An Ocean of Sorrows

Coming from a mountain community, I have never been particularly fond of large bodies of water. Rivers and lakes are OK, but oceans and boats tend to unnerve me, especially when I’m actually required to get on a boat. Of course, the fact that my profession requires me to wear large quantities of metal also makes me dislike the ocean. And so it was, because fate is a git, I woke upon a boat called the "Seafarer", an abandoned coastal trader. As I shook the cobwebs from my brain, I saw Stumpy get up and chase a seagull across the deck. "Hungry again" I thought to myself. "Hang on a minute," came the reply, "why is the sun shining in the darklands?" I got up, and my worst fears were confirmed. A boat. On the ocean. And not an island in sight. Bugger.

As boats went, the "Seafarer" had one major deficit. No crew. A quick look round revealed that not only was there no crew, but no lifeboats either. There were a few signs of a struggle, but none of those "we were attacked by great hairy sea creatures with slavering jaws" marks that most adventurers come to know only too well. Of course, there’s no reason that the attackers should be hairy, or slavering, but they usually are…..

"They must not fail....." murmured Xav’ shaking his head.

"Huh?"

"I have a memory of T’Sardan whispering ‘They must not fail.’"

"His briefings are getting briefer. Let’s take a look around."

I wandered off towards the rear deck house, followed by Xav’. We quickly found the chart room and had a look round. The charts seemed to indicate that that the boat had visited three harbours on the coast before striking out into the mid ocean, towards a group of four isles, ill defined on the large map. A second, much cruder, map described the four islands as "Cabara", "Laboo", "Naboo" and "Barumba". None of the other names on the map meant anything to me, and I realised that, as usual, we were a long way from home. Further round the deck house, we came across a temporarily locked door. This proved to be the captain’s cabin. The end window gaped open, and a pile of ash lay on the table. From the remains, we realised that this was probably the log book, but the captain had done a good job in toasting it. However, under the bed, we found a torn scrap of paper, with the suggestion of a "to do" list.

"And the High Brother..." mused Xav'. "I wonder what the High Brother did or said?"

Pocketing the list for later consideration, we moved on round the boat and found the rooms of a priest (of L’denon if the prayer book was anything to go by) and the galley and pantry. Thinking that a quick snack would not go amiss, Xav’ and I tucked into a quick sandwich. Or two.

When we emerged from the deckhouse, all hell had broken loose. We came out into the bright sunshine just in time to see Lady Morgain sprinting away from a door at the front of the boat. A blue glow enshrouded her, and smoke was rising from her side. Following her was a slightly crazed Linstram who looked round suspiciously and then went back inside. Gisli and Stumpy were variously rubbing ointment into their foreheads or sniffing the fumes of lighted candles. They later told me that they had been using some magic that enabled them to see past events. This revealed that the crew had been overcome by some mass paranoia and had either killed each other or simply jumped over the side. What was it that the bit of parchment had said? "Pry not into..." started to look like a seriously good bit of advice.

"It’s you," stated a voice from behind me. "You’re the traitor. You’re all out to get me...." I turned to see Xav’ looking wild eyed. The paranoia was obviously contagious. Spotting that Gisli was preparing a "remove curse" attempt, I manoeuvred past Xav’ to let her get the best shot at him. As I did so, I tried to reassure my friend, and then distract him by a little sleight of hand. Unfortunately, as I made the coin vanish, Xav’ heard something and twisted round. Seeing Gisli a couple of steps behind him, he took the only course of action available to him..... and hurled himself over the edge. My diving catch just caught a foot, and I was promptly treated to a view of the other foot up close and personal. As I reeled back, bleeding from a cut on my face, a splash could be heard over the side.

Meanwhile, Stumpy, thanks to a potion of underwater breathing, had rescued Dakvar who had gone completely barking and jumped over the side. It had cost the young lady her armour, however. The dwarf had deduced that some force housed in the forward cabins was responsible for the chaos and determined to stop it. Unfortunately, it got him instead, and the dwarf returned from the cabin, frothing rabidly at the mouth. He saw me and attacked.

The problem with trying not to hurt your friends is that it exposes you to risk. As I tried to herd Stumpy over the side of the boat (in the hope that he might decide that Xav’ was an ally and go and rescue him) I slipped on a bit of wet decking and went straight over the side. There was a splash and the water closed over my head. Under the weight of my armour, I sank rapidly, and the light from the surface soon dimmed.

As the light faded, a memory surfaced. The golden figure of T’sardan presenting me with an amulet of L’denon, and saying "If you are ever in dire need, call upon my father and he will help." With my comrades all mad, no hope of help from the surface and sinking rapidly, now would seemed to qualify as "in dire need".

"L’denon aid me and the debt is paid" I called with the last of my breath.

Nothing happened.

As I sank, I wondered what I would say to my god. Somehow, drowning did not seem very heroic. Perhaps I would be sent back as a spirit or a wraith to help members of the true faith. Time would tell.

Suddenly, a lump of stone flashed past me. I grabbed hold and found myself rocketing towards the surface. Looking down, I could make out the shape of something big. Real big. I blinked the water from my eyes as I was suddenly thrust into the sunlight. To my left I could see Xav’ clinging grimly to a tooth, whilst to my right I could see Stumpy "ice-axing" his way up the side of a massive jowl. As I continued to ascend, I suddenly realised that what was rising from the deep was the largest sea creature I had ever seen, and I was hanging on to a tooth! The jaws closed around the "Seafarer" and the light dimmed behind a set of teeth. With a gulp, the boat, the heroes, and half an ocean of sea water were deposited into the creature’s belly.

Fortunately, my night sight is pretty good, and there was sufficient rotting vegetation around to see quite well. I looked around. We were in a graveyard of derelict ships, numbering over thirty in various stages of decrepitude. I was about fifty yards from the "Seafarer", perched on an upturned hull. I could see Xav’ off to one side, and various of the other heroes emerging from the shattered Seafarer. On the other side of the boat I could just make out a pair of dwarfish legs waving pathetically from a porthole. Suddenly motion caught my eye. Across the other side of the "cavern" came a horde of vaguely crystalline crab creatures, pincers clicking menacingly. If they had had faces, they would have looked hungry.

L’denon obviously had a sense of humour. Either that or he and I strongly disagreed on the definition of "aid".

Linstram was starting to look a little grey as he hovered over the boat, summoning the will power to launch yet another fireball at the creatures that still swarmed around the boat. On one side of the boat, a large patch of ice trapped some of the creatures, and the dwarves were methodically dispatching those. On the prow of the boat, the other heroes stood. Xav’ and myself were taking pot shots at the few creatures who managed to evade the elven fire storm. The others were binding wounds they had gained during the heavy fighting that had cleared the boat of the vermin.

As the crystal crabs (or at least the few that remained) finally retreated, Linstram slumped to the deck, looking the worst I had ever seen him. Of course, I had never seen him blast off almost thirty fireballs before.

"Have they gone?" he croaked, and promptly fell asleep.

With the cavern cleared of the creatures - the survivors were in no mood to fight - we took the opportunity to strip the wrecks of anything valuable. The creatures obviously had no use for gold and jewels, but we did. About half way through our scavenger hunt, their was the sound of water flowing and we were all thrown about as a few hundred tons of water arrived in the stomach, along with several rather surprised looking whales. The problem we then had to answer was "what next?" We were pretty sure that we were now deep under water. Deep? Make that "very deep". Even worse was the fact that our boat was a mess. "Sea worthiness" was not an applicable word, unless you wanted to say "this vessel is not sea worthy".

Eventually, we decided to send Lindstram on a little jaunt. He cast spells of flight and under water breathing on himself and headed off up the sea serpent’s gullet. After some effort, he managed to get himself sneezed out of the fish’s gills and began to head for the surface. Almost immediately, he spotted four humanoid fish creatures armed with tridents and nets pursuing him, and redoubled his efforts to reach the far distant surface. Unfortunately, his flight spell gave out first, and the bedraggled mage returned to the belly of the leviathan.

Our next idea was to head outside in force. Assembling as many empty barrels as possible, we tied them into a net and then each held onto the rope. Lindstram cast spells of breathing, and then "blinked" the entire lot outside the leviathan. We started to rise, but painfully slowly. Almost immediately, we spotted the "mermen", but this time they had come in force. Over thirty of the creatures surrounded us and suggested, via hand signals that we might like to land. When we hesitated, they pointed weapons at us and made it very clear that we were in a "behave or face the consequences" situation. We released our life raft and sank gently to the sea floor. The fish escorted us across the sea floor and, after an hour, we came over a rise and saw a giant fish city, larger than most human cities, and much more gaudy. Thousands of various types of "fish men" swam among the towers and minarets, going about their daily business. We were escorted through the city towards the grandest of the buildings - the palace.

The palace was a grand affair, filled with courtesans and guards, all fish of many varieties and colours. We were escorted into the throne room where a rather elderly looking fish sat listening to a pair of fish singers in cages. On either side of him were two female fish, who we later learnt were the king’s sisters.

The king, whose name is unpronounceable by those of us without gills, was obviously an erudite scholar, even if his horizons were a little limited. As it happened, he had studied the culture of the "surface dwellers" and spoke our language. With a rather broad accent. He suggested that trespass by surface dwellers into the watery realms was punishable by death. We allowed as to how we hadn’t actually meant to trespass on his realm and perhaps if we said we were sorry, we could leave. The king hummed and harred, discussed the matter with his sisters. and then allowed us three choices. We could die as the law demanded (Yeah. Right.), we could sing as the king’s younger sister had conceived a desire to hear the song of surface dwellers, or we could try and kill a god. After some discussion, the choice was easy.

"Tell us about this God then....."

The King worshipped D’rakleth, a sea deity I had heard of, and who was a sort of state religion. The king’s biggest problem was that there was an underground religion, worshipping some sort of sea dragon ("The God Of Many Tongues"), that was making inroads into the ranks of the faithful and threatening to destabilise the current monarchy. Normally, this would not be too much of a problem, but the king also had to contend with a law that stated that mermen could not kill other mermen. Surface dwellers, on the other hand, were exempt from this ruling. If we brought the king the head of the "dragon", we would go free. Seemed like a simple deal.

After a quick raid on an armoury, where we acquired some harpoon guns and spears, we were led to the lair of the "dragon". Outside stood a "temple" guard, who we made gestures at intimating that we would like to go in and see the great god of the many tongues. To our surprise, the guard allowed us in, and we found ourselves in an underground, underwater complex.

To cut a long story short, we meandered around the complex, solving puzzles, engaging fish men in pleasant conversation or vicious sword play and falling into devious and subtle traps. Highlights included myself and Stumpy falling into a dangerously well concealed pit trap, lined with razor sharp coral which none of our alleged colleagues even bothered to look for. Only a subtle use of axes and a ladder staff got us out of that one. Xav’ and several others were poisoned during a fight with several tiger fish - the creatures' spines were tipped with a variety of narcotics and hallucinogenics, leaving Xav’ completely incontinent and full of remorse.

Finally, a concealed tunnel was discovered and the riddle solved, and we found ourselves in a very warm cavern. Across the middle ran a stream of molten lava, creating a curtain of boiling water, through which we could make out the body of a giant, sleeping, sea snail. As we prevaricated over the best way of killing the beast and fulfilling our quest it awoke and began grazing on the sea cucumbers that grew up the sides of the cavern. Conversation with the beast suggested that it was barely intelligent, and certainly not dangerous. It was then that something strange happened. The heroes developed a sudden burst of compassion. I was all in favour of offing the stupid animal and getting on with the quest. But some of the others spoke of "saving" the creature and even managed to save the creature after myself and Linstram had succeeded in feeding it a "slug pellet" wrapped up in a sea cucumber.

In the ensuing attack of angst, several rather powerful favours were called in and we eventually determined that the king’s sister was responsible for the spread of the "new" religion and hoped to supplant her brother. Mallon called in a major favour and summoned a war band of fifty ghostly riders who were dispatched to bring the king to us in the cavern. This they did, pointing out that their debt was now paid, and the king was shown the evidence. The repercussions led to us getting out of the king’s sea domain and the king’s sister in hiding. And we didn’t have to sing.

"Sod it. Buggrit. Damn that hurts." Stumpy backed off from the solid metal door, rubbing his bruised shoulder. Despite our best efforts, the door had still not given an inch. After our exploits in the fish kingdom, we had come to the one of the four islands on the map. Our exploration had led us to a deserted and desolate valley, populated by several very large statues, apparently made to honour the memory of a chap called "Pathol". Each of the statues had a door in the base, but they were all defeating us.

Of more interest than the impregnable statues was the rubble filled remains of a very ornate entrance into the side of the mountain. Clearing this led to a tunnel with a pair of impressive double doors. . According to the inscription, the doors could only be opened once the sun hit one of the statues, so we settled down for a rest.

The complex we found ourselves in was a combination of sports club and palace. Pathol, whoever he was, had obviously been very keen on athletics and sports, and, in addition to the usual throne room, barracks, temples and the like, we found various games rooms and a particularly interesting sauna.... Unable to open the first portcullis we had come to, Lindstram had blinked us through it.

"What’s he doing in there?" I asked Gisli, wondering what Dar was up to.

"Hacking his way through those very large mushrooms in the guard room."

"Why?"

"Perhaps he needs the exercise?"

Gisli and I were standing outside the guard room, listening to Dar take apart some particularly intimidating six foot tall mushrooms.

"I’ve found something!" Cried Dar. "It’s a lever."

With a sudden rattle of chains the portcullis behind us started to disappear up into the ceiling. Other sounds echoed round the long deserted complex, and the heroes glanced at each other nervously.

"Bugger didn’t mean to hit that...." cough splutter gasp. The chamber Dar was in suddenly filled with a yellow cloud - the warrior had inadvertently set off something unpleasant.

"Can’t breathe..."

Fortunately, Gisli was up to the challenge, and Dar was soon coughing up a rather unpleasant yellow fluid.

Leaving the invalid, I moved down the corridor, Xav’ and some of the others with me. Suddenly I stopped - something was coming down a side passage. No, make that a lot of somethings! I set my spear to meet the charge and then realised how useless it was going to be as round the corner skidded over a dozen mummified midgets. None of them were over three foot high! I drew my new sword, product of allegedly the finest sword smith on the dark lands, and sighted carefully along the blade.

"With rock I smite thee!"

Sparks enveloped the blade which was suddenly encased in an inch of rock.

"Bloody experimental swords! Elementalize!" and the rock was swallowed back into the blade. Not daring to try again, I readied the blade, as the creatures closed to attack. The fight was a weird one as everybody struggled to adjust their fighting styles to account for the height difference. The creatures shattered when hit hard, but were very difficult to hit at all. Nevertheless, we eventually finished them off.

After exploring the rest of the complex, and fighting off a few more of these strange undead, we were left with three problems. We had found a set of locked double doors, with six disk like indentations in them. We had an opening in a wall, which appeared to go down a long way, and we had lost Linstram. Or was that only two problems? Lady Morgain wandered off to look for Linstram, and the rest of us set about the hole in the wall.

The hole was shaped like a draconic head, with a decent sized tunnel dropping away from the mouth. We decided to send Grob down, and, after we had caught him, tied a rope to his ankles. The half-breed thief soon discovered that the shaft sloped for perhaps fifty feet and then dropped to a floor. The floor had a bit of give in it, but the half-breed was not heavy enough to shift it. Mallon volunteered to go and take a look, so we hauled Grob up and dropped Mallon down.

"I think I can make it move! Yep, its definitely waaauuugh."

With a click, the rope went slack. We pulled it up, and found a nice clean cut where Mallon used to be. Oops.

"I found him!" Announced Lady Morgain, pushing a dishevelled and rather damp Linstram into the room. His trews were on back to front, and he looked distinctly put out. It turned out that the phrase was "pulled out", but that’s later in the story. As we contemplated the shaft, there was a commotion outside.

"Oh hell! Where is it?" screamed a voice suspiciously like Stumpy’s. "In the name of L’denon I banish thee!" he continued. There was a sudden whoosh and then silence. The dwarf, with the sense of preservation that all lemmings come with, had managed to raise a particularly nasty ghost when he rifled a body no one else had spotted. The ghost had defied his attempts to send it back to V’garn and had done Stumpy some serious damage before he had managed to banish it with a gift from a previous hero gathering.

"But at least I got this!" gloated Stumpy, brandishing a gold rune engraved ring. Ironically, the ring turned out to be a ring of heroic appearance, and we were now accompanied by certainly the most handsome seven-fingered dwarf the world has ever seen...

While Stumps bandaged his wounds, we went back to the problem of "Where’s Mallon?"

Suspecting that something was dodgy about this, Linstram cast "flight" on me and himself. We flew down the tunnel and hovered over the floor, which we rapidly determined was designed to pivot when a certain weight was placed on the floor, deposit the contents and then shut again. We settled on the floor and it obligingly deposited us into the room below. We gaped at the contents. It seemed that the idea was that the inhabitants would shovel offerings of gold, gems and so on through the mouth of the dragon. The offerings landed on the trap door which deposited the stuff into this room. They had obviously been at it for a while... the floor was not so much covered in gold as buried in the stuff. And we knew there just had to be a trap. Partly because no one leaves this much loot unguarded, and partly because Mallon was stood unmoving, hands raised in front of his face as if to ward off some terrible evil.

Linstram’s used his arcane arts once more a determined that there was a large concentration of magic under the main pile of gold. As we flew down for a closer look, the large pile of magic suddenly erupted in a shower of gold, and twenty five feet of magic snake tried to attack us. Fortunately, unlike Mallon, we were airborne, and this confused the beast. Fangs snapped at us, streaming poison, as we flew back up to the roof. The glowing eyes of the creature followed us as we considered what to do next. Linstram had an idea and vanished back to the main hall, where he stored a "dispel magic" enchantment. Appearing behind the beast, he released the spell, only to discover that it only removed the enchantment from one segment. The snake was alive, but anchored in place. The mage vanished to cast another dispel. Meanwhile I had unshipped my crossbow, a cunning piece of dwarven design that came with a magazine of twelve quarrels. My first two bolts ricocheted off the creatures armoured head, and only enraged it further. Fortunately I was out of range of the anchored creature. Lindstram appeared and "killed" another segment of the snake. My third bolt neatly hit the creature’s right eye, and it shattered, the glow fading. My aim deserted me for the next couple of shots, and Linstram continued to work his way along the snake, slowly removing the magic. At last, a bolt hit the second eye squarely, and it too shattered. As it did so, the snake slumped unmoving to the ground.

The trapdoor opened and a small hairy comet plummeted into the room. "Gold!" it screamed as it plunged into the largest pile. Grob then proceeded to start stuffing gold into his pockets, and, when that was not enough, started to eat it. The rest of us contented ourselves with retrieving all the magic artefacts from the room and then filling our backpacks with as much gold as we could carry.

Back in the main room, we were left with a problem. Where next? "The real problem," mused Dakvar, "is that we don’t have the disks to fit the lock on the door."

"Disks?" asked Linstram, innocently. "About four inches in diameter with symbols on? I was just trying to retrieve them when Lady Morgain interrupted me."

"Like hell you were." Interjected Morgain. "You were... consorting with those water nymphs! The largest thing in there was your ego if you thought you could take all four at once."

"He was attacking them?" inquired Shunt.

"No! He was... err... you know... consorting with them! Look. I’ll show you."

The tall elf mage led us through the complex and threw open the doors into a large sauna area. Over to one side were a set of massage tables, but centre stage was a huge pool of water through which eddied currents and waves. Almost as if something was already in the pool. At one end of the pool were three large urns.

"The pool has some very friendly water spirits in, " explained Linstram, examining his boots carefully. "The urns have different powders in - blue, pink and purple. If you tip some blue into the water, this wakes the nymphs and they give you a gentle massage. The pink excites them a bit more, and the purple... well, lets say that the purple excites them a lot more. I was just experimenting with this - all in the name of science you understand - when Morgain grabbed me and hauled me out of the pool."

Linstram Interuptus seemed to be becoming a feature of hero gatherings...

In the bottom of the pool was a bag, rotted now, with perhaps thirty disks, with various symbols on. The only problem was how to use them to open the double doors. After a couple of false starts, we surrendered to the inevitable, slung some blue powder into the water and settled down for a relaxing think about the problem. Every so often, someone would leap out of the pool and go and try a proposed solution. I did wonder what might happen to a towel clad hero if the doors slammed open to reveal a horde of undead, but it didn’t happen. Finally we arrived at a solution that worked, and we rather reluctantly dressed for action.

The double doors opened into a large area with a very large, 100 foot on a side, cage in the centre. In the cage was a building built like a blockhouse and a pack of undead big cats. The doors to the blockhouse stood open and we could see that each had slots for more of our favourite disks. As is traditional, we attacked! The defences of the blockhouse were tough, but Stumpy managed to sneak the helix into the blockhouse where there was an obvious place for it and activate the doors, which swung shut just as we were hit by a wave of paranoia.

We retired to the bath, which is where T’sardan later found us.

"... and there it was beneath the statue of the ‘thinker'," finished Xav' as he held aloft the very strange octagonal helmet, each of its golden faces covered in a myriad of unusual runes. "Yes," added Gisli, "it seems that the power of that Helix allowed the opening of the vault in the base of that great statue and this is what lay there." Than turned from looking out of the window at the busy courtyard and joined in, "It seems this is what T'sardan was pleased to see us recover but I for one would like to know what we were risking our lives for!"

As two monks carried away the strange item, the Abbott explained, "Once the ‘helix' as you call it or its true name the ‘Heart of Glory' had been replaced, the way was opened to the ancient secrets of the Pathol Empire. This was their ultimate treasure and allowed them to hold onto their rule for so long. It is the Oracle of True Lore and allows the wearer insight into things that are even hidden to the Gods themselves, or so the legends say. We know that forces are working out of the sight of the Gods and if this item lives up to its legends then we will be able to discover what numerous nefarious groups are up to and, hopefully, be able to avert problems to the balance before they cause disastrous swings."

Deep under the ocean in a lavish chamber that was despite its grandeur still a cell, the female fish creature swam in circles. Her visitor kept silent, knowing that a storm was brewing inside her and anything he said might start it off. Suddenly she stopped swimming and turned to look directly at him. "If it wasn't for those meddling surface dwellers I would still have my power base and be ready to overthrow my foolish brother. Now here I am, a prisoner of the people... what should be my people! Oh they will pay! Those surface dwellers will pay! A watery grave will be their future!" Looking straight at her visitor she prodded him with a blue scaled finger, "You know what to do!"

"Where's Grob?" asked Dar as he cracked open the cask of mead and filled up his tankard. "He's still in that bog outside where he's been for the last six hours," explained Shunt between mouthfuls of venison, "seems all that gold he ate has caused.... a blockage!" "No," Mallon corrects him, "I saw him just now coming out of the apothecary." At that moment Grob entered and took his place at the banqueting table, a look of discomfort still evident.

"It's hard being a hero," moaned the now somewhat dashingly good-looking Stumpy, as he joined the group at the table. "Those visiting nuns been harassing you again," commented Lady Morgaine with a sly smile. "Too right," said Stumpy, "one of them even offered to give up her vow of chastity but she was... well you don't do you... not a nun!" No one was convinced by Stumpy's fumbled explanation and Linstram, Dakvar and Lady Morgaine looking at each other and in unison saying, "Sister Uderlan!" caused Stumpy to go very red. The attentions of the twenty-five stone nun had obviously not gone unnoticed by the others.

"A toast," declared Mallon as he held up his brimming tankard, "to giant sea snails! May they never be persecuted!" The clanking of tankards and goblets soon saw each person proposing a toast from those _to gold filled vaults' to promises of agreed silence about certain pool activities.

The smiling Abbott entered the hall and nudging elbows amongst the heroes brought silence so that the Abbott could be heard. "I just wanted to congratulate you all," said the elderly Abbott, "the Oracle may just be the edge we need against those forces which would seek to..."

The words of the Abbott halted with the terrific rumbling sound and terrible smell that quickly followed. Gisli almost gagged as Grob, doing his best to hold the back of his rapidly-filling trews leapt from his seat and quickly rushed for the door to the courtyard. The Abbott put his sleeve to his nose and made muffled excuses as he left the reeling heroes who quickly sought the nearest fresh air.

Not long after the Abbott left, T'sardan entered and gathered the heroes together before having one of the young novices hand out the bulging sacks of loot. "The L'denon sect here certainly thanks you for the donation you have made to its coffers," said T'sardan which caused Linstram to look at Than stood next to him and mutter, "Do you remember promising a donation - cause I don't."

With flashes of light, the L'denon spiritual servant sent each of the heroes on their way until he noticed that one sack was left and it was Grob's. On learning where he was T'sardan purposefully strode out across the courtyard to fetch him, passing some inquisitive monks on the way talking of the strange explosive noises coming from the latrines. T'sardan pushes open the door to be met by an almost physically powerful smell, the sort of one that picks up mere mortals and batters them into submission. The only part of Grob that could be seen were his two feet poking from the hole in the top of the latrine box, the rest of Grob delving in the unmentionable depths to retrieve the gold coins that had until an hour ago been in residence in his colon.

As Grob added the sticky clump of coins to those in the sack, T'sardan circled him and delivered the chant that sent him and his odour away from the monastery. The next morning saw the ‘Danger - Explosive Vapours' sign hanging from the latrine doors.

End Of Document. This story is © Mike Lay and Crasiworld 1999.