“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!”
“4th 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!)
