"We did make it!" agreed Kylie excitedly, looking at the fried little troll slumped against the wall.
"That last thing you did was irresponsible, but hey here we are! The passage takes a sharp right turn now, and slopes down to a door. I guess maybe that's the end of the traps now... we should head down there." She pointed down the passage. He sensed rather than saw her pointing and instictively turned his head to 'look'.
He took out the green revealing powder, tipped a little on his hand, and puffed it down the passage.
"can yoo see triggas?" he asked Kylie.
"No there's no triggers... I have to admit it does look a little suspicious... but I guess we must be at the end of the trap section now.” she said.
Gob got up and took a tentative step forward.
click!
"Uh, Gob what just clicked?" asked Kylie, "Did you just step off a pressure plate?"
They waited tensely. Nothing seemed to happen.
Something nagged at Gob's mind, niggling his attention though, right on the edge of his senses...
+1perception +1perception +1perception -1luck
Gob started turning his head urgently side to side, confused, trying to get a firm hold of something he could only just sense.
"Gob, what's happening?" Kylie asked nervously.
"KYLZ, RUN!" he yelled, throwing himself forwards down the slope.
From the ceiling right above where they had just been, a circular hole opened with a slow
rassssssssssp!
and a giant stone ball thudded out of the hole with a
KER-THUNK!
That made the ground shake. Gob had already taken off down the sloping passage, Kylie zipping along next to him. It was a long passage, but straight. Gob used his perception to stay in the middle, still blind from the acid mist, and ran with all the speed he could.
GROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL,
RRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLL,
RRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLL,
RRRRRRRRRROOOOOLLLLLLLLL,
Slowly the giant ball tipped over and started a ponderous roll down the slope behind them. It gained momentum with each roll, now a little faster, now faster still, now respectably fast, now barrelling down the long passage after them, now a massive, unstoppable, speeding, rolling ball of doom and destruction!
RRRRRRROOOOOLLLLLL,
RRRRROOOLLLLLLL,
RRROOOOLLL,
"RUN FASTER!" yelled Kylie, "AND DON'T TRIP OVER!"
+1speed +1speed +1speed +3skill:run!!!
They made it to the door, Gob dove forwards to push it open. It wouldn't budge!
The ball thundered towards them!
RRROOLLL,
RROOLL,
"OPEN THE DOOR GOB!!!" Kylie screamed.
He pushed and pushed with all his strength. It. Would. Not. Budge.
He paused and stood up. Kylie screamed again, but it was as if time was slowing... like when he had the initiative... fink gob.
He thought. He thought laterally. He perceived the hinges. There was no handle, but... maybe that was the dwarves final trick!
pull it open!!!
He stchaked his claws into the solid wood and pulled the door open easily with a
creeeeeeeeeeeek!
They both shot through.
SMAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSHHHHH!!!
It was as if an earthquake collided with the wall in the passage. The door exploded inwards, projectile splinters of wood and mangled door hinges assaulted them as they threw themselves to the floor. Gob was still blind so he couldn't see where they were, but his perception told him it was another passage...
chunkchunkchunk!
The floor collapsed.
----------------------------------------
Gobs tummy lurched with the sudden onset of weightlessness, however he didn't feel like he was plummeting into darkness like the floor just had, as he might have expected.
He was just floating, in mid air.
Floating seemed much, much worse. He had fallen into darkness before and survived it. This felt wrong. This felt like the weird sensation he had felt in the dwarf puzzle room when they had somehow played around with the gravity. There was a funny feeling here. He had no idea which way was up or down. And he still couldn't see anything. He flailed his arms around, but it didn't seem move him anywhere, he was just… suspended. Somehow.
“kylz wot hapin?” he asked. There was no answer
“kylz?” he patted the top of his head. He flung his arms in wide arcs around himself. "KYLZ??!!"
Kylie wasn't there.
Gob reached out with his improved perception. He sensed... nothing. Nothing was here… he had jumped through a door and landed on the floor, the rolling boulder had exploded behind them, the floor had given way… but where was the passage? Where were the walls? Gob wasn't in some sort of shaft, or floating above a chasm in a trap room, he was just floating in... nothing. Just nothing but empty space. Void.
His eyes were itchy... maybe they were recovering. He rubbed at them and strained to get any information he could from them. His vision swam, black, grey and blurry. He could sense a hazy criss-cross of... wispy... silvery... fine.. lines? threads? …WEBS?!!
"Well, well, well, whatch have we here?"
tchiktchiktchik
A silky smooth, eerie voice punctuated with strange clicks spoke out of the blurry darkness. It swept around the nothing space, billowing, waving, flowing about him. In fact it actually felt like the voice came from inside his head... iz dat a fing?
The way the voice spoke, with insidious chitinous clicks reminded Gob of something... he recognised it immediately: spida!
but do spidas tork? he didn't remember. He thought not.
"Well, I tchalk, yetch I do. But whatch tchalktch tcho me? Hmmmmm? Thitch... thitch doetchnt looktch like a fatch dwarffffffff, like I utchually catch here, no no no.
tchiktchiktchik
did it juz heer my forts?! thought Gob.
Oh yestch, yestch! We heartch all tchings in the darktch! We listchen for thetch litchell fat dwarffffffff.... oooooh we lovtch a litchll fat dwarfffff we dotch, me and my litchll onetch! Well, they will whentch they are borntch, yestch, yestch, they wiltch, my litchll brood of darlintchssss... Tchee! Tchee! Tchee!"
tchiktchiktchik
"But whatch have i caughtch now? You arentch a litchell fat dwarffffff..."
tchiktchiktchik
The blackness around him seemed to ripple before a giant silver arachnid popped into existence in front of him. Gob jumped in fright. He actually couldn't tell whether he could see it with his eyes or whether he was perceiving it with his senses... or both.
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The creature had the form of a spider, but didn't. It was massive, maybe ten times the size of the cave spiders he had fought in the caverns before, but it wasn't even like them. It was… invisible... sort of. Actually all he could really see, or sense, was an ethereal, incorporeal outline of the creature, that glowed and shimmered a pale silvery white against the perfect blackness of the void behind it. It was like he was looking at a reflection of the thing... like in a pool of water, and not the thing itself.
Gob hadn't had an option prompt for a while... he guessed maybe with all the big, significant things that had been going on he'd really just been getting dragged along with the flow... maybe that's how fate worked. Or maybe he was just lost. But now wasn't really the time for introspection, because he did have a decision before him:
*panic (instability(2/2))
wy panik? iz juz a giant in-visi-bel spida.
*tork to da spider(conversation(5/52))
i don fink dat wil help
*fite it(
Even though the thing was gigantic, and of an unknown strength and origin, Gob swiped at it with his pigiron claws... they were getting pretty strong. He was getting pretty strong, and he gave it all he had. However his claws just met space, passing straight through the creature without meeting any resistance, causing his weightless body to spin in a pirouette. There was no resistance when his claws met it's head, but there was a freezing cold sensation. cold? Actually it felt more like all the life was sucked out of his claws. He squinted and looked at the hand he had just used... it looked pale and grey, a bit like the colour of spider, but not as pretty.
"Tchee! Tchee! Tchee! Tchee!"
tchiktchiktchik
The thing seemed to be laughing at him, though it sounded like air whistling through a tight space. Mixed with fang clicks.
"Your litchll clawtch cantch tchouch me litchll beastch!"
tchiktchiktchik
"What an unutchual day tchoday. firstch an elvitch. Then an orcitch. Atch leastch I thinkch itchk wastch an orcitch. I never saw a whitech orcitch before... Then, then, a tcheeny litchll faeritch! And nowtch! Nowtch anotcher litchll beastch, whatchever you aretch!"
tchiktchiktchik
"Whatch a feastch for my litchll brood when they hatch!"
tchiktchiktchik
The arachnid who had been perfectly still since materializing in front of Gob suddenly skittered away giving him another fright.
Despite its huge size, it was fast. Blindingly fast.
fasta even dan Leőn, Gob thought, i no even see a blur.
In fact it was like the spider didn't 'move' at all, but just ‘was’ somewhere else. But there had been a skittery sound... so it must have been moving. Also weird, as it wasn’t standing on anything, it was just in space. Or was it?
Gob looked over his shoulder at it. His vision seemed to have returned now, though what he was seeing was so abstract that he wasn't actually entirely sure.
The thing didn’t look like it was about to eat him, it was now fawning and tchikking over a pulsating silver ball that was behind Gob. The ball was the size of a large boulder, and seemed to throb smaller and larger rhythmically, beating like a heart.
Gob took out some of the dust the White Orc had given him while the spider was occupied, tipped a bit onto his palm and puffed it out in front of him. It revealed a glistening silver web of fine strands all around him. There was some kind of ethereal web everywhere he looked.
But Gob couldn’t feel any of them. He waved his hand through them. No, he couldn’t feel anything except a faint cooling tingle, yet he was stuck in them, suspended by them.
So maybe he wasn’t 'floating' after all... he was caught in some sort of ethereal, magical spider web.
So was he in the tunnel or was he somewhere else? And where were his friends? The creature obviously had them too.
He puffed some more powder around him, as far as he could blow it. The webs shimmered again, and then he saw: at the very far reaches of where he blew the powder, there were what looked like cocoons of the stuff, with forms unmoving inside them. A number of squarish ones, a tall broad one, a skinny one, and a tiny little one.
The giant ghost spider was suddenly in his face again. He jumped, but this time rather than feeling afraid, now that he was starting to understand what this was and that this spider thing was going to feed his friends to its babies when they hatched out of that disgusting ball, he was just getting... ANGRY.
“wil yoo stop doin dat!” he snapped at it, "iz CREEPY!"
"Tchee! Tchee! Tchee! Tchee!"
tchiktchiktchik
"I can hear your thoughtchs you knowtch litchll beastch! Thoughtchs are thchings here in MY realm, yestch they aretch..."
tchiktchiktchik
"And I wistch to antchwer them, I do!"
tchiktchiktchik
"You have a lotch of soul in you for a litchll beastcht… my brood will FEASTCH on your soul mostch definitchly, ooh yestch, even mortch than the othtchers!"
tchiktchiktchik
"My beautchiful brood of phaetchlings, yestch they will! To anstcher your questchion litchll beastch you are in the tchunnel AND you are stchomewhere elstch!"
tchiktchiktchik
Something about it's posture made Gob think it seemed very proud of the fact.
"You have stchumbled into my PHAZTCHWEB!" it announced triumphantly, throwing it's front four arachnid legs wide suddenly, giving Gob another fright. It was a terrifying site, seeing a megaspider reared up in an aggressive posture. He growled a low rumbly growl at it.
"My phaztchweb is a web of extchreme POWER thatch spans betchween the dimentchions of your realm and mine in the ethereal!"
tchiktchiktchik
Gob waved his claws through the thing again, not meeting any resistance except the cold dead feeling.
“wy i cant tuch yoo? can yoo tuch me?” Gob demanded getting sick of being startled and tired of listening to the weird clicky voice.
"Ooh tchee! tchee! tchee! You're a bold one arentch you? And angry! I haventch metch a bold angry one like you befortch. Arentch you even sctchared of me? You stchould be!"
It skittered away again, disappearing in a blink, Gob jumped again. It was fawning over its throbbing ball again, then suddenly popped back up in front him, it's giant ugly fangs right in his face.
“I SED DON DO DAT!” yelled Gob in frustration. He swiped at it again, multiple times as he repeated,
“WY. CANT. I. TUCH. YOO!?”
"Becautch every tchime you tchry, I'm phaztching outch of your way! I'm very fastch you know!
tchiktchiktchik
Gurglllleeeeeeeeeeeerp!
Gob's tummy rumbled. No wonder he was getting angry so easily. He hadn't eaten for far longer than was ideal, and he had been doing a LOT of damage and regeneration in the trap passages.
He figured the pulsating ball was a clutch of phaze spider eggs, and, unlike the rest of the webs and the cocoons with his friends in them, for whatever reason, he could see it. Or perceive it. Or whatever.
He also figured that if he could see it, it must be in whatever dimension he was in.
He couldn't move, but he had in mind that if he grew bigger, he would be able to reach it. And if he could reach it, why not eat it?
but spidas iz yuk... don fink abot dat. juz fink abot eetin spida babees. rememba kylz wen yoo firs met her, she say "if you want to get big down here, you're going to have to get used to 'yuk'." iz tim to git reely reely reely big.
He concentrated all his thoughts, just to make sure the spider got the message loud and clear:
YUM, YUM, YUM. HOW GOOD WOOD IT BE TO EET DEEZ BABEE SPIDAS I LUV EETIN SPIDAS SOOOOOOO MUCH AN MY FAVRIT IZ DA BABEES. YUM YUMMY YUM.
"WHATCH?!!"
tchiktchiktchiktchiktchiktchik
good! iz angree now! thought Gob.
"YOU WOULD TCHRY TCHO EATCH MY CLUTCH?? ILL TCHWALLOW YOUR STCHOUL FOR THITCH!
Gob decided to use a fate point just to make sure he had the initiative.
-1fate
The spider materialised in front of him. It's fangs extended out forwards. Gob was pretty sure those fangs would already be sucking the soul out of him, but for one important fact.
It was his turn.
Gob pulled the flask out of his inventory.
"TO KRUNCH!" he bellowed, and drank the contents of the flask. All the contents of the flask.
All. the. contents. of. the. flask.
The booze hit him like a giddy freight train. This time it wasn't warm and powerfully tingly, he rather felt like he exploded.
+1size +1size +1size +1size +1size
......
+1size +1size +1size +1size +1size
I am an exponential cloud of strange and wondrous etherium.
I am a goliath, skipping among the stars, plucking pulsating rainbow coloured galaxies from the ancient depths of the cosmos, and consuming them whole, swallowing them down with gulps that send shockwaves through the vastness of my eternally insatiable tummy.
Waves of shadow ripple by and swarm around me like a million lights that fuel my quest to soar beyond the universe.
With the power fused within me I spew forth atomic obliteration in a swathe of ultimate expulsion. I sweep away the pestilent creeping terrors of the ethereal planes. They are as nothing to me.
HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!
I laugh at their puny fangs and their silvery tchikking screams. They crash against my multidimensionalhide as waves of particles crash against the seashore of my soul.
Magic shards of broken blue and green and red and silver light refract and glisten in my mind as I peer across the universe.
A figure arises from the dust clouds of violent neurotic genesis. Greater than the planets that form and are smashed apart and re-form with every collosal step he takes.
OH HELLO MOUNTAIN TROLL. IT IS I KRUNCH. HAVE YOU COME TO CHALLENGE MEEEEEEE?
It is another gargant of the void. We embrace, existence to existence.
It is not yet the time.
NO GRATE TROL, I MUZ FIN MI FRENDS. DEY IZ NEED ME.
FRIENDS? WHAT NEED DO YOU HAVE OF FRIENDS, YOU WHO CAN HOLD A THOUSAND SUNS IN ONE HAND? YOU WHO CAN INHALE A LIGHT YEAR AND EXHALE A MILLENIUM? YOU TO WHOM A BLINK IS THE SPAN OF AN AGE?
EVYBODY NEED FRENDS O KRUNCH. NO TROL CAN STAND ALONE FOR ETERNITY.
I AM NO TROLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!
The great one morphs into a man, then he is an orc, then he is an elf, then he is a fairy, then he is all of them in the same instance, and they point to a hole in existence as they spiral away into it's depths. An infinite, deep, round, black nothing. Reality is consumed in it's vortex of perpetuity.
I reach inside.
They are not there.
I reach further.
I bypass dimensional entanglements, and with my clawsoftranscendence, I tear a rift in reality and stretch my collosal arm ever deeper, even to the interior of the quantum.
I rummage and grasp at infintesimal threads of perpetual connection.
I find them there. Eons away. All of them. Even the one with the eternal fragrance of flowers. I cradle them infinitely. I draw them to me. I pull them through existential subrealities, plane by plane, as time, time, time passes me by.
What is time to time itself?
What is one plane when one can reach each side of infinity by spreading ones arms wide?
What, really is anything, when everything is black?