[DnD] Welcome to the Dungeon of Doom!

The kobold leader's genial expression goes cold as Bob begins haggling with him, and at the threat of violence his face twists into a grimace.

"Perhaps you misunderstand. The chalice, you see, would allow all of us to escape this miserable hole. This includes you. Retrieving it, therefore, would seem to be in your best interest."

He confers with his aide for a moment, then sighs.

"Bribes. Okay, yeah, let's see here."

He rummages around in his pockets for a moment, and then—

"Behold!" he shouts, brandishing forth a small white stick. "The Eternal Chalk! This fabulous chalk shall never wear down, in all of eternity. Forever shall this chalk endure, for no matter how much it may write it remains undiminished!"

He drops the stick of Eternal Chalk in Bob's hand, and shrugs. "That's about it for our stores of fabulous treasure, big guy. Waiting around for some goon to bring us a fancy cup isn't precisely making us rich."

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Motsognir, still somewhat dazed and angry from his run-in with Argumentus, begins to come to his senses, and realizes again that he is alone. He shuffles quietly along to the rest of the group, hoping they hadn't noticed his absense. He caught a small amount of the discussion as he approached, something about a McGuffin? He hurried forward, hoping it was of the glazed variety.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

The dwarf glanced over at Bob and took a deep breath, taking a healing surge just to prove how truly dead he's not.

With a sigh he rolled his eyes. Bloody non-dwarves, no idea how this dungeoneering thing works.

"Oi then, Kobold. What sort of nasty beasties do we have to kill to get ourselves out of here? Demons? Dragons? Three-Headed Monkeys? Mighty Pirates? Skeleton hordes? An old god long abandoned to the depths of this nowhere pit?" He glanced around. "Man-eating ogres?"

He beamed from ear to ear and wiped a bit of gore from the edge of his axe.

"Either way, I don't know about you chaps, but this sounds like a barrel of soon-to-be-headless monkeys to me."

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

"Well, we don't exactly have an accurate accounting of the dungeon's denizens. There is what you might call a recurring problem where we send somebody down to make a list, and they never come back. I mean, we know about the goblins but this is only due to their persistent refusal to stay down there where they belong.

Most of the, ah, helpful individuals that have passed through in the last week are probably still in one piece, if that's any use to you. A band of orcs and their hunting dogs, and then a couple days ago a particularly incomprehensible halfling woman. None of them were much more polite than your friend the elf here."

I was speaking idiomatically.

The dwarf grunted at that. "Daft bird, that one. Convinced we're all undead minions she raised from the hereafter." He coughed slightly and added: "We're not."

"At any rate, I think we can give it a go." He glanced over his shoulder and smirked. "At least the big one is helpful enough. So then. How's this chalice work, anyhow? Transport? Have a map on it?"

Healing Surge if you didn't get it in the last post.

How ya doing, buddy?

Fine, I thought, damn cheapskate Kobolds. With no other viable options, and concious that for whatever reason, the Kobolds had a massive fucking lizard tied up round the corner, I grudgingly accepted the idea of entering the lower levels of certain death.

FELIPE NO

BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH

Argumentus was tired of talky talk. Now time for actiony action.

Argumentus moves ahead

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

"Truth be told, we're a little bit hazy on the details of the chalice ourselves. Obviously we've never seen the damn thing in person; how are we supposed to know? Look, you're getting way too hung up in details. The important thing is that's it's a wonderful, magical chalice, and it will definitely, according to prophecy —"

(he waves a tattered-looking book in your face for a moment)

"— allow us to escape topside. Things are bad, and then we get the cup, and then things will be good! Forever! It hardly matters how it fulfills the prophecy. Maybe it's got a big feck-off bomb in it, that would work. Maybe it like levitates! Maybe it's a portal to the Queen's bedchamber!"

He crosses his arms and scowls.

"There's no sense going into things with a negative attitude!" chirps the younger kobold in the hall. "After all, all the folks we sent downward must have gone somewhere interesting. They can't all have died. Probably. We'd notice the smell, don't you think?"

M

Yeah yeah yeah 34/9

Jam it back in, in the dark.

"Just as a matter of interest, how long have you little guys been down here? Because it occurs to me, that if it was long enough to set up a little base down here then it was surely long enough for you all to just tunnel out of here. I mean, that big hunk of rock blocking the entrance wasn't that big and you have quite the little setup here. Also, it was you guys who were communicating with the mage upstairs through that tube wasn't it? So you're probably part of whatever passes for the establishment in this place anyway. And where do you get your food from? And who put you here in the first place? And what's to say you're not sending us to our doom down there? Or even worse, sending us to fetch this cup for you and then setting up some kind of ambush for when we get back, probably involving that big old lizard you've got tied up round the corner?

I'm no expert in dungeon organisation or anything but this all smells rather fishy at the moment and I don't think it's the dwarf this time."

I turned to address the horde.

"Don't you chaps agree that it might be rather more prudent to subdue these little chaps a little, just to keep them honest while we're off throwing our lives away on a futile quest for a cup? Seems to me that there's a wonderfully convenient jail cell just round the corner, I vote we lock these guys up until we get back and then, should any of them not have been eaten by the big lizard, we'll let them out and play cups together"

There's nowhere I can't reach.

"All those in favor of ignoring the woman say 'aye'."

"Aye."

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

The horde seemed to be ignoring me and from what little of their weird, gutteral tongue I could understand, they appeared to be quite happy to wander merrily to their deaths in the darkness beyond.

"Fine, I can see I'm outnumbered but if we make it back up here with the cup and then get eaten by the big lizard, don't say I didn't warn you".

With that, I shot the elderly Kobold an evil look and followed the big human to certain death in the tunnels below.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

The dwarf wandered down after Argumentus, clapping the lead kobold on the back as he wandered past.

"If you do unleash the lizard when we get back, be sure to shuffle up a few zombies, eh?" He grinned as he began to meander down the new hall. "Like at least a bit of a challenge."

And with that he wandered off, whistling some jaunty tune and being all full of Paladin-ish smug self-satisfaction.

I was speaking idiomatically.

The party meanders at length through the shattered gates of the kobold village, trampling over the rubble like so much garbage underfoot. After a brief descent down a flight of distressingly slippery stairs, they arrive in a relatively spacious chamber composed of the some of the shoddiest masonry imaginable. The walls have a very liberal notion of what it means to be perpendicular to the ceiling, and the ceiling for its part has made a regrettable decision to become thoroughly convex. Everything is slightly damp and clammy.

Wide double-doors of rotten wood are on the east and west walls. The western doors hang open into the hall on broken hinges. The east doors, however, are sealed and barred. A single word is written upon the barred doors in large red letters: "DON'T".

The southwest corner of the chamber is cluttered with a mixed debris of stone and metal. A halfling woman in chainmail is asleep in the southeast corner, leaning on the wall and gradually drooling on herself.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

It's been too long since Argumentus got to hurt something, or so he figured. Argumentus moves to look down the opened double doors.

FELIPE NO

The dwarf, as ever, wandered along with the human. His new axe resting easily on his shoulder. He glanced at the halfling in the corner and smacked his friend in the arm to get his attention, inclining his jaw in the direction of the woman.

"Looks like someone crossed our vanished cut-purse with our elf, eh?" He chuckled and pondered for a moment as he also looked down the broken double doors. "Think we should kill it? Or throw it through those locked doors?"

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

The west corridor goes on for about 30' before turning sharply south. Faint and flickering light issues from around the corner, as does a muffled growling.

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Argumentus moves to the southeast corner and begins to violently shake the halfling.

"HEY LADY! LADY! HEY LADY! WHAT YOU KNOW 'BOUT THIS PLACE?!"

There's nowhere I can't reach.

AAAAAAAAAAAAA GET OFF OF ME YOU BRUTE

beats at the large man before escaping towards the north

How ya doing, buddy?

"O bollocks to this gay exposition shit."

The dwarf marches off to sift through the debris in the corner, and if he doesn't find anything, he's going to try and see if he can get that damned locked door open. He's not about to be told by a door what he can and can't do. He's not going to be told where he can and can't go by some doggie door with delusions of grandeur. O no. He's Gabriel Sledgehammer. Paladin of Kord. Destroyer of Doors. Murderer of three-headed monkeys. Slayer of Sandwiches. No door would stop him. Or at least would stop him from convincing Argumentus the candy might be behind it if the door proves a clever foe.

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Motsognir stood in earshot of the halfling, but well out of the way of the locked doors. He knew all too well what could happen when the others got anxious to break things.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I look around wildly for the golem's summoner. Dwarves have no use for golems, being their smarter and more hirsuite cousins. Shouldn't do anything rash, they wouldn't cotton to me abusing their kin. The gaudy woman is probably controlling him.

"What's the big idea waking a body like that? It's rude, it is! I never thought I'd see the day... Don't they teach you nothin' about decency in the city?"

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

"Sea tea? No fanks."

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Well, I'll be. A golem that talks. You don't see that too often! And he got some sense, too.

"Are you the help those people said they'd send? Took you damn long enough! I knew you couldn't trust a kobold to be prompt. Right nice folk, but they left their beards go so long it grew all over their faces!"

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

"Tiny lady talk too much." >=(

Argumentus grows frustrated with IMPOTENT RAGE and moves to open the locked doors in his special way.

Most amazing jew boots

The dwarf watched the human come barreling past with a sense of rising joy.

"Well now, that's more like it!"

He lifted his axe from his shoulder and tested the weight of it in his hands. It felt good. It felt real good. It felt like it would do massive damage on opportunistic attacks. That's what it felt like.

There's nowhere I can't reach.