Classic-Castle Roleplay: December

[Lord_Of_The_LEGO]

G-10
Majisto's Workshop

Among piles of scrolls, dust, and half-eaten bread, two voices penetrated the deep silence.
"Lord Void?"
"What is it, Jarvick?"
"I think this land has been cursed."
"How so?"
"What is that white stuff that is falling from the sky?"

The question was so odd Lord Void looked up from his scroll covered in Orcish scrawls.

"White stuff?" he queried, adjusting his monocle.

"Look."

Lord Void glanced out the window, looked back at his scroll, then did a double-take. 'White stuff' was indeed falling from the clouded skies.

"Heh...I never thought I'd see it here." commented Lord Void, turning back to his work.

"What is it?"

"Honestly, Jarvick, you have never heard or seen of snow?"

"That is snow?"

"Yes, though why it is falling here is beyond me. Unless BloodVaine's freak storm that froze Kingdom Isle has resurfaced, this means Dametreos is in for a cold, hard winter. Dragonar almost never gets snow so far south. I suppose that's why you've never seen it, eh, cooped away on your tropical paradise?"

Jarvick shrugged.

After another twenty minutes, Jarvick said, "I suppose I should teleport some supplies into before the snows get too heavy."

"Jarvick, are you truly that snow-illiterate?" snorted Lord Void, his quill scratching away, "Snow will not block teleportation, just like any other substance."

"With all due respect, Lord Void, this is more than snow, unless snow is always saturated in dark and dense magic."

Lord Void looked up sharply. "Magic?"

Then his face fell. "Alas, the burden of my magicnessless hits home again. I feel nothing."

Jarvick stood, his movements now urgent. "We should..."

He stopped, the grabbed his staff. Muttering incantations, Jarvick grabbed his staff hard until bundles of food, bolts of cloth and cords of wood appeared on top of another, cluttering the room more.

"Jarvick, calm do-"

There was a crack, and the parcels stopped coming. A smell of sulfur filled the air. Lord Void jumped forward and grabbed a particular bag. Or, at least, what was half a bag. The rough burlap suddenly ended in a blackened smear, the smear of an object that has been wrenched from on dimension to the next.

"That's it..." Jarvick moaned gravely, "I'm as powerless as you. This so-called snow has blocked my sense of the Mana."

"Then here we must stay until the snow melts." replied Lord Void gravely, "The snow has already blocked the door."

[The Green Knight]

Just then, the man's thoughts were interrupted by a noise from overhead. It was a sound that Gib knew well.

"Bats!"
~
Of course, bats! If Gib could just communicate with one of them then perhaps he could escape his predicament. Crawling further up the rocky beach, Gib discovered that what had looked like lights from the water were actually that grew in scattered patterens across the rocky shore. Slowly a plan formed in the hermit's head. He was going to make it out after all.

It was like a dream. A terrible, terrible dream. Gib's plan was working. One of the bats had agreed to help him and was now flying ahead with a bit of a glowing mushroom, clutched between his claws.

"Follow the light, Gib. Follow the light."

The hermit leaned hard on his staff, using it as a makeshift crutch. Pain shot though his leg with every step. Maybe it was a dream. A terrible nightmare. How long this continued... How long the painful march went on for, Gib could not tell. But the scenery finally changed as Gib emerged out of the blackness and into the Neverwood forest.

The bat was gone and all about him were trees. But did Gib stop and rest on the green earth? No. The hermit kept going. Over mountains and valeys, to places he had never been before. Foamy seas and snow capped mountains passed beneath the weary travelers feet. And he couldn't stop. Gib couldn't stop.

"Aaarghhh!!!!!!" Gib screamed as a sharp pain raced up his leg and jolted him out of his nightmare.

"Hold still. Hold still." Gib heard voices around him. "We need to set the bone."

The voices fadded as Gib slipped back into unconsciousness. What followed was a deep, peacfull sleep, without dream or vision. In that place Gib rested, until the sound of voices woke him.

"To our success!" he toasted, raising the bottle. "And to a peaceful, profitable year in 2005!"

Quorandis took a drink, and then handed the bottle to Elbadar, who took a sip. Then the stranger stirred.

"He's waking!" said Elbadar, his mouth still half full of Guardendia Innis.

Through blurred vision Gib saw two figures peering over him. One was a Dragon Master. "Marus." Gib thought. The other was a classic lego knight. "D-Dad?" Gib sputtered.

"Come on, stay with us." Slowly the blurry figures sharpeneed and everything snapped into place. The Dragon Master was not Marus, the Classic lego knight was not his father and Gib was not outside the neverwood.

"Fly!" Gib cried, bolting upright. "Let us flee from these trees at once. They are not safe!" He tried to stand, but a searing pain in his leg kept him firmly planted. Looking downward, Gib saw that his leg was in a splint.

"Calm yourself." Bernard said, laying a hand on the hermit's shoulder. Gib threw it aside, interrupting him.

"But the creatures! The Spiderlings and and those ape men- "

"Quiet now!" said Elbadar in a commanding voice. "We've had our troubles with those creatures. Indeed, more then you should like to know. But we faught them off before and esaped with only a some minor wounds. And see now we have fire as well, to keep the beasts away."

"Moreover," Bernard added. "Are we not in the season of joy and peace? What creature would be inclined to cause strife on this, the most holy night of the year? On the other hand, I should like to know you are and how you came to be here."

Gib considered telling the strangers everything. It was a long story, but he had told it before. Then again, look what had come from that decision. Perhaps a short version would be better.

"My name is Gib. This is my home, or rather, it was. I'm trying to escape. What about you?"

"We are... well, I guess you could say that we're tracking some friends of ours." It was Bernard speaking. "You might have seen them. A gracious young woman with a crown and a blue rainbow knight. We have reason to believe that Elwen -the lady- was taken against her will. Kidnapped by the knight."

"Yes I saw them. Although I didn't get to meet them really, since we were attacked by the Iondels. The last I saw of them, they were wandering in the dungeons."

"Wait, you mean to say that they could still be back there in the forest?"

Gib nodded. "Of course I don't know. They might have found a way out of the forest, but I can't say."

"Just what we need." said Elbadar. "More uncertainties."

There was silence for a moment while Bernard considered the dilemma. "Alright," he said at last. "We will make for the edge of Neverwood tomorrow and search for their tracks. If we don't find any tracks there, we'll have to come back and search for them."

"That seems like a slim chance." Elbadar commented. "Any number of things could keep us from finding their trail, even if it is there."

"I know," said Bernard. "But what choice do we have?"

"And what about me?" said GIb. "How do I keep from slowing you down?"

"You can ride with me on my horse. They will both be well rested by tomorrow. We didn't ride them hard today, and a good thing too. If we hadn't stopped to walk them we never would have noticed you. How's your leg by the way? We have some wine here if you need to dull the pain."

Elbadar nearly jumped at the idea of Guardendia Innis being used as a pain killer. He was, however immediately calmed by Gib's next remark.

"No thank you sir. I'm afraid that I haven't got the tongue for wine and I've had worse for pain at any rate. Oh, and I'm very much obliged to you two for aiding me. Beyond words in fact. And I hope that I haven't kept you from your quest. You needn't bother with me once we're out of this wood."

"Well if that's the way you want it." said Elbadar. "Do you really live here? I mean... we heard legends of a 'forest guardian' but..."

Gib sighed. Trying to think of the last time he had felt like a guardian of anything. The Neverwood had been his home at one point. And once Gib felt that any strangers were trespassers in his domain. But Gib abandoned the Neverwood and it abandoned him. Now it was he who felt like the trespasser.

"I guess, I used to live here." Gib responded. "Now I don't really know. What about you? You've already told me why you're here, but I still don't know your names."

"Oh, of course." said Bernard. "How thoughtless of us. This is Elbadar and I am Bernard Quorandis."

"A pleasure to meet both of you. I am glad that your pursuit has drawn you across my path. One thing though... You say that this lady..."

"Elwen."

"Right, Elwen. You're certain that she was kidnapped?"

"Well, yes." said Bernard. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, I may be a poor judge, but in the brief time I observed her, she didn't seem to be held captive in any way. It'd be awfully embarrassing to come all this way only to find that she went willingly."

[Lord_Of_The_LEGO]

"That's it..." Jarvick moaned gravely, "I'm as powerless as you. This so-called snow has blocked my sense of the Mana."

"Then here we must stay until the snow melts." replied Lord Void gravely, "The snow has already blocked the door."

G-10

After they had neatly piled the hastily teleported supplies into nooks and crannies, Jarvick and Lord Void returned to their research. There was nothing else they could do. All use of magic was nullified until the magic-soaked snow melted, and passage to the Dark Dragon's Den was blocked.
At least we will be doing something for a good cause. thought Jarvick, his thoughts wandering to his brother, Drock. He suddenly remembered the date.

"My lord!" he cried, sitting up.

"What?" Lord Void snarled. He was annoyed over a particular line of Orc test that sounded like it had been translated by the illigitimate son of a gong farmer and his shovel. "Don't tell me...it's hailing now and turning all the snow into ice cream..."

"No..." smiled Jarvick, "The Yuletide is upon us!"

"Excelent," murmured Lord Void, pushing himself away from the table, "At last an excuse not to read all this megablocks...I propose a drink."

Jarvick nodded and turned to rummage through casks of beer and wine.

"What do you prefer, my lord? Elven Lu'Del Fou wine from the Forestmen...or bottle of Guardendia Innis '86...very good year..."

"Give me a pint of Dragon's Milk." quipped Lord Void.

Jarvick was surprised. Dragon's Milk was a rough, firey ale drunk and brewed only by the most robust Dragon Masters. Other factions avoided the ale entirely, at least as something to drink. Rumor was that the Knight's Kindomers were perfecting it's use as an explosive and as fuel for lamps.

"Dragon's Milk, my lord...?"

"Tyco it, when I say Dragon's Milk I mean Dragon's Milk!" swore Lord Void, "I can drink what I want...smooth wines are for powerful wizards, and I am not one anymore! Dragon's Milk it will be, at least for me!”

That obviously was a challenge of sorts, though it was meant in jest, and accordingly Jarvick pulled out two large bottles of Oogrik’s Dragon’s Milk 1995.

“To the new year, and all that…” toasted Lord Void, and swigged down half of the firey drink without flinching. Jarvick simply sputtered and coughed.

[Formendacil]

Grid: H-10
Location: Leaving the Neverwood

Right, Elwen. You're certain that she was kidnapped?"

"Well, yes." said Bernard. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, I may be a poor judge, but in the brief time I observed her, she didn't seem to be held captive in any way. It'd be awfully embarrassing to come all this way only to find that she went willingly."

Quorandis stiffened a little, but held in his irritation.

"She was taken from Orion, slung over a saddle, in a drugged condition. Besides which, the rainbow captor was something of a friend, and at the time you met them, they were running for their lives."

"Calm down, Commander-General," said Elbadar, making use of Quorandis' title to get his attention. "He was just making a suggestion. He didn't know the facts. Now, do we want to move on, or spend the night."

"Move on," suggested Gib immediately. "The sooner we're out of here the better."

"I advocate staying, personally," said Quorandis after a moment's consideration. "We can use the rest, and it'll be easier to find the trail in the light of day. We should be reasonably safe here."

A loud howl broke through the night. They all went silent.

"Wolves?" asked Quorandis. Elbadar and Gib looked at each other.

"Not exactly...." said Elbadar. "Those sounded more like werewolves. I heard them once when posted on the southeastern border."

"Its truly a sign of bad times if they've come north," said Gib. "The Neverwood used to be free of their pestilence. However-" and here he sighed deeply "-there is no mistaking their call."

"But tonight's not a full moon...." noted Quorandis.

"It doesn't always need to be," said Elbadar. "With humans bitten, the full moon is the only time they turn rabid, but for those born as wolves in the pack.... they are dangerous year-round. A pack must have come up from the Fright Knight territories, during the war, or else during the freakish southern blizzard. They have long since been eradicated everywhere else."

"They're a long way from home then," said Quorandis. "Fright Knight territory is quite a distance."

"Could we perhaps discuss this while we journey?" said Gib. "I think the sooner we leave, the better."

"Right," said Elbadar. "Let's go north, towards Royal Knight lands. I think that's the direction the rainbow kidnapper was headed, and we can make enquiries as to whether they passed that way from the local populace. Sir Jayko, at least, should still be stuck in their minds, assuming that he was there to be seen."

"I can't come up with a better idea," said Quorandis. "Saddle the horses, we had best be going."

Another round of werewolf howls echoed through the trees, underlining his words.

[lemon_squeezer2]

Thousands of years before, when Dametreos was still populated by goblins and the Legolanders were making their first appearance, the massive glaciers that had stood for centuries began to slowly retreat, leaving behind the plains that would later become the heart of the Falcon Empire. This massive wall of ice also carved out dozens of deep and wide bays that were sheltered from the ocean by a series of tall hills, tokens of the ice age that had preceded them.

Girard had succeeded in a seemingly impossible task. A massive armada of ships had been assembled at Gok and in another stroke of Falcon ingenuity, 3,000 Falcon soldiers had been assembled – all in the space of a week and a half. The winter did not look like it would be a bad one after all. That day, a rainstorm had come in, taking much of the snow away with it. There was no ice, and his men’s morale was high. Additionally, Jorgan – the army commander - had been co-operative and led his men to help in any way possible. The next morning Girard would give orders to weigh anchor. Things were all going to plan.

The tropical front was now over Dragon Master territory, unleashing only a fraction of its load as it continued north.

To the North, another front was forming, a wave of frigid air and snow.

To the East, just north of the Forestman coastline, a wave of unusually warm and moist air was making its way West.

To the South the Royal Knights had temporally stopped their attacks while the Falcons struggled to mobilize the second time in under a year.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Grid: D-1
Location: Volgrak, a Crusader fur colony

Edward was turning back from his rounds. The day had been productive and the trap line had yielded four minks, a beaver, and a artic hare. Stopping, he adjusted his pack and pulled his large coat closer to his body. That morning, there had been a bit of a chilly breeze going, but now it had stopped. Edward looked around him. It was quiet – in an unnatural kind of way. Shrugging his thoughts aside, he continued on the trail.

Five minutes later, he began to feel the light touches of snow hit his nose.

Fifteen minutes later, Edward noticed that it had intensified to a snowstorm.

Thirty minutes later, her could not even see his hand in front of his face.

As experienced as he was, he began to worry at this point. The camp was still five miles away, and there was no way now that he could reach it. His pack was weighing him down dreadfully, making his snowshoes useless.

Two hours later, there was a frozen body lying in the snow.

[Daimyo]

Location: Near the Fright Knight Border

IT had been almost two weeks. Two grueling weeks of hard trudging through this winter weather. A tropical jungle now awaited them, a blistering, humid, suffocating menagerie filled with mosquitoes the size of shields, savage and pagan natives, and the relics of the Fright Knight ancestry, traces of the supernatural.
Ancient temples lush and overgrown by emerald vines, every inch the eye could see covered by fountains of veridian botany. The air was thick and steamy, but a foul odor of death was everywhere. In the distance, acrid pyres of the dead, bodies from the war that had been scuttled to build undead war machines, sent columns of evil black smoke that had a stench of melting human fat and burning flesh. Beauty melded with sinister images of evil.
The camp had been hastily built a few miles from the crypt, near a resevoir of murky jungle water that had algae-ridden bones jutting out of its depths. Though an ominous shadow hung over Gereld, Jythemite and the rest of the detachment, Foresters were an unsuperstitious bunch. They'd been taught from birth what was real and what was an illusion, but Gereld could only think that if the terrors of this earth were so great, how horrible could the terrors of the imagination be?
They could only wait. Tomorrow the two would head deep into the crypt, and put an end to their fears once and for all.

[The Green Knight]

"Dragon's Milk, my lord...?"

"Tyco it, when I say Dragon's Milk I mean Dragon's Milk!" swore Lord Void, "I can drink what I want...smooth wines are for powerful wizards, and I am not one anymore! Dragon's Milk it will be, at least for me!”

That obviously was a challenge of sorts, though it was meant in jest, and accordingly Jarvick pulled out two large bottles of Oogrik’s Dragon’s Milk 1995.

“To the new year, and all that…” toasted Lord Void, and swigged down half of the firey drink without flinching. Jarvick simply sputtered and coughed.

Dragon milk. Powerful stuff indeed. Jarvick had heard of it but never had he dreamed of drinking the stuff. It was terrible. If you've ever had the stuff then you know what I mean. And if you haven't then you can't possibly imagine how bad it was. Not bad perhaps, for a stone bellied gnome or a leather tongued dragon. But Jarvick was neither of these and he wished he could get the stuff back up as soon as he got it down.

Searching for something to distract his mind from the turmoil in his stomach, Jarvick turned to his work.

"What!" said Lord Void. "Going back to work already? Aren't you tired of researching?"

Jarvick shrugged in a very un-wizard like manner. He couldn't tell Lord Void that he was trying to disguise the affects of the dragon milk on his "virgin" belly.

"Well," Said Void continuing. "I think I'm going to try puzzling over our new mystery."

"You mean the snow?"

"Precisely. Whatever it is, it can't be good. Being "snowed in" by magic is a trick that even BloodVaine would've marveled at. Is it a fluke? An attack? A trap? Yes, it is a trap, but why? Who would want us stuck here and why?"

Jarvick too was puzzling over this. Though he, unlike his master, he kept his musings to himself. It was strange, being cut off from the mana field. Like having an arm that has suddenly disappeared without a trace. So this was how Lord Void felt. Not a good feeling. Still, in spite of how Jarvick felt without his power, there was an even greater void present in the deepest fabric of his soul. Like having another arm missing. An arm that was more a part of him then the blood in his vanes. In truth, Jarvick was longing for the sea.

Closing his eyes, Jarvick let his mind drift back to the foamy waters and undisturbed horizons of the far sea. "There's nothing finer." thought Jarvick to himself. "Not in all the world." In his heart, Jarvick knew he could never get used to the dry, parched land of the mainland Dragon Masters. Of course the climate wasn't dry now, but Jarvick still wondered how long it would be before he was back on the Silboralic.

One thing was certain though. Jarvick wasn't going home until Drock was restored. And that wasn't going to happen if he didn't keep researching.

[Lord_Of_The_LEGO]

"Well," Said Void continuing. "I think I'm going to try puzzling over our new mystery."

"You mean the snow?"

"Precisely. Whatever it is, it can't be good. Being "snowed in" by magic is a trick that even BloodVaine would've marveled at. Is it a fluke? An attack? A trap? Yes, it is a trap, but why? Who would want us stuck here and why?"

As Jarvick returned to trying to discover the secret to free Drock, Lord Void scanned the massive bookshelf for a different volume.

After finding what he wanted, he withdrew it and sat down by the fire to read.

After an hour, Lord Void shut the book with a thud and reshelved it.

"Any progress?" he asked Jarvick.

"None." was the reply, "These elvish love poems aren't helping one bit."

"A pity Majisto never bothered to traslate this lot." sighed Lord Void, "Our job would be much easier."

"Have you discovered the secret to this freak blizzard?" quiered Jarvick.

"I believe so." replied Lord Void, swigging more Dragon's Milk, "It appears this isn't the first time half of Dametreos has been blanketed in this magic-soaked snow. Four thousand years ago Lord Inion stalked Dametreos, causing all megabloks to break loose. When at last he was vanquished and destroyed, Dametreos was hit by a powerful snow storm, very much like this one. It appears after any powerfully evil magic-wielder is killed, his or her control of the Mana deteriorates into a magical fallout, in the form of some weather element. That is why this snow of sorts is saturated in Mana. It is the remains of BloodVaine's power."

Jarvick sighed. "Even dead, BloodVaine manages to strike Dametreos another crippling blow."

[Formendacil]

The Classic-Castle Roleplay is Continued in this thread. Enjoy!

~Michael A. Joosten - Gaming Moderator~