Script created with Final Draft by Final Draft, Inc.
[
bottom
]
Name tag : rook
4 PLAY in SCARY MONSTERS
"Bodies are easy; but it is hard to move a grave."
- Balintine -
"The city of Tarot. As it was over four hundred years ago."
A hand reached out of the thick oily shadow rim of the candle
light and passed over the large complex maze of many tiered
sprawling streets and layered buildings that covered the
rooms high ceiling chamber central table.
The miniature model that lay before the silent group was
intricate in detail and showed the fruits of what must have
been many thousands of hours of work of a dozen artisans
working with skillful hands. For it revealed that the larger
scale original had been crafted by skillful artisans of
thousands through untold hours of labor.
The city was a large circular web of white stone buildings
intricately carved and woven with mydrid statues and arched
bridges and passageways. Small buildings seemed to blister
out of larger ones and gardens of all shapes and sizes budded
everywhere. At the city's center a large towering citadel sat
with spider arms extended out into the radius of the canals
and waterways.
Everyone in the group leaned in closer to peer at the large
table top city glowing under the lowered chandelier of
candles.
The man speaking turned his open palm up hand into a downward
pointing finger that now jabbed again and again at the model;
spearing locations and punctuating points of interest as he
spoke.
"Four hundred years ago Tarot was the largest of the coastal
cities. With a population of over eighty thousand souls and
another thirteen thousand of transit traders and visitors on
any given day. Rich and powerful. It was its unique port that
made it so. A large bowl of high cliffs sunk back in the
sheer cliff wall that runs for many miles in all directions.
The only deep water port of safety in the ravenous Sword Sea.
With high hinterlands of green verdant fields and endless
forests and glades. It was the only port so near the distant
Echo Lands and its rich spices and rare crafts and raw
materials."
"And yet the people of Tarot were far from 'hospitable'
despite their mercantile cosmopolitan trade. No they were the
most xenophobic of guests. The harbor may have been ice free
all year long and inviting but not the hearts of the people
of Tarot. They lived aloof and with a sneer of distrust and
contempt for any not of their city. A city they jealousy
guarded in many ways."
"You can see how each section is like a fortress unto its
self. How each house is built with thick walls and heavy
doors. And note how all the traders and sailors who sailed
into the secluded bay had to remain here. At the wharfs."
"You would tie up here at the docks. See how they reach out
from this great ledge of stone. A natural cavern of immense
size. Here they found warehouses and trader shops and
lodgings. Only a handful of visitors would be allowed to be
escorted up into the city proper. For all others Tarot was
this twilight kingdom of subterranean shadows and riches."
"And then at the height of its power... cataclysm. a great
earthquake. Followed rapidly by several others. The
sheltering bay was riddled with jagged spears of rock and
treacherous reefs and whirlpools. Making all navigation
impossible; even to this very day."
"The city its self was splintered and shattered. Sections
rising up towering high and others sinking low lost in murky
depths. Only the central citadel remains in place and mostly
intact. Everything else is now a jumble of dead ends and
endless wandering ruins. A broken place and a lost people."
"Few survived the first quake and none the succeeding. Of the
royal line only the house of Balintiine survived. And they
only because they had been moved out of the city proper and
put in charge of the farming communities of the hinter
lands."
"You stand now in the great hall of the Balintines. Still the
stewards of the Meadow Lands in name and contract though the
family its self has not left their residence in the distant
capital city of Byron in generations to visit its holdings."
"This hall is now more a museum of rare collectables
priceless nick knacks of the fallen city of Tarot. It is the
work of the House Guards of Balintine to keep the peace and
set the bounties on monsters that plague the ruins of the
Upper Reaches and that wander out of the Black Wood. And to
find proper individuals who can brave the ruins of Tarot and
bring out her lost treasures to fill the hall or be sold to
further the purse of the Balintine."
"It is why we keep the bounty board here in the hall instead
of posting them in the inn and tavern as most cities do.
So we can watch silently the adventures who come and go and
see if any are judged worthy to undertake the dangerous and
highly rewarding attempts at entering the sunken ruins of
Tarot."
"Which is why you four where individually chosen out of the
hundreds of marauders who pass through and claim a bounty or
two. You four have shown excessive poise and ability. And now
that you have seen Tarot as she was let us to horse that you
may see her as she is now."
The hand recoiled from the pool of yellow light and the blue
silver moonlit that slanted in from the high narrow window
slits backlit the party gathered around the table as they
straightened up as one.
"When the city first fell we rushed to her aid. And in doing
so lost many of our own to treacherous blades."
-Balintine-
"And here you see her now." The voice of the table model
stood under the new sunrise with his arm stretched before him
again. The long ride in heavy cloaks along side the
clattering rumble of a donkey cart had left everyone a bit
weary and the arm fell fast to its side and the body attached
to it quickly turned away from the sprawling ruins.
"There is little to see from this vantage." He ducked quickly
past the party and made his way down mossy stone steps and
out of the cold wind the rising sun prowled before it.
The stone steps led down into the open ruin of a stone walled
house. The roof and parts of the walls were missing. Rubble
lay in grassy heaps. He continued weaving his way through the
open maws of stone door jambs or stepping though half slumped
windows until he stopped in what may have once been a lower
court yard.
Men whose heavy cloaks parted upon their exertion to reveal
glimpses of the livery of the House of Balintine guards.
Grunted and huffed as they unloaded the donkey cart and
unsaddled horses setting up camp in the lower ruins sunken
down out of the bitting wind that seemed to grow colder and
colder as the sun rose. It was going to be a gray and
overcast day. Icy rain began to erratically spit and soured
the temper of the men as they worked.
"As you can see," the voice continued as the party of chosen
adventures split off from the men setting up camp and
approached the captain of the House Guard to where he had
stopped in the lower courtyard. "A great chasm has split the
city of Tarot from the cliffs themselves. All entrances from
the hinterlands were severed."
The captain shook off his robes hood and showed a face much
scared but still strong and handsome despite its heavy
grizzle of beard. "The only way in is through the docks far
below. It is a very difficult entry. Requires a lot of
acrobatics to span the shattered bridges. And entry can only
be made at low tide."
"You have to get there by taking the lower path. Several
hours journey from here. Obviously we don not intend for you
to try entry that way or we would not have ridden to this
spot."
"You see after a couple of hundred years of sending in
scavengers and thieves and adventures in through the docks.
Well the dock lands are all picked clean. And the passages up
into the city proper from there have long ago been sealed by
the earthquakes."
"So... we have this." He half turned and nodded at an open
moss and grass covered stone staircase that lead down in the
middle of the overgrown courtyard. "At the base of those
short flight of stone steps is a heavy iron door. Locked and
placed there by the Balintine. It is the only land based way
to now enter the lost city of Tarot."
"To be honest I had never thought to see its use."
He looked back at the adventures who still wore their cloaks
with their hoods up against the chill and damp of the gray
lowering sky that had now settled like a wet fog about them
and had canceled out any sensation of morning.
Lasiter, Captain of the House Guard of the House of Balintine
whistled and nodded at one of the men above them who was
setting up camp and he stopped his duties to grab a case off
of the donkey cart and lug it down to his Captains side.
"The citizens of Tarot were an untrusting unforgiving and
greedy lot. They riddled their city with magical walls and
traps." He opened the heavy box before him and frowned as he
looked at the slim graceful silver wrist bracelets inside. He
took out each one carefully and snapped it over the arm of
the adventures.
These arm bands will let you pass through its streets without
being stopped by magical barriers or setting off traps.
Lose these and you are as good as dead. I can't emphasize how
priceless these bracelets are. They are the last of their
kind outside of Tarot herself."
He finished placing the four armbands on the four party
members. "We have paid off your debts and negated your own
bounties and now we will pay you quiet handsomely for any
piece of treasure you can lug out of Tarot herself."
"The ruling elite of the city took many pains to protect its
self from threats outside and inside. You can see those
bracelets were made to be worn by female citizens. That is
why all four of you are women."
At that each of the adventures shook off her hood and held up
the shimmering armband clasped on her arm to gaze and ponder
it.
"Obviously we are taken a gamble to use our last four ways
into the city like this. So a high priority would be your
recovering off any of the bodies or from any of the houses
any similar kind of armband that we can then use in future
endeavours."
"Now," Lasiter turned and pointed at the stair case and the
man snapped the wooden chest that had once held the silver
woven bracelets shut and set it upon a nearby pile of stone
ruble and took the Captains proffered key chain and hurried
down the stone steps sunk into the ground where the sound of
a rusty lock turning and the scraping rasping slow heavy
sound of a stout door being pushed open resounded. The
Captain held out his hand and gestured to the black pit where
the steps lead down and then lead the way.
The musty darkness gave way to the eruption of dim smoky
light as the guard struck flint to match and match to wick
lighting the small hip lantern at his side. He bustled about
the small narrow stone room lighting a dozen other small tin
lanterns set about upon stone niches.
"See that stone chest." There in the corner of the room was a
large stone chest. The captain walked up to it. Its top rose
up to his waist and it was wide enough for a man to lay down
in. "There are keys like this," he held up a large key. "That
will open that chest. That chest will hold anything you put
into it providing it fits through its appature. Anything."
"As long as it fits past its mouth and sides you can place
anything in there. It is for all intense purposes bottomless.
You can put all the loot of Tarot in there. As long as its
not magical and not alive it can be placed inside one of
these."
"There are hundreds of such chest scattered through out the
city. A person would go to a merchant and buy something and
then use their personal key to open the stone chest in that
merchants shop and place their purchase in it. Then they
would go back to their home and use their key again to open
the chest in their own house and take it back out again. Each
individual key opens to what that key placed in there. So if
you open it and put in a sword and then you opened it with a
different key and put in a shield and then when you open it
again with the first key there would only be a sword in there
and when you open it with the second key there would only be
a shield."
"Remember that. If one of you falls holding the key. Take the
key. Or all that was put into that chest by that key remains
lost until that key is recovered and used to open a chest."
"So you can see any key or bracelet you recover will be of
tremendous use to us. Not only will the bracelet allow us to
enter into Tarot but the key will allow us to access anything
that key put into any chest in the city four hundred years
ago."
"The bracelets and keys are magical so they can not be placed
into a chest. You will have to carry them out. But any non
living non-magical thing you find that will fit through the
mouth of the chest you can put in there and we can recover it
latter with your key here from this chest."
"See you won't have to lug a lot of stuff back here. You can
just find a nearby chest and put it in and then come back
here and we can pull it out and recover it. Remember the
artisans of Tarot were far ahead of the rest of the humane
race in their crafts and skills and still remain so. Even
trinkets like goblets or bowls or dinnerware are highly
valuable and will net you a nice payment. Still rare weapons
and armor and any magical items will be even higher valued."
"A few last things and then you can be on your way. First:
the city is and was the most magical in all the lands. There
is a magical barrier that surrounds most of it even now. Your
bracelets will grow in strength when you enter the city
proper. Here in this room we are at the very edge of the
city's great influence. That chest is the outermost that
still remains functioning and intact. When you past that
doorway there you will enter the power of the lost city a
place where we without such bracelets can not venture and
live."
The adventure party turned and looked at the large heavy door
which the guardsman was now unlocking at the captain's nod.
"Second: a century back the city somehow became tainted. A
darkness swelled up in her heart. I can not explain it.
But persons who we sent into the dock lands to scavenge began
to tell tales of the fallen dead who now rise and walk and
savagely attack anything that enters the city. If you fall in
Tarot it will raise you as a monster to fight on its behalf
against any it considers invaders."
"Third: time stops as soon as you enter. It is hard to
explain. But I and my men will wait four days in our camp
here for your return. After that we will know you are never
coming back. For four days out here is equally to many months
in timeless Tarot."
"And fourth: you can not take anything into Tarot that is not
of Tarot. Such as your weapons armor or... clothes."
The Captain gave a long unblinking stern look at the
surprised and confused four young women and then he stepped
forward and took the red long locks of one of young women and
began to braid it and then used the braid to fashion the
chest key to her crimson hair.
"All you can take into the city is the bracelets and this
key. I know what you are thinking. But average citizens were
not allowed to carry weapons. But these bracelets were
designed as weapons and shields and armor." He held out his
hand and the guardsman quickly pulled out a pouch and dropped
a gem into his palm.
Lasiter grabbed the bracelet encased wrist of the red headed
young girl he had just twined the chest key into her long
locks and snapped the gem in to the bracelet. "You will find
these in your travels in the city. The bracelets are designed
at their base level to let you pass freely through it
unmolested by the basic traps and barrier walls set up to
ward out invited noncitizens. But they were also designed to
receive in them these gems. These gems will allow you to
summon weapons and armor of varying kinds and strength
depending on the gem inserted and the will power of the
bearer."
Lasiter looked firmly into the eyes of the redheaded freckle
faced girl. "Cherry Leigh you will be the leader of the party
charged with its overall survival and its task to seek out
and recover any viable plunder from the city its self.'
"You will carry the chest key and this gem I have just placed
in to your bracelet will let you summon dual daggers. And
this gem," he snapped in a green gem now to go along side the
red one. "Will map your surroundings until it is full. You
must find more such gems. Maps of the upper city are vital
and will net you high reward."
"This gem will let you cast a basic level spell," he held up
a yellow gem between his thumb and forefinger before snapping
it into place upon the bracelet. "That spell will depend upon
what grimoire you find and read. These are spell books or
tombes you will find in the city of Tarot. She should be full
of them. Each spell gem will hold one learned spell. Just as
each weapon gem will let you summon one kind of weapon. Red
gems are weapon gems and blue gems are armor gems and green
gems are support gems and yellow gems are spell gems. Be on a
constant look out for gems."
"The more you use a gem the more you will link with it and
the more powerful that summoned weapon or spell will become.
As you defeat the monsters of Tarot their essence will in
turn power up the gems even further. Be safe but do not fear
a fight. Or the further you go the weaker you will be when
you come across a much more powerful creatures."
Captain Laister of the House Guards of the House of Balintine
passed by Cherry Leigh and grabbed the bracelet wrist of the
next party member. "B. J. Knightly, you will be the principle
fighter of the group. I give you a sword gem and a shield
gem. Also a purple buff gem that will increase your heal rate
in face of the risk you will face in front of the battle.
Lasiter then passed past the tall blonde B. J. Knightly and
paused before the short in body and hair brunette. "Ivana
Cox, you will be the principle thief of the party. Though the
bracelets will let you all pass the basic sigil spells set
into the streets and arches of Tarot designed to harm or stop
outsiders; there are numerous other sigil spells and locks on
doors and gates that will need a thief's touch to open. This
gem will summon a lock pick set and pry bar. And this gem
will summon the unblinking eye spell. A spell that will let
you identify a sigil or ward and know what the appropriate
response will be to open it. This gem will summon a long bow
with endless supply of arrows. But beware each arrow you fire
will take away a sliver of your health. So make sure you let
your self recover before venturing on."
The short stout man stopped again before the last of the four
adventures. A tall willowy raven haired pale girl; "Alotta
Moans. You will be the principle magic user of the party. I
give you a healing gem spell. A fire ball combat spell gem. A
summon a coven of bats spell gem."
"You will all notice that each of your bracelets can hold
several gems and you can switch them out as you please.
Remember gems are magical as are the basic bracelets and any
more key you may find. As such you can not store them in
chests. You will have to lug them around with you. And since
you will now have to strip naked.
What you can carry until you find some new garments or packs
will be very limited indeed." The captain crossed his arms
and stood back and then waited as the four girls slowly
undressed.
"I can no longer look upon the shattered ruins of my homeland
from my fresh hewn battlements. Therefore I charge the
Captain of my guard to hold my keep and protect my people and
I will away to the capital Byron to seek what sanity I may."
-Balintine-
Cherry Leigh stood braced and bold; straddled legged upon the
street of Tarot. The sky was golden and warm and inviting
with soft languid breezes that like the light seemed to come
from everywhere and no where.
There was no sun no cloud in the sky overhead just a sheath
of soft blue and considering they had just emerged from a
narrow and dank dirt faced tunnel that led back to the small
cellar room and then a somber gray overcast wet with bitter
cold; the freshness of this timeless day was unnerving and
yet invigorating none the less.
The young woman and leader of the party was lithe in build
her body well turned with long legs and arms her long red
hair cascaded down her strong back touching the top of her
round full buttocks. Her narrow waist joined her strong
thighs at a thick heavy patch of crimson pubes and her upper
body was endowed with a set of oversized large breasts with
large puffy areolas and every hard nipples. Her double jj-cup
breasts heaved and jiggled as she breathed and her green wide
large eyes flashed above her smirking thick full lips. She
stood naked upon the warm bricks of the humped street with
both her summoned daggers in her hands glowing white blue.
Next to her stood the towering maiden. B. J. Knightly. From
the far frozen upper lands the long limbed thin woman was a
giant. Seven feet in height her thin but muscular frame and
long limbs were dwarfed only by her enormous breasts that
were each easily twice the size of her head. Her pubic patch
was shaved bald. She too stood defiant and naked with her
summoned shield and sword glowing sliver white in her hands.
Behind the two Alotta Moans standing a little taller than
Cherry Leigh and almost shoulder height to B. J. Knightly was
dusting off the dirt of the passage with the palm of her
hands.
Incredible as it might sound her breasts were the largest
pair of the group and unlike the red head and blonde her
pubic patch had obviously never been trimmed. Her eyes darted
around her with apprehension.
Next to Alotta Moans, the thief Ivanna Cox, had just cast
unblinking eye. Not only did it have the power to reveal
traps and their workings but it let the young girl read the
wooden carved sign above the half crumbled house they had
just exited.
"What dose it say?' Cherry asked as she looked over her round
shoulder at the thief.
Alotta was the shortest of the group and her body was more
compressed but still pleasantly formed. Her large breasts
were a tad less pert and jutting as the others and tended to
hang a bit but she was no less attractive and had the most
beautiful face of the group. She also kept her pubic area
trimmed but into a small vertical strip that seemed a touch
pretentious compared to the others.
"It says, 'the house of Lazurus'. Nothing more." The thief
looked back at Cherry her eyes still glowing yellow from the
spells effect.
"Do see any spells or traps around us?" Cherry asked as she
looked back at the empty street. It was disquieting that
looking back and above the house one did not see the jutting
overhang of rock and dirt where the rest of the house of
Lazurus and the captain and his men should be camped waiting
for them. Instead there was only a wall of blue sky.
"Well..." Alotta pivoted her head in all directions. "I see
several sigil's glowing on the street and embedded in walls."
She reached out carefully and rubbed a nearby wall. "But our
employer seems to have been correct. Our bracelets seem to
keep us from triggering them."
The cellar opening which was all that remained of the house
of Lazurus that and a pile of stone rubble opened out upon a
street that was entirely lined with squat short block-ish
houses. Small niche gardens and window boxes lined the
otherwise sealed in street. The obviously suburban street
slanted downward and both visible ends of the street ended
abruptly in intersections of more low houses and gardens.
"I don't think it's going to matter which way we go. At first
anyway." The tall lithe giant spoke. Her voice had a frosty
demeanor and she spoke with a clip accent of the upper lands.
Cherry nodded. Until a few moments ago none of them had met
and now here they were stark naked and in an adventuring
party together in what was considered one of the most
dangerous cities in the realm; both before and after its
collapse.
"In that case let's head down hill. It will give us some
advantage if we need to fight. I would like to see a bit more
of the general layout before we start looting the houses in
the immediate local." Cherry nodded again but they all four
hesitated and no one ventured forward down the gentle slope
of the rolling buckled street.
"These houses don't seem particularly prosperous. I doubt we
would find anything exceptional in them." Ivanna spoke lowly.
There seemed an unspoken agreement amongst the party not to
break the silence of the city.
"The Captain said 'anything' from Tarot would have value.
Even table settings," Alotta added under her breath. They
were all looking about them at the yellow stone of the
buildings and street. The stones had been so white in the
table model.
"Still I am sure he would want something more than vases and
cutlery when we return," Cherry's eyes seemed to be becoming
use to the odd blue sky's light and its odd effect of making
the stones glow and the shadows seem flat and sharp in their
relief.
"Indeed. I believe what he really wants are more of these
bracelets and chest keys like the ones he gave us. More
insurance of being able to send others in here than just us."
The blonde warrior spoke in her methodical husky way.
"I am not sure bringing him back any more of these bracelets
especially ones taken off the corpses of males would be a
great idea for our finical future," Alotta stated as she
pushed her bangs out of her face.
No one said anything but lips tightened and eyes narrowed.
"All right then. First thing lets take in some of the sights
and then find one of those stone chests. From what the
Captain said we should be able to find one in most of these
dwellings. But ideally we would be best served by finding a
shop of some kind with a stone chest in it. Preferably a
market with several shops. The Captain made it sound like he
wasn't so picky but I am sure he would want four hundred year
old trinkets untouched off a shop self rather than the same
item much used from some houses larder."
"The Balintine family were of the royal family line. But the
fact that they were 'removed' from the city of Tarot and set
up in the hinterlands lends one to seriously question their
beloved ties to the Tarot Citadel and the policies there in."
- Balintine-
The streets were much more labyrinthine than they first
appeared with many arched gateways and small court yards from
which streets branched off at odd angles going up or down or
sideways. To this was the general upheaval which become
increasingly more notable and prevalent.
Great sink holes suddenly appeared that fell away to inky
blackness and huge fissures and up reared hoary headed spikes
of rock thrust out of the ground at dangerous frozen
intervals.
But even without these jutting monstrosities and pitfalls it
became increasingly apparent that the people of Tarot had
taken it for common course that a direct line of conveyance
was not to be expected or perhaps desired. One did not simply
walk a straight street that turned a corner or two and
reached a market or larger concourse. No, one waked down a
street that dead ended in a small courtyard. To go further
you had to go up a flight of stone open faced stairs that led
you to the rooftops of the shoulder to shoulder houses you
had already passed and then you back tracked upon their roofs
which were laid out like streets and alley ways themselves
and continued upon your way until you went down or up another
stair case. There were roof courtyards and shops set up here
just as there were courtyards and shops set up underground
below the street level.
The model had seemed a circular maze of sprawling buildings
layered like cake boxes upon each other but with large
central roads radiating out like spokes striking out from the
central citadel for traffic to quickly move along its ridged
unflinching lines with spiralling off shoots of cul-de-sacs
here and there like smoky fil-de-gree glass.
But in reality arched gate houses and courtyards sealed off
all direct access. And the constant need to stop and pick the
bronze gate locks made it often easier and faster to find
another passage above or below that by-passed the gate house
and its barred passage.
These passages were often narrow and hidden. Niches that were
actually portals or dead-ends that were often hidden portals
leading down or up if one knew where to look.
Many of these had been closed by the ruin of the earthquake.
Entire areas were collapsed or left just a lone standing
building. Pathways were blocked off. Or new passages opened.
Many times the caved in walls of a home or walled gate house
led the way onward.
Moreover every single door was locked. Many further bolted
from the inside as well as locked. Ivanna knitted her brow
and sweated at the tasks but it was apparent these were not
normal locks.
Each of them had been chosen because of their skills as
observed by their claiming jobs off the bounty board posted
in the Balintine keep, and evidently by them all being women
so as to be able to use the bracers the house guard
possessed.
The Captain had then assigned each of them a place and task
in the party again based on their skills. As such Alotta was
the most skilled at lock picking in their party and probably
the most skilled in the entire Meadow Lands. And she was
having a difficult time opening even the doors of what were
obviously simple hovels.
"I don't understand this." Alotta blew a fpuff of air out of
the corner of her mouth to push her bangs aside of her large
eyes. "The Captain said we would grow in skill the more we
use our summoned equipment. But I have been using these lock
picks and jimmy's for what must be over a hundred locks so
far and though the gem stone glows and sparkles with each
successful pick I don't feel any increase in skill at all! In
fact I should be 'learning' just by rote these odd locks with
each attempt but instead its like every lock is brand new to
me when I start in on it?!"
"I am not sure how much of the Captain's blather we can
trust," B. J. Knightly mused. "I mean did we really have to
strip naked in order to pass into here?"
"It dose seem like they are putting all their eggs in this
one basket. We do seem their last chance to bring out more
loot from Tarot." Cherry Leigh sighed as she watched over
Ivanna's shoulder as she once more set about the lock door in
front of them.
"True. But did you see how their peckers were leaping about
in their pants when we dropped our clothes?" B. J. Knightly
smirked and all the other girls began to giggle.
"Well, we can trust in the greed of the Balintine family.
They haven't worked a day in their lives for generations and
they have made a rich and lucrative career out of plundering
Tarot. That plunder has become a trickle and then nothing the
past decade.
I am sure that the Captain was speaking true when he said the
dock lands had been stripped clean and there was nothing left
that they could get to by their normal means."
"He also said the city was teaming with monsters and un-dead.
So far we have seen only ruins and locked doors." B. J.
Knightly raised up both her hands and pushed her fingers
through her radiant long golden hair. None of the party had
their weapons summoned now. They had found that summoning
their weapons slowly tired them. So they un-summoned them and
kept on alert if something should warrant their sudden need.
"You sound disappointed, B. J." Alotta purred in her strange
soft accent of the distant Sun Dry Lands.
There was a loud snapping click and then the rasp of hinges.
"Well that might just well change." Ivanna muttered as she
stood up and dispelled her lock picking set and summoned up
her bow.
There before them was yet another large courtyard but here
all the stones were of a bluish hue and there was a strange
black purple moss and vapors clinging to the pavement and
issuing forth from the wall chinks and cracks.
"That must be the 'taint' the Captain spoke of?" Cherry
peered past Ivanna's raised bow and hunkered shoulder.
"Hmm, taint or not. I still would worry more of the Crossed
Swords. Those pirates have been sneaking in past the
Balintine house guards for decades and slipping out with
enough loot to merit more such clandestine raids." B. J.
Knightly pushed slowly past the bottle neck at the opened
door and entered the courtyard summoning her shield and
sword.
"There's more than just the Crossed Swords to keep an eye out
for; the Balintine family is not the only descendents of the
royal line of Tarot. The Rosenthornes married out of the city
and into the house of Blackmarsh before the cataclysm. They
are much more powerful than the Balintine. The Guilds and
House of Charters may recognize the Balintine as the only
legitimate heirs to lay claim and salvage to the lost city of
Tarot but the Rosenthornes of Blackmarsh wield considerable
influence in the capital of Byron and through much of the
realms. They have been sending in small squads of their own
soldiers and troops into the ruins for centuries. I would not
be surprised to stumble across a unit or two of them well
fortified in one of these courtyards or one of these larger
gate houses." Cherry Leigh nodded up at the battlements
ringing the large open stone paved courtyard before them.
"The Rosenthornes are one of the richest houses in all of the
realms. Why would they bother with looting the ruins of
Tarot?" Alotta frowned.
"Why indeed?" Cherry whispered.
"Perhaps we should ask them?" Ivanna pointed her bow behind
the group which had just reached the center of the courtyard
for there exiting another door way in the wall strode several
knights clad in the distinctive armor of Rosenthournes and
Blackmarsh house.
"Hey!" Snarled Alotta, "why do they get to wear clothes?!"
She quickly grabbed one of her breasts to cover the areola
and nipple while using her forearm and biceps of the same arm
to cover up the areola and nipple of the other breast while
her remaining hand slipped down over her exposed sex. She
scrunched up to hide her naked body from the advancing
knights.
"Yes that indeed seems unfair," B. J. Knightly muttered and
lowered her self into a combat crouch. Her large shield
raised as well as her sword.
Suddenly an arrow of bluish hue shot forward and sunk deep
into the mail chest piece of one of the advancing knights. He
paused to grab it by its glowing shaft and then sunk to his
knees pausing only briefly before falling full upon his face
plated helmet.
"I guess that means all talk is out the window," Cherry Leigh
looked over at Ivanna who seemed startled that her bow had
just fired.
"Sorry," Ivanna gave an uneasy smile back at Cherry and B. J.
"it just sort of slipped."
"Well wielding magical summoned weapons can be a bit tricky
at first," B. J. sighed and looked back at the cluster of
Rosenthorne guards who instead of advancing any further had
stopped abruptly and were inching away from their dead fallen
comrade.
This seemingly odd behavior become much less so when the dead
guard began to clamber to his unsteady feet and then with
weapon in hand made a sudden furious lurch at one of his
comrades. The living guards immediately set about hacking at
the dead knight but he hewed one down in the process and as
they continued to cut at his mailed limbs the second dead
guard rose and joined in the attack on the living knights
driving them back across the courtyard to the open doorway
they had just issued out of moments before.
"I believe that is our cue to beat a hasty retreat," Cherry
growled as she spun and high tailed it to the nearest stair
case leading up onto the encircling walls.
"Seems the Captain was right in his warning about the dead
rising in Tarot to fight the unwelcome," B. J. shouted as she
and the others turned to join Cherry in her flight.
"Yeah but what about the clothes? Can we wear clothes or
not?" Alotta howled still trying to cover up her naked body
as she ran.
"Well, considering that we don't have any clothes to wear I
guess that point is now moot." B. J. barked as they reached
the open face stone stair case and rushed up it to the
courtyard walls top.
Here they paused the knights both living and dead had
disappeared back through the dark doorway they had previously
entered from. That doorway was only a dozen yards from their
own still open doorway.
They kept an eye on the two open doorways as they caught
their breath and surveyed the vantage of the high wall they
now found themselves crowned upon.
For the first time since they had arrived in Tarot they could
see a large section of the city. All the rooftop advantages
before had not risen up above the inner curtained walls which
cut off sections of the city. But now they found themselves
upon one such curtained wall and it towered over the
immediate city on both sides.
From here they could see the first of the many water canales
cut in channels in the stone block streets and the many
archways and gate houses both in front and behind them. The
area behind them had been composed almost entirely of small
houses but the area before them was full of large stone
structures and showed much promise for loot and the yet
illusive stone chests into which they were to place said
loot.
The inner part of the city was covered in the 'taint' and all
the blocks of stone had taken on a blue-black cast and purple
vespers and moss and foul looking red-black thorny vines
covered everything.
"Look," B. J. Knightly pointed out past the large courtyard
past its far wall which was lower than the curtain wall they
were now on. There many humanoid shapes slowly shuffled along
and large, much larger, shapes could just be made slowly
moving amongst the open areas and boulevards. "From now on it
will be almost constant fighting."
"We have not come far," Cherry looked out over the area they
had just traversed. "I can see the Lazurus house through
who's cellar and earthen tunnel we had entered the city."
"Eh? How is that even possible?!" Alotta whined. "We have
been walking for ever!"
"It's true," B. J. Knightly chimed in, "with a good bow I
could hit the house from here. While we have traveled a very
short distance... less than a hundred paces as the crow
flies. We have covered many miles in actual travel. See there
is where we had to go up the stair case and back track across
the roofs and there is where we went down to the lower level
and we came up there and-"
"There were many dead ends and a lot of searching for the
next way forward. And a LOT of locks." Ivanna sighed.
"Our mapping gem has stopped shimmering. It has turned an
opaque gold now. I am going to guess that means it is full.
So were not going to make any more money off the mapping
portions of this visit unless we can find another such
stone." Cherry looked at the now lusterless stone set upon
her sliver wrist band and then back up and around her, "we
had best find some treasure and return as soon as possible to
the Captain."
"That would appear to be easier said than done," B. J.
Dispelled her weapon and shield and stretched. "So far we
have seen nothing. Not even a cracked pot. Could it be that
this area too has been picked clean like the docks? Maybe the
Crossed Swords or the Rosenthorne have some other way in to
this area and looted it clean?"
"So many locks. I have not seen so many locks before. Why
would anyone put locks that strong on every single door and
not one key in sight?!" Ivanna dispelled her bow and waved
her arms.
"SLAVES!" Everyone turned to look at Alotta who was suddenly
very excited. "Don't you see that area we just went through.
That was were the Tarot kept their slaves!"
"Slaves? How do you know they had slaves? I thought they used
magic to do all their work. Golem and mechanical constructs."
B. J. Frowned.
"I have read several books on Tarot in the libraries at
Thoth. And they had plenty of slaves." Alotta stuck out her
chin in defiant smugness.
"Thoth, the home of the magic guild and their schools. That
makes sense that a magic user like Alotta would have studied
there." Cherry tapped her chin in thought.
"Hold on," B. J. Sneered. "Thoth is also where the courtesan
guilds headquarters are and where they have their, er,
schools in that city as well."
Alotta began to blush and grit her teeth.
"A real, trained mage, would have fired an offensive combat
or defensive buff spell as soon as she saw those knights
approaching. Only a whore, and not a very good whore, would
have grabbed her tits and crotch and started whining." It was
B. J.'s turn to jut out her chin and smile in smugness.
"Well these bracelets have a magical assessment meter built
into them. See," Cherry held up her silver wrist bracelet.
"It shows our aptitudes and abilities for various tasks and
functions at our current base level compared to a set
standard. And Alotta's magical aptitude to both learn and use
spells is higher than all the rest of ours put together. So
she has certainly had magical training."
"I am not saying she can't wield a spell or two. What I am
saying is that it is not uncommon for the two schools of
wizards and whores to have cross over students. Look at her
agility and vigor and endurance and stamina and base healing
rate! You will never find any magic user with stats like
that! Only a courtesan would have all those heightened base
skills and all needed for her line of work!" B. J. Let go of
Alotta's wrist who was now getting a bit angry.
"Regardless she is the party's mage and that's all that
matters," Cherry growled.
"Don't you get it?" B. J. looked at her companions in
surprise and disbelief. "I have no problem with a
professional whore in our company; in fact that tends to be
extremely useful on many occasions. But what I am saying is
we have our COOK! Courtesans are all master chefs! And I
don't know about you but I am starved!"
"It would seem that even if time does not pass here in Tarot
and our bodies supposedly don't age; we do grow tired and
need to rest and now that you mention it I am rather hungry
myself." Cherry rubbed her flat stomach and sighed.
"The slave thing makes sense," Ivanna mumbled. Apparently
missing out in her deep thought the entire conversation about
Alotta being a professional trained whore. "You would have
strong locks that work from the outside on a slaves door and
not bolts on the inside and the houses would not have simple
windows but barred as these all have.
So you could lock them in and not have them lock you out. And
there would be no stone chests for possessions for what
possessions do slaves have. It explains why only the one
house had a name on it. The Lazurus family must have been in
charge of the slave quarter and that might explain why they
had an escape tunnel in their cellar. In case the slaves
revolted!"
"That dose make sense. That also means that perhaps the Cross
Swords and the Rosenthornes have not picked the area clean
but that the area being a slave quarter simply had nothing to
steal?" Cherry looked out over where they had been at the low
flat simple buildings piled up upon each other.
"It would also explain why there were no fountains or wells.
Withholding water is a strong way to quell a riot." B. J.
looked solemnly out over the yellow simple hovels.
"Look at the new area we have entered." Alotta tilted her
head out past the large bluish stone block courtyard.
"Statues and monuments and fountains and aqueducts and even
water falls and canales and every stone seems etched and
carved. Opulence abounds."
"And undead and monsters and-" B. J. frowned.
"And treasure. A lot of treasure I hope. And some kind of
food. Since we have brought no provisions at all with us."
Cherry rubbed her abdomen again.
"AH!" Alotta exclaimed.
"What is it?!" B. J. and Cherry and Ivanna startled summoning
their weapons and instinctively turning toward the distant
door where the knights had vanished some minutes before.
"There," pointed Alotta. "It's a library!"
B. J. Dispelled her shield and sword and slapped her forehead
pulling at her face.
"Seriously Alotta!" Cherry dispelled her twin daggers and
sighed.
"But don't you get it? A LIBRARY!" Alotta looked at the
scornful faces around her. "You know a place where they keep
books. As in books full of information. As in treasure."
"More like a room full of dust after four hundred years," B.
J. growled.
"Well nothing else has aged or rotted in here after four
hundred years. Except for the damage done by the earthquakes
everything seems pristine.
I would have to say that if that tower over there is indeed a
repository of tombes then they should remain in tact." Ivanna
nodded at the lone tower as she spoke.
"How can you be sure it's a library?" B. J. puckered her lips
at the stone tower.
"Because it says, 'library' above the main door," Alotta
moved past the chagrined Knightly and pondered out loud, "but
how do we get in there?"
The curtain wall passed through a large square tower. The
wall continued on the other side of the tower. At a right
angle to the square tower a lower wall ran making the
backside of the large courtyard. That wall had no doors or
gates or passage ways leading out of the courtyard much like
the curtained wall they were standing on now.
This lower wall ended at a lone round tower. The tower Alotta
had pointed out to be a library. Another lower wall right
angled out of the round tower moving back towards the wall
where they and the knights had passed through two doorways
and first entered the courtyard. This wall directly opposite
of them had several iron gated archways in it and beyond it
they could see a large portion of the city proper.
The 'main' doorway as Alotta had called it was in fact down
bellow in the courtyard at the base of the round tower and
piles of fallen rubble blocked much of it making any
likelihood of ingress impossible. However the party could see
that the wall leading out from the square tower where it met
the round lone tower had a smaller secondary access door.
All they had to do was enter the square tower and then turn
right and exit the tower and follow the walkway on top of the
lower wall until it reached the lone round tower and then
enter the door there. That door was half way up the tower and
should not prove any more impossible to open than the dozens
of locked doors Ivanna had been dealing with since they first
stepped bare footed into Tarot.
Of course nothing is ever that simple. The entrance to the
square tower that the curtain wall ran through the center of
had an bronze gate that the earthquake had shifted and warped
so as it could not be opened. The party managed to get past
it by climbing upon one another's shoulders and accessing an
area where the bronze decorative work had been sundered by
collapsing stone.
There is something a bit unnerving climbing helplessly and
blindly into a dark area uninvited which you are relatively
certain are full of monsters.
But after some tugging and pulling and anxious moments and
some cursing of boob size and buttocks girth the party found
its self inside the square tower. There was however no door
way leading to the right to the lower wall. The choices left
to them was taking a half collapsed metal stair case leading
down with little chance of getting back up it or squeezing
past the bronze gate directly across from the one they
entered and following the curtain wall further or taking
another wooden staircase up to the wooden floor above them.
Being tired and needing to rest and still hoping to find some
form of food and secure shelter they chose to head up the
wooden stairs as it seemed the easiest path and least prone
for danger.
Here they met their first Crossed Sword. Four undead a bit
withered and slightly worn still wearing their bronze chain
mail shirts. Simple armor that hangs down from the shoulder
to the knees with a cloth sleeveless tunic bearing the
Crossed Swords Confederate Island Crest and the local Island
logo of their home city-state.
They came at them with bronze hand axe, sword, spear, with
the last one hanging back and working slowly at a heavy cross
bow.
While each member of the party had proven themselves
individually to the Captain through their successful bounties
claimed at the Balintine hall jobs board. They had never yet
worked together as a team. As such the fight which should
have been relatively easy was instead a screaming awkward
stumbling helter-skelter mishap that ended with B. J. ass end
up trapped in a wicker basket and Cherry frantically
scrambling to not lose her grip on the drapes as she dangled
out the rooms sole window and Ivanna helpless buried under
the weight of three dead undead. Only Alotta had remained
upright and unscathed.
Knowing that casting any of her offensive combat spells in
such a small stone room with so many franticly moving about
comrades was not a good idea; the busty sorceress had instead
tried to cast heal spells on her allies as they took punches
and blows and gained scrapes and cuts under the mechanical
onslaught of the undead scavenger thieves.
She had missed. Every cast had missed her intended target and
struck an undead pirate. To her utter surprise she had found
her heal spell weakened and even killed the undead.
Of course once the fighting was over and she had rushed about
the room and helped everyone back on to their feet she kept
this ignorance and accidental heroism to herself and cast her
heal spells on her breathless comrades who thanked her
heartily and marveled at her prowess in battle.
In the small stone chamber of the guards room they found
their first stone chest and their first items of loot. The
weapons and armor worn by the undead looters were nothing
special. Certainly not the legendary weapons produced by the
hammer smiths of Tarot. But it was still finely crafted
bronze weapons and still in good condition. Not as powerful
as their own magically summoned weapons and too heavy for
lugging around but they fit nicely into the stone chest so in
they went.
They passed around the bronze mail shirts and the cloth
tunics but all four young girls proved far too busty to
squeeze into them. So those too went into the chest. The room
was full of sundry items such as tankards and plates and
knives and jugs and pots and all of that went into the chest
as well.
They stripped the room bare including ornate and odd lanterns
and a half dozen books full of stories about adventure and
war that none of them had ever heard of before and several
bobbles and trinkets with semi-precious stones set in them.
But nothing one would call real 'loot'. Still as Cherry noted
it was a start and a far improvement over their previous
endeavours.
There was however no food to speak of and after the combat
and spell casting they all agreed that they were getting
tired enough to sleep and stomachs were growling.
Since each member of the party was use to working alone or
being in charge of a group of adventures they now all voiced
their opinions of what should be done and Cherry was hard
pressed to keep the opinions from coming to blows.
While dozens of variations persisted the general choices
boiled down to this; the part could stay in the room where
they were and bed down on the wood floor and sleep. No meal
but no immediate threat about.
Or they could tie the drapes and tapestries in the room
together and use them to lower themselves out of the towers
window down to the lower wall and venture over to the lone
round library tower and explore that.
Or they could retrace their steps and return to the options
that had faced them when they first entered the square guard
tower. Basically heading past the next gate and following the
curtain wall some more. Or heading down into the lower depths
of the tower.
There was also the simple fact that they had not followed the
tower up to its top. There was obviously a wooden ceiling
above them which thus was in turn a wooden floor and a wooden
stair case must lead up yet further.
That the stair case was not in their small room and that the
room was obviously smaller than the lower floor foot print of
the tower where they had first entered. Suggested that there
was at least another room if not two on the floor they were
on. Despite the fact that all around them appeared to be
stone walls all solid and sturdy and only one with a window
in it and that looking out over the lower wall leading to the
library tower everyone agreed there must be some form of
secret passage leading to what must surely be the rest of the
tower floor.
Everyone also agreed that the original idea to head to the
library tower should still be pursued and that lowering
themselves out the rooms window made more sense than trying
to find some passage up or down that must then lead to some
hidden passage to the top of the lower wall and thus the
round tower's secondary door.
But most also agreed that it did not make sense having a
stone chest finally in their immediate environment to not
search the stone guard tower a bit more thoroughly for loot.
What no one could agree about was wether they should make
camp where they were. The arguments against were very
compelling but so where the tired and sore joints and growing
gnawing hunger.
Cherry in the end convinced everyone that they could not
possibly bed down in a room where they all believed there was
a secret passage leading to other unknown rooms and where
four hacked up freshly dead undead might re-dead themselves
and attack them at any minute. The idea of tossing the now
naked undead out the tower window was boycotted on the simple
logic that they generally planed on climbing out that window
sooner or latter and would be climbing down on top of those
jettisoned bodies.
So with grunts and groans they party got up and started
searching for the secret passage into the rest of that floors
rooms. Not surprisingly it was Ivanna and the spell
unblinking eye that found not one but several hidden
passages.
They found three which turned out to be little more than
storage niches or hidden spider bolt holes for guards to leap
out of upon unexpected guests.
In two of these the party found their first Tarot foraged
weapons and armor. Much prized and highly rewarding. Still
the armor was made for men and apparently the men of Tarot
four hundred years ago were smaller in stature and shrunken
in the chest and buttocks compared to the adventurers who
tossed each piece into the stone chest with a sigh.
"Now we are talking!" Cherry beamed. "This is the loot we
were after! The Captain should be happy with this lot." She
giggled as she tossed an arm load of swords and spears and
halberds into the stone chest and leaned her head close to
lock it shut with the key woven into her fiery red hair.
"Should we return then?" B. J. wondered out loud. "There is
no sign of food and all the water I have seen so far seems
tainted with that purple muck."
"Going further into Tarot would be risky without some proper
stores." Ivanna looked out of the window in the stone chest
room at the sky over the city. The sky over the outskirts of
the city in the slave quarter had been this brilliant flat
blue. But over the tainted parts of the city the sky broiled
with think leaden gray and black clouds. The areas under that
sky were much darker; being thick in shadow and that odd
bluish black purple glow from the lichen covered stones and
the deadly looking vines.
Cherry tapped her chin in thought. "Agreed we must turn back
and rest in the Captains camp where we can get some food and
water. Even if we can not bring anything inside with us as he
said, and of which I have some doubts considering those we
have met who brought in their clothes and weapons with them;
we can at least eat and sleep and recover our strength before
venturing back inside. We have already explored enough of the
city to make our next visit's travels go a lot faster and
smoother. But still... I think we should see if we can't find
just a bit more loot. I would hate to think the Captain felt
his time and money were not well spent on our efforts."
"Well there is yet the third secret passage we found. It has
no stores in it or weapons and ends in a dead end. It is
rather obvious that it must have another secret opening that
leads into the next room or staircase leading upwards. We
could quickly search that." Ivanna mused out loud.
"Excellent idea!" Cherry exploded in smiles as she leapt up
from the side of the stone chest her own large chest leaping
about on her young body.
The party filed into the narrow stone passage behind Ivanna
who did not even have cast the unblinking eye spell to find
the lever to open the secret door.
The first thing they noticed when they crept into the dim
room was the smell. It was hideous. It reminded one of a
miners camp that has come down with a sickness and the only
medicine to have is beer in vast quantities and some blister
and boil covered wretch staggers to his unsteady feet and
takes a long acidic leak of foul brown urine on the coals of
the only fire used for cooking and pyre a like.
The room was a large rectangle making up the entire missing
half of the rest of the floor of the keep. Against the far
wall the shattered remains of a wooden stair case lay at
bottom of the well of light of the splintered apature leading
to the outside elements.
In the center of the room lay something enormous. It was
long, wide, and curled up in a black shadowy purple and red
and black ball of bristles.
It's sides rose slowly up and down like a breathing hill. All
about it lay the chewed up remains of clumps of bones and
twisted up mangled bits of armor and weapons that had
obviously passed through its foul body.
Without a word the party inched back into the passage and
back into the guard room while Ivanna quietly closed both
secret doors.
It was decided that an attempt on the libraries secondary
door should be made before heading back to the Captain's camp
and the party quickly and quietly set about tearing up the
drapes and tapestries and tying them together into a
makeshift rope. Thus sacrificing the items as treasure in
hopes the round tower would yield better offerings for their
stone chest.
The rope ended about eight feet from the top of the lower
wall but everyone in the party was limber enough to make such
a drop with ease.
Upon the wall, on either side, there were large carved heads
adorning it set about ten feet down, in front of these were
piles of rubble that once must have been their decorative
bodies set in the wall in raised relief. A further drop of
another ten feet or so and these piles could be reached.
Sliding down those would reach the courtyard on either side
of the wall. Not the most desirable means to get off the wall
so if the round library tower had no other means back down to
the courtyard other than the obstructed main door they had
seen then they could at least slip and drop down via the
remains of the statues once they had explored the lone tower.
The lower wall was very thick and with the checkerboard
pattern of the large heads now bodiless it zigzag in its
depth to even wider breadth. It was with ease that the four
companions made their way across the top of the wall to the
round stone tower.
Here they found themselves confronted with a bronze gate of
bars set with two bronze heads where there should have been
handles or locks.
Alotta pushed past the befuddled Ivanna and knocked on each
head in turn which were set next to one another and slowly
they opened their metal eyelids.
"I know this one!" Cherry excitedly whispered to B. J. as
Alotta exchanged greetings with the two metal heads and began
conversing with them. "You see the first head only tells the
truth and the second head only tells lies and what you have
to do is-"
Alotta shoved one of her huge tits into one metal mouth and
then the other tit in the second one.
"GLORMPH! GLORMPH!" The heads masticated and sucked on the
large firm tits as trickles of milk ran down their metal
cheeks.
The bronze heads parted as the gate opened and a blushing
Alotta popped her breasts out of each smiling mouth and waved
good-bye as the party quickly passed through the gate and
stood at the base of the short flight of stone stairs that
ran around in a spiral circle fallowing the outer stone wall.
"Now that's what I am talking about," exclaimed one head as
it smacked its metal lips.
"Four hundred years and someone finally got it right," the
other head wind-chimed in gleeful agreement.
"They're called 'knockers' for a reason," Alotta smiled back
over her shoulder as she skipped up the steps.
"Is that how it's done?" B. J. leaned into the ear of a
shocked Cherry Leigh and smirked. "I was a little confused on
which one was telling the truth and which one was lying
though." Cherry looked at B. J. and blinked and then frowned
before storming up the staircase after Alotta and Ivanna.
"Whore collage I am telling you. She even got her lactating
major," B. J. giggled and winked and leaped up the stairs
after the party as the bronze gate slowly wheezed closed
behind them.
The stairs ended abruptly at a simple wooden door with no
lock that opened upon a large circular room that had one
window and was full from floor to ceiling with books of all
shapes and sizes. That ceiling was quiet a ways up and a
number of ladders leaned here and there against the towering
overladen racks.
The floor its self was covered in piles of books and strange
esoteric items poking out of wooden crates and fire hardened
pots. According to the bronze plate upon the wooden door this
was 'the screaming savant' room.
It was becoming increasingly obvious that the people of Tarot
did not use simple numbers to denote locations but had the
rather confusing habit of naming every street every house
every courtyard every street corner every stair case with
unusual and unsavory titles such as; 'the burning hand', 'the
blind mare', 'lost souls', 'the sun lotus', to just name a
few that the party had seen in its short journey from the
house of Lazurus. One could take the small bronze plaques
that bore these location names and hammer them into armor
enough for all the armies of the realm.
In some places the books were stacked into towering teetering
walls so that the party had to wind their way through the
room exploring musty valleys of arcane wisdom, exciting
adventures, travel logs, how to books on cooking or sailing;
a brightly burnished canyon wall of multicolored leather
bindings and book marker ribbons that hung down like willow
tree limbs or soared upon unfelt zephyrs high above their
heads.
It was Cherry who saw the stone chest first and burst into
glee and with her characteristic wild emotional abandon
knocked over a short stack of books with her excited bobbing
breasts as they pointed out the stone chest.
"Careful there," the old man in the khaki shorts and pith
helmet standing unseen by Cherry right next to the stone
chest admonish. Causing the red headed girl to startle and
knock over another stack of books with her full round bubble
butt.
"Careful as in 'try not to knock over the books please',"
sighed the old man.
The old man was wearing a short sleeved khaki shirt covered
with buttons and lapel straps for its dozens of bulging
pockets. His pale knobby knees and elbows jutted out at
slight angels and it was his turn to knock over several
stacks of books with these withered appendages as the
surprised party summoned their weapons and he staggered back
in alarm.
"Careful! Careful!" He shouted covering his face with his
arms and then pointed a wrist wearing a gold webbed band down
at the floor and summoned a large cannon. "Careful as in, 'do
not attack the man with the large cannon' please. It makes a
frightful mess."
B. J. stood up out of her fighter crouch and dispelled her
weapons as slowly the rest of the party followed her example.
The old man nodded and swallowed, his pointed Adam's apple
bouncing up and down as he did so, and his own large cannon
vanished.
"You're obviously not one of the undead or a member of the
Crossed Swords or of the Rosenthorens." B. J. mused as she
carefully folded her arms under her proud large breasts.
"Ah, if you have been dealing with them then I can understand
why you are so jumpy." The old man nodded and then waved them
into the small open area where he had obviously set up camp
just under the rooms lone window. The casement was open and a
refreshing breeze was blowing in despite the heavy black and
gray clouds churning just beyond its view.
"Let me introduce myself I am professor Seymour Nips. The
emanate explorer, writer, lecturer, adventurer, and foremost
authority on the history of Tarot. You may have heard of me
or read several of my award winning books. Er, you do read,
don't you?"
"I have read several of your books mister Nips especially
your series on the ruins of the Blasted Heath," Alotta
excitedly gushed as she shyly pushed forward from the group
once again with her arms and hands covering her naked body.
"Ah, well, eh, young girl," the old man eyed the young naked
woman up and down while smacking his lips. "It is always a
pleasure to meet an adoring fan. But as great as those works
are they are nothing compared to my magnum opus on Tarot. I
have been painstakingly searching its ruins now for, er, well
it's a bit hard to judge time in this place but I entered the
ruins in the year 1082 in the Baron's calendar. Year of the
Jackal I believe under the Mad Marsh Kings reign; been here
oh about er-"
"Fifteen years!" Cherry exclaimed.
"Is that all? Feels a tad longer. We don't age in here, you
know." The old man smiled. "I have been collecting data." He
pointed at his wrist where a golden version of the silver
wrist bands the girls were wearing resided. It was covered in
dozens of gems; most of them being golden filled mapping
stones.
"We were told you can't wear clothes if you come in here,"
Alotta sadly whispered as she nestled up along side the old
man.
"Oh, well that's actually true! My blushing lass. There,
there, perk up. You see," the old man pulled off his pith
helmet and then replaced it and then pulled up the cuffs of
his shirt and shorts. "See those blisters and burn marks?
They were far worse. I can assure you of that. See, the
people of Tarot did not want any non-citizens walking around
wearing clothes or weapons so if you do wear your garments
and weapons your clothes begin to burn your skin and keep
burning your skin.
Only clothes made in Tarot can be worn in here. Or you need
one of these." He held up his hand and pointed at a red ring.
"It's a guest ring and it let's you wear clothes that don't
bear the hidden magic seals of Tarot. Wish I had one of these
when I first entered the city but I was fortunate enough to
come across it soon after entering the lower ruins."
"You came through the lower ruins? I thought those were
picked clean and closed off by the earthquake?" Cherry tapped
her chin in thought. "I wonder if those Rosenthorne knights
we saw came from the lower ruins as well?"
"They might have there are very few ways into the ruins. You
see," the old man pivoted around and began to point out the
window at the city sprawling below and beyond the view. In
doing so he revealed that he had his hand clamped firmly on
Alotta's round firm ass which she seemed to be ignoring as
she demurely pivoted with him in his arms blushing meekly.
"You see the city used to connect to the cliff side. There
was an outer curtain wall with two gates; all gone, all gone
now." The old man patted Alotta's ass as he smiled and spoke.
"The earthquake caused a rift between the city and the cliff
side and all of that wall and much of the slave quarters that
existed between that wall and the next inner wall collapsed
into that rift. Very little of that outer part of the city
remains."
"So those were slave houses we passed through when we entered
the ruins," Alotta shyly whispered.
"If you came through the outer ring of the collapsed wall
then the Balintine house guards sent you in here to scavenge;
as they are the only ones who have any access to the cliff
side entry and they keep that jealously locked with iron and
magic sigils." The old man gleefully grabbed Alotta by the
shoulder and clasped her to him and shook her before letting
his hand return to her ass where it seemed to immediately
slip into her butt crack where the fingers wiggled like fog
worms on morning pavement.
"I came from below. Through the dock lands. Most come in that
way. And you're right it is for the most part sealed off by
collapse from the cataclysm. Not only rock, but ice. There
are large areas down there that are thick with ice. And other
areas boiling with liquid rock. Terrible, terrible place. But
I got through the ice locked passages with his help." The old
man nodded at his lantern which was set on a hook attacked to
a wooden pole which was held aloft by being sandwiched
between a stack of books.
"There's a little fire ifreet in there. He sleeps mostly;
good for lighting your way or cooking your supper. But wake
him up and he can melt a glacier in seconds.
Quiet the temper. Very dangerous. But most useful on my
journeys." The old man was whispering confidently in Alotta's
blushing ear as his fingers were now rhythmical pumping in
and out of the young girl's soft inner thigh area.
"Cooking supper did you say?" Cherry clutched her stomach as
a low growl escaped her slender belly.
"Oh, you poor things! You must be famished! Here," the old
man took out a key ring from one of his pockets laden with
dozens of odd shaped keys and removed one and tossed it to
Cherry. "There that one is from one of the great markets. Use
it on that stone chest over there and you will find bread and
milk and cheese and meats as fresh as they were when they
were first placed in there over four hundred years ago!"
"See," B. J. whispered into Cherry's ear with a large smile
on her lips. "I would have a whore mage over a battle mage
anytime! So much more useful!"
It was true. Cherry could only nod. Alotta had somehow
slipped her long slim wrist long delicate fingered hand into
the front pocket of the old man's shorts where it seemed to
oddly vibrate and rhythmically move like a leaf brushing over
an iced pond. Every time the old man would stop talking she
would slowly slip her hand out of his pocket and as soon as
he started talking again she would slip it back in. In just
minutes she had conditioned the old man to keep up a constant
monologue where he seemed compelled to answer all their
questions and be predisposed to share all his belongings with
them. The slower and lighter her hand moved the faster he
talked so whenever Alotta became personally distracted, such
as when the food began to be pulled out of the chest, the old
man would erupt in high pitched tirade of rambling
information.
"I used that key to put in all the food I could find into
stone chests. Four hundred year old bread and still warm
still freshly baked! Of course we don't need to eat. All
cellular decrepitude stops when you enter Tarot. But hunger
remains. Of course what goes in must come out. So when nature
calls just lean your posterior out the window. Word of
warning; aim with the wind. Of course time dose not really
stop. If it did we would cease to ever having been. We need
time and space to process thought to have senses. There are
nine concentric rings of walls dividing the city. In its
center is the citadel. There is a main stair case forty
horses wide that runs down from the citadel to five of the
nine lower levels of the city. Those knights you saw probably
came in with me. I got separated from them. There were forty
of them when we first entered Tarot."
Alotta mercifully if unwittingly let her hand slip out of the
purple faced old man's front pocket as she dove with both
hands face first into the piles of food being dragged out of
the stone chest. He stagged backward breathless and almost
collapsed.
"You came in to Tarot with those Rosenthorne knights?" Cherry
asked through a mouthful of warm bread slathered with
butterhoney.
"Wha? Ah, yes. Others have shown up since. All horribly
scared under their armor with hands blistered from wielding
their weapons. Even guest rings won't let you wear armor or
handle weapons not made in Tarot without causing some burning
and pain. But yes. I went to the Balintine first with my
proposal of researching and exploring Tarot for my book.
Looking for backers you know. Since they had a land based way
into Tarot they seemed the more logical. But they were broke
and could not afford to fund a scientific venture into the
city."
"Broke?!" B. J. frowned spitting out turkey leg and wine as
she quickly refilled her mouth with more wine.
"Oh yes. The Balintine family in Byron have been plagued by
creditors for decades. They were always an extravagant lot.
Living well beyond their means." The old man winced and
recoiled when he reached for a scrap of a bit of roasted
chicken and Alotta slapped his hand away.
"I have over a thousand silver pieces from bounties I have
earned off their board. I don't see how they are broke." B.
J. snarled with a half laugh and poured more wine in with the
strawberry pie she was wolfing down.
"All bounties are paid by the capital city of Byron.
Technically Tarot is a national treasure and must be
protected. Or so says the powerful Rosenthorne family. I
assure you the Balintine family is utterly broke and
coperless." The old man started to reach for a wine jug
caught Alotta's eye and thought better of it.
"Apricot marmalade!" Squealed Alotta.
"If they are so broke how is it they paid off all our debts
and bounties and hired us?" Cherry pondered out loud as sugar
cake and cream dribbled down her small chin.
"Obviously they couldn't," the old man leaned back rubbing
his still smarting wrist and began to look around blinking as
if waking up from a dream.
"Maybe they mean to pay us AFTER we bring out some of the
loot and they sell it?" Cherry mumbled slowly.
"Now you sound like all those capital creditors back in
Byron. The Balintine never pay their debts. 'Why pay what you
owe for what you already got when you can get more stuff?'
That should be their family motto and their crest should be a
hand with a hole in its palm. Say?" The old man frowned as if
gathering up his wits. "How did you get up here to this tower
by and by? There is only the window. The lower door is buried
under rubble."
"We came in through an iron gate door and up those steps over
there," Cherry wiped the blueberry tart crumbs off her face
with the back of her pale hand. She didn't like the way the
man seemed to be coming out of a daze and wondered what
exactly whore magic was composed of and what its parameters
where?
"The puzzle gate?! Ha! I never could get that thing to open.
Could never get the answer right. 'What can open large doors,
can be found on a bull, and proceeds some beautiful ladies?'
Pages? Balls? Attendants? I was never much good with puzzle
doors and sadly Tarot is rife with them. Sometimes when I was
healing up from some wound or other I would go down and read
to them. The less cranky one likes poems by Mutton. So you
can see what that was like."
"And how did you get into this tower?" Cherry asked but she
could see that the old man was becoming withdrawn and cagey
as he stood up and turned his back on them looking out the
window at the boiling sky.
"Is that a full mapping stone on your bracelet?" The old man
singsong in what was supposed to be an indifferent non
menacing air.
Alotta seemed to sense her presence was needed and quickly
wiped her face and hands on the drapery and nuzzled up along
side the old man and in a moment he was joyfully blathering
again.
"Oh! How I got up here? Well, you see that coven of bats
spell stone you have on your wrist there? Well you can keep
using that spell and over time increase its power or you can
use an arcane forge in an alchemist shop to meld another
similar or same gem type spell onto that spell see?" The old
man blissfully held up his golden wrist bracelet and showed
Alotta a swirled gemstone. "That gemstone now casts 'murder
of crows' and that is how I got up here."
The old man took the stone out of his bracelet and popped it
into Alotta's bracelet. "Now try casting that. Focus hard and
don't let your mind stray. It is a rather draining spell."
Alotta let the old man guide her wrist so it was pointing out
the window and cast the spell.
A great covey of large black birds ignited in the air in a
fiery black smoke wheeling in a great circle.
"Unlike the lower level bats spell which automatically
extends your sight in darkness or attacks the nearest hostile
presence. This spell summons a host of circling large black
birds. You can send them out to scout an area for you giving
you a hazy sense of what's ahead, but they work best if you
tilt their horizontal pattern into a vertical one. Yes! Like
that! Now all you have to do is step out on the back of one.
Don't worry they won't let you fall. Go on! There! Now just
keep stepping and one will race up and catch your foot. Focus
your sight to a tunnel vision on some object on the landscape
and you can simply walk through the air to get there! Oh! You
look like you are getting a bit weak! Better come back inside
now! There you are!"
Alotta made it just back inside the casement before the birds
exploded into smoky puffs and vanished. She fell into the old
man's arms who cackled with delight. "It's a tiring spell but
work at it and you can go just about anywhere they can fly.
Mind the space though. They have to have enough room to
circle at least in an oval pattern or they will just vanish.
Got to keep the pattern locked in your mind. Not much good on
the attack like bats is but great for exploring or walking
over things."
Alotta blushed up into the adoring face of the old man. "You
keep that stone for a short while and practice with it. Each
one of the birds bodies is about the size of one of these,"
he tweaked her nipple and shook her large breast and giggled
with her. Behind them a long loud fart erupted out of a pile
of empty wine jugs as well as a weak moan that vaguely
sounded like B. J. The old man sighed, "what goes in must
come out. I will go into the stacks and give you girls some
privacy while you get yourselves ready for bed."
"We thought ourselves the last house of Tarot. Imagine our
surprise when those lowly off-cast merchants of Rosenthorne
suddenly laid claim to our beloved city."
-Balintine-
There was a bloody shriek and then the sound of torn thunder
and another scream and then the smell of burnt ozone. By the
time Ivanna and B. J. and Cherry had come crashing through
the stacks of books they arrived just in time to see a very
undead Seymour Nips taking a fire ball in the chest and being
flung backwards by its force out the open window in a long
smoldering arc.
"What in the nine gates of Tarot just happened?!" A rather
green looking B. J. screeched on unsteady feet her summoned
weapons somewhat prodding the back side of Ivanna who gave
her a shove in return.
B. J. hopped backwards on one foot and Cherry took over the
questioning. "What is going on?"
A rather shaken Alotta stood up from the ifreet lamp campsite
with hands clasped over her breasts and sex and joined the
others as they looked out of the window.
The old, now charred, man had landed in a purple waterway
face up with arms and legs struck wide floating and unmoving.
"Well, you see." Alotta began as all stared at the man
floating there amongst the water lilies and lotus, "he hadn't
had IT for a very long time and well I haven't had IT for a
very long time and well I think I got a little greedy."
"You fucked him to death and he became a zombie," B. J.
deadpanned.
"All those keys! Those gemstones!" Ivanna shouted out in
dismay.
"We have to get those keys and that wrist bracelet back!"
Cherry barked.
B. J. looked around her and then snatched up a long coil of
rope which she immediately let go of as it burned her
fingers. "Ouch!" She stuck her blistered fingers into her
mouth and sucked on them.
"Oh no! I think he's sinking!" Ivanna cried out.
"I don't think he's sinking," Alotta whispered.
The purple hued water around the spread eagle crispy old man
began to bubble and then boil and then a very large mouth
ringed in tentacles appeared under the professor and rose up
and swallowed him whole before sinking slowly back down into
the mire of lilies and lotuses.
Ivanna, Alotta, and Cherry all cringed back while exclaiming,
"Aieee!"
B. J. snorted, "tentacles. Why are there always tentacles?"
"Maybe we can still get those keys and gems back?" Cherry
whined.
Everyone gave her a cold even look.
"Or not." Cherry moaned.
"I wasn't much looking forward to lowering myself down into a
pile of shit and piss decades in the making anyway," B. J.
leaned out the window and looked straight down at the base of
the tower and crinkled up her nose.
"Well, ah, let's put this past us okay. Like it never ever
happened. No need to ever mention this, right?" Alotta
nervously pushed her finger tips together again and again as
she forced a smile on her sweating face.
"All those mapping stones. A fortune gone," Ivanna sighed.
"A fortune if we took them to the Rosenthornes maybe? The old
man said the Balintine were broke and not to be trusted." B.
J. frowned at her fingers which were starting to heal and
then looked back at the rope she had dropped. "He did seem to
be right about anything brought from the outside not being
able to be used without getting burned."
"And I really, really wanted that red ring that let's you
wear clothes too!" Alotta whined.
"We all did," Cherry sighed.
"So now what?" B. J. looked sternly at Cherry awaiting her
decision.
"First let's take a stock of what we have and then, well, I
am open to suggestions as to what course of action we should
take." Cherry gave a sagely nod with her hands on her
luscious hips.
"Well, we still have the chest key that get's us all that
food." Ivanna began tallying up mental notes on her finger
tips.
"And wine!" B. J. chimed in with a large bright smile.
"And wine," Ivanna continued. "We have the ifreet lantern,
which seems to be of Tarot origin so we can take and use
that. And we can put all these books into the container to
retrieve latter. That should be great plunder for the Captain
or whoever. And we have two back packs which are also of
Tarot craftsmanship which work like the stone chests; in that
you can put a lot into them. I put over one hundred and forty
volumes in one of them, experimenting, before it was stuffed
but then I couldn't lift it until I had taken over one
hundred and thirty back out. So you can put a lot of stuff in
it but they you have to actually lug around its actual
weight."
"And this gem pouch," B. J. snatched up a gem pouch from a
pile of books. "Same as the backpacks. Not sure if it was
made here but it bears the seal of Tarot. That maybe key.
That it is not so much that something was made here as much
as it has a magical seal of Tarot placed upon it somehow to
let you use it here. I noticed the knights had Tarot seals
glowing on their helms when we first saw them. Anyway this
little baby will hold a lot but you feel the weight. I got
three jugs of Blood Bore wine in here right now!" B. J.
smiled as she slipped the thong leather pouch around her
waist and after a pause moved the pouch so it hung over her
shaved naked sex slightly covering it up. "There we go!
Perfect!"
Unfortunately the small backpacks could not be worn in anyway
as to cover up their exposed breasts or groins no matter how
they tried and in fact the straps seemed to push and pull
their large breasts into even more bouncy enticements.
"We also still have the murder of crows stone," Alotta noted
as she raised up her silver wrist band. "And well the old man
really likes to talk. Even when he's, er, busy... doing other
things. And so he told me that he has a theory as to what is
going on in Tarot what happened to it four hundred years
ago."
"You see, according to the old man, he found that none of the
outer rings of Tarot have any people from Tarot in them. They
are all weird monsters or the undead tainted strangers who
have come in to Tarot AFTER the cataclysm. He seemed to think
that everyone went to the citadel just before the earthquake.
He found orders posted that all the slaves; and I guess over
two thirds of the Tarot population were slaves," Alotta
continued. "That they and all the citizens were to go to the
great court yard of the inner circle which houses only the
citadel its self."
"Why?" Cherry puzzled out loud. "Why would they want everyone
who was a slave or citizen of Tarot to go to the inner circle
at the same time?"
"Well, the old man said that Tarot had never been known for
having such a strange effect of non-decay or non-aging or
such. There was no records of such an extraordinary effect.
He seemed to think that the slaves were all sacrificed for
some terrible spell that would grant the citizens of Tarot
immortality. But obviously something went horrible wrong."
Alotta shrugged at the inquisitive faces turned toward her.
"Things generally tend to do that when you kill a few tens of
thousands of people to invoke a spell." B. J. muttered.
"My lords of the High Council of Byron, it is difficult to
explain what Tarot means to us; what it was, what it is, what
it will be."
-Balintine-
"Are you sure about this?" Cherry's eyes narrowed to a slit
as she gave B. J. her sternest best practiced no-nonsense
face.
"Yep." B. J. nodded. "More or less. The old man's notes and
from what he said; before Alotta humped him to death and then
blew him out a forty foot high window with a fire ball into
the mouth of some aquatic canal monster, along with my own
observations all point to the same conclusion."
The party all stood before the doorway the Rosenthorne
knights had appeared from and through which their own undead
fallen bothers had backed them through again. They kept
hesitating before the inky black portal rimmed in elaborate
stone carvings of screaming heads and casting looks back over
to the other doorway which Ivanna had opened for them earlier
and its known path back to the slave quarter and the Lazurus
house and its earthen tunnel back to the Captain.
"It's just that we all seemed to have voted to check back in
with the Captain. I mean we just loaded an entire library of
priceless lost works in to the stone chest which have to be
worth quiet a lot not to mention the professors notes and
sketches." Cherry eyed the dark doorway where the undead had
chased several well armed and armored knights and not
returned.
"That was before Alotta tried to murder of crows us up a wall
and damn near killed us," B. J. fumed as she rubbed her
backside. "We NEED practice. We need to use these magic
weapons before we head back. From what I can tell if we try
to use higher level weapons we find or try and make on an
arcane gem forge we will be utterly unable to use them. We
have to gain experience with these before we can hope to
enter into the next walled area."
"I am not sure I agree with pressing forward despite the food
and wine we have loaded into our packs," Ivanna shifted the
back pack she wore. The straps of the pack passed tightly
under her large breasts making them even more springy and
bouncy as they did Alotta's who wore the other backpack.
"Ugh! I think these back packs are actually made for school
children as book bags!
They were obviously not intended for adults!" Ivanna tugged
at the straps of hers causing her breasts to leap about and
jiggle until she blew her bangs out of her eyes and
continued, "as I was saying. Even provisioned we might be
better off checking back in with the Captain especially after
what the professor was saying of the Balintine household
being utterly broke. But I do agree with her assessment that
we should make no attempt to enter any further into the next
circle of rings until we have spent time using our weapons
and skills."
B. J. held up her wrist band. "These little wonders like all
the Tarot magic only work inside of the influence of the
city. Getting stronger and increasing in their functions the
closer you get to the center and the citadel."
Ivanna shifted the long strangely carved pole and the equally
weirdly carved lantern on her shoulder as she spoke, "I doubt
we will even be able to carry our fire elemental out of the
city when we leave. We will probably have to leave him in the
Lazurus house. The sigil that bind him will surly break
outside of the city proper."
"The first curtain wall was swallowed up by the earthquakes.
That first area we entered is what is left of the slave
quarters. This curtain wall here is the second wall of the
nine concentric walls. There was really nothing to fight in
the first outer circle at least what we passed through. We
won't be able to practice with these things outside of Tarot
so if we are going to do so it should be with the relatively
weaker creatures and monsters we find in this circle." B. J.
nodded for dramatic effect.
"The old man did say the creatures and undead get
exponentially stronger the further in you go towards the
center," Alotta added.
"Here look at my bracelet," Ivanna held her forearm out
before her as she spoke. "When I first put this on in the
room with the Captain it had almost no information. Then in
the slave quarter it began to show what Tarot considered my
basic statistics based on its own scale and values. It put me
at a four in archery. After we passed the second curtain wall
it suddenly started showing other stats on kills and such.
Look here, when I sort of accidently killed that Rosenthorne
knight with my summoned bow, my archery skill went up to
seven! But look if I summon my bow and keep it summoned until
it vanishes due to exhaustion I get experience skill points
too. But very few. In fact it seems to proceed in increments
of 'thousands'. I would have to summon my bow until I
collapse many hundreds of times to gain a full level. So
obviously how often you use the bow gains some points but how
you use the bow gains the most points."
"The professor also said you get more experience points for
killing undead versions of things than living versions of
things. The longer something remains in Tarot the more the
taint infects it. Upon death even something very weak while
it was alive can suddenly become very powerful as an undead.
He also said the taint is conscious. That it is alive and
aware and that the undead are not mere mindless beasts but
the freshly undead are not as 'conscious' with the taint as
ones who have been shuffling along for a while." Alotta added
while sucking on her thumb in thought.
"The more reason for us to get out of this taint and back
outside for a breather," Cherry muttered. "And quit sucking
your thumb. You do that a lot you know."
"Yes, even our recent experiment when Alotta kept firing her
fireball spells at that section of wall until she collapsed
it never came close to how many experience points she earned
by toasting the professor after he was zombified. And you do,
you suck your thumb like all the time." B. J. added sagely.
"But she also got points when she banged the old geezer to
death too. Even when she did that without a summoned weapon;
just using her body. The points showed up and were
automatically assigned to her over all stats equally. So
while most outside magic in nulled by entering Tarot the
bracelet acknowledges Alotta's 'glamour body link magic' and
rewards its use. That said, obviously this is all some Tarot
based magical system and I seriously doubt these skill
enhancements will have any lingering effect when we leave the
city. But it seems obvious that for whatever reason, the
people of Tarot devised this militia bracelet for its
citizens to protect themselves and placed in it a system of
reward for any kind of successful completed endeavor; from
combat to defense to cooking to making a clay pot!" Ivanna
hummed, "and seriously in your sleep it sounds like a barn
full of calves going at their mothers udders. You really got
to break that thumb sucking habit."
"Okay, okay, I get that we have to use these things to get
better. Got that. And yeah we all know that Alotta has a
major oral fixation and I think we all know why. But what I
am having a real difficult time in understanding is why we
want to stay in Tarot and keep exploring and building up our
powers when we have enough stuff in the stone chest to put a
smile on the Captain's face and we are right next to the
exit. Why not just head outside for a day or two or three
before we go play with the scary monsters?" Cherry had one
hand on her shapely cocked to the side ass while the other
waved about the air as she spoke.
"Because from what I gather from the late professors notes
these wrist bands reset when you exit Tarot and then reenter
it." Ivanna sighed.
"In other words if we leave now all the experience we have
gained is erased in the Tarot magical system that we have so
far earned and we would have to start all over again. There
might be some residual learned ability carry over from our
simple body and mind personal link experience. But this over
all strange magical buff stat thing would reset back down to
zero." B. J. frowned at the bracelet on her wrist.
"Bummer." Alotta murmured. "And I don't suck my thumb anymore
than anyone else dose!"
"The point would be that one; if we leave Tarot we will lose
all these odd buffs the city's magic is giving us as rewards
for our successful completion of tasks and skill usage. And
two; that the whole point is that most people DON'T suck
their thumbs awake or asleep!" Ivanna rolled her large eyes
and shook her head.
"Okay, I think I got it." Cherry looked at her own glowing
summoned weapons. "Basically if we report back to the Captain
now we loose all these Tarot skill buffs to our magic weapon
usage and magic enhanced abilities. If we stay we can keep
what we got but we need to get more experience so we can
forge and use better more powerful gemstones so we can head
further inwards to the better good stuff. The one downside I
see to staying is that the more time and effort we invest in
our visit to Tarot the harder it will be to lose all of that
in leaving the city ruins at a later date. So the question we
face is; do we stay and in staying agree that we are staying
for a significantly greater time or do we head out while the
loss will be as lesser as it will ever get?"
"Are we voting on this?" Alotta said, popping her thumb out
of her mouth.
"Yes we are. I think this is a rather big decision and
everyone should have a say on it. Because if we stay it will
probably mean the gains in skills will keep encouraging us
not to turn back." Cherry adopted her favorite stance of
hands grasping her own backside with legs wide and leaning
forward with breasts jutting and face taught with
seriousness. A look she usually used just before breaking
into a smile and laugh but this time she remained stern as
she eyed the rest of the party.
"Then I vote that Alotta stops sucking her thumb," B. J. gave
a grim single nod as she spoke.
"And I second that vote as well," Ivanna also nodded.
Cherry sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, "and I
wonder why my head hurts."
"You're not drinking enough wine," B. J. exclaimed yanking a
wine bottle out of the snug mouth of the small gem pouch
hanging in front of her shaved mound tossing back her head
and taking a large pull.
"Well I vote that's nobody's business what I suck on!" Alotta
petulantly growled.
"Listen, seriously guys. Do we go down the creepy dark stairs
beyond that unexplored door with all the screaming carved
faces or do we head back to the Captain's camp and see just
how much he screwed us out of our pay?" Cherry raised her
eyes if not her head and looked over her pinched forefinger
and thumb; before her Ivanna was trying to wrestle the wine
jug out of B. J.'s hand while screaming at her not to waste
it while B. J. altered between ignoring her as she dangled
off her biceps and swigging away to angrily barking at her to
mind her own business. All while Alotta sulked and sucked on
her thumb while trying to make the loudest suck noises she
could.
"HEY! KNOCK IT OFF!" Screamed Cherry her arms waving at her
sides where they ended in little white balls of clenched
fists. "There! That's better. More like it. Glad I have your
attention. Now, is it through the door called, 'the bloody
gullet,' where the knights went or through the door we opened
called, 'the fallen star'? What? What are you staring at?
Something bad, right? There's something bad directly behind
me that just came out that screaming head bloody fucking
gullet door, right?"
Cherry nervously slowly turned her head and upper body to see
over her shoulder a giant white worm methodically pulling its
huge bulk through the 'bloody gullet' doorway.
All three girls shrieked and began running around in circles
as the enormous worm extracted its self from the narrow
passage into the courtyard.
Cherry finally managed to calm everyone down and get them
into a semi-circle battle line. "Points here we come!" The
red head shouted as they all leaped at the worm at once.
The blows did little damage to the white worms thick semi
glowing gelatinous plated skin. The semi-transparent creature
shrugged them off sending them soaring through the air. Only
B. J. Seemed to be holding her own against the monster. Her
shield absorbing its blows even as the concussions drove the
balls of her feet backwards in small trenches.
When it found it could not lash Knightly away like it did the
others it turned its spiked maw at her and whooshed out a
white thick cloud of breath. B. J. Came stiff legged out of
the cloud as rapidly as she could with teeth chattering.
"Th-th-that's COLD! You could use my nips to cut glass about
now!" The tall blonde chattered as she tried to hurry out of
the clouds wake as fast as her frost stiffened joints would
allow her.
She never would have made it for the white worm was whipping
its self straight toward her when a fast succession of magic
arrows slapped into one of its large yellow glowing eyes.
Cherry grabbed B. J. and dragged her out of harms way under
the cover fire of Ivanna's summoned bow while Alotta cast
heal spells on the frosted icicle blonde.
The party fell back to the far wall as the worm lashed about
in silent agony and rage over its wounded eye.
"I vote we let our most powerful member, Alotta, take care of
that thing!" B. J. stammered; her blue skin returning to a
more healthy hue under Alotta's heal spells.
"I already hit it with a dozen fireball spells. It just made
the things jelly skin a bit crispy," Alotta blurted out as
they all continued to back up.
"Who was talking this weak ass Tarot magic? Use your Glamour
Body Link magic! That' our most powerful stat right now," B.
J. grinned through chattering teeth. "Go on Alotta fuck that
thing to death!"
"WHA?! Are you crazy?! Listen I may have a size queen thing
going on but even I have my limits! That thing is bigger
around than my entire body is long!" Alotta howled.
"She was just kidding," Cherry reassured the alarmed young
girl. "I hope."
A shivering B. J. gave a wide white tooth grin to the party
but then stopped and turned her head as the others did at the
sound of rocks grinding and tumbling.
Immediately behind the group one of the large stone faces set
in the back lower wall had detached and the shattered stone
pile at its base were slowly rising up to reform its body.
"Stone golem! We must have got too close and accidently
triggered its release sigil!" Ivanna shouted over the roar of
the reverse rock-slide.
Heads snapped back around to the white worm which had stopped
its pained thrashing and was now moving rapidly toward them
and then back again at the forming giant of stone.
"Okay! I have an idea! You three take out the stone golem and
I will deal with our frosty friend!" Ivanna shouted as she
whipped the pole and lantern off her shoulder breaking the
shoulder strap of her backpack as she did so and raced
forward toward the white worm with the ifreet lantern raised
before her.
"You heard the lady!" Cherry yelled over the ear deafening
roar the stone golem now made as it neared its completion.
"Alotta you have had some magical training so do these things
have any weak points?"
The whore mage nodded, her thick lips taught, "follow my
lead!" And she rushed straight at the towering hulk of stone.
"One tap for light, two taps for cooking, and-" Ivanna
stopped running right in front of the white worm and began to
swing the lantern on the end of its pole while shouting,
"WAKE-UP! WAKE-UP! WAKE-UP!" The lantern began to hiss and
glow and shudder and pop and sizzle and soon it was yanking
the pole this way and that before it suddenly burst forth in
a powerful jet of flame.
The flame geyser hit the ice worm full in the head causing it
to corkscrew back upon its own body. But it did not stop
there; the flame jet continued to build until it was a sphere
of flame half the size of the courtyard. Inside the molten
air one could just make out the shimmering shape of an
enormous fire djinn.
At the edge of the inferno threatening to suck all into it's
ever widening expanse; Ivanna dug her fingers into the pole
and began to sing a lullaby. Her hair rose up around her
reddened face, her breath was being sucked out of her lungs
as she sang, the backpack began to smoke and the pole seemed
impossibly stretched to the width of a hair into the heart of
the huge ball of flame.
For a brief second it seemed as if the pole would snap and
Ivanna would melt but then it all calmed down and the pole
was normal size again and the lantern was back on its end
jangling madly as the flame was being rapidly sucked back
into it.
"...and three, a lullaby to put it back to sleep again if it
should awake." Ivanna sighed quietly before falling face
first in exhaustion upon the charred stone.
The weakness of the stone golem was the glowing heart stone
that dropped out of the center of its forehead and down into
its chest once it was completed. This chest was a spinning
whirlwind of stones and shards as deadly as any hoplite
shield and spear wall.
However, the bracelets they wore confused the stone giant.
Not only did the bracelets let the wearer read and speak the
ancient tongues of Tarot but it let them command the
protective guardians such as this golem. The taint and
perhaps the presence of the ice worm had triggered its
awakening but it is hard for even the taint to corrupt stone
even after a four hundred year soak.
The stone giant gave a few confused swats at the party before
Alotta managed to ring its hallow carved head with a swarm of
bats and then blast enough of the swirling rocks of its chest
into molten strands with fireball spells for Ivanna to riddle
the heart stone with arrows.
A thrown dagger from Cherry who was breathless from
distracting it when the bats were all destroyed; was the last
straw and the heart stone cracked and crumbled turning the
stone golem into a sudden avalanche of exploding boulders and
a shower of razor sharp shards; sending the party fleeing for
their young lives.
"Tarot is not a ruin it is a chrysalis. And what shall emerge
when it emerges shall be more than the world has ever known."
-Balintine-
A charcoal dusted frizzy haired Cherry looked feebly around
her from her half hunched over knees together bent back
position. All the other members of the party were singed and
smudged in face and body and gasping for breath on their
knees or backs. The courtyard was a mix of strewn blackened
rocks and roasted jelly sizzling pools.
"Ah. Ohhhh-kay. Where were we? All those in favor of leaving
Tarot say aye." Cherry watched as limp wrist hands weakly
went up all around and bruised lips all mumbled 'aye'. She
nodded and raised her own hand and then collapsed on her
face; muttering into the gray ashen lichen, "aye."
[
top
]
Script created with Final Draft by Final Draft, Inc.