NoelW: Pity the Pendulum (63 points)

“I can’t quite make it out,” mutters Elfbow. “Some of the letters are obscured by this splattered red stuff. It’s that Olde Worlde writing I find a bit difficult to read.”

“You mean joined up writing?”

Elfbow ignores him.

“I reckon it says ‘The Construction Chamber'. That’s it.”

“Hmm. So there’s a lever here,” muses Gnawbone. “Should I pull it?”

From the distant corner of the room, beyond what looks like shuffling demonic shadows, comes a muffled squeak, like a rat stuffed with cotton wool. To be instantly followed by a grinding of gears, a clanking of chains, the ominous groan of reluctant technology.

“Oh, that doesn’t sound good. Does that sound good to you? I don’t think it sounds good. I’d say, if anything, it sounds bad.”

That monk is miming again.

“Three words. 5 syllables.”

“Last syllable – robe? dressing gown? A-line? Pleated rah rah skirt? Dress? Dress!”

“4^th syllable – he’s telling someone off. He’s insulting them. He’s dissing them.”

“1st word – he’s wrinkling his nose like a beaver. He’s scurrying all over the place. He’s gathering something. He’s building a wall – it’s a dam!”

“Now he’s walking downstairs. It’s dark. He switches the light on. He spreads his arms and looks all around. Light house? Revolving tower? Carousel? Rocking horse? Horse and carriage?”

“Woofity woof!”

“I agree, Scruff. But where will we find a sack when we need it? It’s ‘cellar’, you insane elf.”

“Okay – cellar. But now he’s pinching his fingers together. A pinch of what? Salt? Is it ‘salt cellar’?”

“No, that pinch means “shorter”. Have you never charaded before, you pointy-eared apology for a Klingon?”

“Shorten 'cellar'? Dam lar? That’s not English. It’s not even Quenya.”

“Oh, I love Orinoco Flow,” muses Gnawbone.

“It’s not ‘Dam lar’. It’s ‘Dam cell’.”

“Dam cell diss dress? That makes no sense.”

“Over there, in the corner. Underneath that descending blade. Gagged. Squealing in a high pitched terrified sort of way.”

“Behind those dark shuffling shadows? Those shadows coming menacingly towards us?”

“That’s the one.”

“Oh! Damsel in distress,” says Elfbow, brightly. “Right! That was a tough one.”

In the usual way they perceive things – i.e. dimly - they perceive a fiendish apparatus fiendishly constructed as if made by a fiend with hyperfiendly intent who had doubled his daily dose of fiendly pills. A blade swings in great arcs, getting lower with each swing, like a clock fixated on the end of time. And struggling beneath that imminent bacon-slicer lies a woman, wearing the compulsory gag and shackles.

“That doesn’t look comfortable,” mutters Elfbow.

“Quick! Pull the lever the other way.”

The squeaking narrows into something more like a scream, as if the rat had developed a sudden allergy to its cotton wool. The gears grind grindingly. The chains clang like a whole tribe of Victorian Christmas ghosts. As if Damocles has forgotten his meds, the blade swings down inexorably. And five demonic shadows advance in a manner which, if it isn’t inexorable, is most definitely on the wrong side of exorable.

Without a thought for his own safety, Elfbow trips over a loose chain and plummets into the arms of the nearest demon. Scruff, meanwhile, grabbing a dagger between his teeth, charges a demon eight times his size, breaking a tooth as he bites too hard. Titch distracts two of the demons by pretending to be torn in half between them, whilst Gnawbone wonders whether it would’ve been a good idea to bring his rusty crossbow after all. Is there time to go back for it?

“To the rescue!” screams Getrude and with one deft swing of Gerald, she catapults Clerihew across the chamber, where the rolling cleric knocks all five demons off their feet in one swell foop.

“Strike!” cries Getrude, hopping from fallen demon to whimpering demon cracking skulls with Gerald as she goes.

Getting to his feet, Clerihew makes some sort of gesture, probably religious, at the falling pendulum, which suddenly stops in its tracks and quickly winds itself back to the ceiling. If a razor sharp crescent of bloody steel could shrug, it would.

With clerical care, he unhasps the chains that bind a slightly middle-aged but nevertheless quite fetching woman to the bench above the pit. (We don't know what she intended to fetch).

“Thankyou,” she effuses, throwing her arms around Clerihew, as Scruff pads from demon to demon making sure they are properly undemonified. “What’s your name, valiant rescuer?”

“He’s a Trappist,” scowled Getrude. “He won’t tell you. He’s wed to silence.”

“Oh! But he saved my life.” She reaches up and touches his lips gently with soft fingers.

The tip of the monk’s ears turn as pink as a sunset viewed through rose-tinted glasses.

“Let’s hope that’s his only monkish vow,” she smiles. “My name is Merlissa. Although famed as a scryologist throughout the land, in truth I am but a poor country girl – .”

“Woof!” woofs Scruff, very woofily.

“Don’t interrupt, Scruff.”

“I was carried here by some rascals on horses.”

“The worst kind of rascals.”

“And they importuned my virtue.”

“They wouldn’t!”

“They did.”

“But I refused to succumb to their wicked wiles.”

“Woof?”

“I won’t tell you again, Scruff.”

“And so they left me on this meat slicer, saying something about 'spare parts'. I was a maid destined to be unmade. But you have made me whole again, dear cleric, and thanks to you my body and my modest innocence both remain intact.”

“Woof! Woof! Woof!”

“Right, I can see you’re going to be trouble, Scruff.”

“Don’t be angry with the cute little puppy,” coos Merlissa. “He’s bound to be upset that a sweet and naive young maid such as I could be so mischievously treated.”

She bends down over Scruff, scratching the back of his head, sliding her fingers deep under his collar and whispering in his ear.

“Such a sweetie!” she says, patting his head and gazing moodily into the middle distance. “Parting the darkness of futures unknown, I can see we’re going to be really good friends.”

***

So the plot, and the characters, thicken.

The five demons are the latest Frostgrave plastics from North Star/Osprey. As usual with these sets, there are lots of options, and some potential for kitbashing with their other boxes, though I decided for my first five demons to stick with the straightforward approach. Possibly I’ll be a little more inventive with the remaining models.

Merlissa the Scryologist is from the same stable, the Wizards II set. I really love the wizards kits, and have built far too many of these models, simply because they’re fun to make. There’s a small experiment on her garb. The raised gold stellar objects are nail art – a little fiddly to work with, but quite a nice effect, I think.

The body I painted broadly to match Merlissa. I think it’s an early Citadel, pre-slotta model, but I may be wrong about this.

The bench and lever are Terrain Crate pieces, which paint up rather nicely.

The pendulum and its environs are scratch-built from Lego, plasticard and foam. I promised myself I’d fit some terrain building into this year’s Challenge. That’s going to slow me down quite a bit, and is not a good idea for point-scoring, but I think the Chambers will give me some real inspiration for dungeon-y pieces.

Scoring:

6 28mm figures: 30 points

1 prone figure: 2 points

Torturer's workbench and lever: 1 point?

Chamber: 20 points

Terrain “cube” : roughly 5”x5”v4” = 100 cu ins, so 10 points?

TOTAL: 63 points and 1 Squirrel point (making 2 overall!)