The Return of Carnilla

Light Touch [ Jeff ] got the chitinous skin from one of the dead giant cockroaches and ordered it to be made into a set of greaves, vambraces and breast-plate. Unfortunately, when he was telling the dwarven smith to do this, he made groping breast motions, and thus ended up with boobs on his breast-plate. "Somewhere to store things," quipped Yeti [ Darryl ].

Having finished with Narnia, we said our goodbyes to the Good animals, and went back to the Lamp-post to return to the Shadowlands Keep world. Our main worry now was Carnilla (Recall that Carnilla was Carla's (me) evil extra-planar alter-ego clone from another copy of the Earth world, where New Zealand is a fascist state run by the Drow (ACT) ruling class. This was originally where Ah Hung [ Steven ] came from). We had assumed that the nine days quoted by the orcs would be when she would make a push into Narnia to defeat the White Witch herself, and gain power like I had from her death. Apparently, when you kill one of your extra-planar clones, you receive an augmentation of power. There was a four-to-one time dilation in Narnia compared to the Keep world, and we had spent about four days in Narnia, so this meant there was still eight days (32 Narnian days) before Carnilla would arrive. Nevertheless, we got Yeti to make Light Touch and Peg Groups [Ian] invisible. They then snuck back through the tunnel.

Sure enough, a band of twelve gnolls, very well concealed, were watching the spot where the tunnel emerged. So Light Touch & Peg waltzed invisible past them, then out into the swamp to the lizardmen's mound. It didn't take long to rustle up a platoon of lizardmen braves, and they descended upon the hapless gnolls like a wolves on the fold, and slaughtered every one.

We all came through the tunnel. Nailed to a tree near the tunnel was a strange plate with a rune on it. John Wayne [ Shane ] identified this rune as something to do with protection from extraplanar travellers. Straight away we suspected the hand of Carnilla, and thus smashed the plate into little bits. The instant we did this, Tarboy suddenly appeared (recall the totally black figure we spotted in the evil temple of the Caves of Chaos, one of the extra-planar creatures. His proper name was Nyarlathotep, but that was too much of a mouthful, so we stuck with "Tarboy"). In voice dripping with fulsome irony, he thanked us for destroying the plate and then said his aims were in line with our own. He said Carnilla had in her possession an artifact of immense power, and that she was affecting all the multi-verses with her meddling. He would help us, if we helped him - "my enemy's enemy is my friend", and all that. Wiz and I wanted nothing to do with a creature of such evil, but John Wayne, Peg Groups and Gwyffin [ guest star Richard Greenaway ] willingly accepted Tarboy's blessing. However, Tarboy still had a lasting affect, because from then on, each night I had horrendous dreams of being bound and sacrificed by Carnilla on an altar of blood. Yeti dreamed of kittens.

Back to the Keep. On the way there, it was nearing dark and we were making camp. We heard the noise of what sounded like a two-stroke engine, up in the sky. I suddenly got this strange feeling of dread and squeaked "Carnilla!" We all hunkered down, and tried to hide. The noise got louder, and then it flew overhead, then passed and faded away. It was headed roughly out over the swamp,

Back in the Lord Loofah's Keep we settled down to rest in the FAG inn. My beauty, pulchritude and macromasia had increased somewhat when the witch died. I used to attract many stares from solo males and hateful glances from women, but now the mild this irritant had turned into a deluge of attention from every man-jack in the inn. One fellow named Elric (yes, named after the fallen god) was particularly interested and hung around. So much so that he wanted to join us - he was a tea-leaf like Light Touch. So we had a vote: Carla, Peg Groups, Ah Hung, Wiz said yes. John Wayne, Yeti, and Gwyffin said no. So he could tag along.

John Wayne's Santa suit was beginning to give us worry. He had slaughtered some good creatures in cold blood, and now he was starting to radiate evil to both me and Wiz. So evil in fact, that it was only eclipsed by Tarboy. He could not take the suit off, and its fabric was physically merging with his spine and brain stem. He got himself a whip too, and started practicing using it.

We asked the Keep priest of Grism, Dogbert, to check John and the suit out. Dogbert pronounced the suit utter pure and incorruptible Good (!).  John then asked the Keep wizard to also check the suit because it was a power item - but when he touched it, all the flesh was stripped from his hand, literally degloved, leaving only the bloody bones and tendons. His hysterical screams of agony could be heard long into the night as Dogbert tried fitfully to patch him up - or at least keep him alive. We are pretty sure John Wayne would have been arrested and executed for such an act if Dogbert had not intervened with his declarations of the suit's unadulterated goodness.

The target for the next trip would be the portal located in Cliffies' land - a tribe of goblins. So we left and headed there. After two uneventful days, we left the road and started to head through the trees.

We came upon an ogre-mage and two orcs priests about to slaughter a naked elf maiden who was tied to a tree stump. We made short work of them; without even breaking a sweat. The girl identified herself as Nyssa and was logically upset, but she didn't wish to travel with us, and only wanted to head home. The ogre-mage had a book Revelations of Glaaki and was using drawings from the pages in his set-up of the sacrifice. Author Glaaki was obviously completely insane, probably evil too (though the book did not radiate evil), and just looking at a page made me feel ill. John Wayne had no such moral qualms, and he gleefully took the book. On the open page, he soon spotted the very sacrifice the ogre-mage was planning, and determined that the ogre had got it completely wrong any way: "In Elder-speak, the gerund is 'disembowelling' not 'disenfranchising', stupid ogre."

As we were moving deeper in, we heard the two-stroke engine again. Elric suddenly bolted. And then suddenly there were four loud bangs in quick succession.

There was a blur and we appeared in a library, filled with musty old books. Mentoz "the Fresh-Maker" (another one of the extraplanar beings) was here in smoking jacket and slippers, sucking on a pipe. He explained that we had been hit simultaneously by four portals, obviously launched from Carnilla herself (from her two-stroke-engine-powered gyrocopter). Mentoz had intervened at the exact moment that the portal spheres were in their expansionist stage. He had fashioned this Library pocket universe and brought us here, outside of time, for the few milliseconds before the portal spheres engulfed us. Although he was forbidden to intervene, apparent doing this act was allowed - and who are we to question the motives of beings of such power? We would still have to go back into the resultant worlds where the portal spheres would take us, but at least we could have a wee chat with Mentoz first, and perhaps a snifter of brandy.

Like Tarboy, Mentoz was worried about the phenomenal power that Carnilla was wielding, and he too wanted us to stop her before she destroyed all the multiverses with her "pesky meddling". He gave us some more items: two suppositories of Regeneration, eight suppositories of Cure, two of Heal, and one for me to use in the presence of Carnilla, apparently to weaken her by proxy. Gwyffin also pick-pocketed the Fresh-Maker and got a hens-egg-sized one made of the purest of white marble. 

Down with the Queen - and all that

Through a combination of Light Touch's [Jeff] hiding, some invisibilities and general stealth, we made our way through the dungeons of the White Witch's castle. We heard that the changing of the guards was going to be at 9am. It was 8am.

Down a corridor, Light Touch sensed a further drop in temperature and spotted two human wizards in a room. He returned and collected us, and we engaged them. It was a short battle, as they are totally surprised. One male one female, both wearing Medallions of Warmth. This room was freezing and the medallions certainly kept one warm.

There was a large stone table in the room,  covered in runes, and it had a highly magical blue glowing dagger stuck into the stone. This thing radiated cold like you could not imagine.

One of the abilities of Light Touch's magic feather duster was that it could erase runes. [ Rune magic is a separate form of magic. The spells are very powerful and mostly permanent (unlike the more temporal normal magic), but they require the expenditure of permanent magic - the actual attribute of the character - so is costly to cast ]. The trap runes were removed and the ice dagger was taken from the table. This stopped the permanent winter outside, and it started to warm instantly. Spring was here to warm Narnia.

We ventured upstairs a little more and found the barracks of the prison guards - rat soldiers. It didn't take long to destroy all these foul vermin.

Not brave enough to face the witch alone, we all withdrew out of the entire castle, back through the spider tunnels, and back to the trees.

There was an army of good woodland creatures here. They implored us to sneak back inside and ensure that the gate and portcullis of the castle would stay open, so that their army of Liberation could charge inside.

So we rested, recharged (via potions), collected a handful of elite fighters: centaurs. Since day had broken and it was light now, Yeti made us all invisible and we snuck back inside through the tunnels.

The prison was undisturbed - confirming that the guard patrols and shifts for the prison was entirely separate from the rest of the castle.

Peg Groups [Ian] and John Wayne [Shane] positioned themselves next to a group of rats guarding the portcullis wheel in a room next to the main gate.

Wiz [NPC], a giant and a centaur positioned themselves to take on two white tigers and an ogre on the main gates.

Yeti [Darryl] moved to spike open the gates into the inner keep.

Ah Hung [Ian] took one of the Stone to Fresh scrolls to be cast on some petrified giants in the main courtyard.

Light Touch reconnoitred sniping archers.

I (Carla) was ready to blow a horn: This was the signal for the woodland creature army to charge.

The trigger to start was Wiz's attacks. Everyone was invisible, so we had maximum surprise.

Wiz et al attacked. John launched a fireball, Yeti hammered, Ah Hung cast.
Instantly, I blew on the horn. The army began their rush.

Wiz et al kept the tigers and ogre busy. Wiz was sorely wounded and the giant and centaur slain.

John's fireball smashed into the portcullis wheel rats, killing most, and damaging the rest. Peg finished them off.

 Yeti began his hammering his spike under the door, but a lone white tiger arrived. So Yeti cast a ground-zero fireball and engulfed himself and the tiger in the conflagration, then he played possum - a smoking craven poltroon possum - giving enough time for the two giants, Ah Hung had restored, to engage that tiger.

A few minutes later, the Army of Good rushed in through the open gates, and then straight through the keep doors and thus began a massive battle in the keep's throne room. We noticed with some worry that the White Witch had arrived, flanked by her rhinoceros body-guards, and was rallying her forces and taking pot-shots with her petrification wand, stoning Good animals left, right and centre.

Wiz, Peg Groups, Yeti, Mister Wayne and two centaurs went invisible and started making their way towards the witch.

Ah Hung cast Enhanced Attack on himself and me. [ This gave us both a huge accuracy bonus, +20, on the shots for one round. ] We used the ensorcelled Arrows of Slaying (collected of the unconscious Light Touch), and targeted the witch. There were so many creatures in the way, that there was only room for a brief snapshot. We caught the tiniest glimpse of the witch between the brawling forces, but the bonus-magic was enough to let the arrows fly true. She was hit, twice.

The witch dropped, and literally exploded in a wave of fierce cold. This instantly froze her rhinoceros bodyguards.

That act turned the battle in our favour - the tipping-pointed crossed. The good creatures won, and the started the grisly business of cleaning the filth from the keep.

The instant the witch died, I got a wave of psychic and spiritual energy which augmented me [ stat and skill increases ].

But after an hour or two, while the Good army was mopping up the last pockets of stalwart resistance, I felt this augmentation start to wane. We suspected that the witch had some bolt hole for her spirit and that she was regenerating, albeit slowly.

So we set the good dwarfs out to thoroughly search the entire castle with orders to leave no wall unsearched and no flagstone unturned. Sure enough, after a few hours, they located a secret room next to the stone table room. With some difficulty we broke in, and, sure enough, she was here. And was slowly regenerating. Peg decapitated her. There was a glowing vial of bright blue cold next to her. We give that to a good owl, and he flew high into the sky and dropped it onto the courtyard where it smashed. This seemed to work, because the wave of augmentation returned, and this time did not wane.

"Ding dong the witch is dead.
Witch o witch, the wicked white witch.
Ding dong the wicked white witch is dead.
Wake up, with stone to flesh, wipe your eyes, you are not dead.
Let all know the wicked white witch is dead.

Spiders - It had to be spiders

(Written by Ian)

We catch up with our group, late afternoon stood in a small wood a couple of kilometres from the White Witch’s ACME™ Castle. The castle was mostly across clear ground, and this small wood was the last of the cover the group could use.

They were crouched down in a close huddle to avoid making any sound that the nearby ogre sentries might hear, alerting them to the group’s position. The snow and ice caused the party to wring their hands and blow warm breath over their fingers. Their breath formed clouds that drift off into the trees.

The guide, Hedge Tops (a ferret whose voice is remarkably like Light’s), spoke quietly to the party; “So that is the entry point we were told about. That stream leads into the hill side and carries on upstream to the castle. Didn’t know about those stinking ogres, but these are strange times.” 

“Oh well, at least it provides further evidence that the castle is at the end of the stream” mentioned Carla [ Andrew ].

The party discussed the pros and cons of various plans. The full frontal assault on the castle front door was always a good one to contemplate. Perhaps not this time… The open ground and large number of human sized rat guards and savage looking White Tiger sentries would make this seem like a bad idea. As what little of the sun slowly heads toward the Western horizon, they decided to do some reconnaissance. Light Touch [ Jeff ] was rendered undetectable with the ‘nothing to see here’ invisible spell. He swanned past the ogres and into the cave mouth. It opened into a larger chamber that had the ogre accommodation and ‘food’ supplies. It seemed that all the ogres were currently outside around their fire, enjoying the remains of some poor woodland creatures.

Light Touch quickly checked the chamber and exits, including where the stream carried on toward the castle. There are no additional light sources, so the low light vision was soon of little use. Light Touch returned to the group well before the invisibility wore off.

“Ok then, seems like now is the time to sneak the group past the ogres”. 

Yeti [ Darryl] rendered all eight party members invisible, just long enough to cover the open ground and get past the feasting guards. Once inside, the party struck lights and Peg Groups [Ian] and Light Touch headed off upstream, the mages and clerics in the middle with Whiz to the rear. Going was good with the stream being easy to follow.  There were many side tunnels on either side and Gwiffen started to protest progressing forward; “It smells it does. Me don’t wike it…” The group started to notice silken threads disappearing into most of the side passages 

“Great” said Peg, “spiders. It HAD to be spiders.”

After reasonable progress the cave system opened into a large cavern. With no effort at all it is clear to see that the high ceiling was a writhing mass of dog sized spiders. They were everywhere. They were places beyond everywhere. 

“This has the potential to not go well” The party said simultaneously.

While contemplating options and visualising the pointlessness of just about all forms of offence that the party had at their disposal, a larger single spider gently lowered on a web strand from the cavern roof.

“Heeelllllooooo” the loathsome thing hissed.

“Ahem, hello” Light Touch stammered. “Could we please pass through the cavern?”

“Nice one person. That is unlikely to happen intruder. These are OUR caves and you are not welcome”

Yeti added “Agreed, however we are travelling through and do not want to cause you and your kind any problem”

“Well then” the spider negotiator started “We would like to make a deal. You donate one of you lot to feed us, and we shall let the remainder pass.”

The party let out a sigh of relief. At least three hands and a foot glided out of the dark and confidently ‘steered’ Gwiffen toward the heinous arachnid. “Oi! Watch ya doin???? You can’t do vat. Stoppit!”.

“Oh no you don’t” hissed the spider. “That hairy morsel is too small and you offered it too fast. We need one of you other lot to feed upon”.

The party consulted; “Oh well it was worth a shot but have to come up with a plan b. We couldn’t really let Gwiffen be used like that”.

Yeti again approached the dangling negotiator;

“Ahem, Mr Spider sir, we are wanting to go to the castle. Offering one of our crew is not an option, however we know that the Castle is full of food (ok, the enemy), how about we get your safe passage on the promise of delivering a meal from the castle occupants? Does this sound reasonable?”

“Hmm, this does sound promising – but we could just eat you all here?” The spider rationally pointed out.

“What about the ogres?” offered Peg Groups “We could draw them back here for you to eat and after all, they are much bigger than us?”

“Sorry pointy ear, as much as they could be eaten they have been stopping troublesome interlopers for a while and we like that. The ogres are not an option.” A small swarm of spiders was slowly building not far from the group, behind the spider speaker. They were more and more agitated and excited. The promise of a decent meal was getting too much to bear. Yeti continued nervously;

“Ok then, ogres are out, a party member is out, how about we promise the equivalent weight of the party in castle enemies? 8 dinners served warm?”

“Eeenterresssstinggg…. We can agree to that, six-legs-missing. We give you safe passage and you deliver eight meals. They must be warm and red blooded for us to feed and your debt to be repaid”

“Agreed” The group spat on palms and shook hands/legs.

“That is the most repulsive feeling ever” Carla observed with a wince.

On they moved upstream to the castle. This time however, accompanied by the sound of thousands of legs following along behind the group. Travel was fast and easy with the 8 legged escorts. Soon the party reached a square metal grate set into the walls, floor and ceiling of the stream. The grate had vertical bars and seemed very old. Just beyond was a man-made area with the signs of the castle plumbing depositing all manner of foulness into the stream. As the two strongest adventures, Whiz and Peg Groups tried to bend, break or otherwise the grill but nothing budged the rusted (but obviously solid) grate. 

“Hey Mr Spider, any chance you lot could lend a hand – well – lend a leg and some web?” Light Touch pleaded.

“Another deal then?” The spider leader was positively brimming with glee at the prospect of getting even more out of the group.

“We will help BUT one of your party must stay with us until the full debt is repaid – and not the small hairy thing that smells like the armpit of an old sloth”. Again the party had to decide. As this is a sneaky task to remove an axe from a stone, and to be discovered would mean failure and death anyway, Whiz was volunteered to stay behind.

“But Mr Spider, can we swap Whiz to another party member if we want to? If we really need Whiz we mean?”

“Ok then” The Spider was feeling in a generous mood at this point “Why not? You can swap party members if you desire”.

With the latest deal secured, the spiders combined web and body to start pulling on the grate. Peg and Whiz helped and the grate fell inward with a clatter after a fairly short period of resistance. The spiders stayed where they were with Whiz and the group explored the small area beyond the opening. It was certainly a waste disposal area and there was a solid trapdoor in the ceiling as the obvious dumping point. Light Touch checked it out and the trapdoor was bolted solidly from the top. There were also the distant sounds of voices and footsteps, nothing direct overhead at this stage, but within careful hearing distance.

The party worked out that it was only sunset or early evening so decided to explore the area, prepare and wait until midnight or so before making too much noise. They searched for any alternative exit point but that trap door seemed to be the only way out, stubbornly bolted and about four meters above the stream. Whiz and Peg could not budge it with brute force. Stumped. Peg thought about things, 

“You know, what we need is something that we can use to mechanically pry or force that lid open? Something small enough to get up to the lid, but strong enough to do the job? Wonder what we could use for that?”

John Wayne [ Shane ] stopped reviewing the list of naughty and nice children that seemed to be growing magically

“Oh, not sure if this will help but I have this car jack thingy. Would that do??? Been carrying it around for weeks now”

“Ahhhh, yes” Light Touch said with attitude and head sway only rivalled by TV chat show guests “That will do nicely. Just need to get a solid footing up near the trap door.”

With some cunning ingenuity a small and woefully unstable tower was erected comprised of a loose stone footing to water level, the mangled grate up to the base of the trap door. The grate was secured with cross ropes and Ah Hung [ Steven ] hanging on for grim (Grism anyway) death. The jack set between the grate and the trap door at the side that seemed to have the bolt mechanism nailed from above.

It was time. Sometime close to midnight, when things had been quiet above the door for some time, the handle was wound and the pressure went on. The door creaked and groaned and started to crack. Something gave, and the door released a fraction. Something small and metallic clanged across the ground above. Muttering and murmuring started from somewhere in the distance. The group froze… Quiet again and after a few minutes, Light Touch resumed winding the handle as the door had not fully released.

After more pressure and stress on the door, it eventually exploded apart. Large metal parts that made up the bolting mechanism, rattled and clanged across the floor.

“Bugger. That was noisy” Light Touch observed by way of understatement.

The door was still closed but Light Touch could now lift it far enough to know that it was unbolted. It was a large door and HEAVY but at least finally unlocked. Soon after the less than subtle removal of the bolt, yells and sounds of movement neared from above.

“What do we do? What do we do? Someone do something!” Ah Hung bravely shrieked.

Ah Hung and Peg quickly drew arrow, and Light Touch clung to the opening door jam. Within moments the trap door started to jiggle and move. From above a voice spoke to an unknown other;

“Ere’ look at this. Ratty, it is all busted. There are broken bits everywhere. Who could have done this down here? Open the door and see what gives”.

The door flung open and the stupid dolt had his face and upper chest looking directly down the hole and his colleague’s lantern behind providing the perfect silhouette. What a day for target shooting… Peg and Ah Hung let fly making use of the biggest element of surprise and advantage a group could wish for. The inquisitive human face that stared down soon had an arrow in its forehead and one in its chest. The guard (as it turned out) dropped immediately to his death. Well it would have been to his death if he wasn’t already dead from the quarrels that is.

Light Touch swooped elegantly from his hold position, through the opening and to the floor above. Unfortunately the guards partner above let go of the rope that he was holding the lid open with, at about the same time. Light Touch got most of the way through the opening but the door slammed heavily and painfully into his right shin. Shin and foot were securely held in the door. While Light Touch lay on the ground, he had to deal with a rather nasty broad sword being wielded by a man-sized rat in light armour. Light Touch did well to avoid too much further trouble and eventually the door flung open from below. This released Light Touch and he rolled away.

Peg Groups had taken half a minute or so to get up to the door and fling it open. Peg came through the opening and grabbed the attention of the guard. At this moment a number of things happened simultaneously:

1. The human guard that had fallen through was being searched and fed to the spiders. Disgusting…

2. Gwiffen was making his way through the trap door with deft expertise. He proceeded to secure a climbing rope to a fitting in the above room and allow the others to at least start coming through. Ah Hung was next…

3, The far end of the room (that turned out to be a torture chamber – great) was being opened and a rat and the familiar sounds of a large cockroach in the not nearly distant enough, distance.

Peg dispatched the rat guard with a single crunch. Light Touch was up and about but the new arrivals saw him and persuaded him into fisticuffs. Ok, so Light Touch screamed like a harpy and parried for all his worth. Peg thought at this point that ‘this was going to get interesting once that cockroach gets here’.

Too late. Cockroach was there and Peg Groups engaged to stop it getting near Light Touch or anyone else for that matter. Ah Hung cast his armour spell on Peg to at least give Peg and the party a fighting chance. This turned out to be pivotal in the fight. A number of rounds passed where Peg and cockroach traded hearty blows. Both frustrated by the lack of ability to hurt the other. At least Peg was not being carved apart thanks to Ah’s protection.

After Ah Hung , John Wayne appeared out the hole and proceeded to wave his arms about and cast some spell directly at the cockroach. 

Peg prayed that it was not fireball, the usual spell of choice. Not this time Peg, new spell time for John; Feeble-mind. Good choice John. 

As the rounds wore on the cockroach got weaker and weaker. Peg could tell that the hideous thing was starting to struggle for speed and strength. Eventually, its attacks were pathetic and it was much easier to inflict damage. A few carefully aimed, hearty, blows to the head and the cockroach fell over - dead. The thing’s limbs slowly curled into its upturned belly. Next round the rat was gone with a single blow and all was quiet. The group were in the castle dungeon with the guards gone and a number of wilderness creatures held prisoner in the adjoining cells.

The spiders got 1 human, 2 rats (human sized) and a cockroach. Ok, they did not accept the cockroach but it was worth a try. Three debts paid out of eight.

Another Temple another World

We explored cave system, past where the black wall was. This wall had blocked us and sent us to the Nazi World (q.v). Now it was gone and was just another normal passage.

Light Touch [Jeff] went skulking down a long passage way, fitfully scouting, while we all waited and twiddled our thumbs. Despite his now considerable skulking skill, he was still ambushed by some zombies and skeletons hidden in illusionary alcoves. A short battle ensued each time, Light Touch was wounded, and these undead were defeated by us all.

We then adopted a rather ingenious method to detect these illusionary alcoves: normal senses could not discern them, but should one be blindfolded, one could search for these alcoves by prodding the wall with a stick - the stick would vanish into the wall. The hapless "one" given this job was John Wayne [Shane].

In a room down the end was yet another Evil Temple room - complete with altar and pews. Eight large candles, ensconced in elaborate faux-gold candle-holders, lit the room. These candles magically ignited when someone entered and extinguished when they left.There was also a large bell here. Next to this temple, though two doors, was a room filled with skeletons and zombies, about twenty of each, but they were totally immobile, and stationary, frozen and standing to attention. We guessed that if some idiot rang the bell, then they would all animate. Thankfully, in this case, our party contained no idiots (though, mentions in dispatches might claim otherwise).

Off another side passage was a plush bedroom, en suite and another passage. While investigating the bedroom, a leather-clad figure, human, suddenly appeared, grabbed me and held a knife to my throat. He wanted us all to surrender, or "the girl gets it". Though some quick negotiations and a substantial bribe ensured he left us, and left the complex, and made his way outside.

Down another side passage, we were met with some desultory arrow and quarrel fire. Peg Groups [Ian] volunteered to investigate, invisible, so left us. He didn't return after the appointed time. Oh dear.

Light Touch volunteered to check for him, but we instead decided a full frontal with some magical support.

After a fierce battle, we broke into yet another temple, this one with two altars. On one was tied the helpless and hapless Peg Groups - about to be sacrificed to some Chaos god. On the other on was a miniature black dome. As we were fighting our way through the horde (well, maybe five) of baddies, a large mechanical bipedal robot thing materialized out of mid air. It carried two mini-guns and these whirred to life firing, each, 110 bullets per second. But high-tech and the Shadowlands world do not mix, and the robot thing started to melt almost immediately as its molybdenum stainless steel started to corrode, and its plastics and kevlars started to disintegrate. Within a few seconds it could no longer fire, and stumbled about blindly, eventually falling over and melting into a pile of component elements in a colourful puddle on the floor.

More worrisome was another figure beyond this robot. This was an emaciated chap, in robe and hood, but connected to the black back wall by some tentacle or umbilical. He hurled magic at us, doing considerable damage, before severing the umbilical defeated him. After he had died, the back wall still quivered as if it was made of black jelly. No one dared to touch it. Peg Groups was freed during this battle.

Point to note: neither the Gatling-gun robot nor Mister Umbilical had a belly plate.

We also suspect that the black dome here, which vanished when we killed the nearby priests, was maintaining the large black dome ("Dome of Night") over the whole valley.

Having vanquished this cave system, we cured up and headed back to the Lord Loofah's keep to train.

One of the maps we had obtained (from Ah Hung [Steven]) indicated a large pentagram drawn on top of a map of the surrounding area. In the very centre of the pentagram was the Caves of Chaos. And one of the arm tips was the entrance through to Jacksons Bay. So we decided to check out the other arms.

The most northerly one was in the forest, but Griffon advised not to go there.
"They are a goblin tribe called Cliffers," he exclaimed with some derision. "Under Splint. Not a nice tribe. Lots and lots."

The southerly one looked safer: it was in the forest off the swamp (about a day's travel from the tower), so we could expect help from our friends the lizardmen.

We headed back into the swamp, met up with Druid Bent Rootsucker and his lion Binky, then met the lizardmen. They were only too happy to provide us with escorts for our foray into the forest.

That night, Bent went missing. There was a note stabbed into a tree nearby proclaiming "You may get your druid back in nine days. Any attempt to rescue him, or move deeper into OUR lands will result in his death".

Light Touch did an invisible look around and found Bent a prisoner of some orcs. Twenty of them. Not wanting to fight this number with our meagre resources, we asked our lizardmen guides for some help. They took off and soon returned with a veritable army of sixty lizardmen fighters.

So... Yeti [Darryl] made Light, Peg and Whizz invisible and they moved to stand next to the three orcs guarding Bent. Then the attack was launched, and the sixty lizardmen charged. The orc guards of course moved to kill Bent, but Light, Peg and Whizz soon put paid to that little plan. In a few minutes, all the orcs were utterly overwhelmed and slaughtered. We bid our lizard escorts farewell (they didn't like these woods), and moved deeper on in.

I had a tingling in the back of my head and it got stronger when we approached a clump of bushes. This was about at the spot on the map where the pentagram arm was. Sure enough, if one crawled into these bushes, one emerged ...

... in a white snowy forest, next to a lamp-post.

"Narnia?" exclaimed John.

Sure enough, we met a faun, and some other talking animals. The world was indeed run by a White Witch who placed everything into perpetual winter. There was a saviour called Aslan who had not been seen for many decades. And time was dilated here. There were a few differences from standard Narina - the Witch made use of ogres, tigers, and beholders (plus the usual evil dwarves and wolves), and the collection of "good" animals  was a bit different. Also, we did not get the significance of the nine days that the orcs had demanded (with or without the four-to-one time dilation). And it did not appear that the orcs had discovered the portal.

Oh yes. The White Witch was an exact likeness of Carla, buxom and bold, though with cruel feral eyes.

A heap of good woodland creatures were being kept captive in the Witch's dungeons (presumably turned to stone - yes, she had one of those wands), under her castle, so we had to get inside.

The Evil Reichsmarschall

Exploring further, in this universe, small animals are used to perform electrical activities and some mechanical functions. Lamps and bulbs are glowing hamsters, complex mechanical functions (like dirigible engines) are done with animals. Radio valves are voles and mice. We turned out to be in an alternate Earth, during World War two, in a Nazi zeppelin. There were soldiers on board, human, who spoke German. Curing magic did not work here, and I no longer had the link to Illana. Wizz [NPC] did not have his link to Vull but Ah Hung [Steven] did have his link to Grism (though, Grism has no heal spells).

Ah Hung volunteered to have the Speak-German suppository inserted; it was the diameter of an egg and long as his gnome foot. After some painful and eye-watering minutes, he had it in.

"Oh mein Gott. Das ist völliger Agonie," he whimpered, half-sobbing, as he hobbled around.


Out in the corridor, we encountered two guards. Despite being armed with rifles and lugers, we managed to drop them. Peg Groups [Ian] got shot in the arm.


Then we progressed through the ship, encountering and dispatching soldiers, and amassing a collection of three MP40 machine guns, two rifles and two lugers. It turned out, much to our advantage, that one of the high commanders of the airship was an evil double of Yeti [Darryl]. Several of the guards acknowledged Yeti as their leader, until they realized their mistake, but it was too late then. There was probably a whole platoon of soldiers on the airship, so we didn't want to encounter them all at once.

In the stern cabin, peering through the port-hole, we espied one waiter, two guards, two lieutenants and the actual Yeti look-alike. He was physically identical to our Yeti, dressed in the regalia of a Reichsmarschall, had a wicked scar above his left eye, and radiated evil like some demon from Hell. 


Guessing that he would have a high-tech high-magic plate embedded in him, like Bad Santa, and that this was the key to go home, we launched a two pronged attack into the cabin. 


The instant we started firing, the evil Yeti started to morph into something huge black and dark. Wizz, John Wayne [Shane], and our Yeti, froze in terror for a few moments, and the evil Yeti sent out tendrils of darkness into me. The tendrils possessed me, but thankfully Wizz managed to chop them off.

The soldiers soon died, followed by the lieutenants. We suffered some heavy damage ourselves: I went down with a horrendous chest wound, Peg Groups had his arm smashed to pulp, and Light Touch [Jeff] had his arm blown off and vaporized into a red mist. But six well-placed Healing suppositories cured us enough to defeat the  Reichsmarschall. He was destroyed in a hail of MP40 bullets, double-handed sword strikes and Ah Hung's tenacious mace. Mention in dispatches to Peg Groups for firing a MP40 one-armed, to Ah Hung for some pin-point long-bow shooting, and to our Yeti for a lucky blast with the MP40.


We had two Regeneration suppositories in our collection. When one of these was inserted into the hapless helpless armless harmless Light Touch, the stump of his destroyed arm started to slowly regrow.

The Airship

Back in the caves, we headed down a passage to a store room. It was empty, so back-tracked to a locked door. Since all was quiet behind, Light Touch opened and we glanced inside. It was a large chamber, in which was thirty to forty coffins and sarcophagi. Investigating further, many of the coffin lids had frightening images, frozen in the stone, of the suffering occupants struggling to get out - a la Han Solo in his Jabba's carbonite coffin.

There was an ominous slopping sound out in the passage. A gelatinous cube, presumably from the "empty" store room, was working its way up the passage. We beat a hasty and well-formed retreat, to avoid being trapped in the coffin room, and returned back to the steps, where the cube could not follow.

There was now only three viable routes: the first was outside to the valley filled with humanoids, the second was through the new one-way portal that had formed in the outer passage, and the third was back to the throne room with the twelve skeletons and skeleton lord.

We took on the skeletons. After a difficult battle, all twelve were downed. The skeleton lord, on the throne, turned out to be just a non-animated skeleton. But as we were about to leave, three tough skeletons arrived. These were the skeleton lord and his two lieutenants. It was a tough battle, but we vanquished them. I cured everyone up, we rested and recharged, and then ...

...went into the other one-way portal.

We arrived in a small metal room filled with hundreds of animal cages, stuffed with animals of different sizes. Right from the smallest vole to large salt-water crocs. The room had port-holes, and outside it showed we were hanging from a huge dirigible, and were flying high above the clouds. We could hear the engines droning away the whole time.

The Thermodynamics of One-way Portals

One-way portals are standard fare in many adventures. The archetype allows an object to pass only one way though the portal. If a stick is shoved in half-way, it cannot be pulled back. Similarly, if you shove your arm in, it can't be pulled back, and you have to move deeper in.

But if we look closely at the physics and thermodynamics involved around the portal boundary, we run into a few problems...

Air

Standard air that we breathe is made up mainly of heaps of Nitrogen and Oxygen molecules whizzing around bumping into to each other, like ping-pong balls in a tube. And, boy, do they whizz! At normal air pressure (one atmosphere), they're moving at about 500m/s. Granted, they only get to move a tiny distance before they bang into another molecule, but still; they are moving this fast. If you introduce the one-way portal to the air, the air molecules at the portal boundary will shoot through it, and they can not come back. Any molecule near the boundary is going to end up crossing it, or will bounce into another molecule near it, and cross it. Very quickly, you'll end up with a vacuum on the portal boundary.

Looking at our Caves of Chaos black dome, the air surrounding the dome will try to fill the vacuum, and this will manifest itself as a wind - a phenomenal wind - blowing into the dome. This wind will be faster than the biggest hurricanes and tornadoes we see on Earth. Its theoretical limit will be the speed of sound, but with the turbulence and ground-effect, you get about 70% of this. That, however, is still pretty damn quick: 240m/s, or 850km/h. This is still more than twice as strong as the strongest hurricane and tornado winds ever measured - they are around a wussy 400km/s - and will be enough to not only tear whole trees from the ground, but dirt and rocks too. The only thing left around ground zero would be bedrock and whatever the dome is attached to.

You would certainly get localized weather effects too. With the massive pressure gradient, water from the air would condense into clouds, and you would certainly get a spinning vortex, a la a tornado, around Ground Zero. The sight from Pind would be impressive - a black funnel cloud extending into the sky, with ensuing storms and lightning. There would be a massive roar too: a continuous background-growl of a thousand freight trains.

Luckily for Pind and the Shadowlands keep, the speed of these winds into the portal dome will drop off at the square of the distance. The black dome was 1km in radius, so you will get the mach 1 winds on the edge. Out at 2km, we're down to 200km/h. And at the 15km campsite, it is just a 4km/h zephyr.

Inside the dome would be Hell on Earth. As an inhabitant, you would see a wave of destruction hurling towards you at almost mach 1, tossing trees and dirt. It would smash everything over, and it wouldn't stop. There would be secondary sonic shockwaves bouncing off the ground and the pressure fronts of the incoming air. And with pressure comes temperature; within a few seconds, these would rocket up. From the snowy frosty night of -10C, to an inferno of 250C in 1.3 seconds.  The pressure and temp would keep ramping up and up utterly burning everything inside the dome. The next notable stage would be at 46 seconds when the pressure hits 34 atmospheres which is when Nitrogen gas (the main component of air) becomes a supercritical fluid, and no longer behaves as an ideal gas. That gives us the small consolation that means it doesn't get so hot so fast, though by now we are at 8000C. (Tungsten, the element with highest melting point, melts at 3422C, and turns to gas at 5555C)

Molecular

Looking at the molecular level, as the molecules (mainly oxygen and nitrogen) fly across the portal boundary, there would be a fraction of a second where the portal boundary divides the molecule. The molecular and electrostatic bonds between the atoms would suddenly be at half strength (can only pull one way). The side-effect of this means that the molecule would fly apart into its component atoms. But then, as soon as these atoms pass entirely into the dome, they would recombine - and release the bond energy of the molecules as heat. Taking our most common gas, the triple bond of nitrogen's N2 molecule is one of the strongest bonds there is (945KJ/mol), so when one cubic-meter of N2 is recombined, it releases 84MJ of energy (a single-bar heater for 23 hours, or burn 2.4 litres of petrol). Bearing in mind that our in-flow of gas is 240 cumecs for each 1 metre-square section of the dome, this is a lot of extra heat. Now our poor sap in the dome will see a huge fireball roaring at him at mach 1.

 Atomic

Looking down at the atomic level, things get even worse. A similar thing will happen with the nuclei of the atoms entering. The strong nuclear force that holds the nucleus together will be briefly broken causing protons and neutrons will disassociate as they pass into the dome. When this plasma recombines, it is going to do all sorts of strange things. You probably won't get the same atoms that went in. But whatever happens, I would hazard a guess you'd get even more energy. It'd probably be in the order of ten times what we have already.

Subatomic

You could apply this logic to the protons and neutrons too. They'd disassociate into their component quarks, and pre-ons and other strange subatomic particles. What this soup of elementary particles would produce is anyone's guess, but rest assured, it would be heaps more energy. Probably another ten times.

So what is our conclusion here?

• Beware of one-way portals.

• Don't go anywhere near a one-way portal.

• Don't live inside a dome

• Never give a gun to ducks.