How It Ought to Work

Any prospective blogger really should be aware of the basic requirements of their craft, at least if they care whether anyone reads their stuff. The most basic requirement, it seems to me, is regularity. I think most people still consume blogs in a fairly low-tech way (that's actually sort of a term of art in the tech sector, at least for me, and is not necessarily derogatory: low-tech is often the simplest and best solution, and the admonition to "stay low-tech on this design" warns us not to make things more complex, fussy or expensive than they need to be). By low-tech I mean the practice of periodically returning to the bookmarked blog and seeing if there's anything you haven't seen. A few hardy souls may consume your blog via more high-tech tool such as an RSS reader or other aggregator that scans a variety of data sources, pulls them together and lets you know when any specific data source (a blog, say) has new stuff.

But regardless, regularity is still a requirement. As indeed it is in any form of writing. Speaking of other forms of writing, perhaps I can use that as a bit of an excuse. In a by-now-typical fit of overconfidence, a couple of my colleagues and I have once again signed up for vastly too much technical writing in too short a period. We have just finished a six-week period of revising one of our technical books to keep up with new software, and are now engaged in a rewriting the training curriculum for said software from the ground up. I've also personally signed up to write two technical white papers (yes, on the same software release), as well as put together two talks for the annual developer conference. It's nice to be invited to do all of these things, but there's definitely some eyes >> stomach going on there.

So that, for what it may be worth, is my excuse, and it's taken me so long to write that I'm going to have to postpone the actual intended content of this post till some unspecified future time.

OK, kidding! Let's move on. I left Thorgun on the castle steps, peering down into the dark.

One thing we learned about half-orcs is that they have darkvision. Sixty feet of crisp black and white visibility even in complete darkness. Mostly this has been useful since it eliminates some cumbersome game mechanics; when E wants to do something in the dark I don't face the choice between letting little issues like lighting slide, or pedantically insisting he needs to remember to bring a lantern. No fussing with lanterns, no oil flasks, none of that. (Some of you may recall games in which oil flasks were a primary weapon, deemed to be as flammable as naphtha and as safe to carry as beef jerky).

Below the stair, and the shattered ruins of its door (recalling that marvelous chapter in Narnia 2, Prince Caspian, where the Pevensy kids are wandering in the ruins and find a broken door gaping on darkness, and slowly begin to realize they're in the ruins of the castle they ruled from, Cair Paravel, itself one of the greatest names in fantasy lit but I digress) was a small warren of rooms and passage (see the earlier map). Most notable were the scattered shells of large eggs. Thorgun recognized them right away as grick eggs, and proceeded cautiously. The first room to the left was filled with these shells. From there, three arches opened onto a huge space further west, which for now he decided to leave alone. Instead he crossed the main passage and found a second passage twisting east, then north. Here the obligatory slithering sounds commenced, and he had soon met and defeated the day's first grick. If I recall right, a second much larger one then appeared from deeper in, driving him back out into the daylight.

Once more, at Bladesbat Cave, Thorgun caused a bit of a stir. Not only had he brought back the usual grick, but also tales of hidden ruins. As we know from some of his earlier outings, not everyone in the cave bore him the best will, and it seems likely that plans were laid to raid the caves and tunnels for the treasure that presumably lay there. (It might even be that Thorgun himself sparked those ideas by talking a bit too freely about the loot he had discovered, which in the end was a handful of coins dropped by grick victims of old).

Strength in Numbers

All of this occurred, believe it or not, over the course of about two days in early April 2007, owing to E's discovery of his uncle K's gaming books. Uncle K was busy with work-related matters but expressed considerable eagerness to join E in the game, and at this juncture he did so. Good thing too, as opposing forces were beginning to scheme against our crew. Hearing the rumblings in the camp, they made hurried plans to return to the castle and delve deeper. Not long on their way, they heard shouts and the clatter of armor behind them, and picked up their pace.

They reached the castle at speed. A look back over the dank forest, and a sharp ear, told them a stout band of malcontents was not far behind them. Standing and fighting was a poor option, as was running away. Instead, they decided to plunge straight into the dungeon, hoping their enemies would lack the courage to do so, or in any case the resourcefulness to make a success of their descent.

From the main passage they headed west, through the eggshell-scattered room and through the three arches into the wide hall beyond. This hall had once been paved with huge stones, but many of these had been lifted and thrust aside, apparently from below. Underneath, the sandy soil was pocked with dark, inward-twisting holes. "Burrows" was the word that came to mind, but they had no time to think too hard on the matter, as the gang of Bladesbat thugs was now making their way cautiously down the outer stair.

It turned out that crouching in the dark (OK, granted that all parties involved have darkvision) was the best approach. Darkvision or not, the marauding band was most uneasy in the dungeon. They stood firm during what sounded like one grick encounter, but shortly afterward, Something Emerged to drive them moaning from the underground. There was a brief sound of retreating feet, then silence.

Thorgun and uncle decided it would best to get out of the plowed-up hall. The burrows looked threatening, and they had begun to notice that the air was pungent with a sharp, sweet reek (formic acid, as it happened). They got out of there and went back to the main hall, where they found a dead grick, presumably left by the fleeing thugs.

They made further explorations. The main hall twisted left and ended in a locked door. My memory of the room was imperfect, but E has reminded me that, once they broke the door down, they found a number of sealed boxes, with high-grade weapons carefully packaged in oilcloth or the like: good steel swords and shield. They availed themselves of some upgrades, though Thorgun decided that the swords were no improvement on his huge greataxe. Further east, they ventured into the passage that seemed to be as far as anyone had yet penetrated. From ahead came a faint sound of running water. That was what probably masked the sound of the approach of a truly immense grick, all barbed tentacled and menace, doubtless getting very tired of having to chase off one visitor after another.

These visitors, though, did not chase. They fought. Uncle K, though level 1 to Thorgun's 2 or 3, proved to hit nearly as hard as he did, and the beast went down in a flurry. Alone, one imagines Thorgun would have been hard pressed.

And so onward, down some stairs and into a large round chamber with six inches of water on the flow, flowing slowly eastward. They soon discovered that a natural stream flowed through, from some small caves to the west, over the floor, and away eastward, to tip over a ten-foot drop in the eastern passage and spill out a grate in the hillside. Clearly a sewer, built in such a way that anyone wrestling the grate out of the hill would have faced a wet, ten-foot climb to get into the castle's underbelly.

And finally, at the back of the room, a barely traversable crack into darkness. Actually, traversing it didn't come up much at first, because it promptly disgorged its inhabitant, an enraged carrion crawler.

Now, I have deep affection and nostalgia for carrion crawlers. They were somehow emblematic to me of the first Monster Manual. Nothing ever quite said ADVANCED D&D (as opposed to the rudimentary form we'd presumably been playing) as a carrion crawler. That said, I had forgotten how they actually worked ...

How they work is by secreting a paralyzing goo that knocks you out of commission for many tens of minutes -- in effect, for an entire combat. And that was just what happened to Thorgun. In all truth I had been fudging the dice not infrequently on e's behalf, and this time I was somehow disinclined to do so. So Thorgun was out of business, and uncle K fought on. E was as put out by this as by earlier near-death experiences, and threw himself in a corner, but soon recovered as his uncle handily defeated the critter (maybe not so handily, it was a bit touch and go, but uncle pulled through).

Once they'd composed themselves they explored the crack. It opened into a series of caves, finally reaching the hillside burrow of the rest of the carrion crawlers. They looked to be too much to handle, so it was back into the underground.

The only unexplored area was the torn-up hall with the ominous holes in the ground. These turned out to be the burrows of giant ants. They tried a bit of burrow exploration, but were quickly put off by the teeming numbers. They retreated and, with a bit of daring, went ahead to where the hall turned a corner.

From there the hall stretched out straight as an arrow for much farther than either of them could see. Beyond the turn was an ancient plaque on the wall, covered in what appeared to be writing. Though neither of them could read it, Thorgun alertly copied it, reasoning that Vishara, the Bladesbat shamaness, might be able to make sense of it. Then, with the ants chittering menacingly at burrow openings, they finally headed for daylight.

Old Vishara seemed perplexed by their intrusion when they found her,and spent a long time squinting at what they'd written. Finally she peered at them and said "Were ya near a park somewheres?" A park? In the swamp? Certainly not. Well, she said, the plaque alluded to a "park highway." She ordered Thorgun to draw a P, then a D (here I was glossing over the fact that barbarians start out illiterate and need to spend skill levels to learn writing). He did so.

"Ah," she said. "I had it wrong. It reads:

HERE BEGINS THE DARK HIGHWAY*

Dark, dark. That's more like it!"

More like what, exactly? Thorgun and uncle K retreated to lick their wounds, watching their backs for any more mischief from the Bladesbat gang.

***********

Still ahead:We visit a game store, and E decides to try his hand at game-mastering.

*A fellow I gamed with a bit in my college days, Mr. John Bedell, once said (or at least is said to have said) that "originality is the art of concealing your sources." As a veteran cobbler of things together, I agree with that sentiment, whoever said it. I'll strike a blow against my own originality, then, by admitting that the phrase Dark Highway has rattled around my head for 20 years, ever since another old gaming friend, Mr. Chuck D., included a Dark Highway in a game he ran. Now, CD may have had it from other sources, but I can trace the chain of non-originality no farther. Credit where credit is due. Or wait, this would be non-credit where credit isn't due ... well, see the trouble the whole idea of attribution entails?

Let's just say, "I've always like the sound of The Dark Highway."