After the Win Game Thread

(The DM wakes up from a torpor)

Above: The giant grimaces at Argus (who somehow for convenience's sake ended up on his hand alongside Billy), and says "Not sure what'cher babblin about there, slimy, but Ok and howdy nonetheless." Then adjusting his attention to Billy, he says "Dunno. This is the frontier. Prolly not many people around here at all."

As if to counterpoint that, three more giants run up.
"Holy crap! What've you got there? Gnomes?"
"Lookit dem tiny little people!"
"Where the hell did the deer go? You can't let the deer get away!"


Borat introduces his friends. "Hey. Argus, Billy, this is my hunting party. This is Khaled, Snoopy, and Chris."

Khaled: "They don't look like gnomes. Too skinny."
Snoopy: "Hey! Izzat onnadem chainsaw thingies?"
Chris: "Oh, fuck this. I'm going to chase the deer. You morons finish up when you're done, OK?"

Chris runs off in the direction of the deer.


***


Below:
The four of you venture along the hallway, and everything seems more or less OK -- until you reach a very strange thing. It's a circular portal about two feet across set into the wall right at floor level. It appears to be made of polished glass, and opposite it is a strange circle of reflective material almost exactly the same size.

None of you immediately recognize it, but Zebedev has a bad feeling about the whole setup.

 

"Well Borat, do not let us keep you from your deer." "We have some friends below, but we can get back to them in a few minutes after you get your prize."

"Hello Khaled, Snoopy, and Chris. And hello again Borat."

 

Oleandre knew not what the "device" in front of them did; he really had no idea what anyone could use such a portal for. But he was still thinking, and the very first thing that came to his mind was that it wasn't a glass portal, because it was only that large for them. For the ones who put it here, it was miniscule, and there wasn't anything he knew of that would be as small as a mere part of his hand and look like that.

But if he ignored the glass, which could very well be there to make it less detectable by visors some mechanics liked creating, then there were exactly three things he knew of that resembled this. The first one being a dart-thrower hidden in the wall, firing a poisoned dart the moment someone was unlucky enough to step on a rigged plate. The second one being a camouflaged wire, used to hurt the feet of guards in pursuit; a pretty risky tool, but he knew how to use it. The third possibility was that some sort of magic wand or device was hidden in the wall and waiting for someone to step on a rigged plate, not unlike the first option, but lacking in subtlety of poisons what it gained in sheer power stored in those versatile tools by the skilled wand-makers.

Deciding not to take his chances with the weird device, Oleandre turned to his companions and told them about his finding.

"It's a damn trap. For as long as we don't trigger it or do it from distance, we should be safe. But if you don't have to, don't walk in front of this shit. We don't know what triggers it and there's no need to get hurt because we weren't frecking careful. I can try to trigger it so that whatever is in that crap will shoot when we're not in its line of fire, but you'll have to back off."

As if to emphasize his words, Oleandre reached with one of his hands into his clothes, where his storage bag was kept hidden from their view.

 

Billy actually looks a bit insulted to be called gnome. He pats his close cropped hair with one hand while glaring at Khaled. "Does dis look like a gnome hat to you? 'Cause it's not like anyone I've seen before."

Then he turns to Snoopy and hefts the chainsword over his head. "De salesdemon dat sold dis to me called it a chainsword. Dunno if dat's de same ding as a chainsaw, 'cause I've never seen one meself. And speaking of dings I've never seen..." Billy hauls the piece of paper over and holds it up, pulling his makeshift parachute cord out of it first. "Dis paper's got writing on it I can't read. I don't suppose one of you can?"

 

"I think our good friend is right about this device; I had a bad feeling about it myself. Probably a good idea to let the expert handle the potentially deadly device," Zebedev says with a nervous chuckle.

 

Quiet for now, Ililani stands aside and lets Olaf look at it. She knows she's not very good with traps, or even devices of any kind: the most technical thing she understands is how to tune her viola.

She does, however, hum quietly to herself as she stands aside, a jaunty, catchy tune that calls to mind adventure on the high seas. She watches the rest of the group, trying to figure them each out.

 

Following Argus' lead, the giants all turn and start loping after Chris. Snoopy looks fascinating by the chainsword and picks Billy up and holds him up in front of one giant eyeball, getting a better look at it. When Billy shows him the paper, he slows down a bit.

"Hey! Hey guys! Forget de demn deer -- Chinny the Chainsaw here has proof!"

It's not entirely clear what he's talking about, but the other giants all immediately forget about the deer and start crowding around, looking at the paper.

"See? SEE!?!?" shouts Khaled. "I told you the Watchers were real!!!"




Meanwhile, down below...

Olaf turns his intellectual might on the strange circle. It's obviously a lens...but there doesn't appear to be any light coming out of it. Olaf knows that some species of Goblin react to light that humans and other creatures can't see, so it may be that this is shining that kind of light. And that reflective thing on the other side...is probably bouncing the light back into the same hole it's coming from. It doesn't seem like the light is capable of hurting anyone, but it may well be that blocking it's shine would trigger...something...

In other words, Oleandre's instincts seem correct.

Zebedev is particularly nervous about Oleandre's motion toward deliberately setting it off.

Ililiani is completely lost, but she does hear the sound of a tune -- someone whistling -- behind the door (which is still a good 50 feet away). It's faint, but she knows music when she hears it. It seems to cause her to recollect something about a duck in a puddle.

 

"Hey!" "We want to be friends. We get a bit nervous when crowded. Just tell us you are not hostile and we will relax. But be warned that we are not weak just because we are small."

"Would you mind telling us what proof it is that Chinny has?"

 

"Yeah, I'll second dat," Billy says. "Some of de odder people we came with are down the tree where I found dis."

He drops his voice quiet enough that the giants may not be able to hear him. "In fact, Mr. Black Tentacles, can you do your weird ding where you're all over de place, and maybe tell dem about dis?"

 

Silently, I look at Chinny and nod.

I go tell the others that the giants think we have some sort of proof of the existence of what they called "Watchers" and that as far as I can tell, it is a crude drawing of one of the giants, yet it is on a giant piece of paper. I also spend a moment trying to see what is beyond the trap in the wall before I return to Chinny.

 

Oleandre was unsure of himself. There was always a chance that his expertise was incorrect and that trying to trigger the trap remotely would cause something undesired to happen. Still, it had to be done, because otherwise they wouldn't be able to get to the other side; well, he would, but his companions there weren't the fittest people he saw, so trying to get around it would be risky.

After Olaf finished his expertise of the whole thing, or whatever it was that the short man was doing, and came back to the group, Oleandre signalled them to move back. Once they did, he decided on the easiest way to trigger this - by deliberately targeting the device hidden beneath the glass wall with bombs. That was the only way he had that was guaranteed to do something, because if the launching device behind the wall was destroyed, the contraption would stop being dangerous to them.

Oleandre uses "Projectile Storm"

He backed off slightly and started throwing makeshift bombs in the direction of the glassy piece of wall, one after another. Each of the dozen bombs exploded the moment it hit the wall, doing something to the device hidden beneath it. But what exactly, they would only learn...

 

Khaled says "There's been rumours flying around for years -- people have seen others up in the trees. Weird people -- red skin, strange clothes, just plain alien."

Snoopy nods. "Some people even says dey've been captured by em," he says, picking up the paper. "You can tell dat dis come from dem -- cause it's got words."

Borat nods solemnly.



Meanwhile, down below,

Explosions echo back and forth across the hallway, and almost instantly, the door bursts open, and a pretty rust-colored woman in a long white smock sticks her head into the hallway. "Emla, are you making popcor--" She's cut off as a piercing alarm sounds. "SHIT! We've been infiltrated! One of those primitives is in here somewhere! EVACUATE!!!"

She turns and disappears into the room on the other side of the door, which looks (from what you can see) like either a classroom or a simple science laboratoray, or both. She didn't seem to notice you at all.

 

"Alright guys. Why not take the proof and let us check this place out?" "We are new around here and have not gotten a good look around yet."

"We will see if we can find more proof and any information about these watchers."

 

"Good job, Oleandre, my boy! Now, who do you all suppose that woman was?"

 

Dat's not a bad idea. Dat tree we was at before had a ladder in it. De folks we came with went down it, maybe we should have a look down it..." Billy looks around in dismay. "Which onna these trees was it again?"

 

Oleandre felt bemused, very bemused.
On one hand, his actions did probably make it possible for the group to safely cross the hallway, and Zebedev seemed to approve of what he'd done.
On the other hand, the guy was a politician so he knew how to sugar-coat his words, and the loud sound that went off wasn't something that set him at ease.
Still, they were all alive, so even if they weren't optimal, the results of his actions weren't bad per se.

He looked at the doors where the giant figure appeared briefly, and then turned to face Zebedev and the rest of the group.

"I... Thanks, senator. Sadly, I know not the identity of the thrice darned giant, but since the frecking trap isn't dangerous to us anymore, we can just go and check."

 

The giants all nod in agreement with Argus and Billy, and start searching the trees for Billy's 'door'. It doesn't take them long to find it, or to bust out an axe and go about embiggening it for their own use.


Meanwhile...the group down below is still basically just standing around.

 

(I am somewhat unsure what to do now. But I am prepared to go down and warn everyone the primitive giants are on the way down.)

Once I think I can get down without being crushed or cut in half or something by those crazy giants, I head down. If I can get far enough away from the giants to tell them, I tell the others below that "The stupid giants are coming down. Best stay out of the way. This seems to be their fight so far. Let's see what they do before we get involved."