Part XV - In Which I Have a Very, Very, Very Bad Day (Did I mention that I nearly die 3 (Count 'em, 3! times))
After everyone had their little conferences with the elf in the white room, we were set to head out on our next suicide run. Fabio said that he wouldn't replace the amulet that we'd used to bug out from Anthony's living room, as he really couldn't afford the power loss. Also, Jay had a note from Anthony, that (once you reversed all the statements) was an apology for the way he tried to kill us at the end, and it told Jay to reread a poem that he got. The poem was Frost's about about how some say the world may end with fire or ice, and from what he's seen, either would do the job.
Anyway, the elf told us that this time, what we needed to do was go to the city of Antar, which we would find by always following the wind, as all winds blow towards Antar. We were to find this well, the name of which I can't remember, and pour the dust of something or other on it, and jump in. He specifically warned us that we needed to try very hard to avoid any distractions along the way.
At this point, he gave he pack containing all the items we'd collected to Jon, and I remembered his line before about how he may not be with us at the end, and how we needed to reach into the pack at the right times, and get the items we needed. We also got back whatever items we wanted from all the equipment we'd left behind previously. We got our weapons, guns, and all sorts of things back (except snowmobiles).
We stood in the circle, and he said his magic words, and we went poof. We appeared in a cavern and before we'd even gotten our bearings, a large creature started coming towards us from out of the dark. It vaguely matched the Balrog (or whatever will kill me), but Chappell told us all to leave, he'd try to hold it off. I asked if I should stay, but he told us all to go.
We headed off down a tunnel, walking in the direction of the wind, as determined by Jon's cigarette lighter, trying to make haste. I was on point, with a flashlight and 9mm, when I saw something cowering in the shadows. It turned out to be a person, and I told him to keep his hands where I could see them, and stand up. He looked pretty harmless, but when questioned about who he was and how he got there, he said that he'd been rune-casting, and the runes "told" him to go the Duke golf course, and do the "veird" rune. This was rather suspicious, as he was using magic (which I don't particularly like), and was from Duke, and transported from that hotbed of dimensional travel, the Duke golf course.
Things only got worse for him when it turned out that Gegi knew him, and this combination of things almost got him shot on the spot. However, he wasn't entirely stupid, and told Gegi to stop helping him. As we suspected that there was a Balrog somewhere behind us, and we were supposed to be avoiding distractions, we got moving again. Naturally the new guy, whose name was Jeremy, took the lead, so he could get killed first.
We went down these passages for a ways, always with the wind, making nearly a U-turn at one point, because that was the way the wind blew. We went through a narrow passage over a chasm that we had to straddle. In crossing over this, Jeremy's knee went out, and I had to sort of lift and push him through, since there was no room to get around. It then turned out that the wind led us into a small passage up above ground level, that we had to climb up into and crawl down.
Jeremy was in the lead, and found that our crawl-space ended abruptly, and dropped off into a large open cavern. He also discovered some bat like things that were spitting acid at him. I got around him, and took some shots at them, hitting one and getting hit myself. I got hit in the eyes, and blinded, so I passed the gun and an extra clip to Jeremy to deal with them. He and Jon blew a few more away, then the rest left us alone.
We got down from the passage to the cavern floor, and my eyes were starting to recover. We went on farther, and reached a cavern with a gate, guarded by two 7 foot tall men in armor, with polearms. They asked who we were, and what our purpose was, and we said that we were going to the city of Antar. Jay nearly ruined it for us when he tried to scan their minds, and they caught him at it, and freaked. They finally calmed down, and said that we needed to pay a toll to get throught the gate. One said that they wanted magic, the other asked if we had any food, but the first told him to shut up.
Jon reached into Chappell's bag to see if there was something there that we should use, but got different things on different tries, so we figured there was nothing there. Jon then pulled out his jar of potassium, and demonstrated its power. They made a deal that for four pieces of potassium, and instructions for its proper use, they'd let us pass. This was done, and we went in.
We entered into a torture chamber, with another 7 foot man torturing people with whips, thumbscrews, a red hot poker. There was also a dead guy in an iron maiden. The torturees all proclaimed their innocence and wanted us to release them. The torturer was glad to have an audience, and was trying to entertain us by burning a guy. I was following the Prime Directive, and was ready to leave, and avoid this distraction, but Jon decided that he wanted to shoot the torturer. I was committed to helping him, since once he started, we'd have to kill the guy, but Jay had read the minds of the prisoners, and told us that they were all guilty men.
We told the torturer that he did fine work, but that we had to be going, so he opened up the door for us to exit through. We went through, and the the floor opened up, and we fell into a pit. It was featureless except for a lever in the wall. I tried to go to sleep, so that I could get out and have a look around, but then there was a noise, and the ceiling started descending. With not much choice left, someone pulled the lever, and a door opened on the opposite wall. Jon went out to have a look around and see if there was a control outside, but couldn't find anything. He brought back a rock to see if he could block the door, but when the lever was released, the door smashed right through it.
I tried hanging my helmet on the lever to see if that was enough weight to hold it down. It wasn't. Then we tried filling the helmet with rocks, but the lever just sprang right up. Meanwhile, the ceiling kept coming down. At some point, it would be down to the point where the lever met the wall, and then we didn't know what would happen. We tried bashing at the door, and at the wall where the lever entered, but didn't accomplish much. We were rapidly running out of time. When the ceiling got low enough I tried wedging my helmet between the ceiling and the lever to hold it down, but the lever that was easy enough for a person to hold down, sprang back up with sufficient force to smash the helmet and shoot it across the room.
I thought that there might me a pressure place by the lever that a person needed to stand on in order for the lever to be pulled down, but time was up. I was getting tired of all this, so I held the lever down and told everyone to get out. At this point death would have been a release. I tried to wedge the helmet back in, then got to where the door was, but the helmet popped out, then the lever broke off. When the ceiling got low enough, I braced my mace between the floor and ceiling, but that didn't do much either.
Since I didn't have much else to do, I looked at the room, and saw that the ceiling wasn't sliding down, it was seamless with the wall, so the room's shape was changing. I suppose that because we'd had the door open, the pressure hadn't built up too much, but it was still rising. Jay had made mental contact with me, and I told him that I wasn't dead yet, and then he said that they were trying something, and that I should move to the side. I did, and then a hole was blown in the door, which I quickly scrambled through, no longer resigned to my fate. It seems that they opened up two clips of bullets and used the gunpowder to blow the wall. I yelled at them for saving me, since I wanted to die, since once I was struck down, I would just become even more powerful.
I wasn't happy about losing my helmet and mace, but we pressed on. We got to the outside, where we could see a red glow coming in. People suggested that it was either sunrise or sunset, I though it was probably hell, or maybe Krypton. When we got outside, it turned out to be sunrise, and one of the big guys was collecting rocks. We said hi to him, he asked what we were up to, and we said we were going to Antar. He asked if we would hire him as guide, but we declined, trusting to follow the wind.
We pressed onwards across the barren plains, that were pretty much a wasteland, not much of anything there. Along the way, we saw a giant and a pack of dogs approaching us. We figured that as usual for situations like this, he wasn't coming up just to be friendly, so we kept going, trying to outpace him. Charlie tried to do his library trick, but failed, and came out of a trance thinking he was Hamlet. We kept going, and he soon got back to normal. However, it was clear that we were going to have to deal with the giant and dogs, and they were definitely out for blood.
Jon and Jeremy opened fire on the dogs, and took down all but one before they closed into melee range. They and Charlie started fighting it, and I saw the giant pulling out a bow and starting to fire very large arrows at Jon. Jeremy was firing at the giant, while Charlie and I started to flank the giant, staying out of the line of fire. Several bullets hit the giant, but he kept going, so I closed on him with the halberd. I got three very solid hits before he finally went down, and he punched me several times, so that when he went down, I was barely standing, and passed out.
The others searched him, and put together a stretcher for me. Meanwhile, I had gotten to the dream plane, and was observing all of this, and started lifting rocks to drop on people's heads, and wrote them messages in the dirt, saying that I was OK. Jay also made mental contact with me, and I explained the situation to him. They carried me off, while I floated around. I traveled up until I could see a city in the distance, in the direction we were traveling. I told Jay how far away it looked, and then just practiced my tricks. I lifted rocks, and floated them alongside the party for as long as I could hold them. I tried lifting "heavy" rocks (1/4 pound), just to strech my skills, and I built a pile of pebbles on my prone chest.
I also floated around to look for anyone else that we might contact, but the only person I saw was after we'd entered farmland (with some strange crops, that Jon stole some of to eat). He was a farmer, but he wasn't very close, and wasn't coming towards us. Finally we reached the city, and it was shortly before that that I regained consciousness, but I was very weak.
We were challenged by the city watch, who wanted to know our intentions, so we told them we'd come to see the well. They said we'd have to pay to get in, which came out to a few of the pirate gold Jon had. They also made us bind our weapons, so that we wouldn't fight in the city, and asked that we submit to a screen for magic. When we were screened, they saw the Spear that Jon carried, and said that it could not be allowed in the city. Jon refused, and the comprimise was that a binding be put on him so that he would be mentally unable of using it to fight within the city.
We traveled through the city, to the marketplace, and to the well. In the marketplace, a strange giant came onto Charlie, and tried to hire him, but he declined. We saw the well (actually, it was one of two wells, but the one that we thought was more likely), and saw the guards posted at the well. We then went to where we were told there was a doctor, and saw all the pictogram signs on the shops, and I guessed (correctly) that the sign with the skeleton was the doctor, Dr. Altazar.
Inside, it looked like an apothecary's shop, with a large woman who tended to us. I told her what I needed, and she gave me some cocoa leaves to chew on, and I felt much better. She then went to tell the doctor I was there, after scolding me for fighting with other children, and did my mother know what I'd been up to? While we waited, Jon asked if he could get some more of those leaves, and I said that my mother also wanted something to help her sleep (so I could knock myself out and use my psi). She said we'd see what we could do.
I got up to see the doctor, and Jon went with me to watch. The doctor also chided me for fighting, and asked if the guy I'd fought would be coming looking for me. I said that he wouldn't be bothering the doctor, and and doctor got on with it. He knocked me out and went to work. While he worked, I managed to get out for a little while, and went to check the well again, to see if I could get a feel for if it was the right one, but I got nothing. Then the doctor finished, and I woke back up. He'd wrapped me in bandages, with scraps of paper with symbols on them, did something, and I felt much better. We couldn't afford a complete healing, but he did pretty good for what we paid him.
He'd also been talking to Jon about a special deal, where if one of us just gave him one finger, that would pay for everything we wanted. You see, we were different, novel if you will, and he wanted to make copies of us for use as slave labor. We declined, but said that we'd come back if we changed our minds. We went back downstairs, to settle with the woman, and the sleeping potion was too expensive, so I said that I'd get the money from mommy, and come back for it.
We decided the best plan was to wait for dark, so it would be easier to sneak to the well and get out. We went to a tavern for dinner, endured a few cracks about being children, and had some rat stew and fruit for dinner. While we were there, an unpleasant man in black came up to us, and told us that we weren't welcome there, and that we should get out of town. We said that that was our exact plan, and not to worry. Charlie tried to do his Hamlet trick again, but it didn't work, again.
After hanging around, and paying our bill, we headed to the well, which was more heavily guarded than before. Again the man in black was there, and Charlie tried to do his book trick again. I figured that he might don something useful to get us out of this, but what happened was that he got Hamlet, read some lines about friends and foes, and determined that this man was a foe. Thanks Charlie.
Gegi then pulled a trick where she blacked out the region around the well, and as soon as things went dark, we all ran for the well, with Jon and I both grabbing Jeremy and hauling him along. We stumbled around the well, kicking into the guards there, until we finally got to the well. We had all hit the dirt, since we figured that the guards would be aiming a little high, and apparently the man in black did something to counter it, as the dark started to rise from the bottom up, clearing for us, on the ground, first. We had decided to hell with the bindings on the weapons, and pulled them loose, and started scuffling with the guards.
Before all this had happened, Jon had reached into the bag, trying to find the correct dust, and had what he thought was right. Now that we were at the well, he dicked around, wasting precious time, before he finally poured the dust in. Then he and Jay went in, followed by Charlie and Jeremy, who I threw. By this time, the darkness had pretty much cleared, and everyone was out to get us. I was sparring with a guard, he stabbed me, and I said to hell with it, and went for the well. At this point, the man in black cast a spell that made the earth rise up and cover the well. He then told the soldiers to let us be, as we couldn't do anything anymore.
I pulled my machete, and started beating on the cover, but didn't do much. I gave Gegi a flare to burn at the cover, but that didn't do much either. The man in black was casting spells at Gegi, that apparently hurt her, and then she got sucked into the ground. Meanwhile, I was beating on the well cover with my halberd, and making progress. Once Gegi was gone, Johnny Cash went after me. He told me that if I surrendered, no harm would come to me, and I gave the appropriate response, "Fuck You". This amused everyone, and he started casting the same spell that he did on Gegi, on me. A couple fizzled, but two hit me really hard, and all the old injuries came back. By this point, I'd made it up onto the well, and by jumping on it, I broke through, after it had been weakened by the halberd, and fell down the well, swearing that this was the end, never again, no more of these idiot crusades.