Cards Reshuffled

As if it wasn’t enough with the stench and the filth, the sewers I encounter never seem content with being simple sewers. No, there always has to be monsters down there, usually really weird ones, and traps, and riddles. Usually a wandering madman or two. Then again, sometimes I think the wandering madmen are really me and my friends, for going down there in the first place.

Excerpt from ‘Ruminations Of A Master Bard’

“Another dank hole with which to improve my mood,” Edwina sarcastically stated. “Joy.” She made an expansive gesture of contempt at her surroundings. “Look at this! Slime, grime, muck, dirt, filth, as well as, let’s face it, monster droppings. Why is it that we always seem to wind up in places like this one? Once, just once, I would like to have an adventure that didn’t leave us all stinking like a Balor’s behind. (Preferably an adventure in a nice clean palace somewhere, something involving peeled grapes and chilled sherbet.)” She gave her soiled robes a dark look, and then proceeded to spray herself liberally from a small crystal bottle. A sweet-smelling cloud of perfume enveloped her. It carried the scent of roses, musk and vanilla with it, and it made everybody else cough.

“Minsc knows the answer!” Minsc eagerly chimed in. The ranger had Otyugh blood splattered all over his face, creating a fearful look that clashed with his open and innocent smile. “It is because Evil hides in dark and slimy places, and so Heroes of Goodness like us must go there to hunt the Evil down and drag it kicking and screaming into the light, just like when Minsc has to drag Boo out of the Evil Girl Wizard’s funny bags.”

“My funny…” Edwina checked her bags of spell components, and then she breathed in heavily as angry red spots appeared in her cheeks. “That hamster has been eating my spell components, hasn’t he? (And you’d better not be referring to me as a Hero of Goodness.)”

“Poor Boo,” Minsc said, taking the hamster out of his pocked and giving him a worried look. Boo gave the ranger what could best be described as a happy leer, rolling eyes that had unaccountably turned a bright purple. His fur was purple too, with yellow spots. “Boo says he likes the pretty colors, but he is acting very oddly. He keeps saying things like ‘groovy’ and ‘far out man’, and he keeps giggling oddly. The Evil Girl Wizard must take better care of her things, or Minsc will spank.”

“Squea-he-he-he-eak…” Boo said. Then he fell over in Minsc’s palm, kicking his legs in the air as the ranger poked him worriedly.

“Take better care of my things? You take better care of your rodent, unless you wish to become the owner of the world’s smallest furry hat! Look at this! Look at all my precious components! He’s been into them all! And what is this? Hamster droppings? How am I supposed to summon my overpowering magic using hamster droppings? What do you expect me to do? Conjure an Excrement Elemental?”

“Might be fun to watch,” Zaerini said, grinning. “At least that Otyugh would have been interested. Here, I’ll let you borrow some of my components until we can fix yours.” The adventurers had found the secret passage beneath the Copper Coronet with no great difficulty. It led into a maze of foul-smelling sewers, unsurprisingly enough. Eddie is quite right about that, Rini thought. It always does seem to be sewers. So far they had seen no sign of the slavers they sought. Nor had they encountered any great opposition. Some slimes, an Otyugh, and for some unaccountable reason, a group of hobgoblins, though what they might be doing down a sewer was a mystery that had died with them. “And speaking of gross things, you’re a fine one to talk. Did you have to bring along that disgusting thing you found before?”

“It could be an artifact of great magic!”

“It’s a hand! A rotting, severed hand! And haven’t you had enough of ancient magical artifacts yet? Next time you might turn into a…a frog or something.”

Edwina gave her an annoyed look. “Research always carries certain hazards with it, but without experimentation we will never learn anything new.”

“Sure. Catching flies with your tongue would be pretty new.”

“Hmpf,” Edwina said, patting the bag where she kept the disgusting appendage she had found down a drain. “I wouldn’t expect you to fully understand the workings of the scientific mind, not having received higher education, as it were. (Come to think of it, there’s a traditional method for curing an amphibian transformation that does sound pretty tempting…as long as she is the one to administer the cure. If tongues come into it, so much the better.)”

“Oh, suit yourself. Just don’t blame me if it turns out to be the hand of a rabid killer and suddenly comes to life and tries to strangle you or something.”

As the adventurers happened upon an intersection, they across a sad that was sad as well as unusual. Two skeletons stood in a niche in the wall, tightly embracing each other with skeletal arms. The shorter skeleton was leaning its skull against the bony shoulder of the taller one, and their fingers were entwined. “Look…” Jaheira said, her voice quiet. “A man and a woman.”

“How can you tell?” Anomen asked.

“The shape of the pelvis is different,” the druid explained, moving over to the skeletons as she pointed at them in order to demonstrate. “Do you see? The woman’s is wider, to allow for giving birth. That is how you can tell. The skulls are also different…though this man’s skull seems a little damaged. Possibly he had some deformity.”

“Yup!” Jan agreed. “That’s one way of telling for certain. Or, you can read the inscription!” He pointed at the angular letters that had been carved into the wall about the niche. “See? ‘Eric and Christine, Together Forever’. Says so inside the ring too, see?” He held up a small golden wedding band. “The dead woman had it on her finger.”

“You go too far, gnome!” Anomen protested, scowling angrily at the small thief. “How could you steal from a dead woman like that?”

“Well, the ring that the fellow is wearing wouldn’t come off, you see. Pity, that one is larger.”

“Put it back right now, you little grave robber!” Anomen threatened, advancing on Jan. “I will not allow you to desecrate a pair of dead lovers like this, as they sleep eternally, dreaming dreams of their long lost devotion!”

“Oh, come on, Ano! They’ll never miss it, they don’t even have any eyes to miss it with, see?”

“No! Give it here!” The cleric angrily snatched the golden ring out of Jan’s hands and took the hand of the female skeleton, attempting to put it back. “I will see that the dear departed are treated with all the respect they deserve, giving them their chance to rest in peace once more…”

Crack. Creak. Clutter.

As Anomen tugged a little too hard on the skeletal hand, ‘Christine’ shuddered, creaked, and then suddenly collapsed in a heap of bones, her skull bouncing off the cleric’s helmet before it hit the floor. The noise as she spread all over the sewer floor was deafening, and Anomen was left standing motionless, still holding the ring up, as his face turned a bright beet red.

“Maybe that should be ‘rest in pieces’?” Edwina sweetly suggested.

“I…” Anomen said uncertainly, picking a thigh bone up. “Mayhaps…mayhaps we could glue her back together?” He took a step forward, and there was a loud crack as his mailed boot came down upon the unfortunate ‘Christine’s’ skull.

“I think,” Rini said, “that we’d have better use for a broom…”

It was decided that Jan might as well hold on to the ring, since ‘Christine’ clearly would have no further use for it. Rini had the unpleasant feeling that ‘Eric’ was glaring at them as they went, but she eventually shrugged it off. After all, it was only a skeleton, even if it was one with an oddly deformed head. Having traversed a few more corridors, they came across a bridge leading across a broad river of stinking sewer water. The half-elf was just about to set foot on it when Jan darted in front of her. “Hold on, your Worship! Trap ahead! That one would have roasted us all, just like when poor old Auntie Florence Jansen invited the dragon next door to a barbecue. Sadly, she forgot to buy enough meat, so the dragon decided to fix its own dinner, so to speak. The smell was quite tempting, or so I heard.” He busied himself with something on the ground. Presumably it was the trap, though Zaerini couldn’t pretend that she saw much of it. I guess I simply don’t have the eyes of a rogue. Immy would have loved to mess about with it though…As they waited for Jan to remove the trap, they suddenly heard a hooting, barking sound coming out of the darkness ahead. Three of the party members simultaneously groaned as bad memories came back to them.

“Kobolds…” Zaerini sighed. “Pesky kobolds…I had enough of those long ago.”

“Just like under the Firewine Bridge,” Jaheira said, a look of suffering on her face. “Multiplying with unnatural speed…I swear they must spread by dividing.”

“And they’d keep turning up right behind you too,” Edwina added, making a grimace. “Even in spots you’d sworn were empty five seconds ago.”

“Minsc will go see that little yappy kobolds cause no harm!” Minsc said, and immediately marched off into the darkness. “If they divide, then Minsc and Boo will conquer! Boo says that be the same as kicking kobold butt, so that be all good and proper!” Before anybody had the time to comment, or indeed to follow him, there was a loud and terrified yapping, like a kennel of small dogs. Then Minsc returned, rubbing a bump on his head and holding up what seemed to be a wooden staff, decorated with carvings of leaves and vines. “Minsc not sure what happen,” he said. “Minsc just held up Boo to tell yappy kobolds off for being noisy and bothering ladies, and they all run away screaming. One threw this stick at Minsc’s head too, but Minsc has had plenty of bumps before, so that is all right.” Boo burped loudly, rolled his purple eyes again, and extended his tongue. And extended it. And extended it. And extended it, until it had wrapped itself several times around Minsc’s wrist. He didn’t seem to be in any discomfort, but it was an unsettling sight all the same. I really hope that wears off soon, Zaerini thought. Or else I might run screaming too.

The staff turned out to be only mildly magical, capable of producing a few tasty berries once a day. It worked too, but before anybody else could get the chance to taste the large blueberries that appeared, Insufferable pounced on them, stuffing them into his mouth until his furry cheeks were fully distended. Then the monkey retreated into Edwina’s pocket, where it promptly fell asleep, snoring deeply. “Greedy monkey,” Edwina muttered. “No manners whatsoever, doesn’t even think to share with me…” She did make very certain that the animal was sleeping comfortably though, and Rini was certain that she saw her gently petting it.

Having got past a few more random dark tunnels, puddles of slime, traps and kobolds, the adventurers came upon what seemed to be a home of a sort. Actually it was only a single room, containing a simple bed, a table, and a couple of rotting chairs. It also contained a carrion crawler, a sickly pale, worm-like monster the size of a large dog. It had multiple legs, and even more tentacles, waving like searching fingers about its hungrily gaping mouth. Finally, there was a wizened old man, looking half-dead with starvation, and completely mad. His long gray beard reached his knees, which was probably a good thing, given that he was completely naked otherwise. For a second, Zaerini was uncomfortably reminded of Elminster. “You have come for the blade, I suppose,” he said in a quavering voice. Then he petted the hideous monster next to him, tickling its tentacles. “It is as we have always expected, my friend. Too long in this pit, too long.”

“Friend?” Anomen said. “That dangerous monster is your friend?”

“He loves affection,” the old man said. “He loves to taste the flesh of the unwary. It is his one weakness. It has been his gift to me for these long years. This beast that you see, he is a monster to you but to me he is a friend. Would you like to kiss him?”

“Not bad…” Edwina murmured as she bent over the carrion crawler, examining its tentacles closely. “It seems very docile, given that it is only a doddering old fool who is its trainer and not a skilled mage like myself.” She went down on her knees, for now oblivious to the damp staining her robe as she picked a multi-jointed leg up, paying close attention to how it bent. The carrion-crawler watched her quizzically. “Of course, these things have the intelligence of an earthworm, just keep them fed and they will be happy…”

“Edwina…” Rini said, her tongue feeling quite stiff in her mouth. “That’s a carrion crawler. You do know what they eat, don’t you? Just come away from there. Please?”

“In a moment, in a moment,” the wizard impatiently said. “These things cannot be hurried. Would you just look at those teeth…”

“I am looking! That’s why I want you to leave it alone!”

“Just leave them be, my lady,” Anomen suggested. “If the mage has finally found a suitable mate, we might as well leave them to their happiness.”

It was at this moment that Edwina accidentally touched what seemed to be a ticklish spot on the carrion crawler’s belly. The monster made a coughing sound, flailing its tentacles about, and a sticky white fluid splattered from them, hitting Anomen in the face. The priest immediately froze into immobility, a look of stunned surprise prominent on his face.

“Beautiful little thing.” Edwina sighed, smiling at the carrion crawler. “Uncommonly clever for its kind too. Excellent judge of character.” She turned to give the old man an imploring look. “I think he looks a little hungry though…how about letting him feed? There seems to be a nicely frozen dinner available…”