Episode 8

===== **On Episode 9 of There Will Be Dungeons...**

As the episode opens, Nash has been sucked deep into the sands of the desert after experiencing another fiery explosion. As he sinks into the sand, clinging to consciousness, he begins to have a vision of fire and pain and blood.

Nash hears a voice..."Nash, why do you elude me? Come back...come back...you know where you must return to. The Solar Mines. Come back to us, and we will make you powerful! Put aside your feelings of revenge, and take the power we offer you!"

His vision continues, and he sees a vision of a man being hacked into pieces. The vision shifts and the red blood fades away from his vision and is replaced by a shape lost in a haze of light. A different voice calls out "Help me! I am a prisoner here for thousands of years! You must release me...follow the light!"

The vision explodes in a flash of light, and consciousness fades.

Meanwhile, beneath the sands, in a dark cavernous space, two gnomes have been trapped for several days in the darkness when they see (in their dark vision) the shape of a body, trailing smoke, fall from the ceiling and fall several feet to the ground. The body is quickly followed by another humanoid form that is conscious, that drops safety to the floor.

The conscious form rushes to the unconscious one, saying "Nash...wake up...wake up you idiot," and casts a healing spell on the slack form.

The gnomes rush over to the recovering Nash, and Stanley. One of the gnomes excitedly greets Nash and Stanley, and welcomes them to the dark cavern, while the other gnome looks on suspiciously.

Nash, in his usual gruff manner, demands to know where they are. The friendly gnome responds "here", and the other demands to know if they've brought food with them. Nash turns to Stanley and asks him if he can prestidigitate some food. Stanley then responds very sarcastically "Prestidigitation doesn't work that way you idiot", and then turns back to the gnomes and introduces himself.

The suspicious gnome introduces himself as Edison Manchester III, or Eddie. The more friendly gnome introduces himself as Chance. Stanley asks them how they've ended up down in this place, and Chance informs them that they were inspecting the "metal tree" above them, when they were sucked down into the sand. Nash gruffly responds "that's not a tree...that's an antenna".

Stanley turns to Nash and rebuffs him about, yet again, exploding without any warning, reminding Nash that he told them that it wouldn't be a problem...yet it's happened again within just a few days.

Returning to the gnomes, Stanley asks how long they've been down in the hole...and Chance informs them that they've been down here for a long time, and they could use some food. Eddie pipes in, and informs Stanley that they don't have any food, but could trade for some. Eddie offers gold or watches in trade, but after some rather unfriendly banter about the cost of the ration, Eddie turns down Stanley's 10 gold request for a ration.

Instead, Chance raises the notion of eating Nash and Stanley, which after some banter, is interrupted by Stanley attempting to bring the conversation under control. After talking Nash down, Nash admits to Stanley that he's had another vision - this time with two voices instead of one. The first voice seemed to be the one he normally heard, but the second voice was new.

Before Nash can continue, Stanley has a moment of PES (Pissy Elf Syndrome) and lashes out at Nash for leading them into this situation...and for largely being dead weight on the party and causing him for the party being waylaid while trying to rescue the captured citizens of Dusthill.

Nash admits that Stanley is right - but he needs to tell Stanley more about the second voice he heard. And says that the voice claimed to be a "tree". Stanley is taken aback at the news, and mentions that the voice on CB radio in the Fate 4, claiming also to be a tree. Which was the only reason they knew to come looking for Nash and Hope. He admits that perhaps there's a relationship between the two.

The two gnomes, seeing the argument between Nash and Stanley, are somewhat dumbfounded by the outbursts between the two. Stanley realizes that they've been arguing for several minutes, and turns back to Eddie and Chance, and starts to ask how long they've been trapped and what they've tried to escape. Eddie and Chance admit that they've thoroughly examined their surroundings and found no way to escape. They've attempted to dig, break the strange ceramic-metal walls along one side of the cavern, tried to reach the ceiling, but nothing has been successful.

Stanley and Nash decide to try their hand at locating an exit, and begin to examine the strange ceramic-metal wall of the room. The walls seem to be made up of individual panels, which are tightly fitted against each other. The wall reaches tens of feet up into the ceiling above their heads.

Nash attempts to determine if there is anything of magical nature about the wall. He's able to sense something strange - possibly magical - behind the walls, but the wall itself is non-magical in nature.

With the knowledge the wall is likely somewhat ordinary, attempts to wedge his fingers between two of the panels, and with Eddie's help, is able to bend back a small section of one of the panels, exposing a tangle of wiring, structural metal supports, and deteriorated fiberglass behind the panel. Chance attempts to examine the wiring behind the wall to determine its purpose, but is befuddled by the mass of wires.

Eddie, frustrated with Chance's inability to determine the purpose of the wiring behind the walls, shoves Chance out of the way and attempts to examine it further. Digging into the bundled wires, he finds one with a labeled with the words "Operations Control." They pry the panel back somewhat further, but find nothing else new besides more wire and insulation.

Stepping back, the group attempts to identify any other panels or surfaces along the wall that might represent points of entry or interest. Closely examining the wall, far above their heads, Nash notices a panel that seems different from the others, which appears to have a strange rectangle in the middle of it. As he is examining the panel, trying to figure out if there is a way to reach it, Chance takes a pair of wire cutters from his tinkering tools, and cuts the wire labeled "Operations Control", but to no effect.

Frustrated, Stanley lashes out at the wall and delivers kick to it. From the strange panel above their heads, the rectangle opens and a strange mechanical device appears from behind it. They then hear a strange voice from the air around them saying "Hello? What's going on out there? Who's there? I see two humans, and two gnomes...you shouldn't be here...please leave!"

Stanley replies that they have nowhere to go, so they can't leave. He explains that they fell through the sand into this large cavern, and there's nowhere else they have to go. Nash adds that they're stuck in this hole, and there's nowhere to go!

Somehow, they manage to convince the disembodied voice that they're trapped and have nowhere to go, and they need help. After a few moments of apparently considering their words, the voice responds that he's willing to assist them and let them into the building behind the wall - but first they must promise to behave and follow its instructions. The group gives their somewhat unconvincing agreement to the voice, who warns them that if they don't behave, he has the means to melt their faces off. The voice then tells them that they can enter the building where they see the light - and a light appears near them just as a panel opens up beneath it, with a hallway leading away behind it.

Following the voice through the hallway, they eventually find themselves at a bank of elevator doors, and the voice then instructs them to push the "down" button. Stanley pushes the button, and the elevator before them opens up...which they then realize hasn't fully risen to the floor their on. The voice demands they enter the elevator, regardless of its position. The group manages to squeeze themselves into the elevator, and the voice then instructs them to press the button for floor B7. After a brief contest of dexterity, Stanley is able to press the button just before Chance, and the elevator begins to descend for several minutes before opening into blackness.

After a brief moment, lights begin to light up along the path to their left, but the group also notices the hallway also leads off to the right. The voice, who finally introduces itself as Leopold, asks them to please continue off to the left and goes silent. In the quiet, Stanley and Eddie can hear the sounds of dogs barking far off down the hallway to their right.

Curious at the sound, Eddie quietly sneaks off down the darkened hallway to their right. Following the hallway, he sees several doors along the hall which he's unable to open, and continues until he reaches a left-turn in the hall.

Stanley, sensing that Eddie has slunk off into the darkness, begins to lead the party off down the lit hallway. A few steps down the hall, pretends that he's tripped on something and twisted his ankle, falling with a shout to the floor. Leopold, not believing his trickery, sighs audibly and informs Stanley that they promised not to be up to anything sneaky. Chance, rushing to Stanley's "aid", helps him off the ground and slowly down the lit hallway.

Eddie, peering around the corner into the darkness, notices the hallway ends at another room with a clear window set in the doorway. Behind the doorway, he can more clearly hear dog-like sounds. He sneaks up to the door and peers into the room behind it. In the room are eight dog-like shapes...but instead of four legs, each one has eight! The dogs are pacing about the room, and going about their business.

As Chance and Stanley hobble down the hallway, Eddie can hear Leopold and Stanley arguing, with Leopold telling them that they need to move immediately in the direction Leopold has specified. Eddie, realizing he's running out of time, turns and rushes back to the group.

At the end of the hallway, the four pass a large lab-like room that is cluttered with various pieces of equipment, tables, shelves, and other unidentifiable objects. In the center of the room is a glass case with what appears to be a golden rod and a silvery metal spike floating in the case. Leopold's voice is then heard telling them to ignore the room and continue to the open door down the hall...and a door slides shut on lab.

In the room at the end of the hall, the group enters a barracks-like room, with several rusty bunks, a small kitchen space, tables, and chairs. As the lights come on, they also find 9 or 10 skeletons sitting at the tables and on the beds. As they look around the room, a large screen in the room turns on, and a man appears on the screen introducing himself as Leopold.

The group rather awkwardly introduces themselves, Eddie attempting to introduce himself by shaking the screen's hand before putting his hand down realizing it's just an image on a screen.

Leopold responds to Eddie by admonishing him for heading off on his own where he wasn't supposed to go. He goes on to explain that they are currently all in a government "Black Site" and under any other circumstances, they would have been killed before entering. The Black Site is part of the United Earth Defense Forces, and now that they've been allowed to enter, they can never leave. Also, the reason that they've been rushed to this room, is that the site is filled with dangerous creatures and it's for their own safety that they remain in the barracks.

Stanley goes on to explain that the surface above has changed greatly since this facility was buried, apparently thousands of years ago, and that there's no one left to disclose its secrets to. Leopold disagrees, stating that there are lots of people alive in the wastes above, and if they were to escape and disclose its presence, it would represent a threat to the secrets contained therein.

Recognizing the argument is going nowhere, Stanley shifts topic to food - and asks Leopold if he can provide them with something to eat. Leopold responds that he will be able to provide food soon, but must get the equipment up and running...and that the food consists of recycled feces. Disgusted, Nash announces that refuses to eat people poo.

Yet again shifting away from the dead-end topic, Chance asks Leopold how long Leopold has been in the Black Site. Leopold explains that he's been there since November 12th, 2087, when the site was constructed, and has been operating for 2,346 years! Nash goes on to proclaim that Leopold can't be a human and must be some sort of construct. Leopold counters the argument, and claims that he does in-fact exist, as according to the Law of Robotics that was enacted in the year 2056, and is an entity that has rights just like Stanley, Nash, Eddie, and Chance. He also makes an offhand mention of "The War".

Seizing upon this comment, Chance tells Leopold that the war is over, and asks if Leopold knew this. Leopold responds that the war, or "The Great War Against the Dragons" is NOT over, but he doesn't expect them to understand what is going on.

When pressed on the issue by Stanley, Leopold responds sarcastically to Stanley's comments. Again, turning the conversation, Stanley asks Leopold if there are any trees in the Black Site. Leopold goes quiet, before responding that Stanley has asked a very peculiar question...and one that Leopold doesn't terribly like. He continues and says that he can show them a tree, and asks them to push a button on one of the walls of the barracks.

Before following Leopold's instructions, the group quickly finishes examining the room, attempting to determine if there is anything strange about the skeletons, perhaps how they died, or if there is anything magical about their nature. Nash senses very little from the skeletons, but realizes the sense of magic he was feeling earlier in the cavern above is stronger now.  He asks Leopold if he's alone here, and Leopold responds that yes, he's the only one here...and that he's actually very pleased that the group is there. He's very lonely, and it's been a long time since he's had anyone to talk to.

Deciding there's nothing else of interest, the Chance heads over to the button indicated by Leopold, pressing it several times and opening and closing a door set in the wall. Beyond the door is a large square room that appears to be empty. The group walks into the room, and the door behind them closes.

Several large orange discs on the walls and ceiling start to glow with an intensely bright light, before washing out everything. As their vision clears, the group starts to hear strange music playing around them, and dozens of people wandering around what appears to be some sort of busy club. A form walks out from the crowd and up to them, and introduces himself as Leopold! Eddie introduces himself, and reaches out to shakes Leopold's hand, but experiences a strange sensation as he attempts to grasp Leopold's hand as if it's only partially there. Stanley also takes the opportunity to introduce himself, and shakes Leopold's hand as well, experiencing a very similar sensation.

Leopold goes on to explain that this is a place that was largely used for entertainment by the people who worked at the site before, and that anything can be created here. He snaps his fingers, and a beautiful tree appears in the center of the room. Nash, in a confused fit, lashes out and attempts to kick the tree, to little avail, before returning to his sullen stare.

Leopold notices his reticence and snaps his fingers again, and a beautiful woman appears before Nash. She walks over to him and begins hanging off of him in a very sultry and sexual way. His anger growing, he glowers at her and grumbles "You're not real"...to which she responds by continuing to entice him further. Seeing his discomfort, Leopold snaps his fingers again and the woman disappears.

Turning back to the rest of the group, Leopold asks if any of them are chess players...and the room suddenly fades to black and everything in it disappears. From the darkness, almost in their heads, the group hears a voice tell them "Come find me", and the door to the room slides open. "Time is of the essence...come find me" they hear, before they rush out of the room back into the barracks.

Pausing momentarily in the barracks, they realize that the power appears to be out throughout the building - the room is pitch black, with only Stanley’s light to push back the darkness. Moving into the hallway beyond the barracks, the doorway leading into the laboratory stands open, and the hallway extends off in either direction into darkness. Peering into the darkness of the laboratory, they can hear something off in the distant dark...the sound of dogs barking. Quickly, they move into the lab, where Chance and Eddie struggle briefly before pulling the un-powered door closed.

In the center of the room stands a large glass chamber, and inside the chamber are two strange metal objects. One is a golden rod a couple feet in length, and the other a strange silvery “spike” approximately 3 feet in length. Nash briefly examines the objects in the case, and determines they both emanate magical powers. Also, towards the back of the room is a large case that also seems to contain something magical in nature. Nash points the case out to Stanley, who heads to the back of the room to examine it closer. Approaching the case, he notices a lock and several straps holding the case closed, along with several hazard signs adhered to it. Ignoring the warning signs, he reaches out to open the case, which suddenly springs to life! The case flies open, exposing a huge mouth surrounded with teeth, and a large tongue lolling out from within. Before Stanley can react, the case leaps forward, wraps its tongue around his head, and bites down.

Injured and surprised, Stanley quickly pulls back and extricates his head from within the mouth of the creature, causing it to fall to the floor, where it continues to snap and bite at the air. He watches in horror as the tongue attempts to reach out to him and the case starts to move towards him.

Reeling at the horror, Nash attempts to attack the monster with a ball of acid, but unfortunately misses with his attack. Recovering from the attack, Stanley casts a healing spell on himself and then turns to Chance telling him to “go kill the hell out of this thing”, and bestowing his bardic inspiration upon Chance.

Chance uses the opportunity to lunge at the case, and quickly stabs and punches the case, which remains largely un-phased. While Chance is engaged with the case, the rest of the party notices that the strange sound of barking has gotten much louder - sounding almost as if it is coming from outside the room.

Eddie jumps into the fray, and attempts to kick the case across the room to gain some space for the party to continue engaging the monster, but as his foot connects with the case he realizes that it’s far heavier than he expected, and has no effect on the monster. Realizing that he’s outclassed, he quickly dashes behind Chance, putting Chance between the monster and himself.

Focused on Chance, the case responds to his attack and leaps at him from the floor enveloping him in its huge maw, biting down horribly on Chance.

Seeing the monster completely engulf Chance, Nash attempts to knock the case off of Chance with his staff. Winding up and taking a swing, Nash connects with the case, causing minor damage and little else.

Realizing that the monster is currently enveloping his gnome companion, Stanley carefully takes aim and stabs into the case with his rapier. A loud scream issues from the case, and blood begins to flow from the wound as Stanley pulls his weapon free.

Within the monster’s mouth, Chance attempts to lash out with his sword and escape this horrible place, but his sword just scrapes along inside the monsters mouth, doing little damage. Doubling up on his attempts to escape, Chance wedges his peg leg in between the sides of the creature’s mouth, stabbing it deeply into the monster, and causing yet more blood to start gushing from the monster.

Seeing the monster begin to blood, Eddie dives back into the fray, and stabs the monster drawing further fountains of blood. From behind the party, a scratching sound can be heard as the door opens ever so slightly.

Realizing that something else is about to enter the room and further complicate the fight, Nash quickly throws a ball of acid at the case, which connects and begins to sizzle as it melts the outside of case, resulting in another scream and more blood from the monster.

Stanley senses that the situation is growing more complicated by the second, and again stabs at the monster, filling the room with more blood and screams.

From behind the party, the opening in the door grows wide enough to see the face of a large dog sniffing and barking from the hallway. As Nash looks on in shock, the creature takes a step back from the door and lunges forward at it...but instead of smashing into the door, it vanishes into thin air. Before he can react, the dog suddenly appears on the table next to Nash, and the 8-legged monster snaps at Nash but misses.

Chance continues to battle within the monster, again stabbing it and drawing more blood...and continues to be shocked at just how much blood and flesh has issued from the monster. Eddie adds again to the damage to the monster, which just continues to go on attempting to crush Chance within its mouth, causing Chance to drop his sword and focus all of his strength on keeping the jaws of the monster from crushing him.

Nash reels back from the 8-legged dog standing on the table next to him, quickly stepping back and casting a sleep spell at the creature. As Nash waves his hands in the air a blue light issues forth from his hands surrounding the creature. The dogs eyes slowly drift shut, and it slumps to the table top with a loud bang.

Still trying to break Chance free, Stanley moves around the monster and lashes out with his rapier at the hinge of the case. With a vicious slash, Stanley cuts through the hinge, drawing yet more blood and screams from the case. The case, mortally wounded, releases Chance and falls flopping to the floor.

Eddie realizes that danger is still afoot, and yells “let’s get out of here before the dog wakes up” and races towards the door...waking the dog with his shouts. The case makes a last-ditch attack against Nash who is now closest to him, and lashes out with its tongue and wraps it around Nash’s leg and pulls! Unprepared, Nash crashes to the floor smashing his head, and falling unconscious.

The dog, returning to consciousness, jumps at Stanley and misses...but before it can hit the floor it disappears into thin air with a pop.

Now released from the jaws of the monster, picks up his sword that has fallen to the ground, and slashes at the case monster which is continuing to hold onto Nash’s leg, drawing yet more blood and screams.

Eddie finally manages to wrench the door open far enough that he could slide through and turns back to everyone and yells “Why is no one listening to me! We need to get out of here!” As he shouts, the case monster attempts to lash out at Chance with its tongue, but is unable to connect.

Frustrated that the case creature just will not die, Stanley and Chance continue to try and stab the monster, but both are unsuccessful. As they are attacking, the dog pops back into existence next to Eddie as if it never had touched the ground when disappearing, and smacks into the wall. Unfazed by crashing into the wall, it snaps at Eddie but misses.  Eddie, instead of responding with an attack, tries to soothe the creature, which temporarily halts its attack, confused by Eddie’s actions

Continuing to try and finish the case, Stanley finally connects with a strike to the monster with his rapier, slashing through the other hinge on the back of the case, breaking it open. The case finally breaks into two, with a final enormous gush of blood and flopping tongue.

Hearing Eddie attempt to soothe the 8-legged dog, Chance snatches up the tongue and offers it to the dog. The dog immediately snatches the tongue from the him, and lies down in front of the door to chew on its meal. Taking this to mean the coast is clear, Eddie takes a step towards the door, drawing a growl from the dog sitting in front of the door. Chance attempts to continue soothing the dog, but as he reaches towards the dog, it pops out of existence and disappears momentarily before reappearing at the other side of the room with its tongue.

Hoping that the danger has passed temporarily, Stanley starts dragging Nash towards the door, while Eddie and Chance struggle to open the door far enough to pull Nash through. As Stanley drags Nash across the hallway and into the barracks, he again hears a voice call out from the thin air saying “please...help me…”.

Meanwhile, Chance takes a moment to examine the remains of the case monster. Poking around deep within the crevasse of its mouth with tools from his tinkerers kit, he manages to dig out a large tube several feet in length...far larger than should actually fit within the flesh he pulls it from. He then turns his attention to the glass case in the middle of the room. Flipping the latch on the case open, he reaches in and pulls out the 3-foot-long silvery spike as well.

Recognizing treasure in the taking, Eddie attempts to grab the golden rod from the case as well, but for some reason, the rod doesn’t budge. Eddie notices what appears to be a button in the middle of the rod, and upon pressing it, the rod falls from where it is floating in thin air, and Eddie grabs it up before it can hit the floor. Deciding everything that is worth taking has been taken, Eddie and Chance head back into the barracks with Nash and Stanley.

As they enter the room, power suddenly begins to return...the lights coming on. From the far side of the room, the screen lights up and the face of Leopold appears on it, staring out at them. Leopold glowers at them , and in a very displeased tone tells them…”you’ve been very naughty…”