Escape from the Bottomless Pit
The Never Ending Quest - Episode 23323
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"AIRGH!!!" screamed the band of psychotic, deranged, and pungent
orcs with frighteningly large axes and they begin running from the black
stone dais and across the bridge on which you are. You've already figured
it runs some five hundred feet in length and you’ve still got some two
hundred and fifty feet to go to reach the solid earth of the cavern
system. You run with all your might, your feet hitting each plank which
bobbed from the impact, suspended by unseen forces. You dare not look
down, the sight of this bottomless cavern already had given you pause, in
this hurried flight any misstep would mean certain death. You run
straight, passing the small rope-paths that criss-cross back and forth
between the larger wooden bridges. You run and keep running.
You have no idea where the tunnel before you will lead, but you don't really care, you can deal with that after you get away from these orcs. Your arms tire as you run with the “dog” in your arms and the “girl” by your side, and you realize that in spite of their stocky build and the heavy armor they are wearing the orcs will catch you. You pray to <<insert name of god/dess here>> that some intervention will drive the orcs away… surprisingly, your prayers are answered. A loud roar rings out behind you, without turning you run that much faster. Imagine, if you will, an ordinary day: you rise at the break of dusk; you slurp down swill mixed with coagulated human blood-drops (your favorite); after putting on your leather skirt and iron armor you meet with your band of brothers, cousins, and second-cousins to begin the days rounds – a forty minute march to the tar pit, slave discipline duty till half-watch, minor break in the meatery, second-watch sharpening axes, spikes, clubs etc. in one of the armories, and then slave duty again. The last job a simple one of transferring a slave from the Black Spire to a cell nearer the Master’s den. Pretty simple, pretty easy. Then you discover this stranger with a forked tongue. After an initial trickery you’re after him, and he’s within your grasp when all heaven breaks loose! From the depths of Black Cavern arises a body of steam and smoke, the color of jet deeper than the blackest night. It shimmers with the energy of a thousand thunderstorms, its sparks igniting the soot of its body, the color red glowing hot and cool. Its gaping maw, full of spiked teeth, snaps and gnashes. You run in pure fear, your own mouth gaping. You turn backwards and spring for one of the rope-bridges, a short-cut to the other side of the Spire and to a passage away from this monstrosity. Finally you reach the relative safety of the earthen tunnel. The “girl” pants as she lays upon the ground. You almost fall to your knees yourself. Upon turning you see with horror what had terrorized the orcs so: a creature of death – the Gorbal! How such a thing came to inhabit the Dragon’s domain you could not fathom, you doubt that even the Wyrm could kill it. It seems busy with the orcs, snatching some up and consuming them with ease. Although you are dead tired you know that if you don’t use all this distraction to make your get-away you will end up just dead.
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1/9/2003 8:20:28 PM
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