Cards Reshuffled

Some people think that being undead will solve their problems. In some cases they may even be right. The problem is that undeath will cause all sorts of new and interesting problems, some of them incredibly disgusting.

Excerpt from ‘Ruminations Of A Master Bard’

“Arrrgh!” Korgan yelled, spittle flying. The dwarf looked as if he was ready to eat his own battleaxe with frustration. “This tomb looks to be looted! The rank, stinking bastards beat us here! Those scoundrels'll dine on me sup of cold steel 'afore I'm through with 'em!”

Zaerini looked about herself, trying to confirm the dwarf’s statement. Having found the Nether Scroll, she, Edwin and Jan had joined up with the rest of the party again, and after some more searching they had found themselves in this, another burial chamber. There were several very ugly and very tall statues lining the walls, made out of some kind of black stone. They resembled warriors, warriors wearing hideously twisted black armor, and that reminded Rini a bit of Sarevok. Then again, quite a few things had reminded her of her brother lately. In the center of the room there was a large stone sarcophagus, its lid pulled aside. A corpse lay beside it, its head squashed into a bloody pulp, and from what she could see the sarcophagus was quite empty. “Korgan?” she asked. “Was that person one of your old group?”

“Aye lassie, that he was, but that nay be important! What be important is the bloated bladder-brains stole me book, an’ now me axe is yellin’ for the warm embrace o’ their innards! An’ Gabber should nay think he be getting’ away just because o’ bein’ dead.”

“Well, actually I think it is important because…”

“Take that, Gabber!” Korgan shouted, ignoring her entirely as he stormed towards the corpse, clearly intending to go to work on it with his axe. Out of the corner of her eye the half-elf noticed something that she really wished was only a bad dream. The statues were moving, raising arms like giant stone pillars. And one of those enormous hands, belonging to one of the statues closest to the sarcophagus, was covered in blood, and some other sticky matter that she didn’t want to look at too closely.

“Korgan, wait!” Jaheira ordered. Apparently the druid had noticed the same thing, and now she was moving forward, quarterstaff raised. It was too late though. With a roar to make the walls shake the statues came to full attention, and at the same time the heavy stone doors slammed shut behind the adventurers. From a dark corner another shape emerged, a slowly shuffling humanoid one, wrapped in must bandages, and smelling strongly of cinnamon, disturbingly enough. “Sssssstinking meat...” it hissed. “Cursssssed with life. There are lawssss even here, rulessss. Final resssst musssst be maintained... defilerssss will die... it is the way of all flesssshhhh. Kaza'sss tome isss gone! Nevaziah'sss ssssstudent ssshall be thy doom. Join me in death…”

“What are you babbling about, you mangy old mummy?” Edwin sneered. “Stop that annoying muttering, or I shall unwrap you fast enough to make you spin clear through the wall. (Yes…mummy dust could be very useful indeed.)”

Anomen was raising his holy symbol towards the mummy, while simultaneously trying to threaten every single one of the stone warriors with his mace. “Stand back, unholy beast!” he threatened. “Or the force of my faith will send you screaming back to the darkness from whence you came!”

“Ssssay what?” the mummy hissed. “What do you take me for? Sssssome sssstupid little sssskeleton? Your faith issss weak priesssst, too weak for me!”

“Minsc and Boo are not weak!” Minsc said, holding the angrily squeaking hamster up for the mummy to see. “Look into his little hamster eyes and tremble with fear at his fury!”

“Hamsssster? I…don’t undersssstand?”

“Look here!” Rini tried. “It wasn’t us who stole that book. We only just got here. That dead guy on the ground was one of the real thieves, how come you didn’t try to kill them? Well, the rest of them. Obviously you killed him. Or your golems did, anyway. And is this any way to treat guests? We’re friends of your Master you know!”

“Friendssss?”

“Sure thing!” the bard said, getting warmed up. “Really good friends. In fact, he’s just outside the door now, I’m sure he’s pretty miffed about you slamming it in his face like that.”

The mummy trembled slightly. “Massster…outsssside? Sssslamming it in hissss face?”

As if on cue, the dusty voice of Nevaziah the Lich could suddenly be heard right outside the door. “Ingrate! Ungrateful little wretch! Let me in at once or THIS PLACE SHALL BE YOUR TOMB!”

“But it already isssss my tomb…”

“I SAID LET ME IN NOW!”

“Yessss Masster, whatever you ssssay Massster!”

Phew, Zaerini thought, straining to keep her voice focused as she used the special power of her taint to project a perfect imitation of the lich’s voice outside the door. Don’t know how much longer I can keep this up.

The mummy hesitantly pressed a button on the back of the sarcophagus, and the doors slid slowly open once again. “Right,” Rini said, backing towards the door. “I guess we’ll just leave you to the Master, I’m sure you’ll both be quite busy…” Frantically she motioned for her friends to follow her, while trying not to be too obvious about it.

“Where’ssss Masssster?” the mummy said. Then an angry orange light flared in its eyes. “Trickssss! Nassssty trickssss! We will ssssquash them! Sssstrike!” Once again the statues rumbled, and then they were charging towards the adventurers, fists raised.

“RUN!” Zaerini screamed. She bolted out the door as fast as her legs could carry her, only pausing to make sure that the others were still with her. As she sprinted along the dark corridor she could hear the thundering steps of the following statues, heavy enough to make the ground shake.

Meanwhile, Nevaziah the Lich was slowly shuffling along an intersecting corridor, feeling very put out. “Thieves…” he muttered. “Blasted thieves. Here I moved down into a trapped and haunted dungeon in order to be left alone with my work. And I thought I’d finally not be disturbed. But ooooooh no! Trap-infested haunted dungeons of course attract these…these adventurers, like flies to honey. Show them an ugly monster twice their size, and the first thing they ask is ‘How much treasure does it have?’ Insane. All of them.”

The lich struggled along, his joints creaking. When he’d become a lich, he hadn’t quite counted on the many little annoyances that came with undeath. Such as worms. Worms were not creatures he had ever feared before, but only this morning he’d found that there was a half dozen of them crawling about inside his right ear, eating…well, he didn’t want to think too hard about what they were eating. Possibly that was the reason why he’d been feeling increasingly forgetful lately. Another petty annoyance was that a lich’s body simply wasn’t designed for running. A slow lurch was the best he could do, and while it looked spooky, it wasn’t very efficient. And that creaking knee was driving him bonkers.

Perhaps he should try to become a demi-lich. At least then he wouldn’t have to bother about worms, being mostly incorporeal. And it would show snooty old Kangaxx too. Huh, he thinks he’s so great just because he has an unlimited number of Imprisonment spells. I call that cheating. The rest of us have to memorize our spells just like any old live wizard. And the way he keeps bragging about his stupid gilded skeleton makes me quite sick. I mean, how tacky can you get, painting your entire skeleton with gold paint? Next he’ll probably have his teeth replaced with diamonds or something. And then he’ll pretend to be modest about it and go ‘Oh, this? It’s just a little something I had hanging in my wardrobe, nothing special really’. And his crypt is much bigger than mine, much nicer, even if the neighbors are noisier. I WANT AN INNER CITY CRYPT TOO! IT’S NOT FAIR! And then there’s that ring…I still haven’t figured out how he manages to wear it when he’s only a skull, really. I do know in which body part he used to wear it when he was still alive though. I call that disgusting. No class at all. Just like that wizard who stole my Nether Scroll, the one with that gross chain hanging from his face. What is it with young people today? Have they no sense? I bet that one would adore Kangaxx’s stupid old golden skeleton. Whereas I have my sense of taste still intact. This hat was good enough for me two hundred years ago, and it’s certainly good enough now.

Nevaziah’s musings were interrupted by a loud voice coming towards him. It was voices shouting, and running feet, and some very heavy and rumbling sounds. I wonder what that might be? If the apprentices are running in the halls again I’ll have their hides. And where did my Ducky go anyway?

Then he rounded the corner and stopped in his tracks. He just had time to see the thieves who had stolen his Nether Scroll running towards him, the redheaded girl, the odd gnome and the rude wizard with the tasteless nosering, and raised his hand to obliterate them with a single spell, probably a Symbol of Death or something. Then he noticed there were some other people with them. Also, one of those other people, a maniacally grinning dwarf, noticed him.

“Har!” the dwarf roared. “It be a Bag o’ Bones! Always wanted to try this…” A throwing axe whistled through the air, burying itself between Nevaziah’s eyes, and the force of the impact made him stagger. It couldn’t really hurt him of course, since it wasn’t enchanted, but it was enough to give him a splitting headache. Literally so. And there wasn’t much left of his poor nose either. Before he had the time to retaliate, the adventurers rushed past him, rudely pushing him aside and not even looking back. He was just about to send a few lethal Death Spells after them when it suddenly occurred to him that the rumbling sound had grown even louder, and he turned around just in time to see what was heading towards him.

“Uh-Oh…” Nevaziah the Lich said in a very small voice, and then he said nothing more for a while. It is extremely difficult to talk when your face has been pressed into the ground by about two dozen very large and very heavy feet stomping all over your body. Being undead didn’t mean ‘unable to feel pain’. After he had lain there for a while, trying to figure out exactly how many of his bones were broken, he heard a nervous voice hissing next to him, and felt somebody anxiously prodding his shoulder.

“Masssster? Masssster, are you well?”

Nevaziah’s bony hand shot out to grab the mummy by the shoulder, his claws digging into it painfully. “I have an axe in my head, and I was just run over by your rampaging herd of giant statues. What do you think, Im-Po-Tent?”

“Sorry, Masssster…”

“Where did the thieves get to, did you see?”

“They essscaped, Massster. The ssstatuessss can’t climb ssstairs, you ssssee.”

“Wonderful. Just wonderful.”

“I could catch them, Masssster!” Im-Po-Tent eagerly offered. “I know thissss nice ssspell that would make them get eaten up by bugsssss…or I could sssssummon a sssand sssstorm.”

“All right, give it a try if you want to. But most likely the Nether Scroll will destroy them anyway, and serve them right too.” Picking his sadly squashed favorite hat up off the floor, Nevaziah gave it a sad look. “And here I was so happy that at least they hadn’t stolen this, my most valuable treasure. There’s no justice in the world, none at all. Only one thing could possibly make this an even worse day than it has been so far. Only one creature is even more hateful than those rude little thieves who stole my Nether Scroll.”

As if on cue, there was a shimmering in the air, the shimmering of a scrying spell, and the vision of a floating skull appeared. The skull was glittering gaudily with gold paint, and indeed one of its teeth had been replaced with a large diamond. The skull was chewing on a large cigar. “Nevaziah, old pal!” the skull said. “How’s it going down there in that sad dump you call home? You should come visit some time…I’m thinking of installing a nice little pool, for only 500 000 gold. You should get one, well, if you could afford it. You could do with some exercise I’m sure, you look awful.”

“Hello, Kangaxx,” Nevaziah said between clenched teeth. “How…nice of you to call. I was…only just thinking of you.” No, no justice in the world. If there was, Kangaxx and the thieves would kill each other off for me. Hm…now that gives me a few nice ideas…