One horseman departs, others arrive; the town of Shet and the tower guardians; the maze of Hungry Ghosts; visiting the Oracle
1. Strange Visitors
Gansaiyah nodded in his saddle as he rode back to Cassandra, followed by Mother (now Widow) Timble and her brood on their hastily loaded cart. He was a true man of the Weeping Waste, and so could ride without resting for days, lulled into sleep by the swaying of his mount, but ready to snap into action should something disturb him or his horse. He kept pace with Widow Timble's horse cart both to reassure the woman and her children after the loss of their father, but also because pushing his horse at night would risk the horse stepping into a molehole, breaking its leg, and sending him for a tumble.
Lord Soo had ordered him to ride back to Cassandra and get armor for himself and anyone who needed it. Considering what had become of Farmer Timble, and the damage it had done to Gansaiyah and his wooden armor, they would need every advantage they could get before braving the tower of Lord Soo's dream.
---
Back at Timble's farm, Soo looked over the decapitated man-spider corpse. He noticed the Sigil of Chaos burned into the nape of its neck and smiled. All the signs were in his favour.
"Dispose of that" he ordered the seaman Billy Bones, then turned on his heel back to the farmhouse.
Bones quickly yet fruitlessly looted the corpse, started a bonfire, then consigned it to the flames. "Not even a half bronze, och" he lamented before trudging off to his bed. Despite Chaos creeping into the world, Billy Bones knew where his loyalties lay - with coin and coin alone. The sailor crawled into the dead farmer's bed and drifted off to sleep.
---
"Ho! The Farmhouse!"
A voice called out, waking Bones. Morning light streamed in through the farmhouse shutters.
"I say ho! The Farmhouse!" the voice repeated.
Bones drew his sword and walked out to see a train of a dozen horsemen, with a foppish Chaos priest and three hard-looking sellswords at its head. One mercenary was a handsome warrior in plate, the next an easterner thief by the look of her, and the last a bowman from Chalal by his gear. The three looked as if either of them could take the 12 mounted soldiers that followed them without a sweat.
"Pan Tangians" Bones cursed inwardly. They were the most vicious and miserly men of the Young Kingdoms. How they had ever taken Melnibone, he'd never know.
"Greetings" intoned the priest. "We would water our horses. We will pay you two coins."
"Two coins a head" Bones shot back.
The high priest exchanged a glance with his sellswords, then turned again to Bones.
"Two coins or we take your head and drink our fill." he offered.
"That'll do," replied Bones.
Two coins clinked in the dirt at the sailor's feet. Bones scooped them up and went back to the kitchen. He sat listening as the horsemen watered their mounts, filled their skins, and headed off west towards Shet. There was little conversation among them Bones heard, attesting to the seriousness of their mission.
The men left, and Bones started rummaging the kitchen for breakfast.
The morning passed without further incident, and just before noon the barbarian Gansaiyah returned, a bundle of armor lashed behind his saddle.
"You've made good time," offered Lord Soo, the closest he could come to a compliment. "Rest for one tick of the sundial, then we ride for the tower."
"Rest? A true horseman needs no rest." the barbarian replied, and started unpacking the armor from where it was strapped behind his saddle.
2. The Tower Guardians
Soo's entourage needed no guide to Shet, for from Timble's farmhouse they could see the pillars of smoke that climbed skyward from the once peaceful cowtown. Indeed, they passed several of the Argrimiliar longhorn cattle on the way there, usually proud beasts now skittishly breaking away into a stampede as the humans passed.
Overlooking Shet from the west, all could see it was the town from Soo's dreams. The road directly ahead ran on through the ruined town all the way to the City of the Yellow Coast. To the north over hills lay the ocean, with more prairie stretching endlessly to the south. The first thing that drew their eyes was a line of crucified bodies, some with bestial faces or warped bodies, barring the south end of the main street. At either side of the street were high fronted buildings of the local style, but an inn for travelers and a store on the west side, and some offices and a dormitory for herders on the east were the only structures intact. All else was a smoldering ruin. Rivulets of lava crept across the main street, burbling out of stinking holes amid the debris. At the north end of the road was the tower, a rainbow spire thrusting skyward from the cobbled ruins of the town hall, of which only a slanted belltower remained.
"Straight to the tower," ordered Soo, and led his human followers grimly down the hill.
The group stopped their horses at the base of the hill, tied them to a fence behind the buildings, and let them graze. As the party approached the silvery door at the base of the tower, an armored warrior stepped out from the ruins of the town hall that clung to the cylinder's side.
"Halt. None shall pass!" the figure cautioned.
"Who are you to stop us?" Soo retorted.
"I would save your lives, and your very souls!" the figure replied.
The warrior raised its visor to show a face which had melted like candles in a flame, one eye down on the right cheek, the other higher on the left, nose jutting down over a droopy, leering mouth.
Bones recognized the formerly handsome mercenary who had ridden with the Pan Tangian horsemen. "E was with that Pan Tangian priest" the sailor whispered to his employer.
"Where is your master?" asked Lord Soo.
"He is lost. Turn away, lest you be lost as well"
"Enough of this!" snapped the barbarian. Gansaiyah felt it was time for bloodletting and readied his bow. But as Gansaiyah stepped forward, another bow twanged from above and an arrow buried itself in his arm. He noticed a figure atop the ruined belltower, a human form topped by the foul, compound eyes on the head of a fly.
"Charge him!" bellowed Gansaiyah to his comrades, then loosed an arrow that also hit its mark. Swiftly he then drew his sword and moved into the lee of the tower to break line of sight from the fly archer.
Bones was the first to react, sprinting past Gansaiyah and diving into the door of the rainbow tower, closely followed by the Melnibonean leader. This left the barbarian and the shopwoman Maleia to fight a heavily armored swordsman - not good odds, he lamented. At the same instant there rose the cry like that of a great cat from behind the group, and in his peripheral vision Gansaiyah could see the young priest Vinket being tackled from behind. The aggressor was a woman in leather armor with the claws and head of a jungle cat. The young priest and the beast-women rolled in the grass, while blood flew.
Gansaiyah and the mutated warrior traded blows, both drawing blood, then deflecting attacks back and forth. Maleia tried to get into range with her shortsword, but the barbarian maneuvered himself between her and the tower guardian, knowing she could be killed with one lucky blow. Yet, the Pan Tang mercenary was slightly better with his blade, and with a final thrust he ran Gansaiyah through, then raised his sword to deliver the coup de grace.
"Please, have mercy!" cried Maleiya, dropping to her knees between the disfigured warrior and the fallen Gansaiyah. "If you kill him, you are no better than the beasts of Chaos!"
The warrior paused, his misshapen eyes glinting with sadness. He sheathed his sword, and pointed to the door at the base of the rainbow tower.
"Take your friend in there, quick, if you want to save him!"
"Thank you!" huffed Maleia, dragging the lifeless barbarian to the portal.
"You may have more cause to curse me, I think."
3. The Party
Billy Bones blinked in wonder. Where one instant he had been running in the dusty and smoke filled air of the cowtown Shet, the next he was in a cool and raucous otherworld. Lights danced in shield-size circles across the floor, up the walls, and over his own body. Coloured beams shot through the air around him, and music that sounded like unearthly battledrums pounded into his ears and pulsated through his body.
"What fresh hell is this?" he thought.
Then he noticed the revelers, all drinking and carousing, all dyed alternating hues by the weird lights of the place. Some were bestial, some angelic, others mere human. Many sported the same sigil of Chaos on their bodies as Farmer Tinble, but some were clean. He spied a few of the Pan Tangian horsemen from the morning, some possible Shettish townsfolk, and others whose origin he could only guess. It was, he realized, some kind of hellish tavern or otherworldly watering hole.
There might be a chance for coin here, he thought, and grinned.
Suddenly, one of the Pan Tang horsemen crept up and thrust his sword between his comrade's ribs. The impaled man laughed and, spitting blood, turned and sliced the throat of his attacker. Both men clapped each other on the back, withdrew their weapons, then turned back to drinking. To Bones' astonishment their wounds shrank and disappeared as he watched.
Before Bones could register what he had seen, his Melnibonean benefactor stumbled into him from behind, and only his sailor's reflexes saved him a tumble.
"Where are the rest of those idiots?" snapped Lord Soo.
"Beats me," replied the sailor.
Looking around, the two men took in the sights. Where to Bones the pulsating lights and sonic waves were a hellscape, to Lord Soo they were a reassuring sign of the might of Chaos, and its cultural influence on his homeland. If anything, they indicated that this new tower was a more ambitious endeavour than the old Hall of Risk. The interior walls of the tower were lined with an alternating series of doors, in between which figures hurried themselves bringing drink and victuals for the revelers in the center. Each door was topped with a different sign - a Maze, a Crystal Ball, a Spinning Wheel, and a Bow.
In the center of the tower was a wishing well of white marble, into which revelers would pitch coins. Yet most impressive of all the alien sights was a wide, silver tree growing from the floor. It rose up to unimaginable heights, and from its varied branches hung cages in which naked demon bodies danced, or else strange forms played ghastly flutes and tambours. Higher up, Bones could dimly make out stairs and some sort of platform amidst the branches.
"It seems we've been invited to a party" quipped Soo.
Before Bones could reply, a familiar voice cried out behind them. Soo and Bones turned to see Maleia, dragging the unconscious barbarian behind her. Soo sighed and began to search through his pouch for healing herbs.
"Give im a minute" offered the sailor Bones.
The barbarian's eyes opened, and he propped himself up on an elbow. Gansaiyah could feel his wounds melting like frost in the desert.
"My... lord? Have you... healed me?" he gasped.
"Of course!" snapped the Melnibonean. "That is another thing you owe me."
"I am in your debt,'' Gansaiyah replied solemnly.
Gansaiyah rose to his feet and thanked Maleia for dragging him into the tower. The shopwoman accepted the thanks, then she and the barbarian gaped at the sights around them.
"Which door, m'lord?" asked Bones.
"As we say in Melnibone," Lord Soo opined, "Always start with a maze."
4. The Maze & The Oracle
The four adventurers stepped through the silvery portal and found themselves in a maze of cobalt stone. At their feet glowed a coin, which Bones snapped up. The coin was large, and emblazoned with the 8-arrow sigil of Chaos. As soon as Bones palmed the coin, muffled footsteps began echoing through the corridors.
"I hunger!" said a voice that made their hair stand on end.
Peering about, they could see more coins placed out at 30 pace intervals in either direction. As they walked down the hall gathering coins, the footsteps grew louder.
"I hunger!"
At the end of the corridor the group came to a bend south, in which sat a phial. Lord Soo looked at it with his sorcerer's eyes and pronounced it an ethereal potion.
"Look! Behind us!" warned Maleia.
From the direction they had come a ghostly figure strode toward them. It was a man in fine clothes of an ancient cut, and through his insubstantial body they could make out the line of the floor and corridor walls behind him.
"Hsung-Nu help us!" muttered Gansaiyah, but he knew in his bones his gods would be of no use here.
Lord Soo laughed.
"This is a game we played on the Dream Couches of Imrryr as children. We called it Hungry Ghost Maze. It trains us in the layout of the city's sea maze, as well as the nature of our astral self."
So saying, Lord Soo quaffed the ethereal liquid in the bottle they had picked up, and strode forth to meet the spectre that followed them.
GM Note
As the reader may have guessed, and as the player of Lord Soo did quickly realize, the maze of coins is based on the old Pacman video game. In no time they knew they had to collect the phials and use them to destroy the increasing number of ghosts following them.
Sad to say, I messed up here. I should have given them the map to the maze, and turned it into a fun chase game that allowed them to strategize against me. Instead, I kept it secret based on a failed Navigate roll.
It was a lesson in knowing when to use rolls and when to ignore them. In my defense, I was tired from watching sonny and work. Lesson learned. The players gamely listened to my descriptions while stifling yawns, and we were all relieved when the session ended at midnight my time.
Lord Soo and his remaining three followers stood back in the center of the tower, once again awash in pandemonic sound and lights, and amidst the revelers.
"Let's go see what fate has in store," said Soo, and walked into the gate of the Crystal Ball. Inside, a palantir sat on a table covered in silk. Across from this, a shrouded figure of indeterminate shape sat.
"What is it you seek?" grated the figure in an inhuman voice.
"How may I restore Melnibone to her glory?"
A strange sound, like the humming of an otherworldly machine, coursed through Soo as he heard the fortuneteller speak.
To restore the Ruby Throne
Find the one it once did own
Chained in the usurper's pits
Lead this white wolf to the gate
Brave the shadows till his fate
Beneath the marsh where laid
A stratocaster and his twin blade
Ware that on that very day
Tis you the final price will pay
--
Gansaiyah, Maleia, and Bones had waited no more than a few minutes for their lord when he stumbled out of the silvery gate of the fortuneteller. The high priest was covered in a sheen of sweat, and his eyes glowed with a mad light.
"What is it, master? What have you learned?" questioned Bones.
"Now," whispered the Melnibonean, "the fun begins!"
RULE NOTES
Here are some of the houserules we are using:
Skill Bases - At chargen, skills are calculated by multiplying 1/10th the class description starting percentage by an appropriate attribute.Warriors have 50% Attack in their first weapon, so instead this is 5 x DEX. If your DEX exceeds 10, this gives +5% per point above.
Initiative - Ranged, readied, and / or highest Attack skill goes first or decides when to attack.
Encumbrance - Can carry up to STR in ENC with no penalty, over up to x2 STR is half move and no acrobatics, over x3 STR is impossible. Inspired by Myrthas' fantastic ruleset.
Life Purpose - Each PC has a life purpose, and when they advance this, they get a point that can be spent on buying a skill level or increasing an attribute. Lord Soo's purpose is to restore Melnibone, which has been sacked by Pan Tangians in our gameworld.