[Taocow PBEM] Book 3 - Chapter XVI - Assault on the Kydians

[Aaron Clausen]

>> [GM]
>> The elevator has more than enough room for everyone, and fortunatley seems
>> to operate on some other principle than cables. As the company gets in, the
>> building completely collapses around them, and the elevator drops about ten
>> feet in a split second; knocking several people to the floor. Then, its
>> lifting mechanism recovers and the rest of the ride is gentle, though
>> clearly quite swift.
>>
>> Despite the speed of the elevator's descent, the trip takes a good two
>> minutes. They must be thousands of feet underground by the time it slows,
>> and finally stops.
>>
>> The door opens on an enormous cavern, at least three hundred feet high, and
>> a three thousand feet in diameter.  Great pillars carved out of living rock
>> in the shapes up of dour-looking dwarfs, hold the ceiling up.  Wherever
>> water leaks from the walls and ceiling it is channeled into rivers that
>> cascade into pools of shimmering water.  The whole chamber is lit by several
>> bright globes that shine with daylight.
>>
>> There are small stands of trees, lawns, gardens, stone-houses carved out of
>> the floor of the great cavern.  In the middle of it all is a single squar
>> stone pillar about a hundred feet in width, that reaches up to the ceiling. A
>> single great door of shining metal sits at its base.
>>
>> "This is our true dwelling." Skarn says. "Kizak-kuzdan. It is our greatest
>> creation, and now we must destroy it. But come, you wish for the cold iron."
>>
>> Skarn leads them to the great central pillar and at the door, he murmurs a
>> series of Dwarfish incantations. The door noiselessly opens to reveal a
>> spectacular scene. Tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of
>> ingots of gold, silver, platinum, and other precious metals. There are
>> gemstones both familiar and unfamiliar neatly placed on shelves. There are
>> coins of every kind of metal in the thousands. It is safe to say that none
>> of the adventurers have seen so much wealth.
>>
>> Skarn leads them up a flight of stairs, and at the top, about a hundred feet
>> off the ground, is a display case.  Within are about fifty to sixty rods of some
>> sort of blackish-bluish metal.  They are about an inch in diameter, and six
>> feet tall.
>>
>> "You would have to journey to our ancestors halls on Palladium to see a
>> greater store of the cold iron." Skarn says. "Take what you need, you have
>> earned it."
>>
>> He pulls a small device about the size of a credit card out of his armor. On
>> it are two black buttons. He presses one of them, and in the distance a loud
>> voice starts speaking in Dwarfish "Kaz kaz ukruk nakat-zirk. Kaz kaz ukruk
>> nakat-zirk."
>>
>> "But you must hurry." Skarn continues. "This whole complex, and the town
>> above, indeed the entire valley, will turn into a fireball in five minutes.
>> There are two ways to escape; in here, where we will be shifted to a nearby
>> dimension to begin anew, or via the elevator, down to the escape tunnel
>> several hundred feet below us. There is a mag-lev transport that will take
>> you about eighty miles west of here."
>> [/GM]

>> [Ithdalkal]
>> Ithdalkal shakes her head, and then says, "What of the ship? We are
>> assuredly to deep in the earth to use radios to warn them, and if they do
>> not move soon, they will be destroyed."
>> [/Ithdalkal]

> [Oz]
> Oz gestures at Vesper. "He can get us out of here, straight to the ship and
> then we're right out of the valley. Right, Vesper?"
> [/Oz]

> [Vesper]
> "Yes, just keep the cold iron away from the portal till it is open everyone travel
> through I will need to go through last. More time would have been better but will
> make do." Vesper looks for the best area to open the rift to the ship and prepares
> taking out the PPE charged items he has knowing most things including himself
> will be drained. Ask the Dwarves if they are going to sacrifice all that wealth in the
> explosion. If so we could sure use some to fund our operations against the
> Splugorth."  Vesper drew out the parameters of the Rift and began the ritual
> hoping the ship had not moved from where it was.
> [/Vesper]

[Skarn]
Skarn shakes his head. "No, we shall sacrifice none of it. It is the
product of a thousand year's labor. This pillar will, in a minute or
so, will fall into a dimensional portal. I and my companions here will
journey with it to assure that no unforeseen evil befalls it."

Skarn thinks for a moment. "But I take your point, and indeed if you
would use some of our wealth to combat these foul murderous Splugorth,
then so be it."

Skarn turns to one of his companions. "Relzek! Kak nurkad zik tagbarakor!"
[/Skarn]

[GM]
The dwarf nods, grabs a couple of other dwarfs, and they run back down
the stairs. They return moments later with a crate filled with gold
ingots. These ingots are emblazoned with the symbols of the New German
Republic, along with serial numbers and the value of each ingot;
200,000 NGR credits. There are about 100 ingots in the crate.
[/GM]

[Skarn]
"You will find these easiest to spend or exchange." Skarn says. "We
received these from a Triax agent in return for our services some
years back. Now go. You have only a few minutes left."
[/Skarn]

-- 
Aaron Clausen
mightymartianca at gmail.com

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