bridge site, there’s a door on the side that should lead you down to the mill.”
Mission Started: Bridge Monster.
Objective added: Investigate the Underground Mill.
“Underwater mill?” I asked curiously, “How does something like that work?”
“Normally it’s above ground, chuggin’ away under the bridge like it’s s’posed ta, but whenever it has an obstruction it goes below.” Kilp smiled and puffed out his chest, “Designed the whole thing meself.”
I reflected his smile and gave an impressed nod, “Gnome engineering has always been-”
“C’mon,” Gerry shouted excitedly as he swiftly passed me and slid down the riverbank to the side of the stone bridge’s support, “I wanna see a big snake!”
I rolled my eyes and smiled at the goofball, “I’m comin’, I’m comin’.”
The door was nothing special, not even a lock or a latch to hold it shut, just a simple rope-loop handle slung over a nail driven into the stone work.
Me being who I am went to open the door, stopping only when I noticed Gerry’s face droop slightly, “Oh go on then.”
“Really?”
“Just open the damn door.”
Gerry happily obliged, pulling open the door and stepping into the small space attached to a set of stairs that led down under the lake.
“Nothing creepy ‘bout this…” I instinctively whispered as I followed after Gerry through the dimly lit stairwell.
“Ah, don’t worry about it. I’m guessing they just didn’t light the torches on account of whatever it is that’s lurking down here.”
I don’t what had gotten into Gerry, but he seemed to have turned over a new leaf in the emotional department, any semblance of concern, sadness, or anger having been flushed away with food and drink.
I only wish I could say the same about myself.
I was done on the whole Bishop thing, don’t get me wrong, but suddenly all of my concerns had been shuffled over to the game, the idea that death could be hiding around any corner making my skin tingle as we reached the bottom of what I’d started to assume was a never-ending set of stairs.
“Door’s locked.” Gerry said in defeat, “Guess we’ll have to go back up and get the key.”
“You’re a mage,” I replied with more sarcasm than helpful reminder, “I think you can get the door.”
“Oh… yeah. Right, two secs.”
A small flash of blue light later and the door unlocked, allowing Gerry and I to pass through into a small house with one key thing missing.
“Where’s the owner?” I asked, looking around at the signs that someone was usually manning the mill, a bed, a burned out candle, that sort of thing.
“Dunno, but it looks someone was here recently, doesn’t it?”
I screwed up my eyebrows and looked between him and the rest of the room, “It really doesn’t Gerry.”
“I know,” he replied with a disappointed sigh, “I just like pretending I’m a detective, you know?”
“A what?”
“A det-town guard.”
“That’s better.”
I was just messing with him, and judging from his cute little smile he knew it.
We split up for a few seconds after that, choosing to have a little look around the room for clues of what exactly it was we were supposed to be doing.
“Hey,” Gerry called over from just outside the cottage, the door leading to what was beyond left open for any number of ghouls to sneak in and eat me, “what’s that?”
My crippling paranoia aside, I walked over to the door and peeked through, getting a quick look of the three side-by-side wheels of the mill before stepping out.
“What’s what?”
“That.” he said, pointing to a large pile of what looked like rugby ball sized mints.
Initially I planned to simply destroy them with fire without a second thought knowing full well that they were something of the ‘not good’ variety, but then I had another idea.
“They’re eggs… You reckon you could freeze ‘em?”
“Are you sure?” Gerry asked as he came and squatted down next to me, “They look a bit… weird.”
“Big snake, big eggs. Now come on, can you freeze them or not?”
Gerry scratched his chin for a second then shrugged, “Guess so, I’d take a few steps back though.”
I decided to do as I was told, either he was trying to be a ‘manly man’ or he was genuinely concerned, and my need to prove myself wasn’t nearly as important as making sure my face didn’t get the Arctic treatment.
It took Gerry a moment to decide which spell would work best, landing on a simple spray spell that had a halfway decent range but didn’t do a whole lot of damage.
He gave each of the dozen or so eggs a solid five seconds of freeze time before stopping and giving me a nod, “That ought to do it.”
“Cheers.”
Acquired 12 Frozen Strange Eggs: Weight: 5(-5), Value: ????.
My eyes were transfixed upon the question marks for a long time, I’d never actually seen them before, and I couldn’t tell if they were a good or a bad thing.
“What do you plan to do with them?” Gerry asked, breaking my mental cataloguing.
“Dunno, guess I’ll sell ‘em. Hey, do you know what question marks in the value sec
tion means?”
Gerry shook his head to my mild annoyance, “Sorry, could only be a good thing though, right?”
“Eh, I don’t know, what happens if I take ‘em to the wrong vendor and I get less than I should…” I trailed off as I spotted something moving over by the wheels.
“I wouldn’t worry about stuff like that, you’re more likely to get a good deal than a bad one, right?”
“G-Gerry… I think something’s moving behind you…” I uttered as access to the house portion of the mill slammed shut, trapping us in with our shallow breathing and the faint hissing that was only growing in intensity.
Gerry froze with fear, our shared phobia crippling us both as the sound of slithering filled our ears.
I don’t know what it was, we hadn’t really had much of a problem with storming down here ready to fight the thing, but once the reality of the creature started to set in I knew there wasn’t any hope for staving off the dread.
It wasn’t until Gerry finally decided to turn around that the mighty beast made itself properly known, rearing up on its body and revealing that it was at least forty feet long with a head large enough to eat a human in one bite.
Armelia Fireheart has disturbed a Titanoboa’s nest.
Level 67 Titanoboa, HP: 40000/40000.
Titanoboa discovered.
Journal entry made.
Progress made in mission: Bridge Monster.
Objective completed: Investigate the Underground Mill.
Objective added: Defeat the Titanoboa.
Without wasting a second Gerry went into combat mode, blindly casting a spell at the massive snake that made a small flash of blue light bounce off its red belly and illuminate its black body.
“Did you…” I muttered, my terror replaced with confusion, “did you just try to unloc-”
“You made me mess up my hotke-eeps!”
Yeah, I was pretty sure we were screwed.
Armelia: Chapter 3
I barely got out of the way as the snake’s head smashed into the ground beside me, separating me from Gerry.
“Any ideas?” Gerry called from the other side of the mill.
“Nada!”
I’d been hoping to have a few minutes to set up traps and sigils before triggering the inevitable fight, but suddenly all I could think about was trying to find a way out.
“You ever- whoa! You ever go up against something like this before?”
I shook my head and took a dive roll toward the creature’s belly, the idea being that the closer I got the less it could attack me, “Trust me, I’d have told you.”
Equipped Sparky McStabby-Stab.
I wish I could say that from there I disembowelled the beasty, but I wasn’t so lucky.
Titanoboa used bash.
Stomach wounded.
125 damage inflicted.
HP: 4375/4500.
I’m not exactly sure how it happened, one second I was fine, the next I was being thrown across the room by the snake’s tail and smashed into the hard stone wall.
When I did finally manage to scrape myself off the ground I noticed that I’d taken to limping and clutching my stomach, “Gerry! A little help!”
“Can’t you see that I’m a little busy!?” Gerry shrieked as a mouthful of fangs came his way.
“Just heal me, would you?”
“Ugh… Fine!”
Grand Gerry the Good healed you.
Full health restored.
All debuffs removed.
HP: 4500/4500.
With full mobility restored I was back in the fight, my sword in hand and my mind running through scenarios as fast as I could form them.
“See any weak points?” I asked as I tried to scan the constantly writhing black and red body.
“If I saw a weak point, I’d be attacking it!” Gerry growled, his fear quickly becoming replaced with frustration as he threw everything he could at it, barely making a dent in its large HP.
“Okay… think, think, think…” then it hit me, “The water!”
“What!?”
“The water!”
“…Just so you know, repeating exactly what you said does not qualify as an answer!”
“It’s why it keeps destroying the bridge, so she can keep her eggs safe and dry down here! You keep distracting her, I’m gonna go find the manual override!”
“How do you even know if there is a manual override?”
Deciding to ignore that last question, mostly because I didn’t actually have an answer, I started doing my best to find the lever, switch, or crank that would put the mill back above ground.
Turns out there are a lot of levers, switches, and cranks in a mill.
“Why won’t you just die!?” Gerry yelled out, the very real sound of a catch in his throat making me giggle a little.
Yes, yes, I’m a horrible person, deal with it.
“Found it!” I screamed with the elation and subtlety of a nine-year-old girl when I found the lever attached to the small house.
“Pull the damn thing!”
I didn’t need to be told twice, the thought that maybe it was a bad idea to flood the place we were standing in with water not even crossing my mind for a second, why would it?
Grathmal Bridge Mill Lever activated.
…I’m sure you can guess what happened next.
“Oh sweet Lord in Heaven, no!”
Those were the last words I heard before everything got replaced with the hurricane of water that just about perforated my eardrums, my eyes not getting so much as a second to see the wooden panels above the mill retract.
Everything was all blurry and bubbly after that, my body getting tossed around like a doll in a tumble dryer as Gerry and I, defying all laws of physics, floated to the top of the water, the black shadow that was the snake’s body thrashing around dangerously close to me as we rose to the surface.
Barely a second passed by before the water quickly started to drain away, leaving all three of us in the blinding sunlight as whatever water had been flowing downstream kept on going while the clogged up mill became an incredibly effective dam.
“You alright?” I asked Gerry as I got to my feet, discovering he’d landed just beside me in the watery chaos.
“Mmhm.” Gerry replied hoarsely after coughing up a lung, “Never better, where’s the snake?”
I swallowed hard and jutted my chin toward the three jammed up wheels, “There.”
It was pissed. No other way to put it really. Titanoboa or not, getting your tail stuck under the weight of hefty wooden wheels has gotta hurt.
“Now what do we do?”
“I don’t- there!” I shouted as I spotted the faintly glowing rubble near the snake’s tail, “Shoot the blockage!”
Without wasting another second, we both started launching every kind of projectile spell we could, narrowly dodging the angry snaps of our would-be devourer.
It took a few good shots, but eventually the rubble burst into a fiery, sparking pile of ash, allowing the wheels to start moving freely, the hissing length of smooth scales and fangs getting pulled under the fast spinning wheels, coating us with blood and, because I have such a huge thinking problem, bombarding us with a mini-tsunami.
End of Conflict Report:
Grand Gerry the Good: 1x Level 67 Titanoboa.
Armelia Fireheart: 1x Level 67 Elite Titanoboa.
Total experience awarded:
Grand Gerry the Good: Max Level Reached.
No Experience Points awarded.
Armelia Fireheart: +3000 XP.
Progress: 4270/4500.
Progress made in mission: Bridge Monster.
Objective completed: Defeat the Titanoboa.
Objective added: Talk to Kilp the Foreman.
You’d think that it’d end there, that everything would be great and dandy, but no. No, instead, after twenty seconds of near certain drowning, we washed up on a lake bed nearly a full mile from the gnomes.
“Yep,” I said
, flicking a piece of dead snake off of me, “seems about right.”
Armelia: Chapter 4
“You think we could’ve just whistled for Shadow-Stal?” Gerry asked after spending our entire journey talking about trees.
“You absolute twat…” I grumbled as we neared the gnomes who’d just finished rebuilding the bridge.
“What?” Gerry asked in what sounded like genuine offence.
“What do you think?” I snapped back, staring at him with a fire in my eyes that no amount of snake blood and waterfalls could quell, “You’ve only been spending the last twenty flipping minutes nattering on about oaks and firs. Couldn’t have taken fifteen seconds to mention that I should probably call over the horse?”
Gerry looked away and shrugged, “I thought you might like to know about the trees in Tarthirious…”
“Why in the bleedin’ heck would I care about trees? Nobody but you likes trees, alright?”
“Nah,” Gerry said with a brave little laugh and a smile, “you like trees too.”
I grit my teeth and shook my head, trying desperately to hide my own smile that had decided to grow on my face just to spite me, “Shut up, I don’t. Hello Kilp.”
“You did it!” the gnome exclaimed, running over to Gerry and I with his arms outstretched, “I can’t believe you actually did it!”
There was nothing I could do to prepare myself for the inbound hug which, if I’m being completely honest, was more of a trip hazard than a thankful embrace.
“It’s what we do.” I replied as humbly as I could, breaking away from the hug with a smile, “I take it the bridge will stay up for a while then?”
Kilp nodded proudly, “Aye, we can build a mill that can go underground, I’m sure we can manage a sturdy bridge. Now, I’m guessing you’ll be expectin’ a reward then?”
“Only that we be able to cross.” I said, a mild irritation setting in my mind as I realised that I wasn’t going to be able to get so much as a tooth from the eviscerated corpse that had been churned through the water.
“A philanthropist, eh? Well I sure can respect that, be sure to remember that you have the favour of the gnomes though. We can be mighty handy for any kind of engineering you might need, be it a weapon, a building, or a simple repair job.”
Legends of Tarthirious: The Complete Collection Page 41